Using social media as news sources

Posted on September 28, 2014 by Gabriella Shofer

By GABRIELLA SHOFER

The escalation of news reporting is heightened through the use of social media, which increases the involvement of the public in leading news issues. This week, the world watched as Hollywood actress Emma Watson spoke at the United Nations about feminism.

While the brave act taken by this actress was covered in news media, this positive coverage was overshadowed by the ensuing public reaction, which involved threats against her safety and privacy.

Multiple news outlets reported on Watson’s moving speech, which addressed the issue of gender equality, and her bravery was highly praised. However, the fast moving pace of the Internet enabled the public to share their own opinion and quickly created negative trending Twitter hashtags.

She was publicly targeted by hackers who threatened to expose nude photographs of her. While social media can be used positively to increase awareness and action for social causes, in this instance, people who disagreed with her views abused the mask of anonymity provided by social media to comment in a vicious manner.

As more and more individuals look to social media as a source of news, it begs the question of how trusting we can be of the information it presents, as it is often heavily clouded by personal biases.

But what is more shocking is the way that this was reported in the media and the number of inaccuracies that were released about the situation.

One of the most disturbing aspects for me was the fact that USA Today, a newspaper Web site that I frequently visit, reported on the death of the actress, which was a hoax.

This exposes the pervasiveness of the issue of fact checking for news reporters.

When a source assumed to be extremely reputable reports on issues like this, it brings into question the credibility of the whole reporting entity and can change the perspective of readers in their trust of the source. This further highlights the increased influence that social media is having on news reporting.

Not only are reporters writing about what is occurring on social media, the reporters are beginning to trust social media as fact. This idea is frightening for the news reporting industry and society at large due to the fact that social media is heavily clouded by personal bias.

Obama’s ‘latte salute’ and social media

Posted on September 25, 2014 by Emily Joseph

By EMILY JOSEPH

On Tuesday President Obama departed his presidential helicopter, Marine One, in New York City with a coffee cup in hand. Following a tradition started by Ronald Reagan, Obama saluted the Marines standing guard on the ground … while holding his latte.

Immediately the “scandal,” which was caught on camera, went viral and Obama was attacked for what people called, “disrespectful actions.”

Without commenting on the ethics of the latte salute, it’s interesting to note social media’s role in the situation. First, the video was posted on social media via Instagram (by the White House nonetheless) with the caption “President Obama just landed in New York for #UNGA2014.”

The White House intended to promote his speech on climate change at the UN assembly and they even joined in on the social media lingo by using a hashtag (which stands for United National General Assembly). But that caption was most likely ignored by viewers who gravitated toward the cup in Obama’s hand … and then took to Twitter. The hashtag #lattesalute started trending on Twitter with journalists, politicians and the general public voicing their opinions in 140 characters or less.

No longer are we writing letters to the editor or calling news stations to comment. We are tweeting about it. We are including hashtags and text lingo like “u” and “nvr” in order to fit in more words. We are taking things for face value without doing any research. We are impulsively commenting on everything.

If a newspaper reporter needed to write a story on this scandal, he or she could easily just go to Twitter without doing any reporting.

But would that the best method? Should we take what people tweet and post literally? Even if journalists asked follow-up comments to people via Twitter, would their responses be skewed because they have the ability to hide behind a computer?

I wonder how many of those people truly have the passion behind their harsh statements or were just reacting spontaneously. Then again, maybe the spontaneous reactions are the most truthful.

If only Twitter was around when President Bush was criticized for saluting while holding his dog. It would have been interesting to see the difference, or lack of, in the public’s response.

Twitter gives stars platform to fight back

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Meaghan McClure

By MEAGHAN McCLURE

For the past few years, Twitter has been a main source of news for young people. They find out about breaking stories and everything relevant in current events. In a way, Twitter could be viewed as a young person’s newspaper.

However, with the rise of Twitter, celebrities have been given an easy platform to get their thoughts and opinions across, no matter how offending, or if it makes a major brand look bad. Twitter cuts out the middleman, and lets celebrities interact with fans directly.

This new direct contact between celebrities and fans can be problematic, however. In the recent case of Cee Lo Green, one stupid comment can ruin a celebrity’s whole image and, in the recent cases of Shonda Rhimes and Rihanna, uncensored criticisms can ruin the image of a major company.

Earlier this month, Cee Lo Green tweeted controversial statements about rape, one of which claimed rape isn’t “real” unless the victim remembers it. This moment of ignorance on the famous singer’s part cost him a huge loss in fan base, even after deleting the tweets and making a public apology.

In the case of Green, we can see how easily it is for public figures to reach their fans and how quickly a public image can change.

This also happened in the case of Shonda Rhimes and Rihanna. Although they didn’t ruin their own images, they used Twitter as a platform to fight back against attacks from big corporations and voice their own opinions.

Shonda Rhimes is the creator of many shows, like “Scandal” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” Recently, she was described as an “angry black woman” in a New York Times feature, after which, she took to Twitter to give her own thoughts. After voicing her displeasure, other figures such as Kerry Washington criticized the Times writer too. The Twitter backlash proves that the growing popularity of Twitter certainly changes the way the media can criticize celebrities – because they will not get away with it anymore without a fight.

A similar case happened recently with singer Rihanna, after CBS pulled her song from “Thursday Night Football” following the Ray Rice domestic violence incident. Initially, CBS pulled the song the week immediately following the release of the second Rice video, because they felt Rihanna, a famous victim of domestic abuse from Chris Brown, would give the wrong message.

Rihanna reacted through Twitter, writing, “CBS you pulled my song last week, now you wanna slide it back in this Thursday? NO, Fuck you! Y’all are sad for penalizing me for this.” CBS then had to deal with the disapproval of many Rihanna fans, which ultimately led them to pull her song for good.

These recent events involving celebrities shows just how impacting social media can be, especially as Twitter gives stars a chance to bite back at the media.

Social media changes what makes news

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Shivani Aluru

By SHIVANI ALURU

The news cycle often decides what’s important based on the tenets of “newsworthiness” – a water is wet definition to describe topics and information that easily engage people and that are easily talked about.

Before the dawn of social media, news outlets often dictated what people should know, and, depending on the publication or network, explained how some events were more important than others, communicated by placement in a newspaper or story length in a broadcast.

Now that social media has become second nature to growing parts of the population, the news landscape is saturated with different stories, points of view and information. People have many more options from which to gather their knowledge and stay up to date with current events and this increase in supply has flipped the news narrative.

Now, instead of people picking up a paper to learn something completely new as they did before, news organizations are pulling from the mass of voices and cleaning up viral content.

The democratic nature of news has not completely dominated the pattern of dissemination but the symbiotic relationship between social media and journalism has allowed for a number of topics that previously would not have been newsworthy to blow up to viral status.

The many benefits of social media from simply keeping people informed to passing on a powerful message quickly are affected by what seem to be changing priorities. Thinking back as far as the late 1990s fewer stories of “importance” had to do with small town events and more to do with national issues.

The obvious conclusion is that social media didn’t exist in that decade and so no one could hear the story of a young boy saving his sister from a burning car and, because they never heard, they wouldn’t care.

The above mentioned example is indicative of the rise of more emotional stories; the kind of narratives that tug at heart strings. Since most people can connect easily with these stories they tend to spread like wildfire and news organizations have begun to spend more resources on combing the internet to find stories that have this viral value.

However, it’s rare that a news organization finds a story that web culture hasn’t already latched onto and pushed into the general consciousness. The increasing dependence of journalism on democratic dissemination is almost funny because the news is trying to find, rather than dictate, “the news.”

Twitter strikes again

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Kacie Nelson

By KACIE NELSON

I last posted about how social media, more specifically Twitter, are becoming a very integral part of how news is not only spread, but also generated in today’s culture. Once again, the social media giant strikes again, this time bringing to light a very distasteful issue.

Earlier this week, it came to light that the popular brand, Urban Outfitters, was selling a “vintage” Kent State sweatshirt. What was interesting about this item wasn’t that it was supposedly “vintage”; not that it was the only one for sale; not even that it was being sold for an outlandish $129!

What made this particular item so buzz-worthy was its design. It contained what appeared to be blood stains surrounding holes in the shirt (presumed to be bullet holes), reminiscent of the 1970 “Kent State Massacre.”

The listing for the Kent State sweatshirt on urbanoutfitters.com

Forty-four years ago, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a group of unarmed students, leaving four dead and nine injured.

The image of the sweatshirt on the Urban Outfitters website spread like wild fire on social media, after being posted on the popular website Buzzfeed. Outrage ensued and spurred Kent State officials to write Urban Outfitters a letter expressing their disgust.

Urban Outfitters released a full apology to Kent State and all those offended by the sweatshirt, claiming that the dye pattern was a result of poor coloring on the sweatshirt, and the holes were due to wear and tear.

Obviously, this did not pacify anyone.

Why would Urban Outfitters buy and sell such a distasteful and offensive item? Was it an honest mistake?

We may never know, but luckily for us we’ll always have Twitter to vent and get our opinions heard.

The role of today’s fashion reporters

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Gabriella Shofer

By GABRIELLA SHOFFER

As the fashion world moves into its second week of frenzy, designers, bloggers, buyers and models are out on show with photographers and reporters scrambling to document their every move and be the first to report on the latest fashion news.

With London and New York fashion weeks having concluded, the fashion pack continued its jet setting by landing in Milan this week. For the majority of society who aren’t part of the fashion elite, the news media reports are our only source of insight into what goes on at these exclusive events.

The exclusivity of this industry results in fashion news presenting many points of discussion in terms of the role that reporters play in providing to-the-minute updates about the events and trends.

However, through the increased use of the Internet and social media, it can be argued that the role of the reporters is becoming less relevant. With bloggers and celebrities posting immediate updates throughout fashion shows, the general public is fed snippets of information through Instagram snaps and Twitter posts.

The issue this presents is that these people provide limited viewpoints. They do not follow general reporting principles and their reporting reflects their opinions and personal judgment.

Additionally, of late, fashion reporting has been infiltrated by a multitude of young amateur bloggers, many of whom have racked up thousands of followers based on their social media accounts. With many people trusting these bloggers as the source of fashion news, there is less reliance on the reporting by professional fashion reporters.

Ultimately, in order to gain an accurate report of the fashion events of the season, multiple sources may need to be consulted. With many fashion experts shunning the new flock of bloggers for their lack of professionalism and experience, is will be interesting to watch if their access to these intimate shows is revoked or increased in the future.

Additionally, the fashion industry faces constant ridicule by reporters in other industries and is often not taken seriously. As reporters compete in the race to discover the latest “it” items, less care is taken in regards to reporting accuracy.

This was highlighted by a prank experiment staged by a blogger to see if photographers and reporters believed that she was part of the fashion elite based on her alternative clothing. Her results highlighted that fashion is all about perception, often the truth isn’t relevant at all. I find this concept interesting yet contradictory as it undermines the fundamental principles of news reporting which should apply to all reporting industries.

Journalism and social media’s influence

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Autumn Robertson

By AUTUMN ROBERTSON

This September has been a great news month for many journalists. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has captured more towns and oil fields in Syria and President Barack Obama has made an executive decision to soon deploy troops into the area to fight ISIS. The Ebola outbreak in West Africa continues to spread and the president made executive decision after the ISIS news to deploy troops to the area to “fight” the disease.

However, I heard more about certain news stories than others and I can’t help to think that the result was from social media. I saw more articles and think pieces on both NFL stars Ray Rice, who was accused of domestic violence, and Adrian Peterson, who is facing child abuse charges, than any of the executive decisions that President Barack Obama made and many other political policy news.

Is it because they monitor what people are talking about on social media and chase the more dramatic, sensationalist stories in order to sell papers and get page clicks?

The “trending meter” on Twitter and Facebook are important tools for a journalist. They can see what people are talking about from a regional, national and worldwide standpoint. I sat and monitored what people were talking about on twitter these past two weeks, and I saw more tweets about the athletes than tweets about politics.

Why is it that generally we are more concerned about scandals than issues that can directly affect our nation? Because we are more concerned about these shocking events, stories about national government issues are being flooded out by the journalists who write about those shocking events. I am not saying that the Rice and Peterson stories lack importance; personally, I am glad that the stories were reported because each lead to powerful discussions about domestic violence and abuse. However, more and more people know every detail about those stories, but lack proper knowledge on ISIS and the affect they have on our country. Is social media more of a clutch for journalists than a useful tool?

Social media play an important impact on journalism and what news the media feel is more important to cover. However, should journalists be so influenced by the people that use social media that they choose to write stories based on what’s trending?

iReport now a major storytelling toolkit

Posted on September 18, 2014 by Domenica Leone

By DOMENICA A. LEONE

The world of professional journalism, with specialists trained in universities and prepared to offer news to meet the five classic questions of who, what, when, where and why, is undergoing a complete transformation.

Advances in digital technology and the wide spread reach of the Internet have certainly led to a new era of journalism that which we may call “citizen journalism.”

Not a day goes by that we aren’t bombarded by an endless succession of tweets, social media, blogs and video clips, all generated by citizens, but that still follows the prevailing principle of news reporting: To inform.

Aside from social media, which have now become one of the greatest allies of newsrooms for discovering and delivering news, we found major news organizations creating their very unique “apps” and sections to its websites for citizens to submit information, videos or photos of any relevant incident they have witnessed.

For example, there is CNN with its iReport site, which has been extremely successful by doing so, so far. Still not many know about this wonderful news coverage application.

CNN’s iReport was born in 2006 as a citizen journalism project that was later bolstered with the help of professionals to standardize the content. Currently the site receives about 15,000 monthly contributions, of which about 10 percent are used as content for traditional programming news network.

Basically what it is, is a “social network” for news. The news organizations can later take advantage of any and all of the content, especially for breaking stories. It allows for people to share the stories happening around them; where the cameras are not able to reach in time or the media do not get to find out the occurrence of a particular down-to-the minute news break, and thus still be able to capture it for communicating it to the world.

Certainly the iReport toolkit is that which best meets all the characteristics at the time of transmitting information, whether for written media, television channels, radio stations or citizens. In other words we could describe it as a social media in steroids. Yet, reputable and reliable.

So, want to be part of CNN’s news coverage? Now you know you are just one step away of possibly being featured by this prestigious newsroom.

Media exposes Ray Rice scandal

Posted on September 12, 2014 by Meaghan McClure

By MEAGHAN McCLURE

Social media play a huge role in the lives of everyone today. More importantly, when a breaking news story is released, it is almost impossible to not hear of it on Facebook, Twitter or any similar social media outlet, while everyone gives out their own opinions.

This is why social media played a key role in the termination of a football player’s contract and indefinite suspension from the NFL.

Ray Rice was caught on camera dragging his unconscious fiancee out of a casino elevator way back in February. So why did it take almost seven months to give him a punishment fit for his horrifying act?

When the first video was released and widely covered by news and sports media, there was public shock, but of a relatively small scale. People were disgusted, but forgot about it in due time, and Rice only suffered a two-game suspension.

It wasn’t until TMZ released a second video, making the attack more visual, that the NFL and Ravens alike stepped up Rice’s punishment.

What is the difference between the release of the two videos? Public backlash.

After the release of the first video, it was a trending story for no more than a few days, quick to be forgotten in a league where crimes like this aren’t that foreign. However, it has been a week since the second was released, and new developments in the story are coming out everyday.

The public became so outraged, it took to social media, making this story a trending topic on Twitter and Facebook for over a week. In a society where the average internet user’s attention span is minimal, this was a long time. The public influence concerning this story was strong enough to end a man’s career, and make NFL reconsider policies.

It is clear the effect social media and the public’s opinion had on this Ray Rice situation. What is not clear, however, is the reason why it took this high level of intensely bad publicity to make the NFL take appropriate measures in the punishment.

Although social media is a blessing, allowing powerful entities like the NFL to hear the voices of the public, it should not have been the driving force to ultimately force the NFL to suspend Rice indefinitely.

The NFL leadership claimed to not have seen the second video until Monday, although law enforcement officials confirm it was sent to the league office in April. Even still, everyone knew what had happened on that elevator and the NFL should have taken appropriate measures then, rather than wait to see if the situation would blow over.

With all these facts known, the NFL has portrayed itself in a horrible light and the influence and backlash of social media are not going to help the league out or lead people to forget about it anytime soon. Let’s just hope the league handles the next situation better than it did this one.

Snapchat: from social to informative

Posted on September 12, 2014 by Domenica Leone

By DOMENICA A. LEONE

What is Snapchat? It all depends to whom you ask.

The social media app is certainly one of the most buzzed and controversial out there.

For parents, the ephemeral and private nature of the content goes in hand with “sexting.” For teens using it, it is just an alternative medium for sharing pictures they would otherwise be uncomfortable posting on other well-known social networks.

If you ask me, I’ll probably agree with both of the sides, but I would also argue it has some useful properties to it. Asides from letting you interact with other users, it is an invitation for you to be a part of news coverage of the stories you have the opportunity to experience.

As I woke up last Tuesday morning and I logged in on Snapchat, I couldn’t help but notice I had an unconventional live story showing. “Fashion Week in NYC.” I had no idea it was that time of the year again.

I pressed my screen with immediate curiosity to get a hold of it and see what was all it all about. It was pretty obvious from the title (and so do I supposed) that shots of the different shows would be featured.

But then there were also the backstage moments; a deeper look onto the collections, the models, the celebrities that were attending and bits of the overall urban atmosphere the city was experiencing.

It was not much after I realized that the platform was actually reporting on the event. The giant collections of “Snaps” (pictures and videos) were certainly informing users about every single thing that was taking place through a unique perspective. That of an insider. In addition, the different angles of coverage on the same subject further helped for a broader understanding of the facts.

Heidi Klum being interviewed at Fashion Week.

The platform has being doing this for a while now. They did just the same thing for the Electric Daisy Carnival back in April and the FIFA World Cup Final in Brazil in July. The truth is, the “Our Story” addition in nothing more but a feature that allows for the most simplistic (and yet alternative) of the ways out there to do news coverage.

It basically compiles the best of the items submitted by users who attend a certain event and then makes them available to other “Snapchatters”, so they can feel like they are right in the middle of the action. And isn’t that what journalism is all about? Recreating the moment?

On an era were newsrooms are making use of social media for discovering and delivering news, it wouldn’t be surprising if they were making use of this app already. The truth is, this is a powerful platform. Aside from instant communication it also provides for pieces of evidence that can support the entire backbone of a story.

I have the feeling that not far from now, we might as well go and thank Snapchat, as we have Twitter and Instagram for reporting us on down-to-the minute newsbreaks. After all, isn’t social media aided lately in revealing and covering the most recent breaking news?

Does everyone have to play by the rules?

Posted on September 12, 2014 by Shivani Aluru

By SHIVANI ALURU

The Information age has given people access to nearly every corner of the globe, high quality cameras that fit into phones about the size of a wallet and the ability to disseminate information in seconds.

Now that everyone has the potential to create and distribute news, everyone can technically be a journalist. The “democratization of journalism” has been covered up and down by various types from bloggers tapping out endless opinions to academics scribbling research papers, but few outlets seem to discuss accountability.

Journalists are held to a high standard and are meant to follow a code of ethics as well as adhere to the minute writing and reporting rules presented in the Associated Press Stylebook, but for the most part it’s only the people who have bothered to learn about these things that follow the rules.

Typically those who have attended a j-school, or trained in a very traditional environment understand the weight and history of what being a reporter means. For example, the idea that news is written from independent perspective with no bias (or as little bias as one can manage).

In contrast, the sheer volume of content that is produced by the Web shows a number of people and outlets branding themselves as news when they deliver about as much actually news as Fox News.

Even larger outlets of non-traditional journalism have failed with respect to the public. Earlier this year after a plagiarism scandal, BuzzFeed pulled almost 4,000 different posts. No retraction was printed and BuzzFeed Founder Jonah Peretti argued that as a tech company, not a media company, BuzzFeed did not need to follow the rules of journalistic integrity.

This kind of action raised plenty of eyebrows and had scores of people arguing that despite any tech origins, BuzzFeed definitely needed to follow the rules of journalism simply because they were acting like journalists. This thought comes to the core of the argument if it looks like a journalist, acts like a journalist and reports like a journalist, it should probably try to work from the high-standards expected of a journalist.

Twitter: The ultimate news source?

Posted on September 12, 2014 by Kacie Nelson

By KACIE NELSON

The Internet has revolutionized the way people communicate with one another. This is an undisputed and well-known fact.

But I’d like to argue that social media, and more specifically Twitter, has begun to revolutionize the field of journalism.

Since its beginnings in 2006, Twitter has taken the digital world by storm. In spite of the skeptics, it grew in popularity at a record pace and has even been accredited with “launching what has been referred to as the “microblogging” phenomenon.”

Backing up a bit for my less tech-savvy readers, Twitter is a social media site through which people can create a profile for free and post messages of 140 characters or less about things going on in their lives. These messages are called “tweets.” People can “follow” their friends, family, favorite companies/brands, and news organizations to keep up with what’s going on in their lives.

Now, I say that Twitter is quite possibly becoming the ultimate news source for a number of reasons.

First, the obvious reason being that people no longer have to tune in to their local news station on the radio or television for the news. They also don’t have to wait for the newspaper to come the next morning. They can simply go their favorite news station’s Twitter account to keep up with what’s going on.

Not only is this a more effective way of distributing news, since it is reaching a mass of people at once; but it also is efficient because people can find out about news almost as soon as it happens.

But Twitter also acts as a news source for journalists and reporters.

By scrolling through their timeline, journalists can see what people are talking about and what the big news stories are at the moment. If there is a big event or big story occurring somewhere across the country, news companies can simply send out their people to go get the story instead of waiting to hear about it via another outlet.

In my opinion, these are all huge signs alluding to the fact that Twitter and other social media outlets are going to begin dominating the field of journalism and playing a larger role sooner than we think.

Clickbait changes news … for worse

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Dylan Weems

By DYLAN WEEMS

The world of news has certainly been changing rapidly with the onset of the Internet.

Unfortunately, I would have to argue it has changed for the worse. This is mainly because of a phenomenon known as “clickbait.”

It is nearly impossible to scroll through a Facebook feed these days without seeing a headline reading something like “You’ll Never Guess What These Guys Found While Digging in their Yard!” That’s clickbait. That’s also a real headline. The “crazy thing” they dug up was an animal bone. With a headline that provocative I assumed it would be a lost monument or an ancient artifact.

Of course, the entire reasoning behind clickbait is to gain website hits. The more hits a site gets, the more advertising money it receives. It’s an understandable business strategy, but sensationalizing mundane stories that can hardly be called news causes more important matters to be ignored. The reason true news stories get lost in the depths of the Internet is twofold: their headlines either aren’t “intriguing” enough to merit a click, or they are simply drowned out by the sheer number of sensationalist news websites.

One such website, Buzzfeed has become so notorious for this, that noted faux news source The Onion created an entire website called “ClickHole” to mock it. It is both funny and sad knowing that if you put the sites’ respective headlines next to each other without the domain name, it would be impossible to tell which was real and which was fake.

Internet news has simply become “who can write the most eye-catching headline” instead of “who can write the most accurate and compelling news story.” At this point, it is impossible to tell if the internet will reach a breaking point with clickbait, but for now it reigns supreme. I can only hope that this is another trend that will fall by the wayside and that true news will return as king once more.

US Airways explains risky tweet

Posted on April 15, 2014 by Taylor Hoff

By TAYLOR HOFF

Monday afternoon during a flight delay, a passenger on US Airways flight 1787, announced her dismay with the airline through a tweet to the airline’s official Twitter account.

The response she received was nothing short of pornographic and offensive.

After sending several tweets to the airline’s Twitter account, she finally elicited a response. They stated “We truly dislike delays too and are very sorry your flight was affected.”

The unsatisfied flier continued on to tweet a rude response addressing the fact that they have ignored her previous tweets. The airline seemed to be trying to make up for its mistakes in its next tweet to her, but something went terribly wrong.

In the seemingly appropriate and warranted tweet they mention, “We welcome feedback, Elle. If your travel is complete, you can detail it here for review and followup.”

The imaged that followed was certainly not the customer satisfaction survey that they meant to attention.

Instead the tweet was followed by a pornographic picture featuring a woman and a plastic airplane.

The inappropriate tweet stayed online for several minutes, before the airline realized its serious error.

Officials from US Air quickly tweeted; “We apologize for an inappropriate image recently shared as a link in one of our responses, We’ve removed the tweet and are investigating.”

The tweets, however, had already gone viral. Several websites featured the airline’s inappropriate tweet and poked fun at the obvious misfortune of the event.

The airline finally came forward announcing that the tweet came not from a hacking, but by honest mistake. The inappropriate picture had been used in a tweet tagging the airline, one which it had flagged as inappropriate, so that it could later be deleted. Because of this, the image was placed in the “clipboard” and accidentally “pasted” into what should have been an honest and innocent tweet.

The airline publicly apologized and claimed it is making internal changes to its communication process to ensure that this never happens again.

NFL faces a moment of change

Posted on April 15, 2014 by Taylor Hoff

By TAYLOR HOFF

Sam Michaels tackles the slow attempt at change in the NFL and forces the league to deal head on with the long-time controversy of unspoken homophobia.

With gay marriage being legalized and acceptance of LGBT alliances higher than ever, why is it okay that one of the biggest sports leagues in the world is still the most anti-gay and least accepting of change?

Whereas this problem was easily swept under the rug because there was no case in which the NFL was immediately forced to deal with regarding the controversy, the coming out of Sam Michaels catapulted the issue to that of top priority.

In the most “manly” business in the world, built around physical strength that is supposed to represent the macho alpha males of the world, coming out only months before the draft is a very risky decision.

However, the news and sports media attention has been more positive than many would have expected. This could in fact be at the fault of his risky decision. Being the first male to come out, gain Michael’s a title of courage and bravery.

Many teams have released statements of support for Michaels.

New York Giants owner John Mara said:

“As Patrick Burke and Wade Davis constantly remind all of us, regardless of who you are, what your background is and what your personal or sexual orientation is, if you can play, you can play. Michael’s announcement will not affect his position on our draft board.”

The question of how the NFL will react remains a mystery for now, but it’ll be hard for one of the largest and most influential businesses to support any direction other than in that of the modern change. The entire business will need to reposition itself but, in order for the business to progress, it must be progressive.

Late night hosts announce departures

Posted on April 15, 2014 by Taylor Hoff

By TAYLOR HOFF

Last week the entertainment world was left gasping when two of their best comedians announced departures from their beloved networks.

David Letterman, a long-time favorite around the world, told the public he will be retiring from his “Last Night” show on CBS.

In addition, the first and possibly most successful female comedy show host, Chelsea Handler, shocked the public with her exodus from the E! Network.

The perfect timing seems to be causing suspicion.

Before Letterman’s announced retirement, Handler has reportedly shot down CBS’s offer to take over Craig Ferguson’s 12:30 a.m. slot. However, after the retirement of Letterman, Handler is supposedly back in consideration with CBS.

This possibility has caused a lot of media attention.

If Handler does take this position, she will become the first female late-night show host, since Cynthia Garrett’s short stint in 2000-01.

Controversy arose in two forms. One direction, is the fear that if Handler leaves the E! Network, and neglects to take a late night job at CBS, she is leaving the late night field completely male dominated.

Another direction of controversy in the media is that of ancient perspective. Many people have expressed their dismay of a woman taking over this previously male heavy field. They fear she will add too much sex appeal to the show. And her raunchy personality, opening up fairly easily about her drug and alcohol abuse, may be too much for this broadcast network.

Is it okay that people in this day and age are still forming their opinions over someone’s sex?

Whether or not, the fulfillment of Letterman’s position, be Handler, or Howard Stern, or any other man, will no doubt be a large topic of media attention.

James Franco scandal: Publicity stunt?

Posted on April 5, 2014 by Clara Bendayan

By CLARA BENDAYAN

It’s no surprise that one’s privacy is becoming almost non-existent in this social media day and age.

Celebrities, especially, face major issues with their privacy being violated as there are paparazzi on virtually every corner waiting to snap a shot of their daily activities — no matter how trivial.

Many celebrities try to maintain private lives and tend to not divulge much personal information to the news media. However, some are known for their attention-seeking nature and try to pull publicity stunts to garner more fame.

This seems to be the question with the latest story involving a celebrity and a social media woe that has been unfolding for the past two days.

Actor James Franco, 35, allegedly exchanged phone conversations with a 17-year-old Scottish girl asking her to meet him at a hotel in New York.

Images of the phone conversation surfaced online shortly thereafter, as the girl was eager to share the evidence of conversing with a celebrity, placing Franco in a very awkward and unwanted position.

Screenshots of the Instagram video that fueled the scandal (Photo courtesy of HollywoodLife).

She’s since then deleted all of her social media accounts, no doubt due to the overwhelming attention she’s been receiving thanks to this scandal. However, pictures of the leaked conversation are still swirling around the Web.

Their interaction reportedly began when the Scottish teen, Lucy Clode, met Franco outside of his Broadway show, “Of Mice & Men.” She took an Instagram video of him and he reportedly told her to “tag him.”

They exchanged messages where Franco allegedly asked her how old she was, when her 18th birthday was, and what hotel she was staying at.

Franco then appeared on “Live! With Kelly and Michael” on Friday night and addressed the scandal.

One of the leaked conversations via Instagram. (Photo courtesy of HollywoodLife)

“I mean I guess, you know, I’m embarrassed, and I guess I’m just a model of, you know, how social media is tricky,” said James Franco. “It’s a way people meet each other today. But what I’ve learned I guess just because I’m new to it is like, you don’t know who’s on the other end. You meet somebody in person and you get a feel for them but you don’t know who you’re talking to, and, you know? So I used bad judgment. I learned my lesson.”

The final question here is if this was a publicity stunt or if Franco actually used bad judgement and became another victim of social media. On the same day that the scandal occurred, the official trailer for his new film, “Palo Alto” hit the Web. Some people think it’s ironic that both things happened on the same day, leading many to believe that it’s a hoax for publicity.

Regardless of the final verdict, this incident clearly exemplifies the darker, more negative side of social media. Once something is released through social media, it’s irretrievable. Although the teen erased her social media accounts, the leaked conversations and photos exchanged are plastered all over the web, and it seems like this incident won’t be long soon forgotten.

Coverage of Ultra lacks details

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Nicole Lopez-Alvar

By NICOLE LOPEZ-ALVAR

In 2013, about two dozen young adults were hospitalized after attending Ultra Music Festival in downtown Miami — but the media refused to cover these instances.

While rumors of overdoses, deaths and injuries rotate among numerous social media websites every year during Ultra Music Festival, no major news corporations seem to cover such events.

In order to find out whether the rumors are true, local Miami news organizations such as Miami New Times, investigated into the matter. Reporters discovered that Miami Fire Rescue did not have full information in regards to the matter other than that out of the 44 placed calls to 911, only 24 people were taken to the hospital. According to the Miami New Times:

“Police arrested 167 people at Ultra this year [in 2013], primarily for narcotics and gatecrashing. (Last year [in 2012], there were 78 arrests during the three-day event, 45 of them for narcotics, and more than 60 people were injured last year [in 2012].”

While these statistics are valid, they are not covered by the media nearly enough. People from the ages of 15 to 40 are attending this festival and many are doing so blindly of the health and safety risks the event entails. From the lack of transportation and water, to the non-existent cellular data service and overcrowding, the festival can be more dangerous than people think.

Yet, every year, thousands of electronic music fans from around the world continue to purchase $400 tickets for a three-day weekend where they most likely will get more sweat from surrounding attendees jumping to the beats of the music than they bargained for.

This weekend, March 28-30, there will most likely be ambulances on the festival grounds, but even more alarming will be the lack of reporters on the scene to document it.