JOUR4250 Sept. 28. 2007

I really enjoyed hearing Karen Thomas' story about venturing to Louisiana for the Jena 6 protest and I also enjoyed hearing about her experience and background as a journalist. I had her as a professor last Summer for News Reporting I, and she never told us half of the stuff I learned about her today. She's a very talented writer, and someone I look up to as an aspiring journalist.

Jena 6

For my mini-content analysis I looked at a Life Magazine from 1969. When I started hearing about the Jena 6 case, it made me sad to realize that we are still dealing with the same issues in 2007 that we were dealing with in the 1960s. I don't remember the last time when there was a huge civil rights upheaval (with the exception of the Don Imus case), and this one seems so very cut and dry. White kids getting misdemeanors while black kids get felony charges... both for committing the same crimes.

How can that happen?

I loved last Friday's class period. I thought one of the most interesting things that Prof. Liambiase talked about was the fact that "the human brain hasn't really changed or evolved very much in the last 10,000 years, we are still hunters and gatherers... we still have that biological thing in our minds that wants us to question and feel threatened by people of other "tribes"" and how we really "need to make a conscious effort to override those feelings, since they're not necessarily what our heart feels." I had never thought of it like that before. I don't know why that one sentiment stuck with me, but it did.

My grandparents came from out of town last week to watch my little brother's football game. They are from a very country town in East Texas; they are not very well traveled or cultured and it breaks my heart (and even embarrasses me) that my granddaddy still uses the N-word. The first thing he commented on when we got to the game was that Mansfield's players were all "Ns". Then, 3 black adults came into the stands and one sat by my grandaddy, I saw him lean over and whisper, "Just great" into my granny's ear. He was so visibly uneasy, and I can't understand why after almost half a century those feelings are still intact.

I know that it was just the way things were when he was growing up.
He's not a bad person or a mean-hearted person and I love him very much.

I'm just upset by the Jena 6 case, and the tensions that are still so alive.

Blog #1 (JOUR4250)

I get most of my news information from the DFW Quick, which I pick up every day before class. The articles in it are pretty brief, but I get the gist of what's happening in this area and around the world. I also watch the local news on t.v. once or twice a week.

I'd say I seek out news, by reading it or watching it, about 3 hours per week.

I'd say in the NEWS media (and not entertainment media) I see a lot of emphasis on race. News stories somehow always boil down or relate to race in some way. I'm not saying that's good or bad. Race certainly deserves to be talked about, especially when it is the motivating factor behind someone's actions (whether those actions are positive or negative). There really isn't very much emphasis put on sexuality in news media outlets, there aren't any news segments about "healthy sexual relationships" or "expressing your sexuality"... there are general health segments that might briefly cover something semi-sexual, articles about safe sex (and safe sex statistics for high schoolers or college students, etc), and there are stories and/or articles about bad sexual stuff like rape. Gender is talked about kind of simultaneously with sexuality; when one is talked about, the other normally is too and vice versa. And honestly, I don't think the news media puts any emphasis on disabilities. Sometimes they'll do a special segment on someone with a disability who has triumphed in some way, but I don't remember the last time I've seen something like that.

Kelly Knickerbocker
JOUR4250