My Final Essay

What am I sick with again?
Every year the flu season marks the beginning of a time where our country goes into pandemonium. Everyone prepares themselves as well as possible for the flu by getting vaccines, washing their hands, and by completely exiling those that have already been infected. However, this year there was a slight difference with people’s perception of what they should do in preparation of the coming flu season. Panic was struck into people causing many to take some normal precautions as well as some extravagant ones. What were some of these precautions that were not typical to prior flu seasons one might ask? Some people speculated that by not purchasing pork products, not consuming pork products, and by eliminating all contact with pork that that possibility of becoming ill would decrease. Now a person might ask “How would eliminating pork products from daily life have anything to do with reducing the chance of catching the flu?” but, if you weren’t aware of it, there was a recent “swine flu” outbreak eight months ago which has caused all of this pandemonium. The thing that people didn’t realize however is that in reality there was no swine flu outburst and instead it was a H1N1 pandemic. So how exactly did this “swine flu pandemic” arise when in truth it was only a H1N1 outburst?
Sometime in April the original “swine flu” outbreak began to emerge somewhere in Mexico with the sudden illness and death of many people. Scientist began to uncover the cause of this and found that those infected and those that have died had strains of the flu called H1N1 that of which is very similar to strains of flu found in the swine flu. With that handful of information the media took its own approach on the story which was to broadcast to the entire world that there has been a swine flu outbreak. During this time every time you visited CNN, The New York Times, or MSNBC, all you would see is “Shutdown of schools caused by the swine flu or swine flu still more to come”. Everywhere you looked you would see the words SWINE FLU in black bold print. With this sudden spike in cases of the so called “swine flu” many people began to become weary of purchasing pork products or even eating anything pork related. This entire situation was not helped with the perpetuation of swine flu fear by many other websites and blogs which discussed how people should stay away from pork. There were some articles that were published by smaller news stories that did not even mention H1N1 and instead only mentioned the swine flu pandemic. Headlines like” U.S. Swine Flu Deaths Now Estimated At 4K” and “President Barack Obama Declares Swine Flu A U.S. National Emergency” only increased fear and forwarded the idea that there was really a swine flu pandemic. However, as time progressed there was an almost immediate change from headlines including swine flu to H1N1.
Originally this entire fiasco arose from the similarities that swine flu has to the H1N1 as shown in Times magazine (Aug). Before 1990 there were cases of multiple viruses such as human H3N2, avian flu, Eurasian swine and classic swine flu. Over the years these viruses mutated and took bits and pieces of DNA from one another changing its form and the type of virus. In 1998 we see a re-appearance of these viruses in swine H3N2 and Swine H1N2. Again these viruses go dormant for several years mutating under the radar until recently. Now as the “swine flu” begins to prevail again, scientist began to unveil which virus was exactly affecting our populations. Upon gene analysis, many similarities between previous swine flu out breaks and our current outbreak was shown. Because there were similarities between the swine flu and H1N1 there was still uneasiness that the H1N1 could be transmitted from swine to humans. So technically Swine flu is under a branch of the H1N1 but the current H1N1 2009 that is affecting us is not the Classic swine flu that affected us in prior years. Again the H1N1 2009 that is affecting us only has strains of DNA from the classic swine flu. Many remember the reported cases that emanated in Mexico where there were reported pigs and humans that were infected being infected with the swine flu. Many believed that there was a transmission of the virus from pigs to humans. However, as some organizations (globalresearc.ca) reported, many of the reported cases did not publish that the person was actually infected before the pigs on the farm were even infected. As we can see there was little media coverage on what the H1N1 truly was and instead focused more on how many cases arose and the possibilities of a large pandemic.
Changing the news media’s choice of words from swine flu to H1N1 was a movement that was started by the pork industries. With the sudden decrease in pork sales the industry was feeling an immense blow to their sales. The industry already knew much of the history of swine flu and what it really was and with that the industry pushed scientist to reemphasize the fact that it was a H1N1 pandemic and not a swine flu pandemic. C. Larry Pope, the chief executive of Smithfield Foods says that “Swine flu is a misnomer and that people need to be concerned about influenza, but not eating pork.” (Innacurate ‘Swine’ label Par1) Even Dave Warner, communications director for the National Pork Producers Council says that “This flu is being called something that it isn't, and it's hurting our entire industry," "It is not ‘swine flu’, and people need to stop calling it that ... they're ruining people's lives (the pork industry)". By a change in name, people would not have the subconscious perception that it was pigs causing this pandemic but instead it was a pandemic that is only being transferred to a person by some other. By this time you could see that press sphere was making a turn and going back to the original sources of information. This 180 degree turn was then accepted by the large media companies, which in turn was then relayed the message to the readers. Even after the pork industries motioned for a change in name of the virus, many blogs and sites continuously used swine flu instead of H1N1. Even though there were many obvious statements that the technical name of the swine flu was in fact H1N1, many still did not see the correlation between the two. To clarify this CNN other larger media sources and even the World Health Organization responded with articles that blatantly told the difference between H1N1 and swine flu. The next big headlines that were published included “Stop Calling It Swine Flu!” and “U.S. officials want 'swine' out of flu name”
Once all of this was said and done everything went back to normal. News media sources simply continued to propagate the H1N1 scare keeping the pandemonium alive and strong. As we can see many news media sources took their own approach towards this entire H1N1 situation. Instead of forwarding the correct things, many articles got warped into talking about swine flu instead of the H1N1. Since the larger sources said that this was a swine flu pandemic, much of the smaller sites simply forwarded their articles from these larger sources which further increased the use of the term swine flu.
The entire time this situation was occurring my outlook of what was happening was somewhat biased against the news websites. To me it seemed like there was a major up play on the entire issue and still is being up played. Up until Nov 12 (for the year 2009 only) CNN reports that there has only been 3900 deaths caused or related to H1N1. Now even though 3900 people are a lot of people in reality it isn’t as severe as compared to the regular flu. The National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) states that the US has roughly 20,000 deaths that are caused and related to the flu. Even though the H1N1 has only been around for eight months, there has been an average of 500 deaths per months due to the H1N1. If you compared the H1N1 500 deaths to an average of 1600 deaths due to the common flu, you can see that the H1N1 is so much more miniscule. The flu accounts for three times the amount of deaths compared to the H1N1 (this correlation shows us that we should be much more worried about the common cold), but what does the news propagate into our media the most? That’s right; the H1N1 has a larger story compared to the flu which in turn makes many people forget about the common flu. Much of this has to deal with how much attention the media can get from the people. Who wants to hear about the common cold when you can hear about how the H1N1 has claimed four thousand? Or even better, what headline sounds better “Out Break of the Swine Flu Erupts in Mexico” of “Out Break of the H1N1 Erupts in Mexico”. Obviously people are going to want to hear about the swine flu just because they know what swine flu means and not H1N1.
Though I may be biased towards the news media, I do so only with probable reasoning. Knowing that our world has already done much research on the swine flu and all the Hemagglutanin Neurominadase (H#N#) there should be no reason for there to be miscommunication of what is happening. A quote from Global Research says that the World Health Organization (WHO) “has a large number of so-called recorded cases were the result of data manipulation” (in reference to swine flu cases) (The A H1N1 Pandemic Par 2). They also say that “a large number of so-called recorded cases were the result of data manipulation. The Mexican data used by the WHO to justify the phase 5 pandemic, largely pertained to cases of non-specific rather than laboratory confirmed H1N1 influenza. Out of the 159 deaths reported prior to the WHO’s decision on April 28th, only 7, according to official sources, had been corroborated by laboratory tests of H1N1 infection.” This quote brings up question that sometimes data is manipulated and that some things are blown out of proportion. This is relevant in the sense that as more and more people start to realize the fact that some organizations are falsely doing things more and more research will be done in order to bring the truth to the world. Currently there are several blogs concerning the fact that the H1N1 is really not that big of a deal and is simply being blown out of proportion. Some blogs like Blueduckcopy, Findingdulcinea, the Marquette Tribune, and many other sources are those to begin the next phase of the H1N1 story. As more of these smaller media channels arise, going against all of the already propagated news, more and more people will see the truth. I believe that as people read these blogs and learn why we should not be so afraid of the H1N1, the nation’s ideals will slowly begin to change. And as these ideals on the severity of the H1N1 changes the news media will begin to realize that not so many people are reading these stories and that they can no longer make a buck off of this fiasco. So in a sense these blogs could be the end of the line for the H1N1 story
Even though this story is starting to draw near to an end, it’s still funny to see how the news media will spin its words in order to re-create hype in the story. Headlines from MSNBC and The Washington Post like “Swine flu may have hit peak, but not over yet” and “Swine flu cases fall in U.S. but may rise with holiday travel” simply does not make any sense to me. How is it possible that the U.S. has seen the peak of this pandemic but there is more to come after holiday travels? I thought the peak of something is the highest point was it not? And why do they want to offer the public a chance of hope but seem to take it away so fast. The second headline seems to be saying to me “Everything seems to be getting better and it seems like you’re going to live but you might die still”. Why not just say that there could be an increase in the number of cases after travels. Again much of this seems like it goes back to “let’s see how much hype we can get out of this story” and “how much can we scare the public with this pandemic so that they keep reading about the latest news”. Well I say ignore it all. Don’t give into all of the media’s propaganda instead stay informed about the situation and dig deeper into story. I’m not saying that the media itself is wrong but instead that they are obviously out to make a buck by putting the best spin into their stories. Not only can you see this outlook through the H1N1 story but you can see this ideal in many others (the fall in housing prices, automobile companies declining, and many others). If you simply follow a story for long enough you can sometimes see that the media wants us to fear so we keep coming back to them to read the next chapter of the story. So next time you’re reading a news article, read deeper and further so you don’t immediately fall into the mindset that the news media wants you to be in.
Works Cited
"6 Reasons Swine Flu is Not a Big Deal |." Blue Duck Copy: Professional SEO Writing Services. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
"The A H1N1 Pandemic: Pig to Human Transmission of the Swine Flu?" GlobalResearch.ca - Centre for Research on Globalization. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
"Deaths from Flu - WrongDiagnosis.com." Wrong Diagnosis. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
"H1N1 cases fall in U.S. but could rise with Thanksgiving travel, gatherings - washingtonpost.com." Washingtonpost.com - nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
"Inaccurate 'swine' flu label hurts industry, pork producers say - CNN.com." CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
The Marquette Tribune. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
"The New York Times Log In." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
"Stop calling it swine flu! Paging Dr. Gupta - CNN.com Blogs." Paging Dr. Gupta - - CNN.com Blogs. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
"Swine flu may have hit peak, but not over yet - Swine flu- msnbc.com." Breaking News, Weather, Business, Health, Entertainment, Sports, Politics, Travel, Science, Technology, Local, US & World News- msnbc.com. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
"Swine Flu: No Big Deal?" FindingDulcinea | Online Guides | Internet Library | Web Resources. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .
"WHO raises pandemic alert to second-highest level - CNN.com." CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .

Semester Overview

After a year of classes without any classes that does not involve any major pieces to be turned in, there was a change of pace when I entered this class. Writing made my brain turn on its creative side in order to pump out all my work. The most memorable part of this entire semester probably had to be the readings that were done that related to what literacy was and was not. Reading some of the peoples ideals of what is and is to become was really interesting. I never really paid any attention to how the internet, tv, and other media sources really affected us. To me it simply was mind opening and made me have a more realistic outlook of our society’s literacy. I do believe that through this class my writing style has changed for the better. I can tell that when I write my papers, I have a stronger more definite point of view and I do my best to argue my case and point. Before I never was a fan of taking one side of the story so I simply listed the facts that I found. Now however, I am more willing to investigate into the topic and forward and counter the things that I read. By doing this I have learned my way of taking an approach to an article.

My essay needs revision but its done

What am I sick with again?
Every year the flu season marks the beginning of a time where our country goes into pandemonium. Everyone prepares themselves as well as possible for the flu by getting vaccines, washing their hands, and by completely exiling those that have already been infected. However, this year there was a slight difference with people’s perception of what they should do in preparation of the coming flu season. Panic was struck into people causing many to take some normal precautions as well as some extravagant ones. What were some of these precautions that were not typical to prior flu seasons one might ask? Some people speculated that by not purchasing pork products, not consuming pork products, and by eliminating all contact with pork that that possibility of becoming ill would decrease. Now a person might ask “How would eliminating pork products from daily life have anything to do with reducing the chance of catching the flu?” but, if you weren’t aware of it, there was a recent “swine flu” outbreak eight months ago which has caused all of this pandemonium. The thing that people didn’t realize however is that in reality there was no swine flu outburst and instead it was a H1N1 pandemic. So how exactly did this “swine flu pandemic” arise when in truth it was only a H1N1 outburst?
Sometime in April the original “swine flu” outbreak began to emerge somewhere in Mexico with the sudden illness and death of many people. Scientist began to uncover the cause of this and found that those infected and those that have died had strains of the flu called H1N1 that of which is very similar to strains of flu found in the swine flu. With that handful of information the media took its own approach on the story which was to broadcast to the entire world that there has been a swine flu outbreak. During this time every time you visited CNN, The New York Times, or MSNBC, all you would see is “Shutdown of schools caused by the swine flu or swine flu still more to come”. Everywhere you looked you would see the words SWINE FLU in black bold print. With this sudden spike in cases of the so called “swine flu” many people began to become weary of purchasing pork products or even eating anything pork related. This entire situation was not helped with the perpetuation of swine flu fear by many other websites and blogs which discussed how people should stay away from pork. There were some articles that were published by smaller news stories that did not even mention H1N1 and instead only mentioned the swine flu pandemic. Headlines like” U.S. Swine Flu Deaths Now Estimated At 4K” and “President Barack Obama Declares Swine Flu A U.S. National Emergency” only increased fear and forwarded the idea that there was really a swine flu pandemic. However, as time progressed there was an almost immediate change from headlines including swine flu to H1N1.
Changing from a swine flu to a H1N1 outbreak was a movement that was started under the pork industries. With the sudden decrease in pork sales the industry was feeling a real large hit to its sales. The industry already knew that the so called swine flu pandemic was really a H1N1 pandemic which is something only similar to the swine flu (the H1N1 is a strain which can be found in the swine flu but IS NOT THE SAME). With that the industry pushed scientist to reemphasize the fact that it is a H1N1 pandemic and not a swine flu pandemic. The pork industry could no longer sustain forcing the media to make a change. By this time you could see that press sphere was making a turn and going back to the original sources of information. This 180 turn was then accepted by the large media companies which in turn was then relayed to the readers.
With the almost sudden change of names of swine flu to H1N1 influenza there came much confusion of what was occurring. Many people began to wonder whether there were two pandemics going on at once. With two different virus names being discussed in the media, a simple misconception was a result that should have been obvious. Before this change many articles stated that the H1N1 strain was of the same family from swine flu. Media sources makes many correlation of the swine flu with H1N1 as seen in the proceeding example “More than 2,700 other patients worldwide are believed to be suffering from the virus that government officials call by its technical name, 2009 H1N1.” Even though there were many obvious statements that the technical name of the swine flu was in fact H1N1, many still did not see the correlation between the two. To clarify this CNN and other larger media sources responded with articles that blatantly told the difference between H1N1 and swine flu. Now the next big headlines that were published included “Stop Calling It Swine Flu!” and “U.S. officials want 'swine' out of flu name”
Once all of this was said and done everything went back to normal. News media sources simply continued to propagate the H1N1 scare keeping the pandemonium alive and strong. As we can see many news media sources took their own approach towards this entire H1N1 situation. Instead of forwarding the correct things, many articles got warped into talking about swine flu instead of the H1N1. Since the larger sources said that this was a swine flu pandemic, much of the smaller sites simply forwarded their articles from these larger sources which further increased the use of the term swine flu.
The entire time this situation was occurred my outlook of what was happening was somewhat biased against the news websites. To me it seemed like there was a major up play on the entire issue and still is being up played. Up until Nov 12 (for the year 2009 only) CNN reports that there has only been 3900 deaths caused or related to H1N1. Now even though 3900 people are a lot of people in reality it isn’t as severe as compared to the regular flu. WrongDiagnosis states that the US has roughly 20,000 deaths that are caused and related to the flu. Even though the H1N1 has only been around for eight months, there has been an average of 500 deaths per months due to the H1N1. If you compared the H1N1 500 deaths to an average of 1600 deaths due to the common flu, you can see that the H1N1 is so much more miniscule. The flu accounts for three times the amount of deaths compared to the H1N1 (this correlation shows us that we should be much more worried about the common cold), but what does the news propagate into our media the most? That’s right; the H1N1 has a larger story compared to the flu which in turn makes many people forget about the common flu. Much of this has to deal with how much attention the media can get from the people. Who wants to hear about the common cold when you can hear about how the H1N1 has claimed four thousand? Or even better, what headline sounds better “Out Break of the Swine Flu Erupts in Mexico” of “Out Break of the H1N1 Erupts in Mexico”. Obviously people are going to want to hear about the swine flu just because they know what swine flu means and not H1N1.
It’s still funny to see how the news media will spin its words in order to create hype over a certain story. Headlines from MSNBC and The Washington Post like “Swine flu may have hit peak, but not over yet” and “Swine flu cases fall in U.S. but may rise with holiday travel” simply does not make any sense to me. How is it possible that the U.S. has seen the peak of this pandemic but there is more to come after holiday travels? I thought the peak of something is the highest point was it not? And why do they want to offer the public a chance of hope but seem to take it away so fast. The second headline seems to be saying to me “Everything seems to be getting better and it seems like you’re going to live but you might die still”. Why not just say that there could be an increase in the number of cases after travels. Again much of this seems like it goes back to “let’s see how much hype we can get out of this story” and “how much can we scare the public with this pandemic so that they keep reading about the latest news”. Well I say ignore it all. Don’t give into all of the media’s propaganda instead stay informed about the situation and dig deeper into story. I’m not saying that the media itself is wrong but instead that they are obviously out to make a buck by putting the best spin into their stories. Not only can you see this outlook through the H1N1 story but you can see this ideal in many others (the fall in housing prices, automobile companies declining, and many others). If you simply follow a story for long enough you can sometimes see that the media wants us to fear so we keep coming back to them to read the next chapter of the story. So next time you’re reading a news article, read deeper and further so you don’t immediately fall into the mindset that the news media wants you to be in.

http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/11/stop-calling-it-swine-flu/
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/24/swine.flu/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/29/swine.flu/index.html
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/f/flu/deaths.htm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34066494/ns/health-cold_and_flu/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/20/AR2009112001820.html?wprss=rss_nation

essay 2

What am I sick with again?
Every year the flu season marks the beginning of a time where we our country goes into pandemonium. Everyone prepares themselves as well as possible for the flu by getting vaccines, washing their hands, and by completely exiling those that have already been affected. However, this year there was a slight difference with people’s perception of what will happen with this coming flu season. Panic was struck into people causing people to take some normal precautions as well as some extravagant ones. What were some of these precautions that were not typical to prior flu seasons one might ask? Well some people thought that by not purchasing pork products the possibility of becoming infected might decrease. Some people might ask “what does not buying pork have to do with reducing the chance of the flu?” but, if you weren’t aware of it, there was a “swine flu” outbreak two months ago thus causing all of the pandemonium. The thing that people back then didn’t realize is that in reality there was no swine flu outburst and instead it was a H1N1 pandemic. So how exactly did this “swine flu pandemic” arise when in truth it was only a H1N1 outburst?
The original “swine flu” outbreak originated in Mexico with the death of sixty eight people in April. Scientist began to uncover the cause of this and found that those infected and that have died had strains of a virus H1N1 that is very similar to that which is found in a swine flu. With that handful of information the media took an approach which was now able to broadcast to the entire world that there has been a swine flu outbreak. During this time every time you visited CNN or The New York Times, all you would see is “Shutdown of schools caused by the swine flu or swine flu fears”. Everywhere you looked you would see the words SWINE FLU in black bold print. With this sudden spike in cases of the so called “swine flu” many people began to become weary of buying pork products. This entire situation was not helped with the perpetuation of swine flu fear by many other websites. There were some articles that were published by smaller news stories that did not even mention H1N1 and instead only mentioned the swine flu pandemic. Headlines like” U.S. Swine Flu Deaths Now Estimated At 4K” and “President Barack Obama Declares Swine Flu A U.S. National Emergency” only increased fear and forwarded the idea that there was really a swine flu pandemic. However, as time progressed there was an almost immediate change from headlines including swine flu to H1N1.
Changing the outbreak from a swine flu to a H1N1 outbreak was a movement that was started under the pork industries. With the sudden decrease in pork sales the industry was feeling a real large hit to its sales. The industry already knew that the so called swine flu pandemic was really a H1N1 pandemic which is something similar to the swine flu. With that the industry pushed scientist to reemphasize the fact that it is a H1N1 pandemic and not a swine flu pandemic. By this time the press sphere was making a turn and going back to the original sources of information. This 180 turn was then accepted by the large media companies which in turn was then relayed to the readers.
With the almost sudden change of names of swine flu to H1N1 influenza there came much confusion of what was occurring. Many people began to wonder whether there were two pandemics going on at once. With two different virus names being discussed in the media, a simple misconception was a result that should have been obvious. Before this change many articles stated that the H1N1 string was of the same family from swine flu. Media sources makes many correlation of the swine flu with H1N1 as seen in the proceeding example “More than 2,700 other patients worldwide are believed to be suffering from the virus that government officials call by its technical name, 2009 H1N1.” Even though there were many obvious statements that the technical name of the swine flu was in fact H1N1, many still did not see the correlation between the two. To clarify this CNN and other larger media sources responded with articles that blatantly told the difference between H1N1 and swine flu. Now the next big headlines that were published included “Stop Calling It Swine Flu!” and “U.S. officials want 'swine' out of flu name”
Once all of this was said and done everything went back to normal. News media sources simply continued to propagate the H1N1 scare keeping the pandemonium alive and strong. As we can see many media sources took an approach towards this entire H1N1 situation. Instead of forwarding the correct things, many articles got warped into talking about swine flu instead of the H1N1. Since the larger sources said that this was a swine flu pandemic, much of the smaller sites simply forwarded their articles from these larger sources which further increased the use of the term swine flu.
The entire time this situation was occurred my outlook of what was happening was somewhat biased against the news websites. To me it seemed like there was a major up play on the entire issue and still is being up played. Up until Nov 12 (for the year 2009 only) CNN reports that there has only been 3900 deaths caused or related to H1N1. Now even though 3900 people are a lot of people in reality it isn’t as severe as compared to the regular flu. WrongDiagnosis (A website with good credentials) states that the US has roughly 20,000 deaths that are caused and related to the flu. Even though the H1N1 has only been for eight months, there has been an average of 500 deaths per months due to the H1N1, while compared to an average of 1600 deaths due to the common flu. The flu accounts for three times the amount of deaths compared to the H1N1 (this correlation shows us that we should be much more worried about the common cold), but what does the news propagate into our media the most? That’s right H1N1 seems to be a larger story compared to the flu which in turn makes many people forget about the common flu. Much of this has to deal with how much attention the media can get from the people. Who wants to hear about the common cold when you can hear about how the H1N1 has claimed four thousand? Or even better, what headline sounds better “Out Break of the Swine Flu Erupts in Mexico” of “Out Break of the H1N1 Erupts in Mexico”. Obviously people are going to want to hear about the swine flu just because they know what swine flu means and not H1N1.

http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/11/stop-calling-it-swine-flu/
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/24/swine.flu/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/29/swine.flu/index.html
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/f/flu/deaths.htm

On our approach to the last blog.

To take an approach in Harris’s book is similar to those in his previous chapters (forwarding and countering) but in a sense still different. When taking an approach your whole purpose is not to necessarily simply put another writer down but to use some of their piece in such a way to benefit yours. This is not to be done by simply putting the other piece down or saying that their piece was incorrect but instead buildings block for your own. I guess basically you could say that by taking an approach you will be getting support from another text.
As I read through the New York Times I hardly ever think about whether the writer is taking an approach. I guess when looking back to previous articles that I have read you can see a correlation with how the writers decide to write and those methods of Harris. Some examples of taking an approach could possibly be seen in the blog I read which complained about the CO2 emissions around the world. Much of the article discussed about the true facts about how much CO2 is released by key leaders such as America and China and Europe and how these leaders should reduce go about doing this. However, upon further reading, you notice that the blogger starts talking about the pros and cons in the events that will take place. I always understood the why and how we should decrease CO2 emissions, but the blogger started to realistically put down things like using mandating a decrease in oil consumption and how in the short term effect there would be a major increase in price of many things (transportation bottles ect). I guess I never really saw this as taking an approach.

Who says are society changed

America’s outlook on the news really hasn’t changed much from the past. Daniel says in another post that the news industry has been dropping down recently. However, it seems like Daniel did not analyze the situation in its entirety. Daniel discusses the fact that the average American only spend a limited amount of time on the internet reading what he or she chooses to read instead of getting a various variety of news. However this has always been like this. Before there were even news stations the only thing people ever wanted to hear about is the latest gossip of who did what and what happened, not the political news about how many bushels of corn was grown by a certain county. A prime example of this is the Salem witch trials. Everyone in Salem was drawn to the news about who was a witch and what did they do. Now a day journalist simply must be able to become creative with their stories. This may simply be a reason why the New York Times and other news company have reported loss in profits. What is failed to be mention is the fact that there has been an increase in bloggers and other sites that proved smaller news stories that have increased in profits. Yes it is true that our society wants blips of pieces of news but is that not true for anyone? How many people really want to sit and hear a long story instead of just getting the facts? I say all this now simply because it seems wrong of me to say that our society has changed for the worse. In reality we have always been this.
This blog post was editing one from much earlier concerning the news and the issue of it going down hill.

To counter or not to counter, that is the question

Countering could be seen as the same countering used in chess, you’ll make the first move and I’ll counter it with something good in response to your move. Now my move might not be understood to you but to myself and possibly chess followers of mine might understand what my objective is, my style, my way of playing out the game. This goes to be the same when countering in writing. When a writer publishes something I might decide to counter his or her piece with one of my own. My piece won’t only about contradict the other writer’s piece but instead it will mainly be focused about building up my own ideas. Using some flaws in the other article in order to prove my point and saying that bits and pieces of the other article is true but… I think _______ are just some of the things that are done when countering.
When reading the Huffington post it might not seem like there are lots of bloggers that counter. But all you have to do is scroll down and see what other people have said. After reading about how large companies shouldn’t become too large or they should not exist, there are many that disagree and try to prove their own point about what they think. Michael Martin counters a blog by pointing out that the company executives do know what to do and that we should trust them. The only problem with this counter is that I don’t fully understand why I should trust the CEO’s of these companies. To me it seems like he disagrees with the fact that they aren’t the cause of the problem but cannot fully explain why. However his counter does open my eyes to other possibilities of why there was such a large collapse and shoots me to places for me to investigate. I think that the problem with countering at times is that you may sometimes counter the wrong time. Yes it may be on track and the new writer does introduce his own ideas by stepping on top of the other piece. But sometimes when countering we lose the truth in the now squished article.