Store It Up

Check out my new Storify post about the the upcoming playoffs and Twitter users' take on who will take it all!

And Now Following...

Here are some new users I have followed in the past week:

@NewYorker, @Newsweek, @TheAtlantic

I have really enjoyed these publications in the past, but I haven't realized their online presence. These are no-brainers for me.

@WashingtonPost, @nytimes, @USATODAY

Elite newspapers I probably should have been following a while ago...

@CBSNews, @NBCNews, @ABC

The three big men on campus who rule the TV world.

@cnfonline

A wildcard follow that collects forms of creative nonfiction. This is the user I'm most excited to follow.

#Seeyoulater!

Traditional Turned Hybrid

I decided to choose Newsweek's fusion with The Daily Beast, the new entity aptly named: The Newsweek Daily Beast Company.

Newsweek before the merger was obviously known for it's newsy, information-rich content, but like many other companies, they had to focus on both new content and audiences in order to survive. That's where The Daily Beast comes in. It heavily depends on the Internet to fuel its fire.

The merger brought one company which called home to in-depth, investigative components and combined an audience that was used to opinionated, sharp, breaking news stories from around the world. Seemingly similar, but far apart.

In the end, whether readers liked it or not, it had to be done. This marriage brings material to over 9 million unique visitors a month and the magazine reaches 14 million readers in America alone, per this.

It's a great looking site, and it's up to date throughout a wide range of topics. It makes sense why the two parties came together. They are still able to maintain a website and physical magazine quite successfully.

Source Overload

As I was looking for a publication, I had to include ChooseResponsibility.org. Basically, what I learned from just 20 minutes on the site is that it is a non-profit looking to educate and eventually change the laws allowing young adults, between the ages of 18 and 20, the right to purchase alcohol. This is really the first time I have seen something like this--I knew there were people against the current drinking age, but I didn't understand the magnitude to how far they were trying to change that issue. They do state, however, they don't receive any funding from the alcohol industry or organizations affiliated with alcohol, and also offer debates about the topic ranging to and from both sides of the story.

The College Solution is a blog regarding general college questions. I was able to search within the blog to find certain posts about alcohol and its effect on college situations and events. Overall, a pretty sound blog, but a little too general. Although it may not be too specific, I can still use it to document valuable information. I'll get to more clear-cut stuff next.

Chief Delaney, of the Pitt Police, has a pretty solid bio on their website. I'm sure we will be in contact with him sometime throughout our project.

Night in the ER

This would be impossible to accomplish, but can you imagine if we were to achieve just 10% of that. It is a crazy thing; I am guessing a lot of the patients they receive, especially during the weekend, are somewhat due to alcohol. I still want to try a ride-a-long.

Some academic sources...

"Man-ing Up" and another devoted to Alcohol Policies

The first deals with the gender differences with alcohol at college--basically how drinking at college is something college males or "men" do as a "masculine norm." The second focuses on the policies colleges are now enforcing. We, as a group, could compare and contrast this to Pitt's own policy.

Some other useful sites...

Pitt Police

SafeRider

Pitt's Residencial Handbook

Pitt Safety

The Atlantic Readings

Out of the three articles we were assigned to read, I found Rhett Miller's "About That Day" from The Atlantic most intriguing. There is something very compelling about his story. The fact that he thought to buy a notebook to jot his thoughts down of the day's events was mind-blowing. During the chaos, he was able to recall little tidbits of information, most of which you would think doesn't matter. Choosing to include specific information is already tough enough, but on this day every minute detail carried weight: wearing Birkenstocks instead of running shoes, deciding to run out of the basement exit minutes before the second WTC tower collapsed, or persuading the manager of the clothing store to allow them more time to purchase new clothes. Any flashback story, specifically dealing with 9/11, usually gets to me. It's a memory that is so easy to recollect, and hearing those memories brings you right back to that horrific day, whether you like it or not.

Masterpieces of Graphic Nonfiction

I never noticed how much of an interest I would have with this style of nonfiction. "The Photographer" and "The Elements of Style" were the two books to grab my attention the most. I've always turned my nose up to graphic novels in the past, but I'm already looking the buy the latter of the two I listed.

What's Credible Anymore?

The Internet serves host to many unique worlds of information. Anyone with a computer can post anything they find fit online, no matter if it is true or false. Just searching a topic online and reading the first thing that pops up is no longer viable. If online readers need to research a topic, especially one that requires standards of academic quality, they need to search multiple websites to compare and contrast what is truth and what is masking itself as truth.

I am a huge believer of Twitter, but when it comes to its credibility, I would imagine the website in the bottom of the ranks--thanks to its millions of users. However, that's not to say you can't find valuable, trustworthy information throughout the Twitter-verse. If users dedicated their time and effort, Twitter can then be one of the faster, if not, fastest ways to find out the latest breaking news going on in the world. I can't count how many times the trending topics on Twitter have been death announcements of celebrities who are in fact still alive as I type this post. However, for every post similar to that, I can name two or three instances where the outcome of the latest news has been verified and credited.

Other websites that rely on celebrity scandal or gossip like TMZ always seem to make me pause. These sites base their mission on being the first to release information about a certain rumor. When Michael Jackson died, there were hundreds of reports claiming to know exactly what happened that morning. Choosing between which website to believe is tough--although some may seem more credible than others, all have their susceptible tendencies. Sensational magazines who are also online (i.e. The National Enquirer) should just be thrown out; I try to stay as far away from those as possible.

To decide what's credible, we truly just have to do the research. Websites choosing to cite their information is obviously a good thing. Watch out for websites that post a lot of content in a little amount of time. Also, a red flag for me is if the article is not edited very well. Posts with a ton of mistakes prove to me that the author does not care about its readers, therefore does not care about the validity of the text.

Still Life

Here's something I read for a previous class and immediately enjoyed. Skip Hollandsworth of TexasMonthly tells the fate of John McClamrock, a high school football player who becomes paralyzed after a violent tackle.

Why I'm Here...

This course seems to fit really well with what I have been looking for in classes. The digital wave that seems to be taking over is quite fascinating, and if following that wave will make it any easier for me to find a job in the future, then consider me a surfer.

I still consider myself a beginner in the writing world, for lack of a better term; I started my studies at Pitt as a math major. In high school, math was always something that interested me. It wasn't until my second math class at Pitt that I knew it wasn't going to work out. To make it simple: it was just too damn hard, so I went to plan B.

Just because I'm not the best supporter of my own writing skills does not mean I don't enjoy it. I truly am starting to grow quite fond of it. There's always some event or situation in my life I feel the need to express to others. I consider my own writing to be very conversational, however I need to realize that style is not always appropriate for every occasion/audience. One of my main personal goals of this class is to fix and tune my writing so I can please those other audiences as well.

I find it hard to list my two favorite nonfiction writers because most of the reading is composed online through many, many different authors. A lot of my reading is done on ESPN.com and CNN.com. As I said in class, whatever pops up on my Twitter feed first is what I am likely to click and read. Most of the actual books I read are considered fiction anyway.

I look forward to the rest of this class. The Internet is such a dominating force; I can't wait to learn more about it.