Journalism is made of many sub-sections that are all crucial factors to what journalism means.  One of those sub-sections is history.  In Rodger Streitmatter’s Mightier Than the Sword, he explains the connection between the two subjects.  In some sense, history and journalism depend on each other to thrive: you can’t have one without the other.  History is crucial for journalism because it explains how things have been and that can sometimes effect a story in the present.  Journalism is crucial for history because we need it to record moments past and moments that will become history.  While there are many other factors that the life of journalism depends on, history is perhaps one of the more important.

Communication professor Cara Finnegan talked about photojournalism in the case of the Syrian Refugee Crisis and other similar cases.  One of the main themes she went over was commonplaces in the pictures.  The first picture is of a Jordanian teenage girl who is getting ready for her wedding.  This picture was one of the more unique ones out of the ones we looked at.  However, the second picture was very similar to many of the other pictures that came up when we google image searched “syrian refugees”.  Commonplaces in that subject in the photos included children, big groups of people, and people walking around outside with no shelter to return to.

Although I have enjoyed this class, Journalism 200 made me realize I don’t want to become a journalist.  What I like about journalism is the way the news is conveyed.  News stories are succinct and to the point; there’s no fluff or extra words to fill up space.  Because of so many years of being trained in essays and writing somewhat unnecessary sentences or paragraphs, I’ve struggled with the writing style for this class, even though I like it more.  Something I learned I didn’t like about journalism was going out and getting the news.  It wasn’t so much that I’m so introverted I can’t interview strangers on campus, but it’s more that I don’t want to invade their personal opinions.  Some of the best news stories are the ones that are controversial and sometimes I felt uncomfortable asking people I didn’t know about them.  For example, for one of the assignments I wrote about a death caused by bullying in a Champaign high school, a topic that was very sensitive to most people in Champaign.  It was very difficult asking students about how it affected them because I knew they didn’t want  to talk about it, especially to someone they barely knew.  However, because of this I gained respect for journalists who have such a passion for writing that they are able to step out of their comfort zones and get as close to the truth as they can.

Panelists Lynn Sweet, Stephanie Craft, John Nerone, and Ann Heiser discuss the “War on Facts”.  This includes everything from fake news to lying to straight up bullshit, as Ann Heiser called it.  This picture is from when Stephanie was comparing the War on Facts to bringing a knife to a gunfight.  Fighting back with facts means we are bringing something to the table, but it’s not going to be enough.

Recently in El Paso, Texas, five elected court officials underwent investigation in a case connecting to violation of the Open Meetings Act.  According to an El Paso Times article published April 6, 2017, multiple officials were supposedly discussing plans for a new multipurpose arena with opponents of the city.  A judge in southeast Texas ruled that part of the state has an unconstitutional Open Meetings Act, but it likely won’t affect this case.  The author of the article, Victor Martinez, also mentioned a similar occurrence in Wharton County, Texas, involving officials that also supposedly bended the Open Meetings Act.  Because of the vagueness of the Act, the Wharton County case was dismissed.  However, Bill Aleshire of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas said that the Wharton County case and the El Paso case are completely separate and therefore may not have the same results.

Every American is familiar with the “Black Lives Matter” movement that has been sweeping the nation for around 2 years now.  But what every American doesn’t know is that racism against blacks is a worldwide thing, and in this case, even in a predominantly black country. A few weeks ago in South Africa, the most hate crimes since 2008 occurred against immigrants in the country, primarily black ones.  There was an anti-immigration protest that was publicized as a march against crime in the country, but instead of marching to police headquarters, the protesters made their way to the Home Affairs office implying that immigration is the root of the problem.  However, the targets of the hate crimes seem to be specifically black and asian migrants, while the white migrants remain untouched.  People put on a front with their actions towards “All lives matter,” but injustices like these go to show that there is still a lot of progress to be made, even in a country that is only about 20% white.

NYU Journalism Professor Jay Rosen getting ready for Q&A with audience.  The slide behind him is referring to the slogan of his lecture “Winter is Coming”.  This means that journalists and news are getting hit hard by the blizzard that is the current news in America.

As posted on the social media site Facebook, there was a car crash on I-65 in Gary, Indiana on February 24 that left one passenger dead, two with life-threatening injuries, and two with injuries that were not life-threatening.  A 2001 Honda Civic with four passengers was entering a left turn lane, when the car went too far and drove onto a raised median right next to the turn lane.  The car became airborne, and struck a 2013 Chevrolet Malibu with one passenger.  The drivers of both cars both walked away with non-life threatening injuries, but two of the passengers of the Civic were flown to nearby hospitals while the fourth passenger of the Civic was pronounced dead about 45 minutes after the crash.