Mark Bittman’s “The Endless Summer”

The failing state of the environment if not a new issue, as it appears in the news more and more. As we undergo the hottest month on record, with droughts leaving much of the country barren, the growing problem is just heating up. As issues involving our environment are becoming more pressing, though it appears to be more widely ignored. In Mark Bittman’s piece in the New York Times’ Opinionator, titled “The Endless Summer,” he rhetorically asked “how bad will things get” and how long “before we wake up to it.”
        The strangest thing about environmental woes is that people are just not ready to face the facts. Texas Governor, and almost-GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry said in an interview last spring that he didn’t believe in climate change.

"I think we're seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists that are coming forward and questioning the original idea that manmade global warming is what is causing the climate to change," Perry said in an interview. “I don't think from my perspective that I want to be engaged in spending that much money on still a scientific theory that has not been proven and from my perspective is more and more being put into question."

Though it’s still baffling that someone in any sort of leadership status, especially a governor of a state, could even question that climate change is just a “theory.” Though, Perry is not exactly the poster-child for rational thought when it comes to social issues. Just ask the LGBT community.

In Bittman’s piece, he talks about how the wealthy in this country are able to see the ongoing changes in our environment as “manageable.”

“As long as you’re wealthy and able to move around at will. But it’s not manageable to the corn farmers losing their crops,” said Bittman in his article. “The ranchers selling off their cattle, the thousands of people in Colorado burned out of their homes in fires caused by the worst drought since 1956 or those who will lose their homes or jobs to fire, flood, drought or whatever in coming years.”

Bittman also mentions the recently released book Global Weirdness, which explains climate change in simple, easy-to-understand language and ultra-short chapters. It’s calmly toned informational book that author Michael Lemonick explains is due to the fact that “some people respond well to ‘Big trouble is coming and we must do something immediately,’ but others are overwhelmed and just turn off. We believe that if you look at all the available evidence it’s clear we’re pushing the earth into a regime where it hasn’t been before, and the effects could well be disastrous.”

In Lemonick’s interview on WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show, he explained how easy it is to disregard climate change, as it’s happening so slowly, though there are many indicators that our weather is being changed because of it.

“It’s too early to connect the dots with a really thick, solid black line,” he said in the interview. “The reason being that climate change pushes on weather in a more statistical way. Meaning you can’t say this particular heat-wave was caused by climate change, but you can say is that in a warming world, these things will come along more and more often.”

The argument that climate change is going to lead to major problems for a lot of people living on this planet is not a new notion, though the consequences that the weather of our future will bring is something that appears to not have stuck with the general populace.

Growing concern/disregard for the environment are one of the many aspects of american public policy that are ignoring real issue at hand; the widening gap between the rich and poor in America. However, it’s important to look at the aspects of industrialization that were the cause of these “greenhouse gases” - oil, coal, and other fossil fuels. These are all multibillion-dollar industries that have strong lobbyist that have Washington in a choke hold.

Bittman mentions the Kyoto Protocol in his piece, a 15 year-old agreement that claimed countries who signed would annually reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases. The protocol was ratified and acted upon by almost every country in the world, including every industrialized nation but one: the United States.

“Bill Clinton signed Kyoto,” said Bittman. “George W. Bush, despite an election pledge, repudiated it.”

Only reducing carbon emissions can keep matters from becoming worse, but who is willing to take pay-cut for it? Americans don’t seem to be the answer, and its incredibly selfish of us to push this burden on other countries, and burying our heads in the sand. It becomes increasingly hard to do, especially with weather acting as weird as it had recently, things like winters that feel like springs and blizzards before Halloween.

“Things like snow storms in October is not something that’s unheard of,” said Lemonick, when asked about the bizarre snowstorm last October. “The question is, are they happening more often? And following to see if they continue to happen more often as this century plays out.”

In an uncertain future on the health of our planet, concerns sprung early this month as NASA’s own Curiosity rover droid landed on Mars, taking photos of new strange planet. Thousands of views on the web watched the landing in real-time, through a live webcast, and many followers on twitter posted statuses along the lines of, “Time to pollute Mars, the new Earth!”

It appears that climate change is something that has left us with more questions than answers, and a heavy sense of shame as a species. Though it’s not hopeless, it’s crunch time to open-up to new ideas and start combating the change that has already taken effect. It will take time, though, and if there is a virtue humans are not keen on it is patience.

Why the Caged Bird Tweets

For my article in The Ticker on the subject - Click here!

As technology evolves, so does communication. With the use of new social networking sites such as Facebook, and especially Twitter any thought can be broadcasted to thousands of users with a click of button. However, are all these thoughts really post worthy, or in Twitter’s case, tweet worthy?
In the case of the 2012 Olympics, it felt like Twitter was a place where spoilers lurked, instead of usual culture commentary. Take, for instance the every popular #NBCFAIL hashtag, which has been used to bash NBC’s various problems broadcasting the summer games, stemming from time-delays to lagging live-streams.

Richard Sandomir discussed the network’ issue with the time delay versus the tweet-it-now world of social media in his New York Times article, “Olympic Viewers Have a New Reason to Complain, and the Means to Do It.” 

In that, Sandomir claims, “The past animosity rested on tape-delaying certain marquee sports into prime time. But now Twitter has turned into a fiery digital soapbox against NBC, as its users have merged their resentment over tape delay with problems viewing the live-streams.”

Though complaints have been made and tweets have been tagged, it didn’t seem to have effect NBC’s glowing ratings for the opening ceremony held late last month. With a reported 40.7 million views for the opening ceremony and 28.7 the following night for the first round of competition, NBC felt they have little to worry about when it comes to broadcasting live, regardless of tweets.


That was, until a reporter took the issue a step further, took control of the situation through twitter. In an article reported by the New York Times, Los Angeles-based correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent, Guy Adams, began venting his feelings about NBC’s delayed TV coverage. He tweeted his frustrations on the time delay as well as NBC’s attitude towards “pretending” to broadcast the games live. It was his last tweet, however, that sealed his fate.


“The man responsible for NBC pretending the Olympics haven’t started yet is Gary Zenkel,” read Adam’s tweet. “Tell him what u think!”


Adams ended the tweet with Zenkel’s work email, and instantly he was retweeted and some angry followers added the hashtag #NBCFAIL. The tweet was taken down, as    Adam’s account was suspended by Twitter after Zenkel, an executive at NBC,  filed a complaint with Twitter, finding that Adam’s had posted his email to be harassing.


Though he had posted the email of a network executive on his twitter for all his followers to see, tweet, retweet and use for themselves, Adam’s still stressed in a statement, “I do not wish Mr. Zenkel any harm.”


The extreme lapse in judgment is testament to just how much of a ripple effect Twitter’s posts can create. Unlike a site like Facebook, where posts can be contained to only a user’s circle of friends, Twitter is more like posting into the wide world of the internet. Whatever happens after a tweet is posted, however, depends on the user of Twitter itself.


It’s not just news-outlets who are falling to understand the ramifications Twitter, as many celebrities have be aware to the scathing punishment that comes with posting without discretion. Once used for a way to better connect with fans, Celebrities such as Charlie Sheen, Alec Baldwin and Lily Allen have since signed-off their account for good.


In a New York Times article, Seth Meyers, a Los Angeles clinical psychologist who counts several celebrities among his patients, explained the dropping number in high-profile tweeters.
“Sharing so much often backfires and invites negative response, which is difficult for most celebrities to take in,” said Meyers. “They quit Twitter, or their publicist tells them they need to quit for the sake of their career.”


Much like Adam’s, many celebrities do not comprehend the magnitude of their following and just how many people can read what they tweet, and share it to others. Also, Twitter archives tweets, so even if they are deleted the site can still pull them up if needed.


James Franco, one of Hollywood's hottest young actors, quit Facebook after tweeting some unflattering remarks, and off-color posts.


“’My thought was: ‘This is my Twitter. I can do whatever I want,’ ” said Franco in an April 2011 interview. “But certain companies I work with contacted me about what I was saying.”
Does this mean the end for Twitter? Are we perhaps living in an era where users are providing too much information? Meyers doesn’t think so, as he notes that many celebrities return to twitter, like a boomerang. Users like John Mayer, Miley Cyrus and Chris Brown have returned from short-term hiatus. Even Adams has returned to Twitter, his account unsuspended as he continues to tweet about the 2012 Olympics.


Why do users keep coming back even after such major gaffs? Meyer claims it has to do with the fact that famous people love a following.


“For some celebrities,” he said, “they go back to Twitter because they need the attention and the audience.”


Meyer’s claims that the draw of twitter is the constant feedback from others, and the instant gratification creates a feeling of being important. Especially for high-profile celebrities and journalist, having a following and being able to cause controversy feeds directly into their narcissism, allowing them to “keep up their grandiose image of themselves.”


The lure of Twitter could lie within the inner narcissist of not just high-profile users, who are attracted to the attention, but everyday users. They keep coming back, constantly tweeting, and always following. Twitter has evolved to become more than newsfeed of what people had for breakfast, or pictures of their desks, it has become a soap box for everyone can yell their opinions into a crowd. And while blunders are embarrassing, deep down users enjoy being burnt for what they’ve tweeted because it means someone was listening.

Beneath the Print: The Underlining Bias of Journalistic Writing

There is no such thing as completely objective-based journalism. While news outlets may attempt to cover a story and stay solely “to the facts,” humans are bias creatures. They base their opinions and views of the world on their own life, experiences and expectations. In journalism, the angle in which a story is covered by a reporter is where the bias brews, and eventually bubbles to the top. 

The three newspapers to be compared are the New York Amsterdam News, and two papers that many New Yorkers pride themselves in reading, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. All three papers re based and printed in the New York area, have each have rich and expansive history, and report on the news through their own filters.

A topic that all three papers recently covered was the story of how the New York Police Department was the secret surveilling Muslim students at college along the Northeast (including Baruch College). The issue was typically met with both side of political parties fighting with the other for either too or too little concerned with homeland security or personal privacy. 

In the Wall Street Journal article titled, “NJ Muslims, officials discuss NYPD surveillance” dated March 3, 2012, the outlet takes a simple approach. Using the barebones news from the Associated Press wire service, they inform the reader of the situation, and how lawmakers and the NYPD respond to the scandalous news. 

From the lead of article, it is evident what type of article it is with a line that reads, “Muslim leaders in New Jersey are meeting with officials to discuss the state's response to the New York Police Department's secret surveillance program.” The lead does what it is supposed to do, it explained the story without giving enough away to be any more informative than is necessary. However, it’s also vague enough to not point fingers at any of these “Muslim leaders” or “officials” which still leaves the reader ignorant, and forced to read more in hopes to learn more about the story.

However as the article continues, it does not add anything more. Later in the article is a line that reads, “Leaders representing a cross-section of New Jersey's diverse Muslim population participated in Saturday's session in the capital city.”  Still, the reader does not know who these leaders are, but simply that they are “diverse Muslim” leaders. There are no names or faces associated with these groups, and the only name the article mentions is New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who have spoken out against the surveillance. It is not ironic that the figureheads of the article are those who appear to be the heroes who were unaware of the situation, but now against it.

The next article that grapples with the Muslim surveillance is from the New York Times and is titled, “Bloomberg Defends Police’s Monitoring of Muslim Students on Web” and was written by Al Baker and Kate Taylor and published on February 21, 2012. The article discusses how New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg responded to the surveillance, and unlike Christie who was against the program, Bloomberg fully supported it. 

Unlike the Wall Street Journal article which was barely half a page long, this article is extremely expansive and focuses on how Bloomberg’s views differ from Yale University’s president, Richard C. Levin, and between their views bouncing back-and-forth there are paragraphs explaining the reports and how the surveillance was conducted.  

The article’s view is mostly showing how the academics institutes felt about the surveillance compare to the police and government. It paints a picture for the colleges and universities involved, but does not give a face to the Muslim organizations who were being examined, or what it implies. The only line that comes close is in the first paragraph, where the article states that Bloomberg framed the effort as “one way to guard against the threat of terrorism.”

Unlike both publications prior, Amsterdam News’ point-of-view as rather clear halfway through its leading line. The first line reads, “The NYPD is in the hot seat over reports that confirm the department participated in widespread surveillance of innocent Muslim,” and is filled with various trigger words. The term “hot seat” is used and gives the impression of the police, who are usually the ones interrogating suspects, being the ones in the interrogation room, sitting under a lap, as society plays good-cop-bad-cop. The term “innocent Muslim” is also eye-catching, even though there were no charges pressed or suspicious activity found during the surveillance, it shows Muslims not as targets, but victims. The article even sites an instance where a City College Muslim group went on a whitewater rafting trip, and were spied on by an undercover agent.

The article also discussed Bloomberg’s support, much like the New York Times article had, but also has quotes from those of the Muslim community. Unlike the Wall Street Journal who vaguely referenced them, and the New York Times who dismissed them, the Amsterdam News shows the side and feeling of those whose privacy was intruded, and in effect humanizing them.

  This view is not something that was done in the case of the Muslim surveillance video, but in earlier editions as well. The front page story of the February 9 - February 15 issue of the Amsterdam News was titled, “NYPD kills again: Community outraged after police shoot unarmed man” - one does not even have to read the article to know what angle the article is covering. The article, written by Herb Boyd, focuses on the story of the shooting of Ramarley Graham, an 18-year-old man who was shot and killed in his Bronx apartment. The story discusses the protest which was held outside the 47th Precinct in the Bronx, where furious demonstrators chanted against Ramarley injustice, with such chants as "The NYPD is the KKK". The article sourced the story from the New York Times, who unsurprisingly had their own take on the protest.

The article titled, “A Raucous Protest Against a Police Killing” was published on February 6, 2012, and was written by Tim Stelloh. Unlike Amsterdam’s take, which showed demonstrated the hostility and rage that engulfed the Black community, the New York Times article showed the protest in a different light, calling it a “dramatic conclusion”  and instead of speaking of the shooting itself, discusses the Graham family’s heartbreak. Most interestingly, however, is that the article does mention the “NYPD KKK” posters and chants from the protest. Though, unlike the prior article which mentioned the stunning accusation at the beginning of the article, it is snuck at the end, and merely mentioned instead of elaborated. 

The last Amsterdam News article to be is discussed is titled, "Opponents to Bloomberg school closures plan to face off on Feb. 9” and was written by Nayaba Arinde in the February 2 - February 8 edition of the paper.  The article focuses on those against Bloomberg closing the schools such as teachers, parents, students, etc. The article starts with a quote from a technology teacher named Del Sledge, who encourages students to stand up in the face of adversity and fight against Bloomberg’s closure of their public schools. 

The quote by Seldge was taken during a hearing and used to set the tone of the article goes as follows, “A message that instills the idea of resiliency and helps children understand that just because you fall does not mean you stay down. Just because you meet adversity in life does not mean you claim defeat. Let them know that they count.”  

After the quote the article reads, “The countdown is on!”  That sentence is not a quote, but a line from Arinde’s article. Exclamation points are something most journalists should avoid unless they are writing a headline, or using a quote from a source. It shows an excitement, and that leads to the reader seeing a bit of bias in a the writer, and publications find that to be unprofessional. The Amsterdam News does not appear to feel that way, as the author of the article is the paper’s News Editor, and their feeling of support for the protest and well as distain towards Bloomberg’s wish to close school are fuel to a fiery piece. A fire that is not evident in the New York Times’ take on the story.

The article by the New York Times was published on February 10, 2012, and focused on Bloomberg’s decision to close 18 schools and eliminate the middle school grades at five others, citing the schools’ poor performances. The article is titled, “Amid Protesters’ Disruptions, City Board Votes to Close 18 Schools and Truncate 5” and an interesting aspect of the tile is the use of the word “disruptions” which has a negative connotation.  The protestors, who the News Editor at the Amsterdam News felt were so important as to use their quotes as a lead for a front page story, is demoted to mere disruptions in a New York Times article. 

Much like the Muslim article, the New York Times means of reporting is to show two side of an issue, and between each’s views give a bit of background on the issue at hand. Again, a completely different angle than the Amsterdam News, who obviously picked a side, supported their side, and rooted for their side to be victorious. While the New York Times may have dismissed the protest, an article on the subject by The Wall Street journal barely even mentioned it.

The Wall Street Journal published their article titled “NYC board votes to close 18 schools, shrink 5 more” on February 10, 2012, and was again, short, sweet and vague. The article took facts from the Associated Press, and described the protests that the Amsterdam News supported, and New York Times villainized as “the United Federation of Teachers and many parents oppose the strategy of closing failing schools.”  The article is a true barebones rundown of the story, without the reporting that is found in the New York Times article, and the energy behind the Amsterdam News article.

If there’s one thing journalism professors harp on to their students when it comes to writing news articles is the importance of being an objective journalist.  The belief that the only way to accurately cover a story is to not take any side, report the facts, and inform the reader accordingly. Publications like the Wall Street Journal take this belief to the extreme, and for stories that do not require in-depth reporting, rely on the Associated Press to provide them information and they simply publish the facts on their site. Even though they’re simply presenting the facts, they’re hands-off enough to show that they as a publication, do not enjoy rocking the boat and getting their hands involved in issues that may cause controversy. 

The New York Times shares this ideology, not wanting to take a side, but instead of giving almost too little information, they give so much information that all their bases are covered. Also, as seen in the Bronx Shooting article, they do not enjoy upsetting their readers and rather hide controversial aspects of a story within the story instead of making it any more of a focus than necessary.  This is also an angle, showing the irony beneath going so far to be  objective that the paper’s own objectivity becomes subjective.

The Amsterdam News kicks both ideologies to the curb, and instead prides itself as being “The New Black View” - its subjectivity is the paper’s slogan. The paper is not afraid to take on any issue, whether it be political, local, or international, as each article is filled with the  each writer and editor’s original point of view. None of these views hold back punches, and though the paper is labeled as a “tabloid” when compared to other publications it bring up issues like why some things are printed and others things not. 

News outlets who pride themselves as being “the most trusted” or “the most hard-hitting” are usually ones who are the quickest the hold back on stories. The problem with mainstream media is that in the United States, the media is run by a handful of companies who fund their publications, and have in effect made the newspaper business less about selling news and more about selling papers. The Amsterdam News does not have to worry about that, as an independent paper with a low price point and weekly publication, it does not have those financial woes, and if it does the paper’s quality and means of reporting does not reflect it. As mentioned earlier, there is no such thing as objective journalism, as every paper has a voice even when it tries to hide it, and the only way to understand the real goings-on in the world is to be aware of not just one, but every outlet.