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.

Can you forward me that?

Harris’s definition of forwarding is the continuation of a previously read text by the writing of your own which creates an urge in the readers to continue reading on a certain topic. Using someone else’s work as a base for your own work makes for a really easy way for you to continue the story in your own words.
After following the Huffington Post, I’ve noticed that many will post a link at the bottom of their blog to either another blog or an article of some sort. One blog that does this really well was talking about Obama’s healthcare reform. Throughout this article it discusses about what is happening in America with the government bailouts and the stimulus package and obviously about the healthcare. All these subjects have had discussion on what they plan to do. In the article we can obviously see that the blogger uses much of his own opinion on how they have worked, giving them praise and saying that the soon to be healthcare act will be a great success. Now obviously I do not agree with the bloggers idea and to me I feel like this article has lost some its the authenticity (due to the fact that it seems like the author has misinterpreted certain things that has happened due to the stimulus package or the government bailouts). The author seems to be putting in what THEY think happened instead of what really happened. However, even though the author puts what he think is occurring into the post, i do see some truth in it which makes me question further what I myself have read and my interpretation of my readings. The change in perspective when forwarding some writing seems to be both a loss and gain creating a love hate relationship for it.

What relationship?

After all the readings with the New York Times and the blogs of chosen I’ve started to see a slight relationship between the two. Generally when I read articles in the New York Times I will read it and have nothing else to say about it. Usually the articles I read are simply informative and just go one way. But as I started reading blogs from scienceblogs, sometimes I would find a blog that would cover the exact same thing that I read in Times. Usually these blog would seem a lot less dry when reading compared to articles in Times but I would say that would be due to the fact that I am reading an article about something I already read about which sparked interest in me. I also noticed that sometimes the articles in the blogs seemed more personal than compared to those in Times. To me getting both styles of writing was perfect, I could simply get the facts and dry bones first then I could get more of an opinionative stance on the topic which would leave me to sometimes either question the article and do more research on the topic or further change my stand point on the issue. To me this is another step in how we as readers should be getting our news. Instead of simply reading everything from one source and souly believing in a company that could be spitting out lies, we should be reading from multiple areas in order to see both sides of the story. As we can see in Jarvis’s diagrams, the press sphere is changing into a sphere where news will soon be obtained from many sources, in turn opening our eyes to more than the highly propagated bias news.