History and journalism seem to go hand-in-hand since journalists write and archive history, but what most people don’t realize is that journalists have a huge effect on how history plays out.

While many things are going on in the world, journalists are the ones who inform people about what those things are. Journalists can “set the agenda” and stand “up to countless villains” while putting “themselves in harm’s way” according to Mightier than the Sword written by Rodger Streitmatter. When they do this, they are able to portray themselves, the subject, and the audience as a certain character that may or may not be playing a positive role.

From those different roles, they can energize and move people, hurt and anger people, or inhibit people from doing things. These different characteristics can be seen as protests, propaganda, or celebrations that have been played throughout history. Journalism has a lot of power since they can cause people to do these things just by informing them in a certain way.

From the Pew Research Center, a study done from 1985 to 2017 exhibited up to 89% of U.S adults believe that “criticism from news organizations keep political leaders from doing things that shouldn’t be done.” In this sense, journalism has a strong presence with people and that they work as a check and balance with the government. With this type of influence, history that may be occurring at the moment can change in an instant if journalists portray events in a specific way.

I’ve always heard about the Daily Illini, but have never read a publication from them before. I didn’t know the faces of the writers or the work that went into writing for the university newspaper.

The first day I started working there, we went straight into a meeting. I was just hired along with two other students to write for the Features section and wasn’t exactly sure what that would mean.

We ended up doing ethics training as well as tips and tricks on how to write better. That itself took an hour and half before we actually got to talking about pitching ideas for stories and selecting the stories we would write for the coming week. Once we selected out stories, we got to leave, totally 2 hours on the first day.

When selecting a story to write, Cashmere Cat caught my eye. It was my friend’s favorite artist and he would play his music all the time. I was able to decide if I wanted to write a preview or a review on the story and chose to do the review.

I went to the show early from 8:30PM for the opener and left around 1:30AM through the main show. It was a total of 5 hours of standing, listening, dancing, and taking notes. My story was due the next day and was rushed to meet the deadline.

I finished writing the story after figuring out each song that was played at the show and making sure the timeline was correct.  It took about 2 hours to figure that out and to write and edit the review. I was very proud to see it on the Daily Illini.

The following week, I went in for another hour of the meeting where we pitched stories once again and this time I chose to write about I-Guides. I asked around to interview past I-Guides and I-Guides from this year and prepared questions.

I set up times to meet with them at the courtyard cafe and was able to receive a lot of information. I finished writing the story and enjoyed writing this article the most since I got to meet new people and like interviewing people. This added up to about 5 hours of organizing, interviewing and writing.

I thoroughly enjoy working here even though it’s only been a few weeks. I hope to continue working here next year.

There are so many journalists and News providers out in the world and people can’t like every article that is covered. But it is useful and essential in keeping people informed about things that may affect them. News brings out the truth and provides us with facts so that we can decide what to do with that information. However, news can sometimes be more harmful than helpful.

Recently, a student committed suicide at the University of Illinois. According to Student who ‘set fire to himself’ at Krannert Center identified written by Jennifer Marnul of the Tab, Westley Banks, 21, of Gurnee was revealed as the student. The News Gazette did the same.

Minimize harm is one of the ethical codes that journalists follow. By revealing the name of the student, it harms the reputation of the student and the family. Although not confirmed if the family approved or if the writers reached out to the family to ask permission to reveal the name, the person shouldn’t have their name thrown around as the kid who set himself on fire.

Many people are just focusing on the fact that he burned himself on fire and how disturbing it is instead of sending condolences to the family and friends and understanding his situation.

News should be told more respectfully instead of a race to report an update before other News Corporations.

The Dakota Access Pipeline is an underground pipeline built to transfer “crude oil from domestic wells to American consumers” from the Dakota Access Pipeline Facts website.

It is said to be “one of the safest, most technologically advanced pipelines in the world” which is from the government owned site. It also repeatedly states that “The Dakota Access Pipeline does not cross the stand Rock Sioux reservation, however there are already “eight other pipelines” in Lake Oahe that all operate “adjacent to the path of the Dakota Access Pipeline.”

David Ritsher and Rachel de Leon are two reporters who investigated the Dakota Access Pipeline. They produced The Land Beneath the Lake from Reveal and spoke with Candance Ducheneaux who has lived in Lake Oahe who lived there since she “was a young girl.”

Ducheneaux spoke about her father who “was a negotiator for the tribe in settlement talks” when they were building the dams in Lake Oahe. It was a very similar situation to what was happening with the pipelines. Ducheneaux said that it was “the gutting of our reservation” and that it “was [their] home and that was [their] way of life.”

With how the government was portraying the pipelines, it seemed fruitless for the people who lived there to protest or negotiate with the government. With this $3.8 billion project, it would affect all the people who live in Lake Oahe even though it may be positive for other Americans.

“Oil was placed in the Dakota Access Pipeline” in “March 2017” with Trump’s go which shows the little influence they held.

Being able to express things in different forms is a freedom from the First Amendment and doing it without restrictions is a right that should follow. According to the NPR article Twitter Sues Homeland Security To Protect Anonymity Of ‘Alt Immigration’ Account by Camila Domonoske, Trumps’ administration began to limit the amount of posts agencies can have on social media thus, leading many to create alternate accounts with pseudonyms that relate to the account.

Homeland Security infringed on these rights by trying to uncover the identity of the owner of the ALT Immigration account on Twitter. Homeland Security “demanded to know the name, login information, phone number, mailing address and IP address of the user.” By uncovering the identity, they would shut down the account also layout legal punishment for the owner of the account. In response, ALT Immigration posted an imagery-filled comment of, “FYI, some refugees became refugees out of fear of being unmasked by dictators because of dissent/opposing views . Lets not have that here.”

Not only was the response from ALT Immigration sound, but Twitters’ response by suing Homeland Security was very supportive of protecting peoples’ rights. If Twitter were to lose then “where will they stop?”

JAY ROSEN SPEAKING ON THE WINTER IS COMING: THE TRUMP

REGIME AND THE AMERICAN PRESS LECTURE HELD AT

THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN.

Coming from an outsider’s point of view, I never thought about how the press could be so heavily affected by the Trump Regime until hearing the lecture from Jay Rosen, a NYU Journalism Professor. Rosen listed twenty points explaining how the press was negatively impacted and one really stuck with me. There is no way to fact check him because he will blow it over and move around it. When questions are asked, he will either ignore it or answer what he wants to answer, which doesn’t actually answer the question. With this, it makes it so difficult for journalists to write the truth and to present something to the public because they have no real answers. We can’t force Trump to say anything since it’s his right to have his Freedom of Speech, but to hide the truth makes it inefficient to run a country. When checks and balances were created, were there not enough? There seems to be a huge gap between the government and the people at the moment and the connection was the press. With the press struggling to get the truth and being able to work, there is a larger and larger divide being created. Although Winter is coming for the press, the people are the ones who will get buried in the snow.

Education is a privilege, but in the United States we don’t necessarily treat it as one and most would rather sleep or skip class. In other countries, some people can’t get a proper education and would wish for nothing more than to be in school. According to On Women’s Day, take the next step for girls’ education, written by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi, for many Syrian children, “getting an education is a matter of life and death.” Even with this striking impression the “international aid to education has fallen from 12 to 10%” and has left many feeling helpless.

Even with this discouraging statistic, there are still some who are advocating for better education and specifically education for refugees. In a video on Malala’s Fight for Education, reported by Jomana Karadsheh, Malala Yousafzai, a young, Nobel Peace Prize Winner opened an all girls school in Lebanon for Syrian refugees. She is “providing secondary education and skills training for two hundred Syrian girls” and advocating for those who seem to be “ignored.” With activists like Malala, the fight for education seems to grow brighter and advocating for those who need help seems louder.

When thinking about movements, often they don’t last as long as people intend while other times they last longer. In the article Trayvon Martin’s death sparked a movement that lives on five years later, written by Darran Simon from CNN, #BlackLivesMatter is described as a movement that continues to grow and impact more and more people each day. With it being around the anniversary of Trayvon Martin’s death, the article explains the story of Trayvon Martin and how his death and the unjust sentencing of Zimmerman, the man who murdered him, really ignites protesters and unites people of color. Each person who was murdered after and faced similar unjust deaths were highlighted and made just as much of an impact, such as Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland and more. On Social Media, this movement really spread like wildfire and even Sandra Bland herself had many things to say on Twitter.