What would we do without Facebook, Myspace, or Twitter? How in the world did people survive without them for thousands (or millions depending on who you ask) of years? Social networking has become much more than a fad or way to spend free time when everyone else is busy on Friday night.
God knows these sites didn't need the free advertising that my links above provide. The fact that I am able to freely post these links and refer people to these pages from my own little corer of the blogging world demonstrates a principle unique to the internet.
Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, in his testimony before the U.S. House of Repesentatives stated that, "new data integration capabilities, when directed at personal information, pose substantial privacy challenges which are hardly addressed by today's privacy laws." The fact is that we are all vulnerable to identity theft crimes which are the fastest growing group of crimes in the U.S. The worst part about it is that a lot of us are digging our own graves.
When speaking of how thiefs obtain our personal information, Berners-Lee says, "people actually reveal a lot about themselves, but with the intent that it only used in certain contexts by certain people." Are we giving ourselves away, literally? Stay tuned for more discussion on the future of the web, what we need to do to protect ourselves, and what some of the newest threats may be.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
The economics of giving
My grandma quit smoking some 30 years before she died. Her pack-a-day habit was something she picked up well before the adverse medical effects of the cancer causing toxins in cigarette smoke were well known or publicized. Even though the last time she slid a match across a strip of flint was long before printed ad revenues went down the proverbial toilet, grandma still experienced the affects on her health. The resulting lung cancer and aggressive chemo therapy ultimately killed her. Knowing the facts ahead of time, and following a well formulated and articulated plan can prevent many problems in the long run and ultimately make life easier.
Just as never smoking is the best remedy for diseases caused by smoking, not letting the world economy go down the tubes is the best way to prevent expensive rebuilding costs for underdeveloped nations across the world. A Washington file article noted that in 2005, U.S. aid to African nations reached an all-time high and were projected to increase in the following years. Another web-site, theadvocates.org, sites that The United States has given more than $320 Billion in foreign aid since the end of WWII. If those aren’t impressive try this on for size: at the 2007 G8 Summit in Gleneagles, the developed western world pledged to donate $50 Billion a year to help the poor nations of the world. Over half of this money was to go to the world’s poorest nations in Africa. The pattern here is a lot of giving and little result. The problem is that, despite efforts, poverty is not decreasing. Reports, such as Chen Shaohua’s Is poverty increasing in the developing world? cite that World Bank claims of decreasing poverty don’t account for inflation or population increases and claim that things are actually getting worse for third world nations. We call it the developing world but it is, in fact, not developing with any sort of consistency.
Just as quitting smoking proved to be only a temporary fix for my grandma’s health problems, dumping money into these nations without any sort of coherent agenda is not helping matters. One individual has a plan for a potential solution and wants you to join in his cause.
Victor Helb, 32, a Wayne State University student, and native to the West African nation of Liberia, was sent away from the warring country when he was just 12 years old. His parents felt he would have better opportunities in the Detroit area, where he had family with which to stay. Now, 20 years later, Helb feels the same desire to help others succeed as his parents did when they sent him away.
Helb is taking on an international challenge of promoting love across continental divides and knowledge across a gap that is even wider. Liberia has been left without hospitals, schools, and even running water since the 14 year civil war ended in 2003. With the help of college students across the nation, Helb wants to raise money through used book sales. The goal of his Liberian Literacy Foundation is to teach Liberian’s to read by building learning centers, creating a computer-based education network spanning the country.
“They have a whole generation that has grown up without schools,” explains Helb. “They don’t know anything more than what they’ve been living in.”
The education centers will be run by wind energy that will be supplied in surplus and sold to other nations in order to offset carbon emissions worldwide.
“Liberia will actually be able to contribute to the world economy instead of asking for handouts from the developed world all the time.”
Helb’s homecoming is set for January when he will return to Liberia for the official “kick-off” of the project. The Liberian president will be there and is set to hold the honor of cutting the tape.
Helb’s efforts have been an ongoing process even though he is currently away from home. Wayne State University has become the first official sponsor of the program and has provided a four year scholarship to a Liberian student as well as raising thousands already through used book sales.
This isn’t call to humanity or charity because those ideals have clearly failed the estimated 1.2 Billion people in the world who live in extreme poverty. Even the most money hungry, inside trading, cheap-skate executive at a multi-billion dollar organization can make sense of the economic situation. We have a choice to either dump countless amounts of dollar bills into a continuously growing pit of need to no avail; donating just to make ourselves look and feel good, or we can invest our time, and our useless old text books wisely in order to take steps at actually solving a problem.
Grandma’s cancer wasn’t cured by chemo and radiation therapy. We were all happy she decided to fight it and stay alive for as long as she could, but the truth is the methods being used were simply insufficient. The only thing that could’ve cured grandma’s cancer would’ve been a preconceived arrangement with real implications for the future; a plan to attack a problem at its roots and create a promising future.
Just as never smoking is the best remedy for diseases caused by smoking, not letting the world economy go down the tubes is the best way to prevent expensive rebuilding costs for underdeveloped nations across the world. A Washington file article noted that in 2005, U.S. aid to African nations reached an all-time high and were projected to increase in the following years. Another web-site, theadvocates.org, sites that The United States has given more than $320 Billion in foreign aid since the end of WWII. If those aren’t impressive try this on for size: at the 2007 G8 Summit in Gleneagles, the developed western world pledged to donate $50 Billion a year to help the poor nations of the world. Over half of this money was to go to the world’s poorest nations in Africa. The pattern here is a lot of giving and little result. The problem is that, despite efforts, poverty is not decreasing. Reports, such as Chen Shaohua’s Is poverty increasing in the developing world? cite that World Bank claims of decreasing poverty don’t account for inflation or population increases and claim that things are actually getting worse for third world nations. We call it the developing world but it is, in fact, not developing with any sort of consistency.
Just as quitting smoking proved to be only a temporary fix for my grandma’s health problems, dumping money into these nations without any sort of coherent agenda is not helping matters. One individual has a plan for a potential solution and wants you to join in his cause.
Victor Helb, 32, a Wayne State University student, and native to the West African nation of Liberia, was sent away from the warring country when he was just 12 years old. His parents felt he would have better opportunities in the Detroit area, where he had family with which to stay. Now, 20 years later, Helb feels the same desire to help others succeed as his parents did when they sent him away.
Helb is taking on an international challenge of promoting love across continental divides and knowledge across a gap that is even wider. Liberia has been left without hospitals, schools, and even running water since the 14 year civil war ended in 2003. With the help of college students across the nation, Helb wants to raise money through used book sales. The goal of his Liberian Literacy Foundation is to teach Liberian’s to read by building learning centers, creating a computer-based education network spanning the country.
“They have a whole generation that has grown up without schools,” explains Helb. “They don’t know anything more than what they’ve been living in.”
The education centers will be run by wind energy that will be supplied in surplus and sold to other nations in order to offset carbon emissions worldwide.
“Liberia will actually be able to contribute to the world economy instead of asking for handouts from the developed world all the time.”
Helb’s homecoming is set for January when he will return to Liberia for the official “kick-off” of the project. The Liberian president will be there and is set to hold the honor of cutting the tape.
Helb’s efforts have been an ongoing process even though he is currently away from home. Wayne State University has become the first official sponsor of the program and has provided a four year scholarship to a Liberian student as well as raising thousands already through used book sales.
This isn’t call to humanity or charity because those ideals have clearly failed the estimated 1.2 Billion people in the world who live in extreme poverty. Even the most money hungry, inside trading, cheap-skate executive at a multi-billion dollar organization can make sense of the economic situation. We have a choice to either dump countless amounts of dollar bills into a continuously growing pit of need to no avail; donating just to make ourselves look and feel good, or we can invest our time, and our useless old text books wisely in order to take steps at actually solving a problem.
Grandma’s cancer wasn’t cured by chemo and radiation therapy. We were all happy she decided to fight it and stay alive for as long as she could, but the truth is the methods being used were simply insufficient. The only thing that could’ve cured grandma’s cancer would’ve been a preconceived arrangement with real implications for the future; a plan to attack a problem at its roots and create a promising future.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Video Editing
Check out the video I created and edited for my Digital Journalism Class. I was able to learn basic editing skills using Movie Maker and publish the video online.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
...Look no further
Leonard Downie, Jr., and Michael Schudson provide grounds for the most detailed and inclusive conversation about the future of journalism I've ever come across in their The Reconstruction of American Journalism report. They take and honest, in-depth look at what changes have already happened, what trends show may be coming next, and what the conclusion of the transformation may look like.
I won't tear the piece apart, per my usual, as it seems the two reporters have avoided personal opinion to the best of their abilities. That's an example I can follow; a program I can subscribe to if you will. It's good to see, in an article discussing whether or not journalism can remain objective, that the reporting taking place is, itself, objective. Ironic?
I maintain that articles such as this provide for the greatest amount of productive discussion on various topics as opposed to the lude rants we've become accustomed to of late. It's funny to me that we find a great example of what the future of journalism should look like in an article that aims to discuss the very same topic.
I won't tear the piece apart, per my usual, as it seems the two reporters have avoided personal opinion to the best of their abilities. That's an example I can follow; a program I can subscribe to if you will. It's good to see, in an article discussing whether or not journalism can remain objective, that the reporting taking place is, itself, objective. Ironic?
I maintain that articles such as this provide for the greatest amount of productive discussion on various topics as opposed to the lude rants we've become accustomed to of late. It's funny to me that we find a great example of what the future of journalism should look like in an article that aims to discuss the very same topic.
Citizen Journalism
One of the more liberal ideas thrown around regarding the future of journalism is the idea of the "citizen journalist." Much like the health care debate in our country today, everybody seems to have a deeply seeded opinion about whether the idea of a citizen journalist is a good or bad thing but no one seems to really know what it means. Steve outing, in his "The 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism," describes the steps of the process in an almost hierarchical manner leading towards what he describes as "wiki-journalism."
While I've made my thoughts about the future of journalism clear in the past, I will reiterate that I hope the readers are never the editors as Outing predicts in the last step of the transitional process. Without any sort of structure, news organizations will cease to be organizations at all. If there is no payment for stories, thus no established credibility, then cyberspace will be filled with nothing but gossip, one-sided opinion, and flat out lies. We criticize the era of the party press for being non-objective and dishonest (at least I do, some people relish the concept and are glad it appears to be returning), but imagine how misleading the "news" will be when you have extremist opinions coming from both sides of the aisle with absolutely no middle ground or objectivity, a situation that is bound to happen as people strive to push the party line harder and harder. And with no organization but a shared, public web-address, you won't stand a chance at deciphering which side is feeding you propaganda filled lies at any given moment.
Journalism is losing its credibility as a profession because of ideas such as these. There needs to be some amount of cohesion. God knows I'm not for unions, but we need to have some way to accredit professional writers and make sure they are capable of doing the jobs they're asked. I hate to get cliche, but when it comes to news reporting, let's leave it to the pros!
While I've made my thoughts about the future of journalism clear in the past, I will reiterate that I hope the readers are never the editors as Outing predicts in the last step of the transitional process. Without any sort of structure, news organizations will cease to be organizations at all. If there is no payment for stories, thus no established credibility, then cyberspace will be filled with nothing but gossip, one-sided opinion, and flat out lies. We criticize the era of the party press for being non-objective and dishonest (at least I do, some people relish the concept and are glad it appears to be returning), but imagine how misleading the "news" will be when you have extremist opinions coming from both sides of the aisle with absolutely no middle ground or objectivity, a situation that is bound to happen as people strive to push the party line harder and harder. And with no organization but a shared, public web-address, you won't stand a chance at deciphering which side is feeding you propaganda filled lies at any given moment.
Journalism is losing its credibility as a profession because of ideas such as these. There needs to be some amount of cohesion. God knows I'm not for unions, but we need to have some way to accredit professional writers and make sure they are capable of doing the jobs they're asked. I hate to get cliche, but when it comes to news reporting, let's leave it to the pros!
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