The Occupy Movement's Attempt for Social and Economic Change

The Occupy movement has been getting a lot of media coverage. But not for the message it’s trying to convey to the world; social and economic change. Instead the media has been covering the police reaction to the protesters; violence. The media has been covering the violence taking place against the protesters. Police have used taser guns, tear gas, and pepper spray against the protesters. Images of such violence have been displayed from different media outlets. Nathan Jurgenson, a graduate assistant at University of Maryland thinks that the violence against the protesters is not justified. Nathan thinks that the violence being directed against the protesters shows the purpose of the movement; the inequality between people with power and people without.

I met with another graduate assistant at the University Maryland, PJ Rey. PJ believes that the Occupy Movement has been successful in getting their message across. He thinks that since people are now aware of the movement and its purpose that some change will occur.  

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The Occupy Movement main purpose is to inform people of the economic and social inequalities of the world. The movement started as Occupy Wall Street and has spread throughout the United States. Different groups have linked up with Occupy Wall Street to spread the message of the injustices taking place in the world. Occupy Wall Street was created to fight against the richest one percent of the world. The occupiers identify themselves as the 99 percent. Occupy Wall Street began on September 17, 2011 in New York. Since then the occupy movement has spread to over 100 different cities. Occupy Together is an organization affiliated with Occupy Wall Street.

Occupy DC
I met a few occupiers on Freedom Plaza in Washington D.C. Shawn Moppin explained the purpose of the Occupy Movement.

listen to ‘Shawn Moppin explains the Occupy Movement’ on Audioboo

The occupiers also gave me a tour of their camp. There were medical tents set up, a kitchen, an area to sanitize, bathroom area, meditation area. During the tour, the occupiers showed me a media tent where they notified people of the daily happenings of the movement. I found that interesting that they had a computer set up inside the tent, promoting the movement on Facebook. The use of social networks have been important to the Occupy Movement. The occupiers are able to spread their message on Twitter and Facebook and attract attention. The use of these social networks also make it easier for people to get in contact with the people involved in the movement and express their interest in wanting to help. The occupiers showed me the rules that all occupiers must follow at every Occupy camp.

While walking through the Occupy camp I noticed different signs with different messages on them. The occupiers in Washington D.C. just want to inform people of their movement and its purpose, in hopes to acquire some type of world change. The occupiers believe that the movement is just one step towards change. They are aware that in order for these changes to occur everyone must be informed. Moppin explained that they are open for any ideas to help with the movement to in order to help get their point across.

At Freedom Plaza in Washington D.C., the occupiers have a board set up with daily activities. Some of the activities consist of town meetings, traveling to meet with other occupiers to protest at certain Washington D.C locations. With the recent rain storms that occurred in the area, they were trying to recover from the storms. Some of the occupiers have been camped out for months. I met one occupier, Matthew Michael who has occupied at different camps; Pittsburgh and New York. He explained that though there may be different occupy movements going on in the world they all have one motive; end the social, economic, and environmental injustices. The occupiers noted that they participate in protests, marches, and hunger strikes. They are willing to do anything to get their message across the world as long as it’s not violent.

listen to ‘Matthew Michael of Occupy DC explains the purpose of the movement’ on Audioboo

If these are nonviolent protests, why are the police exerting violence? This is an issue that needs to be examined. If the protestors have been given a permit to protest why are they still being punished and harmed by the police? The government is allowing the people freedom of speech but in a way it seems that they are trying to restrict them by harming the protestors to silence them. Shawn Moppin informed that at a lot of the Occupy camps throughout the world, the police are preventing the media from entering the areas. The Occupy Movement is an important current event going on in the world and people should be aware of it.

http://occupydc.org/

D.C. Area Organization Attempts to Prevent Juvenile Offenses

I interviewed Ronal Goff who is pursuing his doctorate in neuropsychology. Ronal currently works for a nonprofit organization that works with juvenile offenders in the Washington D.C. area. The organization that Ronal works for provides psycho-education to students through the school system. This type of education teaches children how to deal with bullies and avoiding criminal activities. If a child has already committed an offense, the organization Ronal works for places the juvenile in a social support group which attempts prevent the juvenile from another criminal offense. The organization also provides individual counseling, the counselor then tries to help the child identify goals they would like to achieve.

Ronal believes familiar support is needed to help prevent criminal behavior by juveniles. He believes that the children need mentors to help teach adolescents morals. Preventative education on crime shows to be one of the most effective methods in preventing juvenile offenses. It will be interesting to find out the actual stats on how effective these types of programs are.

Is D.C. Radio Keeping Up with it's Diverse Culture?

Ethnic radio stations are popular in the Washington D.C. area. Two of the known African American radio stations are WPGC 95.5 and WKYS 93.9. These stations consist of news, weather, and urban music. They are also known for the influential morning radio hosts Donnie Simpson and Russ Parr. WPGC and WKYS play current urban music and a bit of old school. These stations also include entertainment pieces such as gossip, skits, and prank calls.


While there seems to be several African American stations, there are also other stations that cater to the diverse DC area population. The population in D.C. is so diverse. The different media medium's have to keep with up with the changing population. Robel Worku says there are different radio stations for other ethnic groups. In his research he came across a Latin radio station, 99.1 El Zol. There are different radio stations throughout D.C. that are available for different ethnicities.

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Robel believes that there are enough radio stations in Washington D.C. to cater to the diverse population. Robel says that there are Middle Eastern radio stations in the Washington D.C. area.

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Banks Unfair Monthly Debit Usage Charge

In May some financial institutions started to impose monthly fees for using debit cards. The monthly charge ranged from three to six dollars depending on your bank. Customers were only charged for purchases made with the card. They could still use the ATM without being charged. Banks started to charge these fees in accordance to new federal rules that were not profitable for the banks. Some people were unaware of these changes that were taking place with their account. Mark Watson, communication major and a former employee of a financial institution was aware of these unfair charges.

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SunTrust, Wells Fargo, Regions Bank, and Bank of America are some of the banks that were imposing monthly charges. Wells Fargo tested out the new charge in a few states. As a Bank of America customer I was outraged to learn of this new charge to my account. I was considering leaving Bank of America and depositing my money into my credit union or moving to a bank free of fees.



Banks received a lot of backlash from their customers about these monthly charges. Recently SunTrust, Wells Fargo, and Regions bank abandoned the monthly debit usage fee. Mark believed that more customers will leave their bank and move to credit unions. Currently credit unions do not charge monthly fees. Bank of America stood alone when they said that they will not get rid of their five dollar monthly charge. Mark also believed that banks decided to stop charging the customer’s monthly fees because of a high volume of customer complaints. As of yesterday 10/31/2011, Bank of America dropped their monthly debit card usage fee. I guess they were tired of getting irate calls and complaints from their customers.


Hear what Mark has to say about these monthly charges:

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D.C.'s Radio History and its Future

In 1912, radio stations were being regulated by the Department of Commerce. In 1921 the first broadcast station was authorized to serve the Washington D.C. area, WJH. Washington D.C. is one of the most populated radio markets in the United States. Throughout the years more AM stations were established to broadcast weather and news. WTOP who was once an AM station are one of the oldest stations in the Washington D.C. area. WTOP was known to broadcast news from the federal government. WTOP later moved to the FM side, where it currently on the FM side and is the only all news station in Washington D.C. 1969, FM radio began to expand and started to broadcast 24 hours per day. The first station on the FM dial was a Washington D.C. radio station, WFHS. WFHS, was the first radio station in the FM radio market. WFHS played rock music from the 1960’s into 2000.D.C. radio played an important role into the history of radio. The first wireless transmissions were used in the Washington D.C. area by the United States Navy and Post office.

Some people believe that the future of the radio market is murky. People believe that technologies like satellite radio and ipods have taken over the radio industry, and will start to dig local radio stations into the grave. Nava Brahe believes the DJ will be obsolete in a few years. Brahe thinks that radio stations focus mainly on music now and not the on air personalities. Chris Plummer argues that corporate radio is the cause of the decline of the radio market. He believes that these large media companies are taking away from local radio stations. By the larger companies buying into smaller local stations, they are bringing people outside of the area into these supposedly local stations, and people do not like it.

On the other hand, Donna Halper who is a radio historian believes that the radio industry can survive. Halper has worked in broadcasting for over 40 years. She has been an on air DJ and music director for stations in Washington D.C., New York, Boston and Cleveland. Halper believes that the radio markets can remain relevant if they get back to being local. Similar to Plummer, Halper thinks that local radio stations are moving into the wrong direction by allowing larger conglomerates to purchase them. Radio stations are no longer live and are becoming syndicated causing the community to lose connection with the radio.

Personally I am interested in seeing what the future of the radio market is going to be like. Internet radio, ipods, satellite radio, and podcats seem to be taking over currently. I agree with Halper and Plummer that radio stations need to be more local instead of bringing outside DJ’s into to our local stations. Stations like WPGC play syndicated shows from different radio stations. I believe that people are listening to the radio less and less. More people listen to their ipods and internet radio stations like Pandora.


http://www.tangentsunset.com/radiodc.htm
http://earlyradiohistory.us/hist-dc.htm

Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is an award for achievements in journalism, literature, and music. There are 21 categories, fourteen journalism categories, six categories for letters and drama, and one music category. Joseph Pulitzer was a well known journalist that was born in 1847. His newspaper The World received recognition for exposing President Theodore Roosevelt and banker J.P. Morgan for a fraudulent payment of millions of dollars to the French Panama Canal Company in 1909. Pulitzer was indicted for libeling of the President and Morgan. After investigation of the newspaper, the charges were dropped and Pulitzer and The World were recognized for their fight for freedom of press. Pulitzer died in 1911, his health had been deteriorating throughout his career. In 1912 the school of journalism at Columbia University was founded by the help of Pulitzer, who donated money in his will to create a Journalism school and the Pulitzer award. The first Pulitzer Prize was awarded in 1917, only four were awarded.

There is a 19 member board; the board consists of the President of Columbia University, the Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, and newspaper editors and executives. Nominating jurors are selected by the board members for each category. Entries for the Pulitzer Prize must have completed their work for that current year they are trying to enter for a prize. The entries must be from United States based work. Only U.S. citizens are eligible for awards under the letters, drama, and music category. Nominated finalists are nominated by the nominated jurors. There are usually 3 nominated finalists for each category and the winner is selected. Awards are given out annually. Winners of the Pulitzer Prize are awarded 10,000 dollars. The Pulitzer Prizes also include fellowships. The fellowships are awarded annually. Based off the recommendation of the faculty from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University; four graduate students are awarded 7,500 dollars to report and study abroad. Another fellowship for 7,500 dollars is given to a student that wishes to study drama, music, film, or television. The Pulitzer Prizes are awarded at a lunch in May at the Low Library on the campus of Columbia University. Normally prior to the luncheon the medals, checks, and certificates are sent to the winners. On a few occasions, a Pulitzer Prize is awarded for a Special Award or Citation. There have been years where there was not a winner for a particular category because the board members decided there should not be an award given for that particular category.

In 1957 the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy won a Pulitzer Prize for Profiles of Courage in the biography category. Kennedy is the only President ever to win a Pulitzer Prize. Awards for photography are given under the journalism category. In 2010, Barbara Laker and Wendy Ruderman of the Philadelphia Daily News won a Pulitzer prize for Investigative Reporting. In their articles they exposed a fraudulent narcotics team that caused the FBI to review over hundreds of criminal cases that might have been affected by that particular narcotic team.

http://www.pulitzer.org/

BLOGS >

I completely love the idea of blogging. I love the fact that blogging incorporates facts and opinions of certain topics. Blogging gives the opportunity to the reader to express the opinion. A newspaper does not really give the reader the opportunity to express their opinions about certain articles unless it is an article posted online. The writer is not able to get feedback about their article back unlike a blog post. Writers are able to know what topics people are interested in. Writers of blogs also get feedback on their writing style. I think I enjoy reading blogs because I think they are personal. Most newspaper articles are all facts, I like how blogs allows the writer to inform the reader of a certain topic while giving them their personal opinion of that particular topic. I find myself more interested in personal blogs than news blogs. I really enjoy seeing people’s blogs on Tumblr. Some of the blogs I come across on Tumblr are informative and others are entertainment blogs full of music and pictures. I do not believe that blogs on criminal investigations hold an important value. In my research I came across a few blogs that were dedicated to criminal investigations but I did not find a lot. I do not think they are that important because people rather hear just the facts of this particular topic, rather than the writer’s opinion.