Final Assignment (Thanks Jason!)

NY TIMES

• I had a hard time coming up with an alternative title for this article. My problem with it, is that upon first reading the headline “Mexican Violence Leaves Behind Trail of Doubts” it doesn’t state who is doubting, or what they are doubting. The article revolves around the idea that friends, neighbors, and sometimes the national government grow suspicious about the victim’s legitimacy. Now if we were to make a headline that stated suspicion of legitimacy for victims, it would undoubtedly inspire a public dispute especially from those that have suffered a loss due to the drug war. The best attempt I can give is this: “ Victims of Mexican Drug War Leave Behind a Trail of Suspicion” This most accurately represents the information that is given: that sometimes even family members are reluctant to keep contact with the victim’s close relatives.

• The NY Times does a good job in steering clear from politically-charged vocabulary, but I did find two instances of words that were either insensitive to the gravity of this article or misused. For one, “done in” is a terrible way to describe a murder. It is very insensitive to the families of the victims who might read this poem. Also, the headling of “Mexican Violence” is quite misleading. Putting those two words together might give the illusion that Mexicans are a violent people. “Violence in Mexico” or “Drug War Violence” would be a more accurate use of words.

• This article is more of a feature article than a news one. For this reason I feel it is balanced. The author even made an effort to speak to the Mexican authorities who declined to comment. They covered all the sources they possibly could and even added the part of the article that spoke about Alfredo Carrillo’s cockfighting hobby that may have been connected to his murder.

• If we were to rearrange the article so that the part about Alfredo’s cockfighting hobby was at the top of the story, the article would have a different tone to it. It would seem that Alfredo was indeed involved in illegitimate affairs and the rest of the article would be interpreted as the family trying to defend his reputation.

• Seeing as this article is about Mexican victims, all of the sources for the story are of Hispanic descent. This question doesn’t really apply to this article. As for the female perspective, the article briefly talks about Alfredo’s mother but never directly quotes her. It is very difficult to judge this article based on this question because it is an extremely delicate topic that many people have been killed over. People aren’t willing to openly give their opinion about organized crime in Mexico, in fear of being retaliated against.

• The NY Times provides a great variety of photographs for this story. It provides some context to the issue of organized crime (by showing a map of Mexico and where Colima is) and also has two pictures of the victim’s mother and brother.

• All of the claims in this article are logical. People are afraid to reach out to the families of victims because they fear they might get involved in some type of criminal affair. I also think it provides a great inside look into the psyche of the victim’s family. I haven’t read another article on this subject.

• The article doesn’t provide many statistics other than the fact that over 50,000 murders have been connected to the Mexican Drug War.  They provide a previous article they wrote on this subject as a reference for this statistic. Either way, I think this is a great article because it zooms in on one family that is affected by this widespread Drug War.

Summary: This article really hit home with me. I was born in Manzanillo, Colima and most of my family is from Jalisco, one of the more violent states in Mexico. In December of 2010 my cousin was shot in the head, presumably he was caught in the middle of Drug Cartel violence. I heard from my devastated aunt how almost no one attended the funeral. The NY Times did a great job in providing some context for the issues that the families of victims are facing.

EL AGORA

• When I read the article El Agora wrote for this story, I thought it was going to be about young drug dealers 20-30 years old who are equipped with old weapons. The headline is also misleading because it doesn’t specifically talk about drug dealers, it talks about organized crime in general, some of which includes the trafficking of drugs. Another thing that seemed odd to me was the mention that most of the weapons confiscated by Mexican officials were from the United States, This is an extremely controversial claim that should have been in the title of the story. For this reason I came up with this alternative headline: “Old, Customized Weapons Used for Organized Crime, Some From U.S”

• This article is filled with politically-charged labels and statements. The most controversial one is the claim that most of the weapons come from the United States. Here is a list of politically charged labels I found:

“come from United States”

“many of them”

“most commonly used”

“Mexican Army seized”

“cop-killer sized”

            It seems like the article is taking a stab at the United States without backing up the sources that indicate that the weapons originate from the US. It also glorifies the efforts made by the Mexican armed forces.

• This article nonchalantly states that many of the weapons that have been confiscated by the Mexican Army have come from the United States. They don’t cite a source for this statement. The article then goes on to praise the Mexican Army’s efforts in confiscating the weapons. There is a lot of bias in this article needless to say. I also tried to find out where the author got the facts he states but I couldn’t find it on SEDENA’s website or anywhere else.

• This article is very repetitive in the first place. It can be condensed into two paragraphs at most. It is poorly organized, many of the facts and figures they have are very similar to each other.  One paragraph, however, doesn’t exactly correlate well with the rest of the story. The author states that the idea that the cartels are better equipped than the department of defense is a myth. He then goes on to state some facts about how many weapons they have seized. If we were to remove this paragraph the article would be stronger, but if we were to move it to the top of the story it would enforce the bias in this article even more.

• Seeing as this article comes from a Chihuahan news organization, I can flip the question around and look for non-Mexican perspectives. I found none. All of the perspectives displayed in this story are from Mexican government agencies, which not only affects the credibility of this article (Mexican media is “Not Free” according to Newseum’s press freedom map.)

• The photograph for this article doesn’t complement the headline. The headline talks about drug dealers using old weapons, not how many weapons were seized. The photograph shows the Mexican authorities standing behind a large amount of weapons that have supposedly been seized over the past few years as the Drug War continues. The picture should have been of an old weapon, perhaps visibly customized or repaired. Also, the caption doesn’t relate to the headline. “Most of the weapons from the US, that the armed forces have seized” This again, is a controversial claim because they don’t name the source that they are basing that claim off of.

• Many of the facts contradict each other in this article. The facts about the number of weapons seized don’t add up and in my opinion, are irrelevant to the headline and main topic of this story. Although other news sources have covered the fact that many of the weapons being confiscated come from the United States, this article does a very poor job in providing any proof.

• I was very confused with the number of weapons that the Mexican authorities have seized. Towards the end of the article it states that 137,000,568 firearms have been seized. Then it says in broken English that 55,000 have been seized 48 rifles. Not exactly sure what this is referring to especially because it then states that 80% of those weapons have been confiscated by military personnel. The numbers don’t add up.

Summary: This article was very difficult to rad. The facts are scattered and unaccounted for. I read the Spanish version of this article and it made much more sense in terms of the grammar, however, the statistics they state aren’t proved by any outside source. This was poorly written, and it sounds like government propaganda. This is a terrible attempt at providing an in-depth look at the Drug War and the weapon use. In fact, I think it is pointless. It doesn’t matter how long these weapons have been in use, it matters that they are they taken off the street. However, they make a weak attempt at trying to prove that the Mexican Armed Forces are winning the Drug War. The truth is, nobody wins as long as these drug cartels are still on the streets.

June 6, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Immigration laws around the world

For the second part of my presentation I decided to add my personal opinion about the global attitude against undocumented immigrants. This topic is very important to me because I know many people I grew up with who are undocumented, devoid of a reasonable pathway to citizenship. This second half of my presentation will focus on some of the most inhumane immigration laws here, and abroad.

Arizona and Alabama have, in most recent years, been subject to extensive media coverage in regards to their implementation of strict anti-immigrant laws. Arizona’s SB1070 law makes it legal for local policemen to act as immigration agents, detain anyone who they believe may be an illegal immigrant, and arrest anyone who gives work to undocumented immigrants. Governor Jan Brewer enacted the law back in 2010. However, since then, the Supreme Court has worked to block some of the main provisions. It is important to note that Gov. Brewer cited federal inaction, overpopulation, a lack of jobs for citizens, and increasing crime rates that allegedly included dozens of beheadings in the desert. It was later found that the governor was fabricating some of the claims because only one case that included a beheading had been investigated since her time in office.

Gov. Bently of Alabama implemented an even tougher law in 2011 that also coincided with many of the provisions of the Arizona law, but goes a step further and requires public schools to disclose the information of undocumented students. It also gives local police the ability to check the status of students in public schools, and determine whether people are in the country illegally.

I was surprised to learn that although the United States has in most recent years established very harsh laws against undocumented immigrants, it is not the toughest. Australia has 5.5 million undocumented immigrants. Their law requires that all authorities immediately detain non-citizens without a visa and deport them. Between 1999 and 2003 they had several thousand child refugees from South East Asia and the Middle East deported.

In the United Arab Emirates, who’s population of almost 4 million undocumented immigrants makes up 85% of the popuation, they have one of the toughest laws in the world. Their country is a hotspot for foreign investors because there is an abundance of cheap labor available. Ironically, the strict immigration law prohibits anyone from being active in any sort of labor union. This means that an 80-hour week is a common occurence as are terrible living conditions, back-breaking works and no access to clean water. Most of these immigrants live in makeshift huts.

May 30, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Japan from Tanzania

http://www.ippmedia.com/frontend/index.php?l=38274

• Japan has donated 29,725 tons of rice to Tanzania in the past 5 years.
• 10% of that aid was dispersed to Zanzibar, the semi-autonomous island.
• Money collected from the selling of Japan’s rice is managed by Tanzania-Japan Food Aid Counterpart Fund and a number of projects have started benefiting from the funds

http://www.ippmedia.com/frontend/index.php?l=37832

• Japan has finished their HIV/AIDS control project in Tanzania

• they aimed at contributing significantly to the expansion of HIV/Aids services, such as voluntary counseling, testing and treatment, to reduce new infections in the country
• Japan will continue to support other projects as needed.
• The project was started with a grant from Japan.
• The collective effort has strengthened STI treatment and enhanced control of HIV

April 30, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Tanzanian Media…Is it free?

Press Freedom

Newseum gives Tanzania a 48 out of 100 in the Press Freedom Map.

• There are 537 registered newspapers (several of them are state-run), 12 TV stations (one of them is State-Run), and 4 national radio stations that are considered “sympathetic to the government”
• Only 1.5% have access to the Internet.
• Close to 70% of the population is literate.

What does this mean?

• It’s easy to see why Newseum rate’s Tanzania’s media as partly free. There is great variety in the media scene..TV stations, newspapers, radio stations, etc.
• The constitution states the importance of freedom of the press. However, there are great restrictions against media outlets that criticize the government.
• The government withholds advertisement from critical newspapers, meaning that their primary source of income is severely prohibited. This is an aggressive way to ensure that newspapers fall in line and provide watered-down versions of the news that the government approves of.
• By law the government has the power to create and close down newspapers “in the interest of peace and good order”

Media and demographics

• Tanzania is home to many privatized media outlets that are always at risk of being censored by the government.
• The island of Zanzibar is semi-autonomous with a different president than the mainland, but has even more strict media regulations. They only receive news from the mainland and lack a media outlet that focuses strictly on them.
• With one of the poorest economies in the world in terms of per capita, the life expectancy is 52 years, which means people neither have the time or the resources to become media literate and be able to judge the credibility of the media they are fed.

Changing Ideologies of Press Control

• Tanzania falls into the Authoritarian model of press control.
• The government has a great deal of control over what gets published often shutting down companies that criticize it.
• The press functions separately from the government (with the exception of the state-run media companies), but functions
  “for the good of the state” meaning that dissenting opinions are not published and if they are, usually lead to the newspaper or station being shut down.
• The government openly censors publications and jails journalists.

Examples

• It’s virtually impossible to find dissenting media organizations that actively publish in Tanzania. Many of the blogs I found that criticize the government and the state of the media were based out of other countries.
• I compared the news of the privately ownednews conglomerateIPP Media with that of the Daily News a state-run publication. Aside from having many of the same articles, they all had the same tone and agreed with that of the Daily News.
• None of the editorials on either site provided challenges to the government in any way.
• It was interesting to see that none of the websites have a “Politics” section as many American news organizations do.
• Both websites didn’t cite to any outside sources nor did it provide bylines for many of the articles.

http://www.ippmedia.com/frontend/index.php?l=40613

http://www.dailynews.co.tz/index.php/parliament-news/4058-social-security-funds-urged-to-benefit-members

April 18, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Web evaluation for Tanzania media

Daily News

1. 1.    Make it easy to verify the accuracy of the information on the site 2:

            This website doesn’t link to any other sites for references. In fact, sometimes it

            doesn’t state the author’s name and just states that it’s a Daily News Reporter.

1. 2.    Show that there’s a real organization behind the site 3:

            It is primarily a newspaper. This is the online edition.  Upon further investigation I found out that it is a government-runned company. It states “A Daily News Reporter” for some of the bylines

1. 3.    Highlight the expertise in your organization and in the content and services you provide 4:

            This site is maintained by Tanzania Standard Limited, a print media house owned by the the Government of Tanzania which publishes the nations top leading newspapers Daily News, Sunday News, HABARILEO and SPOTI Leo.

1. 4.    Show that honest and trustworthy people stand behind the site 3:

            I’m hesitant to call any newspaper that is owned by the government an honest and trustworthy source of news.

1. 5.    Make it easy to contact you 5:

            The company states various numbers and emails for all of their companies

1. 6.    Design your site so it looks professional 3:

            It could use some more graphics. Although it’s pretty straightforward I feel like I could have designed this website with minimal skills about web design.

1. 7.    Make your site easy to use—and useful 4:

            The share link is covering the Rate Card link making it hard to find out the pricing for it’s print publication. A webmaster pays attention to these details. Otherwise the site is very intuitively navigated through.

1. 8.    Update your site’s content often (at least show it’s been reviewed recently) 5:

            At the top of the Home page it has a timer of the last time it was updated. The articles are organized chronologically, there are various articles from different sections that were added today.

1. 9.    Use restraint with any promotional content 5:

            The advertising is very subtle and appropriate for a news organization. There is also a classified section aside from the advertising on the page.

10. Avoid errors of all types, no matter how small they seem 4:

            There is an error with the Rate Card link. No typos or anything major that might stick out.

             The DAILY NEWS website has some room for improvement. The first thing that caught my attention was how plain it looked. Surely, the content should represent itself, but people like to be visually stimulated while reading the news. Take for example CNN and it’s various colors and pictures, it acts as a welcome mat for anyone interested in its site. The site provides a few polls about some political moves the President is making. Currently, Tanzania is in the process of writing a new constitution. The DAILY NEWS is a government owned media organization, which instantly puts it’s credibility in jeopardy. As history has shown, the government can manipulate the media to enforce some of it’s own interests and opinions. Tanzania currently hasst a 47 rating (partly free) according to Newseum with only 1.5 percent of the population having access to Internet. Less accessibility to internet also translates into a lower rate of media literacy, perhaps this is why the site doesn’t link to other sites and gives no sources for it’s information other than the government itself.

THE CITIZEN

1. 1.    Make it easy to verify the accuracy of the information on the site 3:

            None of the articles link to any other sites. An accurate and transparent website would have an email for the journalist in case anyone wants to question the information presented.

1. 2.    Show that there’s a real organization behind the site 3:

            They have various addresses where the webmaster, online business manager, and the news desk can be reached, but there contact link is a little hard to find.

1. 3.    Highlight the expertise in your organization and in the content and services you provide 4:            

            Contrary to the DAILY NEWS it has an international news section of the site. There are various sections including entertainment, business, sports, and opinion/ editorial. Some of the articles are too short.

1. 4.    Show that honest and trustworthy people stand behind the site 2:

            There is contact information for the webmaster, news desk, and online business manager (for advertising), but some of the articles lack byline. Also, some of the bylines aren’t separated from the story.

1. 5.    Make it easy to contact you 4:

            As I preciously stated, there is contact information for the webmaster, news desk and online business manager, but no direct contact for the journalists themselves.

1. 6.    Design your site so it looks professional 3:

            There site looks well maintained at first glance. There are a lot of graphics and colors, but they lack serious maintenance in the articles. The majority of the articles don’t have any images or graphics and the paragraphs are very cluttered. Sometimes they lack proper indentation.

1. 7.    Make your site easy to use—and useful 4:

            Content is well organized under the proper tags. The home page features many articles from different sections (Sports, Entertainment, etc). You can easily navigate through the different sections. There are no pictures or graphics for the articles.

1. 8.    Update your site’s content often (at least show it’s been reviewed recently) 5:

            All the articles are up to date and placed chronologically. They also have a Breaking News sections with up to date information on the Tsunami warnings being constantly updated.

1. 9.    Use restraint with any promotional content 4:

            The fist thing at the top of the website is an advertisement. Other ads surround the entire site, every link you click on leads to a different advertisement. However, the ads are appropriate for a news organization.           

10. Avoid errors of all types, no matter how small they seem 3:

            Some of the paragraphs aren’t properly indented and the bylines and article content often run into each other.

            Compared to the DAILY NEWS, I found this website to be more credible. It not only showed international news, it provided some context to the stories they were explaining. Some of the negative characteristics of this site however, was that there were no images for the majority of the articles, some of the paragraphs ran into each other, and there were no outside sources cited for their articles. When a website doesn’t pay attention to grammatical details, how can it pay attention to the news?

            One thing I noticed was the types of news they covered. The DAILY NEWS, a government run news organization didn’t have many articles under the politics section. This is predictable because in Tanzania, according to Newseum, the government has strong restrictions against websites that cover sensitive subjects. The Citizen had more coverage on political issues. Images help tell the story and create relationships between the story and reader, The Citizen lacked images for the majority of their articles. With no pictures readers might lose interest in the article.

April 13, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A day in the life: Tanzania

April 6, 2012 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

American Vs. Un-American Concepts

American