"The Love That Shines Through" By Michael Winerip

Every once in a while, you read a very "feel good" article. This was definitely one of those. It told the story of a boy with disabilities who was going to have a bar mitzvah. The article did a very good job of showing that people with disabilites are just as important as everyone else. I really liked this story.

I felt the lead was effective. When many parents have a child with disabilites, it's so easy to focus on what their child cannot do. It's important to realize that their child is smart and special and can do so much. I felt that was the overall message of the article, and it came out very clearly.

By talking to the parents, the reporter had real insight into the family. It made the story personal, and it made the readers care. It also showed everything that Jarrett can do. He can communicate; he can love. Those are two very important things that could just be overlooked because maybe Jarrett can't multiply or divide numbers.

There did seem to be editorializing and a lack of attribution, but this was the type of article where that was okay. If absolutely everything was attributed, it would have taken away from the intimate, story-like quality of the article.

The story had an emotional ending, which was very sweet. It showed that while this story wasn't exactly news-breaking, it was important all the same. It was important because it concerned real people, dealing with real problems. The media always puts so much focus on all the huge problems of the world today. Sometimes those problems seem so distant, which makes the media appear detached from the actual community. This story was about the little things that affect people's lives so much more.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/nyregion/long-island/26Rparent.html

"Finding Jesus on Facebook, and Checking Podcasts for a Pew That Fits" By April Dembosky

We live in a world of technology. Teens today stay connected by texting and "facebook stalking" each other. We probably all know how tempting it is to go onto facebook when we should be doing our homework. The next thing we know we've just spent two hours looking at who's dating who and what people are doing over the weekend instead of writing our term paper. When we're not on facebook, we're busy texting our friends, rather than being old-fashioned and just calling them. I am as guilty of this as anyone, but I do believe that something gets lost in translation when it comes to texting. I always feel like I need to add a smiley face at the end of a short text because it might sound angry without me actually saying it. The article I read was about churches reaching out to our generation via facebook and other technology. The main concern I have is: what if God and religion get lost in translation as well? No smiley face can fix that.

I did find this article interesting. It shows how religion has become secondary to young people's more "pressing" concerns. Churches have to scramble to find a way to get us in their pews every week. They've begun using video clips, slide shows and musical groups to attract a younger audience. They also make podcasts of sermons that they broadcast online. They've set up blogs as a way for us to communicate with each other in a relaxed environment.

While I think this is great that churches are finding ways to relate to younger people, I'm not sure that everything they're doing will turn out for the best in the long run. For example, a teacher in the article says that "a two-minute movie clip can do so much more than two minutes of sermon." While I'm not trying to say that sermons are always the most exciting things to listen to, I am saying that the overall message can be lost by just showing movie clips. I'm sorry, but I don't think watching a clip of "Shallow Hal" really cuts it when I want to learn more about my faith and God. That just dumbs down religion way too much. I think what churches need to remember is that yes, maybe they should find a way to present religion that is more fun, but that doesn't mean that the way needs to make religion simpler. While we may not always use complete sentences or even complete words in our texts, we're not stupid, and we deserve to actually be taught religion rather than just shown movies, which we can do in our own time.

Now I'm sure a lot of people would tell me that I'm being too hard on these churches and that what they're doing is great; as long as the kids are coming to church, then it can't be that bad, right? I think it is awesome that this could bring more people to church. I really do. However, I have another quote from the story for you: "he mentioned Jesus occasionally, and tossed in a Bible verse here and there, but he really kept eyes focused and heads nodding with a series of clips on the screens." The clips were from movies and also the church's summer baptism. How can that be considered church when the pastor rarely mentions Jesus? That doesn't sound like church to me. Religion takes time and effort; watching "Braveheart" does not bring us closer to God. I think in the churches' efforts to attract the young people, they're forgetting what they're actually supposed to be doing once those young people are in the pews. These churches aren't making our generation care any more about God; they're just shifting the focus away from Him. After all, the pastor "really kept eyes focused" when he showed movie clips, not when he mentioned Jesus or the Bible. To me, that means there is a lot being lost in translation.

I thought the story itself was written fairly well, but I think the reporter could have shown the side that I mentioned above. I'm sure she could have found people who didn't like what these churches were doing. There are always two sides to a story. By just quoting the pastors and congregation members who like what their churches are doing, the reporter makes it seem as if there's no other way to view this topic. No one can think it's bad because obviously no one does or else they would have been included in the article.

Also, I think it was sometimes unclear what churches the writer was talking about. In the beginning, she discussed "Journey," but then she just kept saying "church" or "churches" over and over again. I wasn't sure if she meant Journey or not. Later on, she gave more specific examples, which I thought was good. Readers need to know that there are actually multiple churches doing this; it shows the relevance. Otherwise it seems as if maybe there's only one church doing all of this, which wouldn't really be all that news-worthy.

While I may not completely agree with what these churches are doing, I'm glad I read the article. It was good to know that churches are trying to appeal to our younger generation, but I just believe they need to re-think their tactics to ensure that we're actually deepening our faith rather than splashing around in the kiddie pool.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/nyregion/26journey.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

"Youthful Voice Stirs Challenge to Secular Turks" By Sabrina Tavernise

When we look at the Middle East, what do we see? I think for a lot of Americans that answer would be one giant mass of countries that are all basically the same. I don't think there are many of us who really differentiate between the nations that make up the Middle East. We don't know that much about them. We think all Middle Easterners are strict Muslims, forced by their governments to practice everything according to the law. We see the women as being repressed by the men, forced to cover their heads with scarves. But what if this wasn't always the case? What if it was the opposite? What if women were forbidden to wear their scarves? This is the situation in Turkey, and until I read this article, I had absolutely no idea.

Turkey is a secular country. Religion has no influence over law there. Since the 1920s, Turkey has separated itself from the East and encouraged the incorporation of Western culture into its society. Unlike in most Muslim countries, women are banned from wearing head scarves in schools. There is now a religious revival occurring in Turkey, making many young people more religiously observant than their parents.

This story focused on the efforts of one young woman Havva Yilmaz to get a law passed that would allow women to wear head scarves in universities. I thought it was a very good idea to center the story around one individual. It made it much more personal. It showed how the issue affects actual women in Turkey. It also gave more insight into why women would actually want to wear scarves. For Western women, the idea of having to cover our heads seems cruel and old-fashioned. For Yilmaz, it's a way for her to practice her religion. She said it helped her discover who she was. This shows that the scarf can be just as much of a good thing as a bad thing. It depends on each individual person. By showing Yilmaz's side so thoroughly, her cause gains support because government should not have a right to say someone can or can't wear a head scarf.

I thought this article was well-written for the most part, but I felt there was a lot of editorializing. The writer uses a lot of adjectives and adverbs such as "lively," "eloquent," "staunchly," "funny", and "irreverent." She also said that certain Turks opposed broader freedoms for Islam because they did not trust one politician. She gives no foundation for this claim. There is no quote attributed to anyone that says this. However, she does present both sides of the story to a certain degree because she mentions what other women's complaints were against passing a law that would allow the scarves.

There was one specific part of the story that I found confusing. It involved a quote from Yilmaz. Yilmaz says something in the story about how when you wear a scarf, you're expected to act and think in a certain way, and you're stripped of your personality. Isn't that a bad thing about the scarf? I figured she meant you're expected to act that way, but it isn't true. However, nothing says that it isn't ture. The quote is just left as it is, with no further explanation. I think what she meant by that quote should have been made clearer in the article.

Also, there was one part that involved a comment by a journalist about Yilmaz's support for gays. I don't really see how this was relevant to the article. I guess it showed more about Yilmaz's beliefs. I also don't see how it was relevant for the journalist to bring that up with Yilmaz in the first place when she's fighting to wear head scarves. I can see that it brings up the issue of expression, but I just felt that the interview with the journalist and now this article lost a little bit of focus.

My final comment is just that as always, I learned a lot from the story. It was definitely interesting for me to see a very different side of the Middle East. I've never really thought of head scarves as a particularly good thing, but now I can see that wearing them is really important to some women. A government should not have the power to take that away from anyone.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/14/world/europe/14turkey.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

My Take On: "Laugh at a Campaign Pitch? Sure. Visit the Grandparents? Not So Much." By Damien Cave

It always seems as Election Day looms closer, candidates and their campaigns rush to gain the votes of certain groups. Obviously, they want the votes of the "undecided." Gaining these votes is the key to winning the election. However, there always is an effort to appeal to religious groups. Religion affects the way people vote. That's all there is to it. This means that candidates have to relate to the religious whether they themselves share the same religious views or not. I wrote before about the campaigns trying to gain Catholic votes. This article deals with the efforts of younger Jews to convince the older Jewish community to vote for Obama. Sometimes, having the support of at least a section of a religious community can help to sway the rest of the group to a candidate' s side.

The article I read discussed a Web video made by Sarah Silverman telling young Jews to go to Florida to tell their grandparents to vote for Obama. The question now was whether or not anyone would actually go to Florida. Some did, but many did not. However, other young people who could not make the trip still contacted family members by phone to tell them to cast their ballots in favor of Obama.

I thought this story was fun and lighthearted, but it had an important message at its core. Young people have a lot of influence in the world. I know it doesn't always seem this way, but it's true. We have the potential to greatly influence the election if we would just take the time to vote. Why do you think there are Web videos posted telling young voters to talk to their grandparents? Why do you think teen clothing stores sell t-shirts telling us "to vote or die?" I thought this article did a very good job of presenting a larger issue in a way that was more digestible for its readers.

This article was actually pretty funny. Because the movement to get the younger Jews to talk to the older Jews was called the "Great Schlep," the writer frequently used the word "schlep" throughout the story. It spiced up the language a bit. There were other funny parts involving voters with "nipple rings." My only complaint about the comments about nipple rings is that the reporter said "many of those without nipple rings seem resistant to the youthful charms of Mr. Obama and their own grandchildren." I didn't think this comment was necessary. The quote about nipple rings that was said by one of the people in charge of the Great Schlep was colorful, but I thought this comment by the writer was too editorial.

The reporter mostly talked to people in favor of Obama or those involved with the Great Schlep. I think it was important that the article at least had one person who was not in favor of Obama or the effort. The reporter probably could have talked to even more people who shared this viewpoint, but at least the article did say that the effort has made a good start, without having accomplished a lot. I felt it was pretty clear that the article supported the effort, but at least it didn't bend the truth about its success.

Overall, I did really like reading this article. It was entertaining but informative at the same time, which is basically what I would want from any article I read.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/14/us/politics/14schlep.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

On a lighter note, my take on: "In Buddha's Path on the Streets of San Francisco" By Perry Garfinkel

The last time I read anything about Buddhism was probably in middle school when I still had a class called "social studies." I don't know much about it. What I do know is that Buddhists are supposed to be very peaceful, and they meditate a lot. I'm not positive, but I think they may also be the religion that talks about yin and yang. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. So, clearly, I do not know a lot. However, that only made this article all the more interesting. Oftentimes, we are stuck in our own religious worlds, and we never want to venture outside the box. We have the tendency to believe other religions are crazy and to just leave it at that. I read this article because I never really hear about the Buddhist population in the U.S. I only ever hear about Jews, Christians and Muslims. I thought I'd mix it up a little with this article.

First off, I think this story was an explanatory story. I'm definitely unsure of this evaluation, but from what I could see, there were very little quotations and a lot of explaining, which was characteristic of the example we read in class. On that note, I felt the reporter did a very good job of explaining. He gave readers a timeline of the history of Buddhism in California, which I'm sure most readers did not know about. It helped to set up why this area is such a prominent Buddhist community in the U.S.

He also discusses the role of Buddhism now in that area. Buddhists have made efforts to help others in the community. This shows readers a clearer reason why they should care. Buddhists are trying to help others in the community, and the readers could be these others, or they could at least relate to them. At any rate, it shows that Buddhists are taking an active role in society, and people would most likely respect them for doing something. Their actionsmake them relevant to the rest of the community; they are not an ancient, dead culture.

As I said before, this article was very interesting. It taught me a lot, which in my opinion, is the most important part of jounalism. We need to tell people what they don't already know. The article ends with a listing of all the places readers can visit, which was a nice touch because it allows readers a way to experience what the article just described.

I do have one complaint I found. The writer says that a tourist can find inspiration or even enlightenment by "following in the footsteps of American Buddhism." While this goes along with the overall message of the piece, I thought that was a pretty big assumption for the writer to make. I don't know if some people would find that acceptable, but I did not.

Overall, this story was definitely worth reading. It was a nice break from reading about all the violence in the Middle East.


http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/travel/escapes/10buddhism.html

A Follow-up to the Last Blog: "Violence in Mosul Forces Iraqi Christians to Flee" By Erica Goode and Suadad Al-Salhy

My last blog discussed an article about the Iraqi Parliament's decision to drop a provision ensuring political representation for minorities. This new article I read was about the depressing aftermath of that decision. I don't know how else to introduce this article; just read it, and you'll see why. It's so much harder to write some lengthy introduction to a topic that's just plain sad.

So, anyway, violence has increased in Mosul, Iraq, and it seems that the killers are particularly targeting Christians. Mosul had been a kind-of refuge for Christians; in the past, they had fled there from other parts of Iraq. The article says that many Iraqi Christian leaders believe that the increased violence is due to the protests led by Christians against the decision to remove the provision.

This article contains a lot of information. It does a very good job of describing the situation in Iraq. It gives the background that sets the scene of the current state of the country. As a reader, I, for one, appreciated how the writers explained where Christians typically live in Iraq and why. The writers treat their readers like they don't know anything, which they probably don't. This is not a negative thing; it's important for everyone to be capable of understanding the content of a story. For example, the article discusses the Nineveh Plain, where many Christians have taken refuge because the towns there are mainly Christian. It goes on to say violence is down in other parts of the country because it has moved to this area where more Christians live. The article tells where Christians have now moved to and their reasons why. I thought it was important that the article gave examples of hostility encountered by Christians, including threats and obviously, direct violence. The writers included past violence as well, which added to the background information.

The article had a good variety of sources. It included information from a few "experts," but what was best of all was the personal anecdote from a resident of Mosul. This story was also probably the most depressing part of the piece, which was why it was so necessary. It gave readers a reason to care. Readers can only stand to be fed information from "experts" so much. They want to be given the chance to relate to people on a personal level. The story was about how the man's brother was killed in front of his own son. In any normal person, this should incite sadness and anger. Who could imagine watching their father die? Who would want to imagine something as awful and terrifying as that? No person should have to go through that. No person should have to lose a sibling that way either. I have two brothers and two sisters, and I can truthfully say that the bond between siblings is probably one of the strongest in the world. Readers can see how wrong all of this is because they are seeing it through the man's eyes. As people, we are capable of seeing the world from another person's perspective when we really try. We're all united by our common human condition. It was definitely a good choice for the reporters to talk to an everyday person to get his perspective.

But, of course, this blog would not be complete if I didn't find something wrong with this article. Once again, I have to say that I thought the article was very good until I got to the part that said "in other developments." NOT AGAIN! I don't understand why these articles suddenly start talking about something different when they reach a certain point. For those of you that are reading this blog but didn't read the last, that article did the exact same thing. Is this common practice when the story is about the Middle East or Iraq? I know there's a lot going on there, but I don't think it all needs to be jam-packed into one article. It shifts the focus. In this article, it goes from talking about the plight of Iraqi Christians to Iraqi-U.S. relations. I think these relations are probably enough to warrant their own article. All of that is an issue in-and-of itself.

My final comment is that the article ends with one sentence discussing the subject of the picture that accompanies the story. One sentence. At the end of the piece. If it's the picture that goes with the story, shouldn't the story actually be about the picture? That just didn't cut it for me.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/world/middleeast/11iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

My Take On: "Iraqis Unite to Restore Minority Representation Law" By Erica Goode and Stephen Farrell

The Middle East has been a focal point in American news for some time now. I feel like I am constantly hearing or reading about the Middle East, and this is rightfully so. That area of the world is in constant tumult, and America is smack-dab in the middle of it. However, I think most of us can get sick of hearing about all the terrible events that occur there. In general, people like to be happy (I can't think of anyone who doesn't enjoy being in that state), so news of the Middle East doesn't really help people continue their existence in happy little bubbles. This latest article I read was a very straightforward piece about a protest that occurred in the Middle East. While the reason for the protest is saddening, there were certain circumstances surrounding it that actually rang with a little hope.

In Baghdad, a group of Christians and others gathered to protest a decision of the Iraqi Parliament. It had decided to remove a provision that set aside a certain number of seats in Parliament for Christians and two other minorities. It's sad that a government could be so against diversity. However, the article showed that Iraqi Muslims joined with the Christians to protest the removal of the provision. Iraq is desperately in need of unity among its people, and this protest is a positive example of the steps some are taking to form some sort of union.

In my opinion, there weren't many ways the writers could have gone wrong with this story. Like I said before, it was very straightforward. I thought they did a good job of showing the position of the minorities who were being left out. They also talked to the speaker of Parliament to get Parliament's side of the story. I thought it was really funny that the speaker could somehow claim that the removal was "an unintentional mistake." Yeah, I am so sure. How do you accidentally remove an article that encourages diversity within government? that prevents a monopoly by one group of people? Oh yeah, that's right: you don't. The choice was very intentional, but it was good reporting to represent the voice of Parliament within the article anyway.

Also, I felt the article was set up really well. The writers started with the most newsworthy details first, the details that everyday readers would relate to and care about. They then moved onto the more intricate details of everything that happened in order to add some more meat to the story.

So, this was what I was thinking until I reached the point in the article when it says "also on Monday." I'm sorry, but was it really necessary to add in all this other news at the end of an article? I know that everything concerned Baghdad, but that doesn't mean these other tidbits should be randomly shoved at the end of this otherwise focused story. I'm not sure if this is some accepted practice in reporting that I didn't know about, but I found it incredibly distracting. The story was really interesting, but the whole end section made me seriously question what was going on. The headline did not cover the random news at the end. I think all of those mini-stories could have been placed into a separate article titled "Random News From Iraq." Or maybe those mini-stories could have been further explored in order to create full stories so that there was no need for them to tag along at the end of a completely separate story. I just found it all very strange, and it definitely hurt my opinion of the article.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/world/middleeast/07iraq.html?pagewanted=print