JOU Articles: week 13 (final week)

Article 1: Humans vs. Zombies Game at UF Draws Worry Over Toy Guns. Written by Lise Fisher of the Gainesville Sun on March 10, 2010.

As the game draws to a close, I was especially interested to see what kind of official news coverage HvZ would get. So far a lot of the coverage has been negative, which has really pissed me off. Then again, without the conflict in the story, I doubt the average non-UF adult would care to read about it, so the Sun has put an argumentative spin on it. This article was all about the safety issues the UFPD has brought up to the moderators of the game, most of them to do with nerf guns. Personally, I thought the whole article sounded silly, and that's not just because of my personal involvement in the game. I mean, who wouldn't laugh when they think of bright, neon-colored nerf guns as a "security threat"? Fisher also attributes the security tension to the recent shooting of that doctoral student a few weeks ago, which has been drawing protests. If I were writing this article, I definitely would not have made it quite so serious and instead focused on the light-hearted side of things.

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Article 2: Latest Monkey Sighting: Eating From St. Petersburg Bird Feeder. Written by Mike Brassfield of the St. Petersburg Times on April 11, 2010.

This title was so absurd, I just had to click on it to see what it was all about. And, according to this story, I have been out of the loop for quite some time because I had no IDEA that there was a wild monkey roaming around the Pinellas-Hillsborough area for the past year. I live in that area, and I have never heard such a story. My favorite part about this article was how it was a good mix between video and text. The text portion of the article was short, but it contained all the important summary points of the story. The video portion was also short, only about a minute, and it gave a better view into the story. Obviously. I mean, some guy took video of the monkey, and I would not have known what a rhesus monkey looked like off the top of my head. It was definitely cool, and I'd like to see the future of online journalism head in this direction.

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Article 3: Pregnant Chicks Who Brag Too Much. Written by Cara Litke of Cosmopolitan Magazine in the April 2010 issue.

Okay, this was a little weird and not usually what I read. I was about to navigate away to something more "news-like" and something structured a little more traditionally... but then I thought, "Why not?". Technically, (though I'm not really sure) the accounts that these people send in to be published could be considered a form a journalism, just not a professional one. I mean, honestly, all Cara Litke really did was put together a montage of stories from different women with pregnant friends, then make a quick summarization of some advice from an expert lady. So really, it was all thanks to the ladies. I just really liked this a lot because I can relate with the women who are SO frustrated about hearing about someone's baby going to be born. None of my peers are in that position, but I've had relatives who were just as annoying. For example: my Aunt had an entire blog/website devoted to the development of her fetus!! Weird.

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Article 4: Pope's Ivory Tower Past Adds to His Detachment. Written by Vanessa Gera of the Associated Press on April 11, 2010.

To make my last article of this journal memorable, I specifically searched on the Yahoo! homepage for more updates on the Vatican molestation scandal. I was not disappointed. In this latest edition of the debacle, the Pope's leadership and background are ripped apart and scrutinized by his peers and by everyone Gera talked to. Now, in a time like this where people are outraged at the behaviors of these perverts, most are happy to hear what they want-- and what they want is insults and backup. It probably wasn't in the AP's best interest to have a completely fair article where sources are defending the Pope's decisions. Pretty much everyone in this entire article has something to say about Benedict XVI's leadership issues. I would have liked to hear from someone who could defend the Pope a little because, pun intended, shouldn't people have a little more faith in their leaders??

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