By: Alexandria Hawkey

Journalism and history are intertwined with each other. Journalism is the history of today. Journalists report on current issues and historians report on past issues. Many historians look to journalist reports in order to have a better understanding of the past. Journalism can also impact history. Rodger Streitmatter, in his book Mightier than the Sword writes, “the news media have shaped American history. Absolutely. Boldly. Profoundly.”

Streitmatter goes on to explain that, “one of the reasons that TV news of the 1960s and early 1970s was able to hasten the end of the Vietnam War was that correspondents willingly hoisted new, lightweight cameras onto their shoulders and made use of the air transportation and communication satellites that allowed them to make their warfront images part of daily news coverage for the first time.”

By being true reporters and searching for the truth, reporters have been able to inform the public and thus change history.

By: Alexandria Hawkey

In the technology age, we have a wealth of information available to anyone with access to the Internet. Due to this, news has developed past newspapers with many news outlets now being exclusively online. There are also an influx of op-eds, think pieces, and other opinion pieces online that appear to be news reports. This piece itself is an opinion piece and if published on a credited outlet such as the New York Times or the Washington Post, it may be believed as fact. It is not. It is my opinion, that I believe to be rooted in fact, but it itself is not.

I believe that there is still integrity with today’s journalists but in many cases, their opinions have infiltrated their writing. It is easy to write an opinion piece. It is difficult to go out into the field and find the answers. It is even more difficult to craft an interesting report without inserting your own opinion. However, that is not to say that there aren’t journalists out in the field, working hard to make sure the public has the facts on the happenings around them.

The issue is that there is no disclaimer above opinion pieces. Yes, they are labeled as the opinion piece category that they fall under but the general public might not understand what that means and/or won’t bother to find out. The result is that these pieces are being spread around as facts and in turn are discrediting the news outlets and their actual reports. If it were up to me, news outlets would stop publishing opinion pieces and stick to the facts.

Etan Patz, a six year old in 1979, was murdered after going missing on his way to school. Finally, 38 years later, a suspect to his murder went to trial and was convicted. However, there is still debate as to whether or not the jury received improper information.

According to an investigative report by Joaquin Sapien and Joe Sexton, writers for ProPublica, the second trial of the case may be invalid such as the first trial. The first trial was called to have a retrial after one juror was unconvinced that Pedro Hernandez was at fault.

Hernandez, a former bodega owner, admitted to kidnapping Patz, strangling him, then putting him in a bag and then into a box to be left outside after a seven hour, unrecorded interrogation. The singular juror was swayed after the Hernandez’s lawyer claimed that his confession was fiction produced by a mentally ill man after an improper police investigation.

The second trial was believed to be a mistrial due to the juries’ knowledge of the first trial happening and having details of the trial. Sapien and Sexton found that at least four members of the jury were Facebook friends with one of the attorneys that led the prosecution. They also believe that the first jury members persuaded the jurors of the second trial.

I believe that the prosecution and the original jurors persuaded the jurors of the second trial, especially because the jurors all met together. While it would be nice for the Patz family to have closure over the loss of their son, but putting an innocent man behind bars is not the proper way to do so.

By: Alexandria Hawkey

The Hollywood Reporter recently reported that the magazine, Rolling Stone, is not only continuing to fight against their defamation case from the Virginia Alpha Chapter of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity organization.

Reporter Ashley Cullins wrote, “PKP has filed motions to quash subpoenas for documents regarding “claims, investigations, risk assessments, and disciplinary actions relating to incidents of sexual misconduct, alcohol abuse, and/or fraternity hazing” that involve PKP as a whole and other local chapters. Rolling Stone argues the documents are relevant because the national organization’s brand and the local chapter’s reputation are “inextricably intertwined.”

Sexual assault on campus is a very real and very serious issue. Statistics show that 1 out of 5 women will be sexually assaulted while on a college campus. It’s easy to see why the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity organization would be upset that one of their chapters was reported to have had members that gang-raped a student. The Rolling Stone magazine should have done a better job of reporting because the poor choice to release the story before it was verified resulted in a redaction of that story.

However, the Virginia Alpha Chapter of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity organization has had problems with sexual assault through hazing or sexual misconduct. While it is unfortunate for chapters of other campuses to have the negative reputation, they do all belong to the same organization who is responsible for them and should be held accountable. Therefore, I believe that the Rolling Stone will win this case that will go to trial on Oct. 23, 2017.

On March 8, International Women’s Day, a bronze statue was placed facing off the Charging Bull. The Charging Bull, meant to symbolize aggressive financial optimism and prosperity, can be found in the financial district of Manhattan. The girl was placed by State Street Global, a $2.5 trillion dollar asset manager, with the hope of sending a message about women in the workforce.

In her opinion column, A Girl Stands Firm on Wall Street, Gail Collins writes that, “The Wall Street girl celebrates all the people who resisted by staying in place. A little bit to the north one of my all-time favorite heroines, Elizabeth Jennings Graham, won a place in history by refusing to move an inch.”

She goes on to tell of Graham, a grown woman who filed a lawsuit against New York City in the 1800s for segregated transportation and won.

The statue is of a little girl, not an adult woman. The statue is a nice sentiment but it will most likely not help spread diversity in the workplace. It will boost State Street Global’s reputation by the public, but it is not enough. Bulls are not afraid of little girls. Wall Street executives are not threatened by little girls.

To place a little girl in front of the bull takes away the impact that placing a woman could have had. Women are strong, women are able to take a stand, women have a voice, women can fight. Yes, this little girl is standing her ground but if the statues could move, we know who would win.

In her article, Laura King, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, uses a this tweet posted by President Trump to form the basis of her article.

In her article, she talks about the suspicion that Russia tampered with the election of President Trump. She references the Russian hack of the Democratic National Committee computers earlier in the voting cycle. Currently, the FBI is investigating Trump’s campaign to see whether or not. Trump’s statement matches the White House Deputy Press Secretary’s.

We’ve been hearing about Democrat’s speaking out for the investigation of Trump but now Republicans are crying out as well. Representative Darrell Issa, who is Republican, who said that there should be a special prosecutor to probe the Russian connection to the election.

You can find the original article here.

On Monday, Feb. 20 at 5 p.m., Professor Steven Weitzman addressed a crowd of about 100 people on his studies of genetics and the origins of the Jews in the Knight Auditorium of the Spurlock Museum.  In his talk, he covered three different theories on the origin of the Jews as well as how to test genetics of present day people to learn about the past. His main point was that you cannot trust just genetic testing or just history. History is not always accurate because it is told from a specific viewpoint and then passed down through generations. However, you can’t just look at genetics because they alone do not tell a story. Weitzman claimed that you need both genetics and history in order to have a clear view about the past.  It was a very interesting talk that I walked away from knowing more about genetics and theories on the origins of the Jews.

For this column, I watched the NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. I watched the Friday, Feb. 10 episode.

At the start of the show, they have a quick run through over what they’re going to talk about. They mention a school bus crash at the top and show a short clip. They use that before every break using rhetoric like “a mother’s worst nightmare”.

The first 11 minutes are on politics, which are definitely newsworthy. They covered the news on Russia debating on offering Snowden to Trump, Michael Flynn and his sanctions with Russian ambassadors,  Trump considering to sign a new immigration executive order, protests across America, and Trump’s meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister. These are all timely, involve human interest, are prominent, impactful and present conflict.

After the coverage on politics, it takes two more stories to get to the school bus accident.  The story was that a bus in Ohio was in a crash. They bring it up because they have footage inside the bus, which is an oddity. They show the clip, say the kids are fine, and move onto the next story. Considering no one died or are permanently injured, I did not see the school bus story as being worthy of national news.