Pulled Quotes

I nearly started crying as I was reading the story of the young man that was shot and still ran back into the building for his girlfriend. Tears came to my eyes when I began to realize that we are not always surrounded by a plastic bubble. The story “Student shot in the head, ran back for girlfriend” left my mind wandering and thinking “what if…” There are so many unanswered questions that students would like to know the answer to, both at Northern Illinois University and here at Stetson. The emotions the student was feeling brought me to a sense of reality and one that I am glad we never experienced.

The story was written as though Jim Donohue was sitting with me; I could feel his emotions and the ways in which he was expressing what he felt that day. It is unbelieveable to me that he survived a shot to the head and still managed to rescue his girlfriend, which brings a tear to nearly every girl’s heart. The interview with him was detailed and gave reader’s an insight to the events of that day and the way it played out; furthermore, it provided a better understanding of those events through the eyes of someone who witnessed it first hand. I thought it was interesting that his first reaction to the gun was that it may have been a drill and not thinking the worst could happen. We like to think we are safe on campus and that as students we are protected from the city around us. A college campus feels like a bubble of homework, classes, professors, and friends and with that we are invinceable and nothing bad can happen. Are we really safe? I like to think we are, but this story and the interview with Donohue made me realize that anything can happen at any given time.

With all the strange suicides happening lately, in both the Stetson world and the real world, I’ve been following the story of the Northern Illinois University campus shooting to try and understand. In this latest article on msnbc.com, “Girlfriend: NIU Gunman called to say goodbye,” a few more facts are learned about Steve Kazmierczak, the gunman. Girlfriend Jessica Baty says, like everyone else who knew him, he was one of the nicest people she knew, and the person who killed the NIU students during the lecture was not him, at least mentally.  This article covers the news values of timeliness and impact. The article I read yesterday about the shooting has already been replaced by this latest one online, so journalists are definitely keeping on top of the coverage and delivering up-to-date information. This story also has a big impact on Americans because it’s tragic to hear about a young person taking the lives of innocent students and then his own, especially at a college campus where kids assume they will be safe.  I’m sure journalists are working hard to figure out what exactly made Kazmierczak snap. Sure, he had stopped taking his anti-depression medication three weeks before the shooting, but did he have a motive? What is going on with the suicide epidemic we’ve all been witnessing lately? Hopefully journalists will continue to reveal more information about the shooting and eventually shed some light on why campus shootings and campus suicides seem so prevalent these days.

 USA Today journalist Nate Ryan’s coverage of the Daytona 500 dwelled too much on the teams that unexpectedly lost–Gibbs Racing and Hendrick Motorsports–instead of the underdog Penske team that pulled through with a one-two win.  While the upset certainly is newsworthy, employing it as the lead makes for an intro that steals credit from the hero of the day–Ryan Newman–and Kyle Busch, his teammate and assistant in winning the race. It’s almost as if the author totally missed the point:  The real story here is that Ryan Newman and Penske Racing won the Daytona 500–enough said.   No need to look for a more interesting angle.  Fans want to know who won.  Then they want to know who almost won.  Only then do they want to know why the best cars of the preliminary races happened to lose.  The names of the two teams who were upstaged even start the third paragraph, as if to intentionally further delay presentation of the name of the race’s winner (not to mention making for a confusingly awkward sentence).    Come on Mr. Ryan–are Gibbs and Hendrick paying you to keep them in the spotlight?  I often wonder if foul play is involved when underdog athletes hardly make the headlines when they do the unexpected and those who didn’t do the expected still manage to nearly steal the show.   I just think that no matter who wins the Daytona 500, that’s the story, and the winner deserves his moment of fame to be undiminished by those that, unfortunately, didn’t win.    

The USDA recalled almost 140 millions pounds of beef on Sunday. 37 million pounds of it was distributed to schools and “has probably already been eaten,” according to the AP.

 Cows that were non-ambulatory were pushed into the slaughterhouse, literally. These cows are called, “downers”, and are at higher risk for contracting E.coli or mad cow. Not to worry, America. The good ol’ USDA’s spokesman, Dick Raymond, said, “We don’t think there is a health hazard, but we do have to take this action.”

Of course there’s no health hazard, only the remote possibility that humans could become ill.  The USDA has classified the recall as a “Class 2.”

From the USDA’s website:

Class II – A Class II recall involves a potential health hazard situation in which there is a remote probability of adverse health consequences from eating the food.

Great. So I only have a REMOTE chance of contracting mad-cow or E.coli if I’ve eaten one of these hamburgers in the past two years.

The article that was recently posted on USAToday.com on Sunday, February 17 about a transcript found in JFK’s memorabilia caught my eye. It’s amazing to me that even over 40 years after the President’s death there is still information being recovered about JFK’s assassination. What was found was a transcript that suggested that Lee Harvey Oswald (accused JFK assassin) and Jack Ruby (Oswald’s assassin) plotted to kill Kennedy together.

I think the reporter did a thorough job checking on the actual authenticity of the transcript. There were some speculations that the transcript was real but the reporter explored other options. The fact that the transcript might more likely be a movie script that was unmade. The reporter quotes several sources who report that the transcript is part of the unmade movie “Countdown in Dallas.” I liked how the reporter, at first, catches your interest with the speculation that there has been new information uncovered in the assassination of the president, only to explore the more obvious option of the transcript actually being a movie script.

You may want to think twice about eating that extra hot-dog or cookie according to USA Today’s article “Being overweight may raise cancer risk.” One may wonder if putting on the extra weight is really worth the risk of getting cancer and although the article doesn’t specify what types of cancer may come from this added weight it does suggest some scientific reasons as to why this is happening.

According to a recent study done in England, it has been calculated that this increase in weight increases chances that one may actually be at risk of some form of cancer. While the author doesn’t state the specifics of the study one can only assume that test have confirmed this statement. One thing is certain, you may want to think twice about going to Wendy’s for your next late night snack after all is it really worth the threat of caner?

In an interview with the girlfriend of Steven Kazmierczak, the Illinois University shooter, CNN offered the man up to the public in a different set of clothes. Jessica Baty, the girlfriend of Kazmierczak, talked about his life leading up to the horrific event that happened last Thursday. Baty depicted Kazmierczak as a normal graduate student who didn’t seem to have any delusional or unstable episodes prior to the shooting. Other sources reinforced his hard working, studious demeanor, mentioning that there wasn’t any prior evidence that Kazmierczak would commit it.

I think that showing the human side of an otherwise psychotic and murderous perpetrator was a good idea on CNN’s part. It raises awareness to the fact that anyone described as having severe mental illnesses congruent with Kazmierczak’s that landed them in a hospital with fistfuls of medication can potentially devastate countless people. But it also allows people the chance to not only sympathize with the victims but empathize with the shooter. Baty described him as a caring person, focused on his studies and showing enthusiasm for criminal law. This kind of epithet gives people the opportunity to put a history and story behind the murderer.

Not to mention it will allow for additional opportunity  for psychologists and sociologists to offer insight into the ‘mind of a murderer.’

In Tuesday, February 12th’s issue of USA Today on page 6D there was an article written by Rita Rubin called Ledger’s death turns a new spotlight on ‘polypharmacy’. The article was really interesting and I honestly think that Rubin did great reporting in this article. First off, I really liked how Rubin gave an in-depth explanation of what “polypharmacy” was all about to readers. She also gave a great amount of background information on polypharmacy and prescription drugs which I also thought was really great to provide readers with, it also showed readers that the reporter did her research.  Rubin mentioned in the article that the DEA is investigating the issues related to the combination of drugs that Heath Ledger took and she said that they are checking if there were any violations of the Controlled Substances Act. While I think this is a very interesting fact for readers to know, I was disappointed that Rubin failed to give more information about the Controlled Substances Act and what it states. Personally, as a reader myself, I don’t know what the Controlled Substances Act is really all about. Rubin also talked about how some doctors are in the dark about their patients taking other perscription drugs, and I thought that this was a really interesting thing to bring up and another great story idea for another piece. Do they think its a problem that people are being perscribed all these drugs? Maybe they should investigate that problem instead, and investigate the fact that some doctors don’t care about the other drugs their patients are on, and the fact that the ones that do care are not actually aware that their patients are on other drugs.  I think that Rubin did an excellent job in this article, and did some great reporting. However, there were still some problems that I had with this article. It bothers me personally that reporters continue to talk about Heath Ledger. I think that Rubin could have talked and wrote an article about polypharmacy without relating it to Ledger’s death or using the topic of the article in focus to Ledger’s death. I think that it is time to leave Heath Ledger’s death alone and time to let him and his family rest in peace with it.  Also, while I really liked the sources that Rubin used, I think it would have been valuable to her article to have some more credible sources, such as real doctors and psychiatrists opinions on this issue of polypharmacy.  All in all, I think that Rubin did an excellent job with this article. I was extremely interested in the article, and the structure and focus of the information provided was really well done.