Monday, June 6, 2011

Good Journalism

If you skip to 11:40 in the video, Jon Stewart talks to Bill Moyers about journalism and its present state. I know Bart will also appreciate the reference to Wayne Gretzky, and I think what Moyers says is so true.
I think it's interesting that Jon Stewart talks about journalism on his show because his entire show is based off the humor of how people receive their news. Jon Stewart has, unfortunately, or fortunately, become the main source of news for our generation and I think that we've lost sight of what news is meant to do.
Moyers talks about the issues that journalists face today and I happened to see the rerun on today and felt like sharing it with you guys because it's some of the issues we talked about in class this quarter.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Facebook: What we spend

When we discussed the idea of privacy, another topic that was introduced that frightened me was the idea of shopping history. Obviously with the idea of tracking devices online, it is a scary notion that we are constantly typing in our credit card number. I was deeply concerned when a student (I think Kevin) brought up the idea that Facebook had put up a way in which viewers can see what you have been spending with your credit card! This application was quickly taken down, but still, the idea that a company on such a grand scale as Facebook would think it okay to take somebody's shopping history and put in out in the open for anybody and everybody to see is extremely frightening. I think that we definitely need to be more careful regarding who we give specific information. We also talked about the ignorance of many people as to how much the cyber world actually knows about us, and to me, we need to realize that the answer is: most everything.

Kevin scared me

The way that Kevin has opened my eyes to the issues surrounding privacy and internet use has me questioning how I use tools online. I wish I knew half of the information that he did so that I could thoroughly educate myself, because I believe that is the problem: the public doesn't know about these issues.
And then reading about how Zuckerburg and Facebook hired a team to trash talk in order to his their trail just leads me to believe that there really is a issue for the public to be concerned about.
How does this seem logical on the fact that we have a whole Bill of Rights protecting us from the invasion of our privacy and other rights, but then in the online world we have none? Does this make sense? I think not.
I think, as we discussed in class, that there should be some sort of protection for consumers online. But even more importantly than that there should be education open to the public in order for them (meaning ALL online consumers) to learn about the issues, because a lot of people have no idea.
So, in summary, KEVIN TEACH US THE ISSUES! Ha, just kidding, but in reality it would be nice if there were a group that could get the attention of everyone on these important issues.