Blog Post #12

The Online Experience of A "Zellennial"

    First, let us start by defining a "zellennial". Every generation has had a category and a label that they fall into. You have The Silent Generation which is anyone born in 1945 and before. Then there were the Baby Boomers who were born from 1946-1964. Then came Generation X from 1965-1976. Then finally the millennials that are from 1977-1995. Lastly is Generation Z (my generation) which is from 1996-2015

   

    Every generation has specific characteristics that are attributed to them, so when people who are in that generation don't fall into those characteristics and traits they get put into micro generations. I fall into one of those. I am a "zellennial" which means I am an older member of Gen Z but not old enough to be a millennial. I grew up without an iPhone but have had one long enough to be very familiar with the internet.

    When I was growing up the internet was still new and scary in a lot of ways. We were taught that you should never put out personal information and that behind every single profile picture was a creepy pedophile trying to seduce us into being kidnapped. If you ever had to share information, you lie. So I think the way the generations interact with the internet is changing and how much we share changes too.

                                       

    I have social media and I use it frequently. But I don't have a personal website unless you count this blog account and everything that is being posted on it has been for class and heavily edited to be school appropriate and covers what is being asked of me to write about. 

    

    I use one social media site the most. That is Instagram, which is the one that I spend the most time on. I also have Twitter, Snapchat, and youtube. I don't post on any of those apps very often but I am constantly looking at them and seeing what is happening. I think that the younger people in my generation weren't taught about some of the aspects of keeping some of life off the internet. I've seen some people just post every single thought that goes through their heads. 

    I try to keep some stuff close to the chest when it comes to personal information. I know that I am linked to my Spotify page where you can see the podcast that I created. But I'm not dumb enough to imagine that there is no possible way for people to find information about me off of my account. I know that I have pictures of me in my uniform so people could easily figure out where I went high school and by proxy where I live ish. 

    

    Sites that have you sign up for them using all of your information make me nervous, why do you need all that information just for me to buy a shirt. But at the same time, I will happily sign up for text chains that send out discounts for stores that I use frequently. I throughout my life have become less and less worried about what is on the internet and can be traced back to me. When honestly I should be more careful now that more of my information is important to keep safe. 

    

    The is no perfect social media in this world. I think to try and pretend that there is a way to create one is to ignore the human issue that we all deal with. I don't think that social media is inherently bad but also not inherently good. I use social media all the time to keep in touch with people in a way that means I don't have to directly keep in touch within the same way I would if I had to text or call every day.

    But also it can be so hard to use social media and not see other people having what seems to be a better day, week, or life than you. I know I had a lot of trouble when I was younger seeing girls who were so much prettier and way more successful than me. As I grew up I finally started to understand how people curate their image on social media.

    As I grew up I learned more. But for some people, it is not that easy and it can be damaging, but it's the same as when girls were forced to look at magazine ads with severely edited women and told that that is what they should look like. There has always been pressure placed upon youths to look a certain way because that's how the fashion industry attracts people to them. "If you buy this shirt or this product, you will finally be pretty". I think everything would be healthier if we just started being more honest about our lives. But now that there is the push for more transparency and authenticity with people on the internet, I think we are moving toward a healthier outlook on social media.

Sources

https://www.marketingcharts.com/digital/social-media-110652

https://www.voguebusiness.com/consumers/gen-z-reinventing-social-media-marketing-tiktok-youtube-instagram-louis-vuitton

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/

Extra Blog Post

The Facebook Dilemma

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/facebook-dilemma/

    

    Looking at how rare it is for a business model to explode as Facebook did is a great way to understand where we can find some of the shortcomings that are now becoming a huge problem for the company. This is one of the most populated social media sites of all time. And I'm sure if you went and asked Mark Zuckerberg about it he would tell you that he had no idea that it was ever going to be this big. But the problem arises when your model is about collecting as much data as you can, but your security isn't keeping up with it. Facebook's model is based on collecting as much user data as possible so that they can better cater to what you want to see. That way you want to keep scrolling because the things you are seeing are built for you to want to see. 

    But when the business model is creating portfolios on every person that uses your product, you should have a good way to protect them. Instead, Facebook has made their model selling the data off to the highest bidder. Opening people up to some dangerous targeting and shows where the flaws are in the business model of Facebook, which is now a big enough corporation that it owns other social media sites. So even if you think you don't use Facebook, you probably use one of its branches like Instagram. It is scary how much information and power social media has in the lives of everyday people. To have such a huge company not be keeping up or worse not trying to keep up with the new threats that are present within their product is scary and dangerous. 

    The Facebook Dilemma talks to people who were there at the beginning and have seen the growth of this company. They have an understanding of what Facebook is and also isn't doing to protect the people using them. Watching how some of them talked about the company gave me the same feeling I get when I watch episodes of black mirror. I have the overwhelming urge to hurl all my electronics into the ocean and go completely off-grid. The future of technology is ever-evolving and that can be a scary thing to think about sometimes.

Blog Post #11

Write a post about what you learned from a different team.

Illusory Truth Effect

    The illusory truth effect is a communication technique that explains why we believe things that are proven false. The effect occurs when we hear things repeated enough times that the information becomes more believable. When we hear something enough, the information becomes more and more cemented in our heads that it is true. This is how a lot of superstitions and wives' tales get passed down as well. You hear enough times that not wearing a jacket when it is raining will get you sick and, it no longer matters if it is true or not because you believe it.

    This effect is particularly helpful for political campaigns. Sharing information and having more and more people take it as a fact can change how a candidate is viewed by the people. But it can also be dangerous. If enough people believe misinformation, it can be hard to correct that information. We have to be careful how we use this information if you are purposely spreading misinformation. There needs to be a level of understanding about the level of harm you could potentially cause and also the repercussions that can come from the information.

    Communication techniques are all about selling things and sharing information. But you have to be careful about how you share the information. Being a communication professional means knowing how to maneuver all of the information and the techniques used to win people over. You want to share your information without hurt other people. 

Blog Post #9

Privacy

We share so much on the internet, especially the newer generations that were raised using it. They have had it for so long that they forget some of the rules older generations were taught. The levels of mistrust that were around when the internet was a new creation, has slowly but surely subsided as more people join the internet and it becomes more and more entwined with our lives. I remember when I was growing up, everywhere I looked there was some warning about the danger of strangers on the internet. Things like making sure you never gave out any personal details about yourself. Or if you had to give out any personal information make sure it was the bare minimum and that it was generic as possible.

But now these younger kids are happy to put so much of their information out for everyone to see because that same stigma that was around earlier on in the development of the internet isn't around anymore. Listening to the ted talk Darieth Chisolm gave where she talks about how she was the victim of revenge porn is heartbreaking. This is something that people now have to deal with more and more. But sadly the government and lawmakers haven't been keeping up so far. People need to be protected from other people on the internet. It's not just pictures, it can also be basic information like phone numbers and addresses.

People share information without even realizing it sometimes. You could tell a story about yourself and the details can make it so easy to find out where you live. Or just having your phone number can make your life so difficult. The problem is that in life people are always going to be awful in a lot of ways. So, now what we need is for lawmakers to start focusing on the language of laws also extend to the internet. We need laws that make stalking on the internet a serious crime and protect the people that are being affected by it. Same as revenge porn, this is a serious crime and we need more clear language to protect people on the internet.

https://www.ted.com/talks/darieth_chisolm_how_revenge_porn_turns_lives_upside_down 

https://dspace2.creighton.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10504/125944/CLR_53-1.pdf 

Blog Post #10

Doxing and Swatting

How to be a Jerk from home

Doxing

What is doxing?

    Doxing is the act of publicly revealing previously private personal information about an individual or organization, usually through the Internet. Methods employed to acquire such information include searching publicly available databases and social media websites, hacking, and social engineering

    Doxing allows people to gain access to a lot of personal data. Things like addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, anything that would be kept private by the owner of the information. The concept of sharing information that was meant to be kept private has existed long before the internet was even a thing. But the term doxing became popular in the '90s with the emergence of hackers.

    Rival hackers would drop docs on each other when they would get into fights over the internet. It has now grown to just mean anyone who shares the information of someone else. Well-known people are the most in danger with doxing. When people are upset at the celebrity or journalist, they will release their information and open them up to the danger of possible death threats or stalkers. 

Is it legal?

    So, we know that it can open people up to dangerous situations, so it must be illegal right? For the most part no. Even though anyone being doxed could potentially get injured or even killed in some circumstances, there are not enough laws that protect people when they are doxed. In the United States, there are currently two federal laws that could potentially address the problem of doxing: the Interstate Communications Statute and the Interstate Stalking Statute. 

    But both of those don't have enough specific language to help people who have been doxed. The Interstate Communications Statute, for example, "only criminalizes explicit threats to kidnap or injure a person." But in many instances of doxing, a doxer may never convey an explicit threat to kidnap or injure, but the victim could still have good reason to be terrified. 

    The Interstate Stalking Statute "is rarely enforced and it serves only as a hollow protection from online harassment." To demonstrate let's look at the fact that over three million people are stalked over the internet each year, yet only three people are charged under the Interstate Stalking Statute.

Swatting

What is swatting?

    Swatting is a harassment tactic that involves calling the authorities and making a false report of something dangerous enough to warrant a swat team response. The person making the call will often say that they are involved or nearby as a witness to a home invasion, active shooter, or hostage situation, attempting to muster the largest response possible. This originated from the bomb threats of the '70s. Those calls were made to incite as much panic as possible in public areas, like airports or hospitals. As the ways to conceal the caller's identity became more sophisticated, so did the calling.

    Swatting can be costly at best and deadly in some circumstances. To mobilize a swat team to respond to a call can cost up to $10,000, all of which is to be paid for by the people of that city or county. But some scenarios go a lot worse. 

    

    In 2015, in Washita County, in Oklahoma, dispatchers received 911 calls from someone who identified himself as Dallas Horton and told dispatchers he had placed a bomb in a local preschool. The Deputies and Sentinel Police Chief Louis Ross entered Horton's residence by force. Ross, who was wearing a bulletproof vest, was shot several times by Horton. Further investigation revealed that the calls did not originate from the home and led Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agents to believe Horton was unaware that it was law enforcement officers making entry. James Edward Holly confessed to investigators that he made the calls with two "nonfunctioning" phones because he was angry with Horton. Ross, who was shot multiple times in the chest and arm, was injured but was treated for his injuries and released from a local hospital.

    But that was a lucky scenario believe it or not. In 2017 a man named Andrew Finch was shot and killed by a police officer entering his home. A series of screenshotted Twitter posts helped to give the Wichita Eagle enough information to suggest that Finch was the unintended victim of the swatting after two Call of Duty: WWII players who had gotten into a heated argument about a $1.50 bet. On December 29, 2017, the Los Angeles Police Department arrested 25-year-old serial swatter Tyler Raj Barriss, known online as "SWAuTistic" and on Xbox Live as "GoredTutor36," in connection with the incident. In 2018, Barriss was indicted by a federal grand jury along with two others involved in the incident. According to U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister, the false hoax charge carries a maximum punishment of life in federal prison while other charges carry sentences of up to 20 years. On March 29, 2019, Barriss was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. The gamer that recruited Barriss in the bet plead guilty to felony charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice, and was sentenced to prison for 15 months as well as a two-year ban on playing video games.

Is it legal?

    While doxing is technically illegal but hard to prosecute and only cover by vague and underutilized laws. Swatting has a lot more language about it. In the United States, swatting can be prosecuted through federal criminal statutes using some of the language like:

• "Threatening interstate communications"
• "Conspiracy to retaliate against a witness, victim, or informant"
• "Conspiracy to commit access device fraud and unauthorized access of a protected computer"
• An accomplice may be found guilty of "conspiring to obstruct justice"
• In California, callers bear the "full cost" of the response which can range up to $10,000

But the big problem that is happening is the retaliation that lawmakers experience once they start introducing legislation to stop swatting and doxing. For example:

    In 2011, California State Senator Ted Lieu wrote a bill that would increase penalties for swatting. His own family then became a victim of swatting when the bill was proposed. A dozen police officers, along with firefighters and paramedics surrounded his family home.

    In 2015 a New Jersey State Assemblyman Paul D. Moriarty announced a bill to increase sentences for hoax emergency calls and was then targeted by a hoax. The bill proposed prison sentences of up to ten years and fines of $150,000.

    A 2015 bipartisan bill in Congress sponsored by Katherine Clark and Patrick Meehan made swatting a federal crime with increased penalties. Congresswoman Clark wrote an op-ed in The Hill saying that 2.5 million cases of cyberstalking between 2010 and 2013 had only resulted in 10 cases prosecuted, although a source for this was not provided. As revenge for the bill, an anonymous caller fraudulently called police to Rep. Clark's house on January 31, 2016.

Doxing 

• https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=3b4e1d52-f4b8-4906-9481-4020c9b64bd8 

• https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/what-is-doxing

• https://dspace2.creighton.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10504/125944/CLR_53-1.pdf 

Swatting

• https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/30/us/swatting-what-is-explained

• https://www.911.gov/pdf/National_911_Program_Public_Safety_Information_Swatting_2015.pdf

• https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/6003

 

Blog Post #8

The Rise and Fall of Vine

The Rise and Fall of Vine

    Vine came out in 2013 and was a weird smash hit in the eyes of corporate America. No one would have guessed that an app that only allowed people to records six-second videos with their back camera would be popular in any way other than a rip-off of Instagram. Just allow for a quick snapshot of a person's life. But it was found that the constricted time of the videos allowed for a lot more creativity from the users.

    Vine took off soon after, as more users began to join the app. The fast-paced filming process allowed for quick humor and one-liners that could cement themselves in pop culture. By 2015 the app had almost 200 million active users. It appealed to young people and young people appeal to advertisers. The app was great for corporations to advertise as they were able to reach young people through the popular users on the app.

    But then it became stagnant, a lot of the users that were on it had started to go to other platforms, like Instagram. With the amount of change that other apps were experiencing, there was no way for Vine to keep up. Instagram added videos and Snapchat added a group tab that allowed people to share with everyone. Vine just couldn't keep up, and they weren't able to bring in more people to the app. 

    Now the people that had helped make the app so popular were starting to leave to greener pastures. Newer features to well-known platforms meant that they could be doing the same thing as Vine with a little more leeway. There was no longer a pull to have them join Vine.

    For the most part, the app was positive on the social mediascape.  The people that they had on the app used the short time frame of filming to make quick, witty comedy that was easy to have seep into the pop culture. Now it did do some bad as well, it made some awful people famous to children. I can't help but wonder if the world would be a better place if people like David Dobrik and Logan Paul weren't famous. But its hard to look back on something that I grew up loving, with anything other than the rose colored glasses.

    Vine will live on in youtube compilations, but the app itself has been gone for a couple years now. Even though it is gone, it has had an effect on all of the other social media platforms that it came in contact with. 

https://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/what-happened-vine/ 

https://www.businesschief.com/technology-and-ai/rise-and-fall-vine-brief-timeline-1

https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/28/13456208/why-vine-died-twitter-shutdown

Blog Post #6 EOTO

Fax Machine

History

    The Fax Machine was originally invented in 1843 by Alexander Bain. As to be expected with the technology of the time it was nothing like the fax machines of today. Bain used a series of "pendulums" and a "clock" to scan the document line by line. It was then transferred over, and the image was reproduced. It took a long time and the quality of the reproduction wasn't great, but it was a feat by the standards of the time.

   Then Frederick Bakewell took that design and modified it to use “rotating cylinders” and a “stylus” to create the faxes. His design appeared at the World's Fair in London in 1851. While it was not a huge hit, it did gain some curious eyes and it would go on to serve as the blueprint for the fax machines to come

   In the late 1860s, Giovanni Caselli had created the Pantelegraph. It was a huge hit and would become the basis for the modern-day fax machine. But the modern fax machine would not even begin to take off until almost a century later.

   One of the next big steps that would occur was in 1964 when the company Xerox would create the Long Distance Xerograph (LDX), which had the capabilities of faxing a single sheet of paper to any fax machine in the world. It took about six minutes for the document to send, but it was a huge step forward and would remain at the forefront of faxing until a Japanese telecommunications corporation created the “ITU G3 Facsimile Standard” in 1980.

   In the '80s and '90s, there was a huge rise in the usage of analog fax machines. With the analog fax machines, you only had to plug into a phone line and the fax machines worked. This was great in the time before the internet had taken off. This allowed companies to send anything they needed without the internet, which was still pretty new at the time. But the costs to keep them up and running were getting higher and higher, so companies struggled to keep up with them.

  Mixing and adding other functions to the fax machine was supposed to help with the costs, but in a lot of cases, it didn't help at all. The prices got larger and were not sustainable for most companies. 

Disappearance

    As the internet began to grow in popularity, it became a lot more readily available. It was a much cheaper experience to use the internet services instead of all of the machinery. Fax machines are still around and are in use, but there are new ways to send faxes. Anytime you use your phone to send a picture and send it with the signature, you are sending a fax in a new way. The need to send documents is one that has existed since documents have, and it will continue forever with businesses especially. But technology is constantly expanding and adding the functions of one thing into something else. So, as fax machines begin to disappear, it isn't that we don't need fax machines but it is that we have added them to other technologies.

        

Link to Presentation

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1C6Vjk-jcChtdjMCxQ5v3W2KyfzH4IXxh2-f-Tqi0m54/edit?usp=sharing

References

https://www.efax.com/blog/brief-history-of-the-fax-machine#1

https://www.explainthatstuff.com/faxmachines.html#:~:text=A%20fax%20machine%20is%20designed,only%20in%20black%20and%20white.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/faxing-is-old-tech-so-why-is-it-also-growing-in-popularity/2019/03/08/d01c638a-2f0b-11e9-86ab-5d02109aeb01_story.html

Blog Post #7

EOTO Blog Post
Homing Pigeons

    Back in the time of Ancient Greece, the homing pigeons were used to announce the winners of the Olympic Games. The homing pigeons have been used forever, there are even stories that date back to the time of Noah's ark. But where they held the most important was in war correspondences. With coded messages that were being sent, being vulnerable to interception they had a better way of getting the letter where they needed to go by using the homing pigeons.

  The group told the story about a homing pigeon that was shot and still managed to get the letter that they were entrusted with to the people they were supposed to. That isn't something that happens with technology now. There is a certain reliance we have now that the technology will work when we ask it to. And now if it doesn't, we are high and dry sometimes. With things like homing pigeons, they are alive and can work outside of what they are expected to do.

  I had never thought of that aspect of the expansion of technology. But this presentation brings up interesting questions about technology and what changing it and moving forward means. Technology is ever moving forward and that change can mean a loss of somethings that are important to us.

Blog Post #5

                         

    We, as people who are protected by the First Amendment, are given rights that are protected. One of those rights is the freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is not just something that the individual needs to be able to express themselves and learn who they are and what they believe, it is also an important way to check on the government and see what they are doing. 

   There are eight values of free expression as a result of our freedom of speech. They are the Marketplace of Ideas, Participation in Self-Government, Stable Change, Individual Self-Fulfillment, Check on Governmental Power, Promote Tolerance, Promote Innovation and Protect Dissent.

   All of these values are important to the individual, and to take one of these away would hurt people and would change how our democracy works. One of the important ones is the value of Checking on Governmental Power, otherwise known as the Watchdog role.

  The Watchdog role is used with the freedom of the press to keep an eye on the government. Take a look at Watergate, one of the best examples of watchdog journalism. When the Washington Post was able to see a connection between the break-ins of the Watergate office and Nixon's re-election team, they broke the story. The publicity that this story gained was enough to make other areas of government, like the Justice Department and the FBI. 

    Without this freedom, we would not be allowed to do that, or we would have to worry about the government censoring things that they don't want to be known. This is one of the best ways we have to keep the government honest and doing what it is supposed to. Knowing that they are being watched and with the assumption that everything will come to light eventually can help with that. 

  One of the most important things that we have in the value of governmental checks is local news. They are the ones that are on the ground looking at what affects the people around them. They have the most skin in the game to care about what people need. They are the ones holding government officials accountable on local levels, making sure they are doing what they can to help people. 

   But local news is in danger, it is disappearing slowly but surely. They are being closed or taken over by bigger news sources and losing their ability to focus on the local problems like they used to before. In this article https://apnews.com/article/816b31f8571d4b759227e58c6252e99d, they talk about how the local papers and news can help bring a lot of transparency within the government. As all of these establishments are being closed or taken away this has a huge effect on the people in these towns who are becoming less and less aware of everything that is happening around them.

  They don't know what their government is doing, and with no one watching over the government's shoulder to make sure they are doing the right thing. The government now has a lot more free range to do as it pleases. The role of Watchdog Journalism and the Check on Governmental Power is so important to keep the government honest and making sure there is transparency in what happens to the people who aren't directly in government.

Blog Post #4

   

    I think one of the main reasons that a lot of these sites don't seem to have the same pull as the mainstream news does is the fact that the government like all other bodies in the world cares about their image. In the same way, a person wouldn't post a picture or let someone else post a picture of them, that painted them in a bad light, the government wants to avoid that too. Luckily for us, as individuals, we have the right to the freedom of the press and are allowed to search out other sources. That doesn't mean that they will be easy to find, but they are out there and the government can't do much to take them down, even if they don't like what is being said.

  We live in a time where the amount of information we have at our fingertips is unprecedented. With just a few clicks, we can have access to all the information we want. And yet in a lot of ways we have become compliant in what news we consume. We need to be better at not taking news at face value. Looking at other sources is the first step, there have been lesser-known sources that have been focusing on pointing out the "similar thinking" of major news sources. It can be seen in a lot of articles where they are written either similarly or in some cases the same, as in word for word. It is easy to take the word of only the mainstream media, but then you are only getting one side of any story. We as people need to look past that and find more than just those sources.

https://www.antiwar.com/

Blog Post #3

Think about the Six Clauses, or Six Freedoms, of the First Amendment and use the six freedoms as lenses as you read the news 

   So, the article that I read and included at the end of this blog post is talking about how the protest has helped to bring the issues of racial equality back to the forefront of people's minds. And that such a large push has made it impossible for politicians to ignore or attempt to brush under the rug. One of the Six Freedoms listed in the First Amendment is the right to peaceably assemble. When we talk about the protest, they were planned to be peaceful. The intention was and is to march and draw attention to the issues that are happening to people who call the United States home. 

    Another freedom, that is included in the First Amendment is the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. That is what the focus is on when the marches are happening. They are one of the best ways to bring the issues to the forefront of people's minds. The government needs to know that the people have a problem with what is going on and that the people care about having it be fixed.

  The First Amendment does not cover violent action or speech that can cause incitement to violence. So when we are talking about the protests, the marching is welcome and protected, but as soon as those fringe members moved over into destroying property, it was no longer protected. It had changed from a form of speech that is protected to action and a violent one at that. The First Amendment does not protect that at all.

https://www.democracynow.org/2021/1/27/biden_racial_equity_agenda_ash_lee

Blog Post #2

    

    I was surprised to hear that the average time for a Supreme Court Justice to serve was just 16 years. When you say things as they serve till death or retirement it is easy to imagine them serving for many years. They then go on to talk about how some of the justices go on to serve for at least twice that long. That can sometimes be decades after the president who appointed them to the chair in the Supreme Court has left office. That is so interesting to me because while they are supposed to be as impartial as possible when hearing and deciding cases, there can sometimes be slip-ups in that impartiality. So, even after the leadership has changed on some of the other branches, the Supreme Court could still be following the older guard when they are making their decisions.

    It was nice to hear them say that while presidents have always attempted to make the courts up in a way that they thought would benefit them, it hasn't always worked. Hearing that the justices went out of their way to assert their independence from the president who had nominated them goes a long way. The Supreme Court has power because it has respect for its interpretations of the Constitution. If there was fear that everything the court did was biased to who appointed them a lot of that respect would be lost. So, that acknowledgment of the power that they hold is important for the people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWRoXYRsaeo&feature=youtu.be

Blog Post #1 FIVE TOP SOURCES OF NEWS AND INFORMATION

FIVE TOP SOURCES OF NEWS AND INFORMATION

1. Fox- https://www.foxnews.com/

    One thing that I never want to be is stuck in an echo chamber. I think it is so dangerous for the growth of a person but also for someone involved in the world. If you are only seeing things that reaffirm what you already think, you aren't pushing yourself to be critical of the world around you. So, I try to read at least a little bit of news from both sides of the spectrum, to see what other people are saying about the same topics. See what they are saying and what I agree or disagree with. I think it helps me to have a better understanding of what is happening.

2. CNN- https://www.cnn.com/

    For the same reason I wrote about above I try to read CNN as well. They tend to be more left leaning and I feel like by reading the two of those, I get a better understanding of the real story and what is happening in the world. 

3. AP- https://apnews.com/

     I like reading the news put out by the AP because it is for the most part just the facts. They don't put a lot of spin on things and just report it as it happened. I feel like while it is the most boring way to read the news it helps to see where the news outlet put their own spin on things. If you can identify that, I think, reading the news gets a lot easier and more helpful as well.   

4. New York Times- https://www.nytimes.com/

    My dad was a journalist for the longest time and he always insisted that reading the paper was important. For as long as I can remember the New York Times has been delivered to our house and my dad used to insist that I read at least some part of it. As I got older I started reading more of it on my own and now I read it online because its the easiest way to read it.

5. BBC- https://www.bbc.com/news

    I think the BBC does a great job in covering foreign issues. I always go to them for what is happening around the world. I think it is well written and not super biased in the reporting, so there isn't as much of a hidden story like you can find with super biased reporting. When I was living abroad that was the best way for me to find out what was happening in my country I was living in, especially in my language.

About Mackenzie Martin

     Hi, I am Mackenzie Martin. I am a senior studying Strategic Communication with a minor in Event Management. I am from Brooklyn, New York and I plan to move back to either New York or another big city once I graduate. While my major is Strategic Communication, I have found that I am drawn toward the world of live events a lot more. For a long time I wanted to work in the entertainment world, that changed as I finished high school. So now I look forward to working alongside that world, a part of it but still separate.

     Last year before Covid sent us all home I was in the Radio Practicum and fell in love. So when we came back I reached out again with the intention of doing a freelance radio show with my roommate. When we were told that the radio station was now a podcast station, we quickly switched gears and created a podcast instead. We are really proud of it and even got our podcast on most streaming services. Now I am working to start a live podcast as well.

    One interesting thing about me is that I have a title and land in England. I am Lady Mackenzie Martin of Hougun Manor Cumbria England. So there are many sites on line and for Christmas this year, I bought me and my parents titles as a present. Now I'm working add my title to some of my documents and things.