Online Reporting, Research & Writing

Oh It’s Showtime!!-What’s still ‘Popping ‘

Every Christmas families come together to enjoy each others company; whether that involves caroling, telling family jokes , or even eating Christmas dinner , one family tradition that always remain is watching holiday movies. Yes, I am talking about all of those Christmas movies that each member of your family can enjoy.

There are so many genres of Christmas movies that fit everyone; some are Christmas love stories , Christmas Thrillers, Christmas Comics , and those are just to name a few. Out of all those Christmas movies that have come out in the past, what would you rate your favorite?

Some of the most common Christmas movies that are showed around this time of year are ” The Polar Express”, “Home Alone 2”, “The Nightmare before X-mas”, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”, “Home Alone” , etc.

According to theguardian.com, “Home Alone” is the most watched and illegally downloaded through outcasted websites. Nearly 8,900 illegal downloads since its original debut in 1990.

Home Alone tops the bar-chart Christmas tree. Photograph: CEG TEK International

movies chart .jpg — Home Alone tops bar-chart Christmas Tree. Photograph: CEG TEK International

Is “FOIA” Really For ya?

Taking a deeper look into the Freedom of Information Act

Many are not familiar as to what”FOIA” is or what i really stands for. FOIA is an acronyms that stands for the “Freedom of Information Act”. This is act is put in place to enforce that any person that would like to obtain any government records while still being protected from public disclosure. The act originally being enacted on July 5th, 1967, it serves a a right of public access to all people. So what significance does the FOIA have in todays society?

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The FOIA Serves a great importance to society; Some of these events have been listed on Tumblr,and they showcase the importance of the FOIA act , and how it protected the people that were involved. One of the most relevant positive outcomes of FOIA , is how it was used with drug take down here in the United States. The Washington Post, created an article titled, ” Former DEA investigators: ‘People were dying’ while opioid cases languished”

With drugs having such a heavy impact on our economic infrastructure, neighborhoods, and other parts of citizenship, with out the FOIA people that were investigating this case would have not obtained documents referencing the drops in actual enforcement over this matter. Although it may seem very minute, a lot of documents that remain hidden can often be used for the greater of common good.

How to minimize biases in our reporting

Where we are from, our gender, religion, family, friends…etc. can affect our reporting and the way we view things. The fact that I am a female, a Muslim, and Arab American has effects on how I view the world. Even though a lot of times we try to get rid of these biases, we will still end up with some unconscious biases.

As mentioned in a video titled How Journalist Minimize Bias, we need to be aware of our biases and the facts that could affect the way we view the world. Also, collecting different resources about the reported subject will minimize the biases in our reporting because we are exposed to different angles of the same story. Lastly, talking to different people regarding the reported subject will give us different insights of the story which can minimize our biases as well.

To balance our reporting, we need to focus on the process of collecting different sources, talking to different people with different perspectives, and being aware of our own biases and what could affect our reporting such as ethnicity, gender, religion,…etc.

FOIA powered immigration story

FOIA stands for the Freedom of Information Act (1997), and this act gives the public the right to disclose public information controlled by the U.S. government. FOIA helps the public such as journalists to request public information from the government that could support their stories and inform the reader.

Looking through different public stories that are FOIA powered stories, and these public stories were disclosed by the U.S. government. The story I chose to discuss is titled As Central American Gangs Increasingly Target Children More Minors are Fleeing the U.S.

This story is talking about student gang members in central El Salvador. A gang has sexually assaulted a 12 year old girl and killed her cousin. The article goes to talk about how the girl’s Parents had to migrate to the U.S. and wanted to have their kids join them mainly for safety reasons. However, the family didn’t end up having the kids come to the U.S. because at the time the U.S. government paid 130 million dollars to increase security on the U.S. Mexican borders.

As an American, I want to have protected borders; however, read migrants’ stories and the reason behind their immigration makes me have mixed feelings especially if that could help a child’s life.

FOIA

Verifying CBS data claims

Part of the process of researching on my data story involved diving into news outlets claims about data and finding the source of the information.

One example included a news story done by PBS which claimed that ACT and SAT scores did not matter. So looking into the article I found the source of the data that backed up the claim.

At first finding the data was difficult as the page which the article linked to did not appear to exist, however I continued to search for the source of the information based on context provided from the article like the creator of the data and key words. Eventually I found the study that was cited.

The study confirmed the information as well as provided a valuable primary source of data that I could use in my story.