Elections around the world

I found a picture on Drudge Report today. It was a picture of a float in a German parade. The float was two big balloons. One was a representation of Hillary she looked like a shrill old lady bent over and Obama was depicted as a dog biting her. The float disturbed me simply from the picture that was showing. I was extremely offended by the image it was portraying and I began to think about it more. It is ironic that this float was in Germany. Our elections have such a big impact on the rest of the world. When was the last time you saw a float in an American parade depicting Angela Merkel. How many people even know who she is? She is the Chancellor of Germany, the first female, and most people would not know her name if they heard it. People in Germany would only know of our elections if the media was covering it. Very few people seek out that information on their own. It is interesting that the foreign media covers our elections for President but we do not cover other countries. Is that something to hold against our media? Would American's know more about other countries if the media showed more than Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan? Should the media be responsible for making sure the American public knows about foreign affairs or are they simply giving people what they want to see? I feel like I am relatively informed on foreign governments but I have to seek that information out. Hardly is there anything in the news on foreign countries if it is not a country in the middle east. If I want to find out what is going on in Colombia I have to go to the BBC website or the Economist. I believe this is definately a shortcoming on the part of our news networks. They need to step up and show more than what happens in the United States. We are being a global world. It is becoming increasingly important to know about more the our little pocket of the globe.



ihttp://flickabooger.com/archive/2008/05/04/obama-bites-hillary-on-the-butt---pic.aspxt

When Things go Too Far

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/10/girl.fights/

These students in Florida brutally beat another student. It was eight students, most of them girls, most of them cheerleaders. These students videotaped the attack and posted it on You Tube. What is even worse these students did not show remorse. They looked unmerciful when they were being interviewed. All the were concerned with was getting back the cheer leading practice. Why is it that out of eight young people none of them thought it would be a bad idea to beat this young girl?

They probably though that there would be no consequences for their actions. That is what a lot of young people think today. They think that they can get away with anything because rules do not apply to them. They watch shows like Gossip Girls and Greek where the girls are mean, backstabbing, and get away with pretty much anything they want to. These girls probably thought television rules applied to them. Now they are going to be tried as adults and could face life in prison. These students did not think there would be consequences but now there are and they will have to pay deeply.

CNN and CBS

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/business/media/08cbs.html?ei=5065&en=a8fa4cf758327512&ex=1208232000&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print

I find this story extremely interesting, maybe it is because I did my book report on a book called “Reality Wars” which focused solely on the three big networks and their news programs. CBS has been in last place in the news division for awhile and nothing they seem to do boost their ratings. Moving Katie Couric to the nightly news helped them for about a week but that is not enough in this mega-competitive market. If CBS outsources their news to CNN I think it will have big implications. The media is overall owned by very few companies and there are not a lot of options. For one of the major “options” to outsource their news will just cut back on the variety of news available. You can not help but believe that CNN and CBS news programs will look very similar if CBS decides to outsource. This just cuts back on news options for viewers. I think variety in news programs is a good thing. Different networks will cover different stories in different ways. Taking out some of the competition will not be beneficial for anyone but the networks.

Final Four

March Madness is something that is looked forward to by American's all over the nation. People plan their weekends around the tournament, thousands of people travel to watch the games live. There is no denying that the tournament is a huge money maker for the schools, NCAA and the networks that have the contracts to broadcast the tournament. It has become a staple of March sports and brings in millions. What are the students getting out of this though? Some of them are getting a free college education. Are these students being exploited by the networks and schools? Most of these students will not make it to the pros. Is the fact that they are getting a free education enough. Should these students be making money like the schools and networks are?

http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=ef142f3b0b4f1654fd7f971f8f04ba55

The Campaign

Politics always amazes me. This election seems to be different than most. Maybe it is not that different, maybe it is just the first one I have really paid attention to. I found an interesting article on the Drudge Report. It was that Mitt Romney and John McCain are actually getting along. During the Republican primaries they were hated rivals. Romney was seen as an outsider by most and did not have the camaraderie that the other candidates had. This article even went as far to suggest that McCain might pick Romney as his running mate. An interesting thought to consider.

When you look at it even deeper and in a world of what ifs you could have a very interesting election. What if Barack and Hillary run on the same ticket and McCain chooses Romney you are presented with an interesting scenario. America claims to be accepting at all and open to all this election could prove that they American people really can be accepting. On one side of the ticket you would have someone that is a minority and someone that is a female. On the other side of the ticket you would have someone that is a Mormon and someone that would be older than any president ever elected.

For the first time there would actually be diversity in the race. The thought excites me. I know it is all hypothetical right now and full of buts and what ifs. If this was the scenario though I do not doubt that the news media would have a field day with it. It would be very interesting to see how they would cover it. I am sure whatever scenario presents itself this summer the media is not going to slow down on its coverage of the election.

Reality?

It seems that reality TV has had a take over of television. It is the only thing to watch right now if you do not want to watch re-runs. The writer's strike cost the L.A. economy $2.5 billion. I wonder how big of an impact that is going to have on television overall. What changes are going to be made to the shows that come on. Of the shows in ABC's primetime line-up 12 of them are reality shows. The reality shows are getting more and more ridiculous. The situations more and more bizzare. A natural consequence of the strike is more reality programming. I am sure I am not alone in being tired of reality programming. I wonder how big of an impact it will have overall. Will people change their viewing habits. Will it costs the networks even more? It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few months.

Campaigns

The primaries are almost over and for the first time I can remember Texas is important. Our primary is so late in the "season" the candidate is normally decided by the time Texas rolls around. This year the democratic nomination is still up for grabs. What does this mean for us? We get political commercials. I do not know why this is so appealing for me but I love that we get to see the commercials. The last 2 elections Texas was skipped over because we were Bush country, this year is different. My favorite morning radio station had both Hillary and Barack on last week. There was a debate in Austin between the two candidates and there was even an ad in the Lariat for Barack last week. The candidates set up campaign offices in Waco. The candidates have even made trips to Waco in the last few weeks. For a political junky like me I absolutely love it. I can not get enough political coverage and having it in my own backyard is amazing. As much as a I love it though I started to wonder if other people were taking notice that Texas is important this year. I talked to some people, namely my little sister, and she had no idea that the primary was this next week. It is amazing that the candidates can do tons of debates, make countless appearances, spend millions on ads and still people do not know. It speaks for the shear volume of media outlets in our country. There is no way to reach everyone. People can simply tune out what they do not want to hear. If you do not care you can switch to one of the other 532 channels available with the super duper cable package. What is even more interesting is this is the first time my little sister can vote. She should at least care (I can understand if she does not share my level of excitement) who is running and what day she can go cast her first vote. I have a feeling my sister is not alone in knowing who is running. I am sure a lot of her friends fall in the same category as her. It will be interesting to see how campaigns will adapt to reach the younger generations. I feel that they have started to takes steps with blogs, facebook, myspace and other things like that. I think we will see a lot of changes in the next few months with the way campaigns use media. There are so many new outlets that are relatively untapped and there are countless ways to reach the younger generation.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUgA0nj8Xy8