Friday, March 14, 2008
Thursday, March 13, 2008
The Campus Press Controversy...Is It Over?
Since its publication on February 18, Max Karson's opinion piece " If it's war the Asians want...It's war they'll get" has certainly generated a lot of buzz not just on CU's campus and Colorado, but also nationwide.
To say that Karson's so-called satire piece is offensive and inflammatory is obvious. If you google Karson's name, thousands of links will come up, many of them blogs that rip apart Karson, his opinions, The Campus Press, and CU as a school. Other links are media articles that weigh in on the lack of satirical merit in the piece. CU students held an anti-racism rally to express their outrage over the decision to let the piece be published.
While I believe that it was irresponsible for the Campus Press to let Karson's essay run, there has also been some good that has come out of the controversy. I know in my classes, as well as in many of my fellow J-school classmates' courses, intense discussion and debate has come up over what exactly constitutes responsible journalism. This obviously was not an example.
However, the piece is a great example of the care that journalists must use when stating their opinions. The Colorado Daily ran its own opinion piece about the controversy and basically stated that just because you're allowed to say something, doesn't mean that you should. Even though students, like Karson and others, should have room for learning, the first fundamental they should be learning is being responsible and sensitive to the needs of their audiences.
CU held a diversity forum this past Tuesday to discuss the importance of different perspectives and backgrounds in the newsroom. After the forum, perhaps the controversy surrounding the Campus Press' decision will cease and students can begin to put the lessons learned into effect. I know from firsthand experience that CU has a great program and faculty that promotes responsiblity in journalism...and hopefully students can worker harder than ever in order to put the controversy behind them.
To say that Karson's so-called satire piece is offensive and inflammatory is obvious. If you google Karson's name, thousands of links will come up, many of them blogs that rip apart Karson, his opinions, The Campus Press, and CU as a school. Other links are media articles that weigh in on the lack of satirical merit in the piece. CU students held an anti-racism rally to express their outrage over the decision to let the piece be published.
While I believe that it was irresponsible for the Campus Press to let Karson's essay run, there has also been some good that has come out of the controversy. I know in my classes, as well as in many of my fellow J-school classmates' courses, intense discussion and debate has come up over what exactly constitutes responsible journalism. This obviously was not an example.
However, the piece is a great example of the care that journalists must use when stating their opinions. The Colorado Daily ran its own opinion piece about the controversy and basically stated that just because you're allowed to say something, doesn't mean that you should. Even though students, like Karson and others, should have room for learning, the first fundamental they should be learning is being responsible and sensitive to the needs of their audiences.
CU held a diversity forum this past Tuesday to discuss the importance of different perspectives and backgrounds in the newsroom. After the forum, perhaps the controversy surrounding the Campus Press' decision will cease and students can begin to put the lessons learned into effect. I know from firsthand experience that CU has a great program and faculty that promotes responsiblity in journalism...and hopefully students can worker harder than ever in order to put the controversy behind them.
Slideshow Pro
I can't figure out why my photo album never showed up in the Digital Newsroom Gallery...so here's the link to it: Valley of the Sun Bike Race. Enjoy!
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Your Hub!
We were assigned to write a 500-word story for YourHub , and post it on Friday the 29th. Unfortunately, as some of my classmates and I discovered, YourHub is a bit unreliable. I originally tried to post my story on Thursday night, but there was an error when I selected the Boulder YourHub. Then, before class on Friday, several of us were unable to login to the site.
I looked up information on YourHub, and wikipedia.com says it was started by the Rocky Mountain News in 2005. Three years later, I'm wondering if maintenance to the site is down because the popularity of using a community website like YourHub has waned. There are definitely other websites people can go to to post stories, pictures and news, like Facebook, MySpace, or for some purposes, even Craigslist. Citizen journalism doesn't seem like it will be going away anytime soon, but it is interesting to note that there may be more reliable, and more read sources on the Internet than YourHub...so if people really want their voices heard, they may consider posting or blogging elsewhere.
I looked up information on YourHub, and wikipedia.com says it was started by the Rocky Mountain News in 2005. Three years later, I'm wondering if maintenance to the site is down because the popularity of using a community website like YourHub has waned. There are definitely other websites people can go to to post stories, pictures and news, like Facebook, MySpace, or for some purposes, even Craigslist. Citizen journalism doesn't seem like it will be going away anytime soon, but it is interesting to note that there may be more reliable, and more read sources on the Internet than YourHub...so if people really want their voices heard, they may consider posting or blogging elsewhere.
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