Blog 6

Justin Smith

COMS220

4/8/11

Blog 6

            Last Friday, NBC News anchorman Keith Olbermann was put on indefinite suspension without pay for making monetary donations to three Democratic candidates. Olbermann had full knowledge that this behavior is prohibited by NBC News, yet he proceeded with it anyway.

            What’s the big deal? There shouldn’t be anything wrong with a man privately donating money to political candidates he wants to endorse. However there is a written or unwritten code of conduct somewhere that prohibits journalists from public participation in political, religious, or other activities that “may compromise their integrity or damage their credibility.”

            This should be respectfully abolished, and journalists should be allowed to dig their own grave if they choose to because they are Americans and have freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, and should be able to put their money wherever they want.

            Freedom of speech doesn’t need to be explained. It’s the right to say what you want to say, with the slight exception of having to be politically correct when on television or radio. However, it’s perfectly within politically correct boundary lines to choose the Democratic party.

            Almost the same as freedom of speech, is freedom of opinion. Someone – anyone should be able to freely state their opinion, no matter how right or wrong they may be. They may be deemed a fool to air their opinion so loudly, but it’s a choice, and a right. So long as the person is not imposing his or her opinions upon someone else, then there just can’t be anything wrong with it.

Finally, if someone’s opinion is in favor of a Democratic candidate, then can’t he or she make a choice to fund that candidate with his or her own money? Olbermann didn’t impose his opinions upon anyone else, but he simply donated money to three different candidates. Now tell me what’s wrong with that.

In summary, I don’t think there should be anything wrong with journalists publicly participating in political, religious, or other activities that may or may not compromise their integrity or credibility. It’s at the journalist’s personal discretion.

Justin Smith

Blog 5

COMS220

3/25/11

            Have you ever been distracted? Well, of course you have. We all have at one point or another. Sometimes we’re distracted from little things, and sometimes we’re distracted from things of much greater importance. But has your distraction ever led to the death of an innocent child? The article titled, “Fatal Distraction,”

written by Gene Weingarten focuses on numerous instances of parents forgetting their children in their cars, and the children dying of hyperthermia (a form of heat-stroke) as a result.

This article was not an easy one to read, but I believe that it was extremely well written and practical to the public as a whole. The central idea is that people, through a slue of unexpected distractions or out-of-the-ordinary routine changes, can become so distracted that they forget even their child in the back seat of their car, go about their day, and return several hours later to find a dead baby in the back seat. Many ask, “What kind of person forgets a baby?” The article returns and says that, “the wealthy do, it turns out. And the poor, and the middle class. Parents of all ages and ethnicities do it. Mothers are just as likely to do it as fathers.”

Despite the seriousness and morbidity of this article, I felt it was a good feature article. It focused mainly on a court case of a man who had accidentally left his child in his car one hot summer day. The child had died, and the jury was deliberating on whether to accuse this man as guilty of manslaughter. It was a dreadful and dramatic case, but in the end, the man was ruled not guilty, and despite the child’s death, the article ended on a good note.

I think it’s important that the public realize the dangers of distraction, especially when young ones are involved. The result of distraction could prove to be fatal.