Journalism 1

The government is trying to put in a Bill called the Stop Online Priracy Act, also known as SOPA to most. This new bill would completly shut down google and yahoo, which are search engines that direct people to sites that have illegal content. Also it would help stop people illegally downloading music, movies, images, or basically anything that is not theirs to get personal gain. Which don’t get me wrong that is good, but the fact that it would shut down over. The people agains SOPA gained a huge name in their revolt, President Barrack Obama in which he claims that the House will Veto and Bill that is not narrowed down to a pin point. It is clear that people who do have access to the internet and knew about it signed the petition, according to Google, over 7 million people signed it. Not only would the Bill make people very upset but it would cause Google to lose over $100 million and Amazon would lose over $82 million both in one day, more statistics at thenextweb.com. To me personally I do not like the whole idea of the government trying to rule the internet and control what we see and what we don’t. Yeah of course we will always have some kind of way to get illegal something right, if it’s not causing a problem now why change it? With all the money we lose from advertising would impact our economy and piss more people off. This is just another attempt to have the Government try and over rule us, its a bunch of bull to me, I mean seriously we should have the Freedom of Speech right, its the 1st amendment but with this bill doesn’t that just do the opposite and take away what is rightfully ours? If our government does control what kind of news we see or don’t, we will only get one side of the story, the side they want us to see. Wouldn’t that just make our Government like Korea’s?  I thought this country was a Democracy?

Who would ever think that the difference between a moral and an ethic could some human not hydrating during an extreme workout for an NFL team. That’s the case for Husain Abdullah the Minnesota Vikings safety during Ramadan. Ramadan is the Islamic month for fasting only when the sun is present. His morals have played an effect to what he did on and off the field, he wasn’t allowed to drink any bit of water during the 30 day period, now people’s general ethic’s would be dude just drink the water before you get a heat stroke. He told the American Press “I’m putting nothing before god, nothing before my religion, this is something I choose to do, not something I have to do. So I’m going to fast.” To me being that dedicated to a religion is a good thing but is it necessary to risk your own health in order to succeed that?

One category that is a touchy subject for people s the fact of shoplifting. I know right now you heard that word and think bad but look at it this way. A mom who does not have enough income to feed her hungry family, so she goes to the grocery store and takes food and doesn’t pay for it. So she shoplifts, to me I honestly don’t see what is wrong with that as long as she is taking the cheapest item for what she needs and if she is only getting hat is necessary to fulfill his family’s hunger. Now in the real world ethics would kick in and say that you do not have to commit a crime on the fact to feed a family. She could go to others for help, because there are people out there who will help others with food issues. Another solution is if she could work hard at a job, a company could hire her and give her a decent income to help her out. “Teach a man to fish he’ll eat for a lifetime, give a man a fish he’ll eat for a day” as the famous old saying goes.

I don’t think you should commit a crime to feed children, but if it’s something you honestly first think of and have to do, then by all means do it. NO REGRETS.

A picture is worth a 1,000 words, this is true. As a journalist you may alter your story to your liking as long as you have the correct information, once it becomes false, you shall be fired. Now what about a photo? Do you actually have the right to alter it to your pleasing as long as the information is true. I say yes you can alter it. Look at this O.J. Simpson picture, two different magazine covers tell two different stories, all because of how the editor tinted it to give it a gloomy effect. I feel like this is okay to do. The line should be drawn for editing photos is when a person takes two different photos and combines them into one, that is wrong. Like the photo a L.A. times publisher got fired for, I feel like he deserved that punishment, he made the soldier look bad for having his gun pointed to high, his hand raised, and him yelling. You can see the differences in the first two images. With photo shop you can totally wreck someone’s future, career, or personal life. Like the soldier picture, what if someone takes a picture at a party that involves alcohol with people a legal age, then the editor take just any photo of a under 21 aged person he/she doesn’t like.

The person then takes the disliked photo and photo shops their body into the alcohol photo and post it on face book or twitter, it could wreck their chance to go to college, high school, lose friends, then how does a person make up for this? Photo shop is not always a bad thing to use, because what if a usually gorgeous female model has a bad day at the photo shot, they company with her consent should be able to go in and enhance her face a bit to make her look prettier to the public eye, like this photo of a model. Now the girl on the front of people magazine looks prettier and more people may buy the magazine. Yes it may seem a little dishonest because the photo is not what it is suppose to be but unless you have WRITTEN consent I feel as if to enhance a photo or make it more dramatic should be alright, except when a person does a crime then as long as the photo is the truth you should be allowed to alter it, like the O.J. one.

There is a gray line between invasion of privacy or just snooping around/being nosy. If you are divorced, you have no right to set up a camera in your ex-spouses house and watch what they are doing without their consent. Now here is a question, what do you do if you reasonably suspect your spouse of cheating? Is it a right to bug your own house to find out, or is that still a invasion of privacy. Technically speaking you cannot put a speaker in your OWN home without everyone who lives there consent, which your supposedly cheating spouse probably wouldn’t approve of. See that’s where I think the line should be drawn, in your own dang home I feel you should be able to do anything you want as long as it doesn’t harm others. You don’t want this crap happening, it hurts to much, its just better to get out or work it out with your spouse. Well that is one sorta positive way to do the invasion of privacy, but it is still sad to see the world come to something like this but the sad part is another story. Its a matter of fact when a web cam does something that no one clearly intended to but look where it went, a child killed himself because of a twitter post about the child’s roommate turned ugly and ruined this poor child’s life at Rutgers University because he jumped of the George Washington Bridge. That when invasion of privacy is needed to be taken care of the most secure way possible. What could this kid who sneaked a peek on their web cam repay his family the life of their son, brother, or cousin. With money? He could try but if i had a kid all I would want is for that kid to be be put where he needs to be: Jail.  Check out this you tube clip about the news feed.

There is a lot of talk about how good the Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow is.. As a quarterback who won the Heisman trophy in college, you would think he could have some accuracy. I personally disagree with all of it. Yeah he is in the NFL good for him but honestly as a QB who goes 2-8 in a WHOLE game shouldn’t deserve a win for himself. It’s not him who wins the game for the Broncos it is their defense who gets him into position to score, all he is good for is his dual-threat attributes because he can run better than pass, but he ain’t no Cam Newton. He is now 6-1 as a starter and it is making me mad that a quarterback that bad is getting the attention he doesn’t deserve.

GO RAIDERS.