What is your favorite newspaper front page? Why? 
I liked the Booster Redux Newspaper from Pittsburg High School the best because it looks professional and has an interesting yet still subtle visual on the cover. They also strategically placed the most compelling and outrageous story, "The Naked Truth" on the front cover, in which a student talks about their consequences for distributing naked pictures. I would read it, it caught my attention.

Which paper immediately grabbed your interest? Why? 
The "Viking Saga" grabbed my interest immediately with the unbelievably horrible animated cover and terrifying comic sans font that made it look like it was the cover of a really bad pamphlet about bullying from 1999. I hate it and also love it because of how much I hate it, but I'm assuming that's not what they're going for.

What is your favorite headline from that newspaper? Why are you interested in it? My favorite headline is "A Primer on Memes", which is probably the most ridiculous headline I've ever heard of, especially considering how outdated all of the memes they talk about are. This newspaper is a literal joke and not in any way capable of being taken seriously. It still caught my attention though, so that's something.

How many stories are on the front page of your favorite? 
3 stories were on the cover of my favorite one, the Booster Redux paper, and all of them looked really compelling and relevant.

What do you notice that all newspaper front pages have in common? Look at design, size of photos, size of story text, etc.
They actually varied quite a bit, as some of them were really far from being traditional newspaper covers. Some of the covers were just one huge picture with a single headline. Some of them mimicked a magazine cover and just put a picture in which they listed all of the stories inside of the issue. This style was probably the most prevalent one, though definitely not the most effective or professional looking. The only thing that was consistent through all of them was that they all had the name of the paper accompanied by a logo on the front cover.

What are things that vary (or are different) on the front pages of different newspapers? Look at design, size of photos, size of headlines, etc. 
As I talked about before, the size of headlines and front cover pictures varied a lot, as some were more traditional style newspapers with one or two medium sized headlines accompanied by a few stories, and some were more like magazine covers. Some had huge pictures to go with the stories that dominated the whole page, and some had smaller pictures to accompany the individual stories.


Were these similar to what you saw last class when you looked at daily newspapers from around the world? 

Current Events Quiz 6.2

1. If Secretary Jack Lew's proposal goes through, Harriet Tubman, a black woman and former abolitionist, will replace the slave-owning white man, Andrew Jackson, on the face of the 20 dollar bill. He also proposed adding women to the $5 and $10 bills, but the law decided instead to keep Alexander Hamilton on the 10 partly as a result of the broadway rap musical, Hamilton, that puts him in quite a positive light in the public eye. This proves that musical theatre may have significant cultural power, especially when extremely effective and well-done. (I was lucky enough to actually see it on Broadway and it's pretty incredible, and that's coming from someone who's not usually a big musical theatre fan). The compromise that is being offered is that Lincoln and Hamilton stay on the 5 and 10 dollar bills on the front, but they are planning on putting influential women on the back, including Marian Anderson and Eleanor Roosevelt, two women who historically advocated for black rights. These are incredibly important steps for women and the black community, and even though it may seem insignificant for some, representation is incredibly important in order to humanize black women especially. The new designs, if approved, will take into effect around 2020.

2. More issues in the Flint water crisis have emerged, with felony charges being filed against 3 officials involved in covering up evidence and mishandling the situation to an insane degree. Rockind, a defense attorney, calls this a rare case as officials rarely face legal action for essentially just being bad at their job. Busch and Prysby, state officials, made some essential mistakes, such as telling people to run their water before they were tested for lead poisoning, and are now facing huge legal threats. Yikes!

3. Clinton and Trump's campaigned have been apparently "invigorated" as Clinton has 81% of the delegates she needs, so even if she lost very remaining "contest", as long as she gains a few more delegates (which she is bound to do) she has pretty much secured the nomination. After Sander's surprising loss in New York, he unfortunately has a very low chance of securing the nomination, but still plans to campaign at the Pennsylvania Democratic convention. Trump is still in the lead, but he needs 1,237 more delegates, and must focus on winning the rest of the New England states and California. Though he still has a ways to go, at this point Cruz has no mathematical potential to win the public vote, but he's hoping to be saved at the convention and is gathering up delegates who might shift their support to him. Trump's familiar argument that he discussed yet again was the fact that his competitors are trying to "buy" the election with delegates. The ridiculous amount of hypocrisy in this statement is honestly unbelievable coming from Trump, but I shouldn't be surprised. Tuesday is a big day for the candidates as Connecticut, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island are holding their primaries.

4. The Teachers Union has sued the head of the state education agency because they have implemented a new evaluation system which evaluates teachers based on student's performances on standardized tests, which they feel is not at all an accurate depiction of the teacher's effectiveness.

Current Events Quiz 5.2 

1. Detectives and forensic scientists have discovered that Weiser was sexually assaulted and died due to strangulation. They have a prime suspect, a homeless 17 year old man, who is being held in jail. The sources were the police, but they preferred to remain anonymous. I’m assuming that this is because they felt that it was important to share this information with the public but weren’t technically allowed to talk about it. I think so many people are talking about this story because it’s been so long since there was a murder on campus, so it’s especially scary and out of the blue.
2. Hired.com found that 69% of the time, males receive more money than women at the same tech company. Hired.com gives people an opportunity to get an insider view of the tech industry online while seeking jobs, as women have lower wage expectations. One cause that they state for this salary inequity is that women “undersell themselves”, causing employers to believe they can get away with paying them less. It doesn’t change my point of view much, as I already assumed that companies like this would have salary inequity, but it doesn’t make it any less unfair. I do think they could’ve made the article more interesting, as it’s a really important subject, but it did end up coming across stale and almost like an advertisement for hired.com.
3. Pat McCrory, who signed the controversial bill in North Carolina preventing transgender people from using public restrooms, recently signed an executive order altering the bill to cover LGBT+ discrimination issues in the workplace. The ACLU responded by claiming that McCrory’s alteration was an attempt to make himself look better after intense criticism. In protest of the bill, PayPal, Deutsche Bank, the NBA, and Bruce Springsteen have all threatened to drop or cancel events, which would definitely pressure McCrory to change something to avoid further scrutinization.
4. According to UNICEF, terrorist group Boko Haram has been using more child suicide bombers than ever. Because of this, people have began to distrust children and become threatened by them. Experts on the subject refuse to call the attacks "suicides", as children have no way of possibly being old enough to understand the missions and be genuinely willing to sacrifice their lives for their ideals they are too young to understand. Boko Haram has aligned itself with al-Qaida because both of their goals is to create an Islamic caliphate, but the Boko Haram is location in Nigera, while al-Qaida is based in the Middle East. According to a new Mercy Corps report, many people join the Boko Haram for financial reasons.
5. The article that caught my eye was "Some Democrats Accuse Sanders Supporters of Harassing Delegates". It's a short and concise article, which basically just quickly elaborates on the topic in the clear headline. Some Bernie Sanders supporters have voiced their issues with the super-delegate system and its unfairness, and have decided to take action by developing a website which releases said delegates' contact information and encourages people to reach out to them and try and change their points of view, or "harass them", as the creator said. The article was fine, and it stayed relatively neutral and delivered the information clearly and accurately.
6. Even though I have little to no context for any of this sports information due to a purposeful avoidance of sports-related news, I appreciated the way he set this up. He provided sufficient information and observations, and the "story-line" segment gave really good background information so that even a complete sports-novice like me could understand and gain some context. The fact that he broke up the column into little concise sections was great for the reader, as one can just choose their section of particular interest out easily without having to sort through a lot of information they're not interested in. It provides all the essential information while also avoiding it being stiff and just stats. A+.

My “Best” Day in “Sports”

By Grace Schmidhauser
I waddled onto the vast field, prepared for battle, equipped in my armor consisting of oversized knee pads, shin pads, tiny cleats, and of course, my Marble Falls Girl’s soccer jersey. I was 4 years old and approximately four feet and two inches tall, but nevertheless extremely determined. I was ready to WIN, against all odds, no matter what. Five goals were to be scored, by me and nobody else. The other team was going to be demolished. Flashback to five minutes earlier- my hulking and somewhat buff leader, a retired Marble Falls High School football coach who now coached a band of fiery four year old girls kicking around a soccer ball with great ferocity, gave me a seemingly light hearted pump up speech intended to fire me up for the upcoming game. “You can do it, Grace! You can score FIVE goals if you want to!” He told me earnestly. “You can win this for us, let’s do it!”, he encouraged me. See, I had never scored a goal before, as I wasn’t exactly destined for the World Cup (The fact that I had to google what “that big soccer game thing” is proves just how athletically compelled I truly am), but this speech had me determined as ever. I was going to win! I was going to score FIVE WHOLE GOALS. I would be worshipped, the hero of the Marble Falls Youth Soccer League. So I marched onto the field, my strawberry blond pigtails flowing in the wind, ready to own that field.

And I succeeded, to a certain extent. I kicked that ball with all of the strength I could possibly conjure up in my miniscule feet, and managed to slip 3 goals past the other team’s similarly tiny goalie. The team had won, victory was ours! The other little girls high-fived each other in satisfaction, but my attitude was a little bit different. Instead of jumping up and down with glee, I was sobbing uncontrollably. I ran up to my mom, tears streaming down my cheeks, staring up at her utterly confused face. “Sweetie, what’s wrong? You won! You scored three whole goals!” She told me, still completely puzzled. How dare she? ‘Three whole goals’, a phrase that stung my ego to its core. I explained the obvious to her, that I was supposed to score not three measly goals, but FIVE glorious goals. I was devastated, convinced that I had sabotaged the team’s glory and failed my leader and my teammates. My coach was equally as puzzled at this inconsolable four year old child, and upon my mother explaining my dilemma, he attempted to explain to me that he didn’t mean that I literally had to score five goals, and that the three that I had made were perfectly respectable. I’m sure I continued to cry for a while after this, but I eventually settled down and recovered from this humiliating failure.

I didn’t pursue a career in sports, despite my obvious potential for athletic excellence, due to an extreme aversion to any sort of sweating, but my competitiveness has not faltered in the 12 years since this event occurred. This competitive energy has manifested in many different ways, whether it be in my grades, my musical interests, or beating my little brother in arm wrestling, and I’ve continued to be known to get violently fired up over pretty much anything, especially in conversations regarding feminism and social justice. It has worked against me on occasion, but as I’ve grown up I’ve tried to learn to use it as a positive tool to motivate myself to live up to my potential and work to reach my goals, and my competitiveness has definitely worked in my favor in many ways. I feel lucky to be passionate about things, a skill that my surprisingly athletic family has taught me through countless half-comprehensible sports analogies, along with endless support. I've learned never to settle for anything less than that fifth goal, whatever that may be, if that's what I really want. Passion is necessary for success in any area of life, whether it be in little league soccer or music or the classroom, and lessons can be learned in unlikely places, including but not limited to that god forsaken Marble Falls soccer field.

Finding the Flaw- Is it with the NFL or the Times?

Matters like this are usually complicated and subjective, and this instance is no exception. The Times did publish an article full of insinuations and implications and not many hard facts, but a journalist's job is to question everything and make people think a bit. The direct connections that they are claiming that the NFL has with the tobacco industry are a bit stretched, and the evidence seems to be a bit unclear and unstable. This being said, it was a well written and thoroughly researched article, and though it could have potentially contained more hard facts, the Times did not claim that their implications were absolute fact, they were simply speculating. I do understand why the NFL would be outraged at their accusations, especially because they tied them to the Tobacco industry, which is arguably the most detested industry in the country, rightfully so. However, I do not think that the NFL is justified in demanding that the Times retract the story. It's their right to speculate, and the damage that the article has done wouldn't just disappear even if they did retract the story. Plus, it makes one wonder why the NFL is being so defensive and freaking out if they're truly following procedure and acting in the most ethical way in regards to concussions. Hmmmmmmm......

Sports Writing Outline

Storyline: The element of the story that keeps it going, and keeps it interesting.

• Should address significance of the event, play, or player.
• Should be slightly dramatic for effect.

Context: The facts!

• Should offer important details about the game itself, this info is known as a “nut graph”.
• Nut Graph should contain:
  - Who played
  - Where the team played
  - The date
  - What the final score was
• Important info is usually within the lede

Quotes: Excerpts from insightful interviews with coaches and players

• Speak with participants from both teams so that readers get the full story.
• Get reaction quotes!
• Also get quotes w analysis

Key Plays: important moments from the game!

• Keep detailed notes accounting for the score at any given moment
• Determine exactly how they scored the points.
• Don’t make the mistake of ignoring action from earlier in the game.
• Use plays that might exemplify how a certain player is doing.

Key Statistics:

• Don’t offer too many statistics so that it isn’t dry.
• Compare stats from each half or quarter.