On the day in which film celebrates its crowning achievements, one of cinema’s most underrated actors, Bill Paxton, has passed away due to complications during heart surgery.

Hours after the information had been released to the public, journalists, Stephanie Petit and Maria Mercedes Lara, wrote a heartfelt piece on People, detailing his greatest achievements and his final hours.

Paxton had begun his career in the 1970s; however, it wasn’t until he began to accept roles, in such critically acclaimed films as The Terminator (1984) and Aliens (1986), that he began to become a household name.

Though he never became a star that consistently headlined films, Paxton consistently gave understated and impactful performances that aided to both the immersion and enjoyability of all the films he was in.

The final film that Paxton will appear in is The Circle (2017), starring Tom Hanks and Emma Watson.

As the final part of the article, Petit and Lara included a series of tweets Rob Lowe, a close friend to Paxton, wrote after hearing of the new of his passing.

We will never forget what Bill Paxton did for cinema.

RIP Bill.

After this opinion column was assigned, I decided to watch the NBC Nightly News due to my fascination with the ever-increasing forehead of Lester Holt. This then led me to view the November, 10th broadcast on my laptop. After sitting through the overwhelming negativity of the program, I was able to discern a clear set of values that was displayed throughout the entire show. NBC did not seem to add or subtract from the list presented to us in class, rather, it appeared as if NBC preferred to emphasize certain values over others.

The primary value that NBC prioritized, above all else, was impact. The primary story of Friday’s broadcast was concerning Edward Snowden and whether Russia was going to deport him back to the US, as a gift to President Trump from Vladimir Putin. This exchange was by far the highest impact story of the entire show, and the implications of this deportation could result in a large amount of influence in American politics being held by Putin.

After impact, the next two values that were emphasized to a greater degree were timeliness and conflict. Due to the nature of Trump’s presidency thus far, conflict within the political landscape is at a recent high. Furthermore, new stories are breaking weekly as each new executive order gets passed or cabinet position filled. An example of these values would be the second story of the broadcast, which centered on the miscommunication between Michael Flynn, head of national security, and Vice President Mike Pence.

The final value that was relevant in this broadcast was human interest. It appeared that, after all of the negative news presented at the beginning of the program, NBC preferred to finish on some happier notes, such as some astronomical activity, George Clooney’s incoming baby, or the departure of a panda from a zoo.

In conclusion, NBC seemed to be a relatively fair source of news, even though the overall tone felt a little too dreary for my taste.

-Dylan San Roman

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