13 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(09/05/17 12:00am)
By Jake Mulick
Staff Writer
North Korea test-launched a ballistic missile directly over Japan in a brazen attempt to intimidate the country on Aug. 28, according to The New York Times.
Former Senior Director for Asian Affairs Evan Medeiros remarked that the move by North Korea had serious thought behind it.
The goal of the launch was to test the alliance between the United States and Japan. The Atlantic reported that as tensions rise between the United States and North Korea, Japan runs the risk of being attacked because of its staunch alliance with the United States.
The test served as a reminder of Japan’s proximity to North Korea and the likelihood that North Korea will engage in military action beginning there, according to The Atlantic.
North Korea does have the nuclear capability to strike Japan and South Korea, both close neighbors to the country. This fact could hurt relations between the two countries and the United States because of President Donald Trump’s continuing provocation of North Korea.
The Washington Post recently reported on Saturday, Sept. 2 that President Trump also plans on pulling the United States out from a free trade deal it has with South Korea, amidst the aforementioned nuclear threat from North Korea.
President Trump has threatened nuclear war with North Korea and worsened relations with Japan as of Saturday, Sept. 2, according to the New York Times. Now Trump looks to dampen the economic relationship with our ally, South Korea.
Trump’s U.N. envoy, Nikki Haley, announced that the U.N.’s Security Council will hold an emergency meeting about North Korea’s latest hydrogen bomb test on Monday, Sept. 4, according to CNN.
Only time will tell what the ramifications of these actions will look like, as military tensions between the nations are at their highest in years, according to the Washington Post.
(08/29/17 1:58am)
By Jake Mulick
Staff Writer
The United States and South Korea engaged in an annual joint military exercise on Aug. 2, according to CNN. The state-run North Korean newspaper Rodung Simnu warned against the exercise as it could further inflame the tense rhetoric between President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
Tension between the two nations has risen since a U.N. joint resolve to enforce heavier sanctions on North Korea, according to The New York Times. The joint resolution affected the country’s ability to export coal, which accounts for 34 percent of the country’s exports as of 2015, according to an evaluation of the country's currency conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Following the U.N. sanctions, Kim announced the country would retaliate “thousands of times over” and would threaten possible military action, according to The New York Times.
Trump later responded that North Korea would see “fire and fury like the world has never seen” in a media appearance on Aug. 8 in Bedminster, New Jersey.
On the same day, the Washington Post reported that Pyongyang had developed nuclear warheads small enough to be placed on long range ballistic missiles that could reach the United States.
Kim threatened to engulf Guam, the first target announced by the North Korean leader, in an “enveloping fire,” according to NPR.
While Guam remains an unincorporated United States territory, which means citizens do not have a vote in any legislative body, it is home to 7,000 US troops according to ABC.
“Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!” Trump tweeted on Aug. 11.
This rhetoric was condemned by both the Chinese and South Korean governments, according to CNN. China, as a trading partner to both North Korea and the U.S., condemned the escalation of military talks between the two countries in an official statement.
South Korea is also a potential target as there are 35,000 American troops stationed there, according to the Guardian as of Aug. 9.
North Korea’s continued proliferation and advancement of nuclear weapons has created a fear of possible nuclear strikes on Guam, South Korea and America.
Trump’s aggravation of the situation was criticized by the press and his contemporaries including Steven Bannon, according to The New York Times. At the moment, the back and forth between the two nations has met a standstill.
(03/26/17 10:05pm)
By Jake Mulick
Staff Writer
The Chinese government has banned the popular social networking and image sharing site Pinterest.
Pinterest has been accessible in China since the website’s inception, but access has been curtailed under China’s firewall, according to CNN.
Chinese Pinterest users have avoided scrutiny from the Chinese government due to the site’s generally innocent nature, CNN reported.
In both China and America, Pinterest is typically used as a place to find inspiration in fashion, recipes and creative projects.
China wishes to protect its local social networks and internet companies. Banning Pinterest is a move used to preserve the economic viability of Chinese home industries, according to the Mercator Institute for Chinese Studies.
According to the same source, similar measures have been used before in order to preserve Chinese internet-based companies.
The Chinese government hopes that blocking access to Pinterest will lead China’s 731 million internet users to use domestic sites instead of foreign competitors like Pinterest, CNN reported.
The ban coincides with this year’s meeting of China’s annual National People’s Congress, which is a meeting of top legislators in China to discuss the domestic economic and political course of the country for the upcoming year, according to CNN.
According to the same source, this meeting is often heavily scrutinized because it determines the movement of the world’s second largest economy, CNN reported.
The same source reported that China is able to curtail the internet for their people because of the “Great Firewall,” a powerful device that allows the Chinese government to manipulate the internet in their mainland.
The Chinese government uses this firewall to filter out specific keywords that represent certain Chinese ideals that the government might not agree with, such as Tibetan Independence and Tiananmen Square Massacre, CNN reported.
The internet in China is streamed through three servers located in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, according to the Mercator Institute for Chinese Studies.
(02/14/17 7:18am)
By Jake Mulick
Social Media Editor
While speaking to education majors like she would her high school music students, Argine Safari detailed her journey to becoming the New Jersey Education Association’s 2016 Teacher of the Year.
Safari spoke on Feb. 6 in the Education Building about her childhood in Armenia, specifically the transition from attending an Armenian music high school and the Moscow Conservatory to teaching music at a high school in the United States.
Safari praised the music field, saying it instills certain traits in those who pursue it.
“I believe music cultivates skills that you can’t find elsewhere,” Safari said. “It teaches creativity, perseverance and discipline.”
Safari displayed such discipline when her Moscow music professor requested that she add five pages of music to the recital she had to perform upon graduating from the conservatory, with only a short amount of time to prepare.
While an extra five pages of music is more than enough to make any student blanch before a recital, it didn’t help that Safari was expecting her first child within a week of the recital date. She was able to perform 48 hours before delivering her first born, five extra pages and all.
Safari serves as a model of determination to her students much like her own teachers before her.
Safari was accompanied by alumna and Camden County Teacher of the Year Julie Wright (’90), who has two children currently attending the College. Wright spoke highly of her experience here, and how it shaped her love of teaching, despite having faced adversity in the education field, which resulted in her not immediately landing a teaching job in New Jersey. After close to 10 years of searching, Wright found a home teaching elementary education in Gloucester Township, N.J.
Both Safari and Wright referenced the teachers they had in their past and how they influence them when they decided to pursue careers in education. Safari mentioned the music teachers that helped shape her while in Armenia as well as Moscow.
Safari and Wright broke up the prospective teachers in the audience into groups in order to study their teaching style, as well as try and pass on any lessons they could to those who were about to enter the teaching field.
Safari said there is a “distant and professional relationship” in European teaching, but the most rewarding part of her job is connecting with her students, and that she had a special empathy she didn’t think her European influences had.
An audience member asked Safari if she had any advice for future teachers.
“You should find your own passion and combine that with a passion for teaching,” Safari said. “Don’t think that you are not important. Don’t give up. It takes time.”
(02/13/17 10:05pm)
By Jake Mulick
Social Media Editor
President Donald Trump approved sanctions on Iranian businesses and individuals following missile testing in Tehran, the Iranian Capital.
These missile tests occurred on Jan. 29. The only conclusive information available to the U.S. was that the Iranians had tested ballistic missiles, according to The New York Times.
The deal with Iran forged under the Obama administration states that the Iranians do not currently have the power to enrich uranium that could fuel possible nuclear weaponry, according to the Obama White House archives.
The same source reported that this deal is supposed to abate the threat of nuclear weaponry from the administration and was a major deterrent from the Iranians building up a nuclear stockpile and increasing their military threat in the region.
Although the Trump administration was openly critical of the deal forged by former Secretary of State John Kerry and former President Barack Obama, they have yet to renegotiate any sort of military agreement with the Iranians.
However, the weapon testing was enough to put the White House on guard. With a complex history of aggression and instability in the region, any weapons testing in Iran was enough to put the White House on alert, USA Today reported.
Trump reacted quickly, imposing sanctions on 13 Iranian based companies and 12 individuals, according to USA Today.
He reiterated his “no nonsense approach” to Iran in a tweet on Feb. 3: “Iran is playing with fire — they don't appreciate how "kind" President Obama was to them. Not me!"
The sanctions have been largely viewed as a move in the right direction, drawing some support from Congressmen in the Democratic Party, according to Forbes.
There is concern that the White House will impose heavier sanctions that may violate the aforementioned nuclear deal reached with the previous administration. The Chinese, who were partners in negotiating this deal, voiced their concerns over the possible violations, Forbes reported.
(11/07/16 8:55pm)
By Jake Mullick
Barack Obama will be remembered as one of the greatest president’s this country has ever had. He is not only the first president of color, but also a president who has drastically changed the world in which we live since he started running the country in 2008.
Even against a divided country that had just faced the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression, mounting geopolitical tensions and a legislature controlled by the opposing party of the executive, Obama improved not only the United States, but the world.
Obama championed rights for LGBTQIA+ individuals as president. On Dec. 22, 2010, Obama signed into law the repeal of Don’t ask Don’t tell, the law that banned homosexual people from serving in the military. Under Obama, all people, regardless of sexual preference, were able to serve their country in the armed forces. On June 26, 2015, marriage equality was legalized in the United States under his administration.
Obama also helped drastically improve the economy. When he took office, the United States had an unemployment rate of almost 10 percent. At the end of his first term, that rate had dropped by about 2 percent. If the unemployment rate stays at what it is today, he will leave office while the country sees an unemployment rate of just 5 percent.
He was also responsible from increasing the national GDP from 14 trillion to 16.7 trillion. In context, the U.S. economy had not seen stagnation of this magnitude since the Great Depression, and in order to get out of the Great Depression, the U.S. capitalized on WWII and a wartime economy to send men off to war and increase the amount of manufacturing jobs to aid the war effort. Under the president’s leadership, the U.S. was able to effectively stop one war while rebuilding the economy, as opposed to countries like France, Greece and Spain, who are still recovering.
Obama led American initiatives that resulted in peaceful accomplishments, as well. He pulled a majority of troops out of Iraq in 2009, but left 50,000 behind in order to train the Iraqi army and help transition the country to military independence. Most of those remaining troops were brought home in 2011.
The president is also responsible for the successful assassination of top Al-Qaeda official Osama bin Laden, who was the FBI’s most wanted individual, the perpetrator of 9/11 and the leader in many other terror plots. Bringing him to justice signaled the decline in the terror organization of Al Qaeda. While Al Qaeda has been incredibly weakened, the president has had to deal with ISIL, another massive terrorist organization. The instability in the Middle East that allows for the formation of these terror groups has been something that U.S. presidents have had to deal with for many decades.
Obama has accomplished many other things, as well, including affordable healthcare, green energy initiatives and the toppling of Egyptian dictator Moammar Goddafi. When put into a historical perspective, he will rank favorably amongst his peers. Being a president means being part of one of the world’s most elite fraternities. It commands a certain level of deftness of leadership, as well as command in times of peril.
Their ability to represent the people they lead can be measured in many facets, but only time will tell us how well they did. It is safe to say that Obama’s ability to act and enforce meaningful change is the reason he will be remembered as one of the best.
(09/13/16 12:01am)
By Jake Mulick
Last week, I watched Comedy Central’s “Roast of Rob Lowe,” and it was awesome. Few words can really encapsulate how much I enjoyed watching a very diverse panel, ranging from Peyton Manning to Ann Coulter to Rob Riggle, take myriad shots at Lowe and his infamous past. The jokes were quick and biting, even verging on insensitive, as the accomplished panel roasted Lowe on his past sexual deviancy, as well as his recent fall from super-fame. What I enjoyed most about this comedy special was not the attack on Lowe, but the verbal reprimanding of Fox analyst Coulter.
Coulter was a member of the panel of celebrities invited to roast Lowe, but was subject to the panel’s biting remarks concerning her ultra conservative views. They showed no mercy, calling her a hate monger and a racist, and comparing her physical appearance to that of a horse. It was a sight to behold as comedians, actors and even a Super Bowl MVP ripped into the very essence of this woman’s being.
Now, I won’t lie to you — I can’t stand Coulter. I think she is a bigot who uses her spotlight to preach hate and encourage a racist, divisive mindset. I think she deserves to be reprimanded for how she treats people who are different than her.
What struck me as I watched her face during this verbal assault is that I almost felt bad for her. When one of the members of the panel called her a “transvestite hooker,” I thought that maybe she should throw in the metaphorical towel and save herself from the rest of the night’s attacks. It was almost too cruel to watch a person, even someone I detested to a point, be mocked so mercilessly.
This comedy special forced me to ask myself a very serious question: “Am I a bad person for enjoying the aggressive mockery of Anne Coulter, and does laughing at this joke make me reproachful?” After some intense thought, I arrived at the very simple epiphany: of course not. Laughing at comedian Pete Davidson compare a shrill, blonde TV personality to a scarecrow does not make me a villain.
Comedy is an expression of oneself, similar to any other form of art. In my mind, there is no real difference between saying, “I dislike this person’s stance on crucial social issues,” and cruelly mocking someone in order to garner some laughs from an audience. Laughing at someone’s persona is the same as disagreeing with their stance on an issue. How crudely it is worded shouldn’t matter because we live in a world where a brusque remark or a biting sentiment really might be the best way to get a message across. A critique is a critique and should be respected as such.
So, next time you hear a joke about someone that makes you put your hand over your mouth and wonder whether or not it is socially acceptable, remember the world is not divided into what is and isn’t appropriate to say. All critiques should be thought of as valid information that helps us better shape our appreciation for the world around us.
(09/06/16 1:30am)
By Jake Mulick
Staff Writer
Chicago-native Chancelor Bennett has been dominating the rap game. The world is next. More commonly known as Chance The Rapper, the 23-year-old released his third mixtape in the last five years, “Coloring Book,” earlier this summer.
Chance’s “Coloring Book” speaks at length about the artist’s struggle with substance abuse, religion and parenthood, as well as a scathing critique of the music industry. Featuring hip-hop titans like Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Jay Electronica and Justin Bieber, “Coloring Book” was released on Friday, May 13, and eventually climbed to the No. 8 spot on the Billboard 200 — the first streaming-only LP to do so.
Fellow Chicago-native West laid claim that his most recent album, “The Life Of Pablo,” was going to be “a gospel album with a whole lot of cursing” in an interview with Rolling Stone on Thursday, February 4, however, such remarks may be better fit for “Coloring Book.”
It would even be fair to say that Chance has embodied the spirit of a street Al Sharpton. With lines like, “I get my word from the sermon / I do not talk to the serpent / That’s the holistic discernment” and “Exalt, Exalt, glorify / Descend upon the Earth with swords and fortify the borders where your shorties lie” from “All We Got” and “How Great,” respectively, Chance lays praise to Jesus and God as only hip-hop can.
Chance derives his gravitation to religion as an escape from a time in his life when he lived extravagantly and with little care about productivity. In an interview with GQ from Tuesday, Aug. 23, Chance The Rapper decries his life: “I was a Xan-zombie, fucking not doing anything productive and just going through relationship after relationship. Mind you, this is six months. So think about, like, how could you even do that?”
It was not until an intervention from his grandmother and a return to Chicago that Chance was able to turn his life around.
Chance The Rapper has made a name for himself in the musical world for refusing to sign to a record label. Courted by a myriad of labels, such as Sony and G.O.O.D. Music, Chance The Rapper continues to be the only truly independent major rapper in the world.
While most within the music industry argue that artists need record labels, this allows him autonomy to release his music for free online and not have to release singles leading up to his albums. His independence has allowed him to break down barriers and he was even able to have his stream-only album be considered for a Grammy Award.
Chance The Rapper has not been shy about his disdain for record labels and the music industry. In his second song “No Problem” featuring 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne, Chance explores his relationship with record labels trying to halt his independence by saying, “If one more label try to stop me / It’s gon’ be some dreadhead n****s in ya lobby.”
Chance’s point was further reinforced by Lil Wayne rapping, “I got problems bigger than these boys / Lord, free the Carter, n****s need the Carter / Sacrificin’ everything, I feel like Jesus Carter / And if that label try to stop me / There gon’ be some crazy Weezy fans waitin’ in the lobby / Mula, baby,” in reference to his own personal issues with Cash Money Records.
Chance The Rapper discusses much more than religion, drugs and record labels on “Coloring Book,” though. Chance was lucky enough to welcome into the world a daughter by the name of Kinsley Bennett in October 2015. He references his daughter and his longtime girlfriend on the mixtape multiple times, specifically on songs “All We Got,” “Blessings” and “Finish Line.”
Chance attributes the birth of his daughter to a fair amount of his religious piety. The affection that he shows the females in his life has been noted as different from many artists of the same genre, which speaks to the level of respect he has for them.
Chance started his “Magnificent Coloring World Tour” this past month and will be touring through the end of the year. He is set to make some nearby festival stops along the way. Chance has been one provocative figure and has knocked down many of the barriers that have stood in front of him since his first mixtape was released nearly half a decade ago. It will be exciting to watch this rapper come of age and embrace his newfound celebrity.
(09/06/16 12:44am)
By Jake Mulick
With no real qualifications to determine what the future will look like, I’m going to suspend reality. As society’s views of traditional masculine roles are changing, people will begin to gravitate toward less dangerous and physically detrimental sports and activities.
The notion that football will be played in the next century is absurd. If this were the case, then we need to decide who will be remembered as the greatest football player of all time.
The greatest player will be decided by a society that views football as brutish. It will be somebody whose intriguing personality and rough playing style was underappreciated in their time. This player’s body will have to have taken a toll, since a majority of people will think of football as a sport devoted to bashing in one’s brains. The player will be underappreciated in their time because our perception of football will change.
Now, we gauge a great football player by how well they compare to others statistically. The game will have dramatically shifted by then, and comparing statistics will prove to be nonsensical. The numbers won’t tell the same story that play style and in-game film will.
Of course, personality will be the most important part because most people need something beyond a game to entice them. They need a character, a person to fixate on and obsess over. A man in a uniform, where his face isn’t even visible, is nowhere near as appealing as someone who has actual thoughts and ideas, especially if they disagree with the current norm or cause any sort of conflict.
That being said, I think this player should be Marshawn Lynch of the Seattle Seahawks. If the future plays out as I described it and the perception of football as a sport shifts this dramatically, I think Lynch will be remembered as the greatest player of all time.
Is he actually the greatest player of all time? Absolutely not. Numbers alone will disprove the thought that Lynch is even the greatest of his era. Lynch’s aggressive, power-back style of play will lend itself to a society that will remember the sport for its proclivity to brutalism.
He has won a Super Bowl and was a member of the Seahawks team, which will be remembered as one of the better football dynasties. The most important thing about him is that he embodied a bizarre personality in the media. The lack of personality he demonstrated during his peak years will lend itself to his future fame. People will cling to what little they know about him and develop a persona around him because they can fill in so much.
He’s not like Odell Beckham Jr. or Tom Brady, who are constantly featured in pop culture. He’s ambiguous, keeping a certain distance from the limelight. What little people know about him will work to his advantage and people will fill in the blanks. There is a plethora of video of him actually playing, which makes knowledge of him easily available and lends to a resurgence of his presence in pop culture.
It is also important to observe that Super Bowl XLIX will be remembered as one of the best football games ever played. Both rosters included future hall-of-famers and the game featured a phenomenal storyline: the reigning Super Bowl champions pitted against Brady and Bill Bellicheck’s football dynasty. The interception that sealed the fate of the Seahawks will tremendously add to Lynch’s legacy, as well as a sense that he was underappreciated in his own time.
It will also add for speculation about how that play in particular affected the length of his career and his decision to retire following that season. Pete Carrol, the Seahawks coach, will undoubtedly be demonized and unfairly rewarded the blame for Lynch retiring — adding a villain to our futuristic storyline.
(05/03/16 10:02pm)
By Jake Mulick
“If you know what happened in the (New York) Mets game, don’t say anything, I taped it, hello.”
This is how Jerry Seinfeld introduced his love for the Mets in the fourth episode of what a 60 Minute/Vanity Fair poll called the most successful sitcom in human history: “Seinfeld.” Seinfeld is, both in the show and in real life, a massive Mets fan, having been photographed at a myriad of games and has even been rumored to have interest in owning part of the team, according to the New York Times. I believe that part of Seinfeld’s persona is intrinsically linked with the Mets and he would not be as funny or, consequently, successful, if he were not a Mets fan.
The Mets are traditionally a lackluster team, not doing much more than existing under the New York Yankees’ shadow. From 1989 to 1999 (the years “Seinfeld” was on the air), the New York Mets cumulative record was 680-862, a deplorable showing from a team in a city that also has the Yankees, the team with the best record in baseball history, according to mlb.com. Not to mention the disappointing caliber of baseball the Mets play in order to infer that Seinfeld is a loser by any means, I would have to say he is the exact opposite. Seinfeld is worth almost a billion dollars, making him the second richest actor of all time, according to www.thesquander.com. I say this because had Seinfeld been a Yankees fan, he would have been completely unbearable.
It is easy to deal with the misadventures that the characters in “Seinfeld” partake in every episode because for some reason, they are able to almost pass themselves off as a loveable group of losers. All are single, flirting with vague employment for the duration of the show, (save Jerry, but let’s face it — a stand-up comedian is hardly a reliable career), living in the greatest city in the world, but having difficulty tolerating it, let alone conquering it.
The Mets are the perfect metaphor for these people. While this is true, the characters in the show keep plugging along, managing life to an extent and battling their conditions. The Mets, too, keep trucking on, despite being railed with disappointing results for multiple years in a row and constantly being reminded of what success is from just one borough over.
The Yankees, on the other hand, represent perennial success. Every year they don’t make the playoffs can be seen as a massive failure, and they expend copious amounts of money in order to ensure they are always a contender. If Seinfeld was a fan of the greatest baseball team of all time, the Yankees (yeah, I said it), I think the perception of himself for the duration of his tenure on the air would shift dramatically. I think viewers would overlook the loveable loser persona that Larry David attempts to pass off and instead focus on the fact that these characters kind of have most things going for them.
The characters on the show don’t experience real strife — after all, they live in a phenomenal city and are able to clothe and feed themselves. The Yankees’s problems are trivial, too, to an extent. Not winning the World Series every year is certainly a concern for any sports organization, but it would be almost absurd to expect to do so year-in and year-out.
The Mets faced real problems including decreasing ballpark attendance, not making it into the playoffs throughout the entire decade that Seinfeld was on the air, not to mention Bernie Madoff syphoning off millions and millions of dollars the entire time, according to Forbes and baseballreference.com. Fortunately, the Mets have been able to fall into greater fortunes and have turned around their team just in time for Seinfeld to retire and start another show about nothing, while driving around his cars that most of us can only dream of affording.
(04/19/16 5:35pm)
By Jake Mulick
The art of journalism is slowly dying. The influx of stories based around clickbait and sexy headlines that lack any substance at all is killing all credibility in the news industry. It is a shame that so many news organizations are sacrificing proper journalistic ethics and techniques and are becoming sensationalist in nature.
An example of this was the 2006 Duke lacrosse rape case. In 2006, a woman who attended a party at the Duke lacrosse house falsely accused three of the lacrosse players of sexually assaulting her. The media latched onto this story and it received national coverage for almost a year. At the time, newspapers heavily inferred that the lacrosse players were guilty and plastered the players’ names across the news. These three college students were faced with the negative consequences of having their name attached to a crime that did not happen.
These Duke students will forever be associated with sexual assault because of how much attention this case received. They will forever face the consequences of actions that they never committed because the words “Duke lacrosse” and “rape charges” make for an incredibly appealing headline. The New York Times, which as of 2014 has a circulation of over 1.3 million people, according to niemanlab.org, ran this story almost daily for a little over a year. Because this story was so controversial and appealed to so many demographics, the media fixated on it copiously with a total disregard for whether or not these players actually committed sexual assault.
This example acts almost as a precursor for how journalism is treated today. Nowadays, there are many news outlets, all competing for attention. With the massive rise in popularity for online journalism, many different Websites are competing for attention in a saturated field. News Websites use a strategy of sexy headlines and stories that lack any real substance in order to garner a lot of traffic to their Websites. The notion that pure, intellectual journalism is less important than ratings and views online is what is leading to the death of newspapers and journalism as an art. Websites like theodysseyonline.com exist for the sole purpose of getting as many views online as possible and detracting from any semblance of real, proper journalism.
I understand the fact that a massive amount of revenue for online news publications is from ads and the more traffic that a news Website receives translate into more money the company can make off ads. But the emphasis placed on sexy headlines and stories that are gilded, appearing to be full of relevant information but realistically being full of nonsense, is deplorable. The fact that stories about Kim Kardashian’s wardrobe and what it’s like to be a freshman in college will get more attention than topics like international politics and economics and real life issues is reprehensible.
In my opinion, Donald Trump would not even be a realistic Republican candidate for president if newspapers chose to focus on his policies and his lack of political experience. Instead, many news organizations focus on the absurd quotes from his speeches, which brings in heavy traffic on the Internet. If Trump was not able to gain mass media attention for his bizarre antics and phrasing, I would be skeptical if he would have been able to remain a contender for the highest office in the United States. The movement away from proper, well thought out journalism and the transition to big headlines for stories that are essentially full of garbage acts as a vehicle for articles that lacks any real substance. The end product of these practices is that people are informed about news by the same means that teenagers find out about boy bands.
As consumers, we can choose not to be absorbed by the hype that surrounds events. We are the only ones who can choose to read the New York Times and listen to National Public Radio instead of relying on the pop-up notifications that appear on our iPhones. It is paramount that news organizations begin to reward proper writing and journalism instead of clickbait and attention grabbing stories that lack any real substance. We must help to reform what is going on in the news industry so that events, such as the media circus around three innocent men accused of rape, don’t repeat themselves. It is our job to advocate for proper journalism and to not fall for the clickbait, attention grabbing headlines that some in the contemporary media try to sell.
Students share opinions around campus
Does professional journalism still matter?
“I think it’s less professional (than it once was)... I think the media is more powerful than it has ever been.”
“No, because you still need people to go out and talk to people (and investigate).”
(04/12/16 7:58pm)
By Jake Mulick
Staff Writer
How good of an athlete does a person have to be so that the general public ignores just how terrible of a human being they are? In case nobody really notices, a fair amount of athletes have massively deplorable characteristics. From infidelity to drug abuse to a general disregard for the law, athletes all over the world have developed a cavalcade of negative qualities, but for whatever reason, the general public is able to selectively overlook certain athletes’ condemnable actions.
I suppose the archetype of a deplorable athlete would be Los Angeles Lakers basketball player Kobe Bryant. In 2003, Bryant was charged with sexually assaulting a 19-year-old girl in a hotel in Colorado. Bryant was charged with criminal and civil suits, which destroyed his public image at the time. While the criminal counts were dropped, Bryant did agree to an out-of-court settlement due to the civil case brought against him. Bryant also apologized for the incident, while claiming he didn’t realize the true nature of the sexual encounter between the two of them, according to MSNBC.
Now here’s the thing I realized during Bryant’s farewell tour: Nobody cares about the case anymore. No headlines read, “Sexual assault offender and five-time NBA champion retires this season.” Regardless of the fact that this reads as a horrendous headline, it still illustrates my point that the public is able to forgive and forget the actions of well-known athletes. No major media outlet, in any way, made reference to the massive scandal Bryant was a part of during his seventh year in the NBA.
The wikipedia.com article concerning the scandal is about equal in length to that of the article concerning the languages Bryant speaks. Why is that? Bryant’s accolades are almost too long to reference in one article alone. He is without a doubt a future hall of famer and one of the greatest guards to ever play basketball. But why does that make him exempt?
Former President Bill Clinton, for example, partook in a sexual encounter that garnered massive media attention, while also leading a country through a time of wonderful prosperity. While his accomplishments are, in a lot of ways, much more impressive than Bryant’s, his affair is brought up often, tainting his legacy as president. Bryant faces very little perceptual ramifications for his sexual misconduct and most people even go so far as forgetting that he was cheating on his wife while in the middle of it all.
I say this in light of the most recent scandal involving basketball player D’Angelo Russell. Russell recorded a private conversation between himself and Lakers’s teammate Nick Young.
During the conversation, Young discussed that he had interest in other women. The problem? Young is engaged to be married to rapper Iggy Azalea. Russell came under massive fire for this video when it surfaced and, in turn, he became villainized by the entire sporting community for releasing it.
My only question is: What will he have to do for everybody to forget and forgive him for this? Win five titles? Score over 30,000 points? Win two Olympic gold medals? While these feats are not out of the realm for an up-and-coming talent such as Russell, they are incredibly unlikely. What he will have to do in order to restore his public image is unbeknownst to me, but perhaps his current teammate, Bryant, will be able to help him as a gift as he departs from his illustrious basketball career.
(04/05/16 4:19pm)
By Jake Mulick
Staff Writer
The first annual Barbara Meyers Pelson ’59 Chair in Faculty-Student Engagement Lecture on Wednesday, March 30, in room 212 of the Education Building, provided an in-depth look at the research performed by undergraduate students at the College. The lecture featured a panel of three faculty-student teams from the School of Education that shared their research results and perspectives on conducting research as an undergraduate.
“Undergraduate research is a hallmark of the TCNJ experience,” said College spokesperson Dave Muha, who was one of many present at the lecture. Also in attendance were esteemed members of the off-campus educational community, as well as a myriad of professors and prominent figures at the College.
Among those present was College President R. Barbara Gitenstein, who emphasized the importance of recognitions such as this. The Barbara Meyers Pelson ’59 Chair is the awarding of $35,000 for different research projects, as well as promoting professor-to-student relationships. Gitenstein remarked on the importance of the relationship between professor and student at the College.
“These mentor relationships add an increased emphasis on research that helps to transform disciplines,” Gitenstein said. She further explained that these mentor-mentee relationships are what enable the research in education that this lecture highlighted.
The Barbara Meyers Pelson ’59 chair was awarded to biology Department Chair and Professor Janet Morrison, who is the first person to ever receive the honor. Morrison received this important recognition for her research in diseases and how they relate to plants in their natural population, and non-native invasive plant species, as well as her faculty-student relationships.
Morrison introduced the panel to Associate Professor of Education Ruth Palmer’s and junior English and secondary education dual major Anna Gracey’s work on “Undergraduate Research for All: Course-Integrated Research Options.” In addition, Professor of elementary early childhood education Blythe Hinitz and alumna Jillian Manzo (’15), who worked on “Dr. Montessori’s Legacy — 21st Century Peace Education,” were also introduced. Assistant Professor of elementary and early childhood education Lauren Madden and senior early childhood education and psychology double major Jennifer Liang researched “Growing Green Thinkers.”
These projects ranged from contrasting different teaching styles amongst children to the implementation of environmental education in a young child’s curriculum. These presentations helped to explain the overall goal, which is implementing educational research into the existing School of Education’s curriculum.
The panelists went on to explain how educational research sets the College apart from many other competing education programs in the area. The education program was ranked second in the entire North for undergraduate teaching by U.S. News and World Report.
Gitenstein remarked that she attributes this ranking and prestige to the professor-student relationships like the ones showcased at this lecture.
This prestigious recognition was made possible by a $1 million donation by alumna Barbara Pelson. This donation will allow Morrison to receive six faculty-weighted-hours per year of reassigned time and an estimated $35,000 for research and activities that promote a strong student-to-faculty relationship. The College has a 13:1 student-faculty ratio that makes this feasible, according to tcnj.edu.
The panel also highlighted the importance of the Mentored Undergraduate Summer Experience (MUSE) provided here at the College throughout the lecture. The MUSE program occurs for eight weeks during the summer and allows students to participate in research with faculty.