Bobby Beaty

This week we were assigned to write about international media outlets. My partner and I chose NCAA football scandals as our topic for the news group project.

In the first media outlet, the website discusses about all of the scandals that have occurred throughout the years. One interesting fact that I learned is that on average the Southeastern Conference spends about $163,000 per-student athlete. That is more than 12 times the average amount colleges spend on an average student in the SEC. I also learned that T. Boone Pickens has donated around $248 million to Oklahoma State Athletics.

http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/america-tonight-blog/2013/9/17/by-the-numbers-thesystemofbigtimecollegefootball.html

In the second media outlet, had mostly the Penn State sex abuse scandal for research on NCAA football scandals. The article said that the scandal led to the former coach Joe Paterno’s firing, because he protected Sandusky.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24720743

In the article from the third and last media outlet, described Jonny Manziel’s scandal and situation in more detail. It specifically explained the rule that Manziel broke which was Bylaw 12.5.2.1, which prohibits a student-athlete from using his name or likeness for commercial purposes. He was ruled suspended for one half of the first game in the season, but could have been ruled ineligible for the entire season if it was not for his family’s attorney.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2013/aug/30/johnny-football-manziel-texas-heisman

These three media outlets that we used were very useful because they provided me additional information that I did not know prior to this project. I believe all three of the outlets are targeted towards older informed adults ranging from 30-60 years old.

Lance Kay and I are in a group that is researching many scandals that are occurring in college football. While there are many scandals that have happened and are currently happening, my partner and I are concentrating on the scandal at Oklahoma State University and Johnny Manziel’s scandal as well as the scandal with Jameis Winston. NCAA scandals have always intrigued me ever since the discovery of the Baylor University basketball scandal.

There has been many recent discoveries in the Oklahoma State scandal. There is one allegation that boosters have wlaked up to Cornerback Calvin Mickens in the locker after games and would pay him money. There has been one unnamed star player that has been accused of getting paid up to $25,000 one year. There has also been several accusations that the Orange Pride organization would tell their girls to have sex with highly recruited players to convince them to go to their school.

The Johnny Manziel scandal consisted of him receiving payments for signing autographs. ESPN reported that Manziel received up to $7,500 from an autograph dealer which would sell his autographs online or in person. After a long and elaborate investigation, the NCAA decided to only suspend Johnny Manziel for one half of the first game of the season.

At Florida State the most popular student on campus right now is most likely Jameis Winston due to how well he is doing this season as quarterback. He is currently accused for being involved id sexual assault. The police are still investigating in this matter and have not resolved anything quite yet. I will say if Winston is found guilty, it will help Bryce Petty’s chances at winning the Heisman Trophy.

This week we were assigned to summarize the ethics section in the public relation society of America.

Having good ethics in public relations is very important. The core values for public relations are advocacy, honesty, expertise, independence, loyalty and fairness. There is a appropriate time to release information to the public and there is an inappropriate time as well.

What was highlighted as the most important part of public relations ethics is the communication of accurate information. Someone can manipulate people by communicating false information to someone else. The article also mentions the importance of competition, disclosure of information and conflicts if interests. This can help maintain the integrity of a company or organization. The end of the section has a public relations pledge that you can read out loud and underneath you can sign and date it.

http://www.prsa.org/AboutPRSA/Ethics/CodeEnglish/#.UoPCBPm-2uJ

I would start a brewing company and I would most definitely want to hire some professionals for Public Relations. My brewery would be located and I would try to sell the beer nationally. Like in the first article, I think the first thing that I would want the public relations to do would be to start an marketing campaign, and try to get the brand/identity into the media as much as possible. I think advertising on facebook and twitter could make an impact. Also from the first article, I would want my public relations department to go to several different media outlets such as Wallstreet, Houston Chronicle or Texas Monthly and pay the editors to write articles about my company as well.

First I would need my Public Relations to set up a website that was fun and easily accessible. The initial press release for my product would need to be very exciting. We would need to explain our product, the history, recipe, and about the company. I would set a fun run at Memorial Park in Houston, where we would hand the runners a different kind of beer that we manufacture every 200 yards. I would also pay the bars that sell my beer to tell their bartenders about our beer to their customers.

For this week’s media outlet,we were assigned to listen to the National Public Radio. It is a great place to search on the internet and listen to podcasts of people reporting news of what is going on around the world. I listened to the weekend edition of NPR on November 2, 2013. NPR is  free public radio, which shares news stories to anyone in the United States or even the around the globe.
One news story that I listened to was “Germans warily guard their privacy.” The radio host discussed about how Germans feel about their privacy. He mentioned that they were very worried about America spying on Merkel. The host said that privacy in Germany is a much more delicate issue in Germany. The second story I listened to was “A controversial week for the NSA.” It was one of the top stories for the Weekend Edition. The hosts told the audience about the different bills that were created the last week and they discussed about the NSA phone tapping President Merkel in Germany. All of these topics were debated this last week. The last story I listened to was “Red Sox rise from civil embarrassment to world champs.” The two hosts talked about how bad the Red Sox were last year because of underperformance and how they came back a year later and won the World Series.

The targeted audience for National Public Radio is towards middle-aged, well-informed adults. I enjoyed listening to National Public Radio, because they have some very interesting stories that they share, and the hosts were intriguing to listen to. I will most likely not listen to the National Public Radio again, because I already get my news stories from television on channels like Fox New and CNN, however if I do not have a TV sometime in the future, then I might listen to National Public Radio.

I learned a lot about copyrights, and what is free to use for everyone to use and what is not. I did not realize how serious of a subject copyrights were. It is good to have a copyright, otherwise, anyone can take credit for your work and profit from it. I learned that there is a ton of requirements needed to be accomplished before using someone else’s pictures or even articles. I will now be more cautious when I use some else’s pictures for my own personal use. Whenever I use pictures and articles I never think about asking for permission to use them, but now I have learned that it is best to ask otherwise I might have to suffer the consequences.

The theme for my images is Merica.’

I am allowed to use this photo, because google has an advanced search that only shows images that are free to use or share.

Like the previous picture, I used an advanced search on google that allows me to use some pictures for free use.

Like the previous two photos, Google’s advanced search allows me to find free pictures for my personal use.

http://epitonic.com/#/artists/twin-peaks/?track=11648

This link is to a website that provides free legal music.

Our assigned news source this week was the renowned Dallas Morning News. It covers all of the typical news categories, except it discusses more state and city news than the other media outlets that we have read. The generally targeted audience for the Dallas Morning News are is the older, employed crowd in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area.

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20131021-abortion-providers-challenge-new-texas-law-in-federal-court.ece

For my first article, I read “Abortion providers challenge new Texas law in federal court.” This article was about the new provisions to abortion laws in Texas, that will go in effect soon. Recently in Texas, there has been a big debate on abortion and the author of this article explained what all the new provisions will be, how it will affect certain people and she wrote about people’s reactions to the new provisions. She did a great job telling the audience what the provisions were.

http://collegesportsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/10/fast-five-a-new-quarterback-cant-cure-kansas-offensive-woes-baylor-rolls-59-14.html/

The second article I read was, “Fast Five: A new quarterback can’t cure Kansas’ offensive woes, Baylor rolls 59-14.” This article talked about the highlights of the Kansas versus Baylor game. He mentioned that even though he is the third string quarterback, Shock Linwood still put up great stats, including 106 rushing yards and 2 touchdowns. The author did not have one bad review of Baylor’s performance, but why should he?

http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/20131024-despite-some-memorable-dialogue-the-counselor-suffers-from-a-lack-of-drama-c-.ece

The last article that I read was “Despite some memorable dialogue ‘The Counselor’ suffers from a lack of drama (C-).” It reviewed the movie “The Counselor.” The author said that the movie was very original, but not in a good way. This is unfortunate to me, because I have been looking forward to seeing this movie for a long time and now I am skeptical on if I want to see it anymore. The review said that although the movie had an incredible director, superb actors and memorable conversations, it lacked the drama and story plot that could have made this movie great.

All in all, this news source does not attract me, because I am from Houston, Texas and I am not really interested in Dallas news. I have the Houston Chronicle for local news instead. Although I am not interested in some particular news that is presented in the outlet, I do feel that they cover other interesting topics in an appropriate way.

I was assigned to read the Watergate articles on the Washington Post. I really enjoyed the article because it discussed a topic that I am interested in. I like reading about American history and reading this article caught my interest. I believe the articles were targeted towards older people, ones that were around during the Watergate scandal.

The Long Shadow of a Scandal

This was about the background around the Watergate Scandal that happened during the 1960s. This scandal was one of the most controversial scandals ever in the United States history. It was crazy that President Nixon was the only president that has ever resigned from their presidency. This raised questions of suspensions on President Nixon.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/latest-headlines/2010/08/25/gJQAKVYcdV_story.html

Timeline

The timeline on facebook gave the audience/me a different perspective on how the events went down. I liked the author presented information on a event through facebook. I like how the author added pictures because I like looking at pictures rather than reading words. The timeline allowed me to see when each event occurred in chronological order. Having Whitehouse excerpts in the article was intriguing and captured my attention.

https://www.facebook.com/WatergateTimeline

40s Years After Scandal

This article talked more about President Nixon’s presidency. I did not like how the author only mentioned things that President Nixon did wrong rather than including the things that he did right. This article was biased and I did not want to read an article about a scandal that is biased. It also had very interesting videos to watch too.

All in all, I found the articles interesting. I do not know as much about this topic as I would like to know. Also, it was interesting learning about someone that we are going to see speak next week.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/latest-headlines/2010/08/25/gJQAKVYcdV_story.html

This week’s post we had to read one of two articles. I chose to read the article, “Tending to Muslims Hearts and Islam’s Future” by Andrea Elliot. The article is about a person that set up a Muslim matchmaker website. It is frowned upon when a Muslim of the opposite sex sees the other individual in private. The article discusses the creator’s of the website story of how he started the company.

The lead of this article is a contrast lead. The author of the article states that Christian singles and Jews both have multiple ways to meet and date but there are not many Muslim dating websites due to their rule that doesn’t allow them to be alone with a member of the opposite sex until they are married.

The nut graph is ,“Christian singles have coffee hour. Young Jews have JDate. But many Muslims believe that it is forbidden for an unmarried man and woman to meet in private. In predominantly Muslim countries, the job of making introductions and even arranging marriages typically falls to a vast network of family and friends.” This is the nut graph because this explains importance of the story. It gives the main idea to the reader.

The bigger issue of the story is that the creator of the website does not believe in the muslim rule. He thinks that people should meet and get to know each other well before they decide to marry.

“Dressed in a crisp polo shirt and swathed in cologne, he races his Nissan Maxima through the rain-slicked streets of Manhattan, late for a date with a tall brunette. At red lights, he fusses with his hair.” This was a descriptive copy because of how it describes the person and what he is doing.

The author used seven different quotes to show how credible and reliable of a source the article is.

The most boring part of the article that I found was when the author described  Shata’s life whether it was about his wife and family. I found this to be unnecessary and it tended to drag on.

The ending was interesting to me because it tied everything together and answered all of the questions that I was thinking.

What I got out of the story was knowledge about the life of a Muslim. How difficult it is to find the person you love. I found it pretty cool what Shata has done for Muslims.

I found the story to be way too long with a bunch of unnecessary and tedious information. Once again, the story of Shata dragged on for awhile.

This week I was assigned to read the LA Times. Obviously the LA Times is located in the city of Los Angeles, California. The Los Angeles Times was first created in 1881 in the city of Los Angeles and was originally called the Los Angeles Daily Times. I do not read the Los Angeles Times because it is not sold in many places in Texas. I stick with the same media outlets that I already use and do not choose to read anything else. The Times discusses all of the topics that the typical newspaper discusses such as sports, politics, entertainment and international news. The front page of the online database is the same as other online newspapers with the biggest topic on it.

The top story is about the Dodgers vs Giants game that happened tonight. During the game, a dodgers was stabbed to death. This event occurred in San Francisco near a strip club. This was something similar that happened last year to a Giants fan.

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-dodgers-death-20130927,0,1595698.story

The second article that I read was “NFL Teams are passing over the running back.” The article talks about how more yards, touchdowns and attempts have been thrown than ran this season in football. The author says, “Quarterbacks are putting up gargantuan numbers. Yardage totals are rolling up like pennies on a gas pump. Defenses are scrambling to patch holes.” He is saying that quarterbacks have had a record setting season so far due to more attempts thrown in the air than ran on the ground.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/football/nfl/la-sp-farmer-nfl-20130927,0,4359897.column#axzz2g44lZXSZ

The last article that I read was titled, “Television review: ‘Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ on the case.” It reviewed the new show, “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on ABC Network. The author did not give very positive reviews for the show. He called the show unoriginal and just overall cheesy.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-marvel-agents-of-shield-review-20130924,0,7561358.story

The audience that this newspaper attracts is people between 20 and 60 from the West Coast. I am not that intrigued with the newspaper because it does not distinguish itself from anyone.