Occupy Wall Street: An Interview

It was a rainy Monday morning in late October and temperature was already starting to drop. Along with Professor Rosa our journalism class headed downtown to Zucotti Park with the mission of interviewing members of the “Occupy Wall Street” protest.

We arrived at around 9:30 AM, the small park which has become the camping area for the protesters was crowded with sleeping bags and camping tents which were all wet due to the previous night’s rain. By the time we arrived most of the protesters were still sleeping, so my classmates Joshua, Laura and me had to wonder a little bit around the park in order to find someone to interview. After a couple of minutes we ran across a middle aged woman who was conversing with a younger looking male while they were both sipping their morning cup of coffees. I asked them if they would mind answering a couple of questions to which the male rapidly refused; however, the woman gladly accepted our offer. The “occupier” was Rena Patty from Washington State. Patty had come to New York City exclusively for the protest. Rena had been protesting for a week already and she was actually not sleeping in the park; she was rather a “commuter protester”. Patty had assumed the role of peace maintainer due to her qualifications in “non-violent communication”. Aside from assisting in the community she also had some more personal reasons to be there: “I feel a sense of despair about the direction that our society is going. I’m also very concerned about our ecological well-being and the problem of violence in the world”.

The Decline of Good Journalism; A response to News Matters

How often do we come across stories that have such a strong impact in our lives like that of the Watergate scandal nowadays? Definitely not as often as we should. Good journalism like that one happens in such rare occasions that when it does happen it feels out of this world. Good journalism; however, should be part of our daily lives because it is through journalism that we are able to inform ourselves of events that affect our lives as citizens. Our expectations of good journalism have been hardly fulfilled these days; When we turn on our televisions it is very hard to find a station that provide us with the real timely information we need, as a result the average American citizen is full of misinformation and they are rarely aware of this fact. But who is responsible for this catastrophe? We could blame it on us, the common citizen, for not being able to discern between what is good journalism and what is not, for preferring to be entertained rather than fully inform. On the other hand, how easy is it to differentiate between what is good reporting and what is not? Therefore, in my opinion the corporations that provide us with the so called “news” are the ones to be blame. The owners of newspapers and news channel are more interested in profit as opposed to informing, hence they put journalists in a position where they often have to sugar coat the information in order to sell the product more easily which results in misleading and misinforming the public.