Picture Essay

I recently moved to a new neighborhood. New houses are still being built in our neighborhood all around my house. There are other neighborhoods around me as well that are growing larger. A strip mall is being built close to my house as well. Pretty much, my area is growing and the new additions of buildings are helping with this change. I was thinking that I would use this as my topic for the paper. I thought it would be interesting to take pictures of the construction throughout my neighborhood and possibly other neighborhoods as well. It seems like it would be interesting. I hope it is would be good enough!!

Graffiti

In the article, Graffiti, the author describes a tunnel in which he or she enjoyed running through as a child. This tunnel had all different kinds of graffiti inside it, ranging from so & so loves so & so, to hateful things. Graffiti can be found all over big cities & little cities. Driving through the big cities, graffiti can be found on buildings or in alleys. When driving on the freeway I have often seen graffiti on bridges. Most of this graffiti is about so & so loving each other.

I find graffiti intriguing. It must take a lot of skill to be able to create such original pieces of work. Although graffiti is illegal, I think that the people who have made the art needs to be encouraged to find other ways to display their talent. It may be better for them to have a designated area, such as a building created for inside graffiti, and that way they are not defacing the buildings around the area.

As stated in the article, some people may use graffiti as a way to express how they feel about a subject. There are often pieces of graffiti pointing one someones hatred toward a specific topic, such as Jews in the article. The author of the graffiti wanted to let people know how he or she feels about the topic of Jews.

Yes, graffiti exists, and I don't think that it will ever go away. People use it as a way to express themselves and it may help some people with pain they are suffering from. Detroit has graffiti, as do mostly every big city in the country and possibly the world.

Xochimilco

In writing my final copy of the restaurant review, I feel that I have made some very good progress from the beginning when I started with my rough draft. I like the topic of this paper and it was very exciting to go to the restaurant and "review" it. I had been to Xochimilco about two years ago and it was fun to go back because I knew that it was the restaurant I wanted to write about. It has a good atmosphere and very good food. I will be going back to the restaurant sometime in the future to enjoy the food. I should get back to finishing my paper now. =] !!

too much publicity?

I am not sure if the attention that murder cases is good or not. It kind of seems like there is so much drama with everything, especially this Tara Grant case. It is important for people to know about the things happening in their area, but to know every detail? Is it really that important? I am not sure, I am not the one writing the article and usually not the one reading the articles either. I know that people find it interesting and look forward to reading the newest drama happening in their area, but to invade someones privacy and gossip about what has happened, it hurts people. Those members of the families involved in the cases may turn their computer on and see an article about that person and it may not be the most appropriate thing for them to read while grieving. I think that news writers need to watch how they portray the information they have received. I don't think it is necessary to have every single detail put on the Internet and broad casted to the entire world. It may be important to tell some facts of the case but things need to be held back.

1. What local issues are getting the most coverage?

It looks like some of the local coverage is still on the Tara Grant case. There was another incident I heard of on the radio today that is mentioned but doesn't seem to be as important as other issues. There was a girl shot outside of her Midland school and then the killer killed himself. It seems that there is always some sort of violence in the news. It seems like it is always possible to find an article about death or murder. There are always issues with the community discussed in the local issues, such as the school board or problems with roads or technology or a building that is under construction// needs to be removed. There seems to be some talk about proposal 2, which removed the chance of using race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in work, and schools. This proposal passed in the election in November, but it being brought up right now.


2. What stands out to you about the coverage on freep.com? What concerns do they emphasize/de-emphasize? The "human factor"? The "drama factor"? Just the facts? What?

The coverage on freep.com is always very in depth about the event or the issue at hand. They seem to give every detail and fact that is known away to the readers. Sometimes it is not good for everyone to know the issues at hand before actually needed to know. There are sometimes leaks that occur which allow members of the community to know about things that could cause the people involved pain. At the same time... it makes for interesting reading to know every detail of something occuring in the area. It helps to understand how people felt, what exactly has taken place and why it has occured. Concerning the "human factor", yes people may be hurt by something that is said in a news report. I think that writers should try attempt some sort of quiet-ness when writing their articles so they do not ruin the event that has taken place. It seems that when something really big happens in our area or even our country, it gets news attention for a very long time. There always seems to be a new twist or a new issues brought up by the event. Even if an "issue" is important and people need to know about it, if something else big happens, the original issue seems to kind of disappear. People focus on the newest big issue instead of something that may have been important to them or affect them.


3. What's going on in your own backyard? What do you think?

I recently moved from Plymouth but when I select Northville, it is combined with Plymouth and Canton, which are close enough to count as my area. There isn't much going on in that area. Pretty much all of the articles listed are from the Plymouth-Canton area. It would be interesting to find out more about the Northville area, especially since I don't know very much about it in the first place. There are a lot of articles about the sports and marching band (which are very good). I guess if there isn't anything bad going on in the area, then it's a good thing and it should be kept that way. There is also talk about the Penn Theater, a landmark in downtown Plymouth. I thought it was funny when I looked for the local news I saw an article title "pet of the week". That is an interesting thing for newspapers to research about.


4. What might you want to research/ write about? Why?

I actually have no idea what I would want to research. It might actually be interesting to research a case such as the Tara Grant case. I find big cases to be interesting and since it is important in the news then it might be an easy research. It might also be interesting to research a certain place or event that has taken place. I need to put more thought into the subject and assignment to know for sure what I would like to do.

News

It just seems that everything in the news is negative, like everything worthwhile to write about has to be about something bad that has happened. The article about the final moments of Tara's life seemed very upsetting and made me become pretty upset. A lot of the articles are about violence and killing which may be important news to hear about but it is not always the easiest to read. Three of the five most popular articles that are listed about about the Tara Grant case, which shows how much attention the case is really getting. Another one of the popular articles involves the removal of Comerica in Michigan which could be detrimental for jobs in Michigan. Sports are always greatly looked upon in the news, most people will go to the news to see what the final score of their favorite game was if they missed it. Most games are covered very thoroughly. The news often has a wide variety of articles along with some topics over written about.

Restaurant Review

When given the assignment of reviewing a restaurant I felt that it is a good idea. I am excited to choose what restaurant I want to review and begin the process of evaluating it. I am a little worried about the time crunch since I will be gone for 10 days of spring break. I have to get to work and not waste time. Hopefully the end result is good!