-777

The number you see in the title is how many points the market went down in one day. That's the worst drop Wall Street has ever seen in U.S. history and it's because congress failed a $700 billion dollar bailout to help out businesses.

I'm not going to talk about my feelings on this, but I am going to talk about the media coverage throughout the day between Drudge Report, the New York Times, and The Huffington Post. One thing that I saw on just about every page was the graph that shows the Dow plummeting.

The New York Times is currently reporting about the Asian Markets taking a dive as a result of the plunge from this afternoon and this was the story that kept updating throughout the day. Here was the top story in the Huffington Post. It blamed Bush's economic policies for the stock market dive.

The Drudge Report had a big headline that ran for most of the day that said, "Down in Flames." The headline had a picture of Bush and speaker Nancy Pelosi looking disappointed over today's bad news.

As a result, Barack Obama and John McCain played politics and tried to blame each other for what happened today. Some Republicans also blamed Pelosi for a speech against the bill. The Huffington Post poked fun at McCain for saying that now is not the time to play politics, yet still attacked Obama.

The media concentrated on Obama's reaction to the crisis in saying that he is sure everything will go well if the American people calm down. If there was anything that was similar about all three sources, it's that there was no shortage of hyperbole to describe the market today.

The other top story for the day was about how Sarah Palin was preparing for the interview with Joe Biden. The Huffington Post cited the New York Times in a story about how there are concerns over how prepared Palin is for the debate.

I really didn't notice much from the Drudge Report on Palin's readiness, but the NY Times had multiple articles concerning this issue. The articles characterize Palin as someone who doesn't have the knowledge to compete with Biden while calling him a loose cannon when it comes to debate.

Huffington has an article here that refers to the interview Palin had with Katie Couric. The piece states how CBS has a clip of Palin saying she doesn't know about any other court cases besides Roe V. Wade. I found that the coverage overall today was full of news content and did a remarkable job of editorializing (including the NY Times although they package it as analysis).

Extremely pompous, incredibly conceited

Our Journalism for the Web class did some blogging for Jonathan Foer’s speech on Tuesday. The blogging was done through Twitter, a place where people can send live updates of what they are doing and follow others around.

Foer addressed his speech to the Commonwealth College Dean’s Book classes at the University of Massachusetts, who read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Here is a summary of his book in case you are in the same position as me and don’t know what it’s about.

His speech mostly addressed how he was going to address the questions about his book and admitted that he is probably going to ignore and dodge plenty of questions on purpose.

UMass journalism teacher Scott Brodeur opened up the hour and a half discussion on Twitter with a post stating, “Jonathan Safran Foer is speaking at UMass on Tuesday. And a group of students will be live-blogging it via Twitter.”

Foer began his address admitting that he did not have his nice clothes with him because three of his buttons mysteriously disappeared. Brodeur commented on the auditorium at the UMass Fine Arts Center being packed.

He guessed that there were likely about 1,500 people there while Scott Feldman, a student for Journalism on the Web estimated that at least 1,000 people were attending the question and answer session.

One of the problems I had in going to the lecture was that I wasn’t aware of the context he was talking about since I didn’t know much about the book. I talked to some people who were actually in Commonwealth College about their thoughts on him.

The students who actually read the book believe that he was clever, witty and brilliant. I feel like most of the class, if not, all of the class didn’t get that perception of him.

For instance, in the beginning where Foer said that he dodges a lot of questions on purpose my friends thought that it represented his wit while many people in the class thought that he was just being foolish.

“Who is this guy, Bill Bellicek? Gave us a warning that it seems like he often dodges questions, supported this with four quotes,” Michael Handley said.

Some of the posts just highlighted good quotes or quotes that seemed interesting. I thought Foer managed to be interesting, but his overall attitude rubbed me the wrong way. My ComCol friends tell me that I would have been more understanding if I read the book.

One thing that Stella quoted that I really liked was when Foer said, “people think art is free… in reality, freedom constrains you.”

It took me some thinking to understand what he truly meant, but I think what he is saying with this quote is the fact that when people have freedom, the expectations of producing something great are a lot higher. In other words, we would have a hard time doing something that we want to do and instead focus on what everyone else expects from us.

In a way, Foer attempts to shatter this dilemma by saying something that is unpredictable. The one quote that really got to me was when he said, “I am a writer, not a journalist.” This quote is supposed to suggest that he doesn’t have to stick to the facts exactly as they are presented. In fact, he doesn’t even have to pay attention to the facts.

After I heard him say that, I wondered if he was taking a cheap shot at journalists. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was because Foer is willing to go after anyone and he speaks his mind.

The bottom line that we got from his questions is that Foer primarily uses the audience to answer their own questions. He does this because he likes to know how the audience interprets his work.

The catch is that for any question he’s asked, he expects that person to know exactly what they’re talking about.

“Ask questions at your own risk. Foer will bring you down a notch if you don’t bring you’re a game,” Handley said.

I noticed that Katelyn and Andrea bought the book. I’m curious to know if their opinions about him changed after reading some of his work.

'Look at me when you insult my tax cuts'

If anyone missed the presidential debate Friday night, I included it here. I am also including a review on how TIME rates the candidates during the debate.

What you'll notice about the debate is that the moderator Jim Lehrer constantly tells Barack Obama and John McCain to look at each other and talk rather than looking and talking to the camera. Obama does it a few times but McCain has a hard time grappling with that idea.

I thought this was a cool idea and I hope all the debates can have a similar format. Perhaps the candidates debate prep people can stress this idea so it can actually sound like a debate instead of a speech contest.

Now I've seen it all

Who is the best 8-year-old basketball player in the country? Go on Youtube and you will see plenty of hype for that claim going to Marquise Walker. His father has worked with a few cunning marketing gurus to market his son so that he will get to play college basketball.

He even has a who's who of NBA and college players saying how great they think he is.

The problem with hyping him up as much as his father did is that there is a lot of pressure for him to be a great NBA player. Anything less than being LeBron James, even if he makes the NBA, will probably make him a failure.

The thing is that even if this kid plays Division II basketball, he is a success story already. Anything more is icing on the cake. Walker's dad is probably living off Marquise's fame already, but hopefully this kid doesn't lose his innocence and become a bust.

He is certainly very good for his age and has a very bright future ahead of him but a lot can change. How much is he going to grow and can his skills live up to his potential?

ESPN did a terrific piece on him that I hope you all check out. What do you think of his dad? Smart entrepreneur or is this exploitation?

Unfortunately youtube decided not to work when I felt like posting a clip of him so here's a link to one of about 55 of his clips.

Even Obama wouldn't be proud about this

An 11-year-old boy was suspended from school after wearing a shirt that says, "Obama is a terrorist's best friend." As much as I support presidential candidate Barack Obama, I value the freedom of speech even more. 

I think it's sad that the boy is being brainwashed to believe that, but there is no reason for him not beling allowed to wear the shirt. I hope the school will reverse their ruling and allow the boy to wear that shirt.

LIVE BLOG: David Maraniss

I'm currently sitting in the second row listening to author David Maraniss give a speech entitled, "Playing for Keeps: Race, Sports, and Politics." I will do a live blog throughout his speech giving reaction at certain points. I asked some staff member if I could plug in my lap top and I got a yes with plenty of dirty looks. Oh well.

David is beginning to talk. I'll give an update every half hour.

5:58 p.m: My sister and mom are currently getting a snack and trying to find me so I guess I have some time to spare. I had the second to last question asking him who his favorite interview was and Maraniss answered that it was a commander in the Vietnam War simply because he was wowed by the experiences he shared. It wasn't was I expected considering there were all these big-name sports figures I know he's talked to. The Q and A session really showed his large span of knowledge because he would address topics that had nothing to do with the previous question one right after the other. Great lecture and I'm out before these Intro to Journalism people hound me for an interview.

5:45 p.m: Unrelated but my sister is visiting me and wants to go to dinner. I'll blog about the end a bit later.

5:30 p.m: Q and A is starting so I'll go ahead and sum up the second half of his speech. Maraniss talks about Bill Clinton and Barack Obama's history with race and sports. He identifies Clinton as a key leader for reform in Arkansas during 1963. He helped many black Arkansas students pass classes who otherwise wouldn't have had the resources to pass. Obama shook him up so much that the media accused him of being racist. The most interesting thing he says about Clinton is how he always takes mulligans in golf and that's how he approaches his life. For him every day is a chance at fixing his mistake. It's a packed house and I don't think anyone here is bored. Everyone has something at stake in his speech whether its an interest in sports, politics, the sociology, or journalism. He finds a way to tie in any sporting event to a historical and political event. This guy could do some really interesting E:60 pieces. He speaks about race without being cliche and he talks about politics without being partisan.

5 p.m: Maraniss just told this great story about an Ethiopian who won the gold medal in Rome's Olympic games in 1960 without having any shoes. An American told his teammate that they had nothing to worry about. The irony here is that prior to the Olympic games, Italy invaded Ethiopia. He also talks about what was going on in America a few months before this race took place. I enjoy how the speech effectively ties together the three themes of race, sports, and politics. He addreses the criticism that sports is trivial and doesn't matter by showing how the Cold War and Olympics forced the U.S. to stop its hypocricy and treat African Americans better.

Clutch reporting

Yes, this is another Collegian story having to do with UMass women's soccer. I'm sorry if anyone gets bored with my little stories with the Daily Collegian, but this is a journalism class so I figured I'd share them.

My beat writer, David Brinch, was supposed to write a sidebar story on Vanessa Lima and Vanessa Patry, but he couldn't get the interviews together and was relying on my interview notes from my conversation with Coach Rudy to get his piece together. I made a judgment call when I heard that one of the defensive players for the Minutewomen, Meghan Collins, has a sister on Providence who they are playing on Sunday.

I immediately asked the follow up questions where I could try to help Brinch get a new sidebar together. I called him back and since he was busy and didn't get all the background that I got asked if I could write the sidebar in addition to my preview. I knew this was going to be quite the challenge because I've never had to write two pieces on deadline before, but he offered to take the wrap and I liked the idea anyway so I just went with it.

My next challenge was to get an interview with Collins. I called Jillian (Media Relations) once again and apologized profusely for being last minute because it's something the editors used to kill us for last year and wouldn't be happy about me doing this now either.

Like one of my former editors Jeremy Rice said, "You need to work with Media Relations and they need to work with you. We are a team that needs each other. I shouldn't be getting calls from John Sinnett saying that he doesn't have time to schedule an interview for hockey because he has to get interviews at the last minute for swimming and diving."

OK, last time I didn't have a valid excuse, but this time it was last minute and there seriously was nothing I could do. Jillian called Collins, but for some reason had the wrong number. In the meantime, I started my story at 4 p.m. during my computer literacy class only to receive a text from Justin and helped me get the interview straight. I told him to have Collins call the Collegian since my cell phone gets no reception down there.

At 5:45, I finish the preview with no call from Collins. Naturally, I take care of my stress problems by ordering food at the Blue Wall. As soon as I'm in an area where I can get cell phone coverage, I get a text message from Melissa asking for a copy of the paper so she can read my article.

That was pretty much my highlight of the night.

I came down, called Justin and asked if he knew whether Collins would call me. He told me that she should've called me already and as he said that, she called me and I hung up on him. I got the interview and article done by 7:45. Mission accomplished.

Seriously, Justin should be hired to do Media Relations for a pro sports team the minute he graduates. He obviously cares a lot about UMass sports, but he always finds a way to get me whatever I need for my story. Had anyone else but Justin handle this situation, there was no way I would've gotten my interview with Collins and I'd essentially be screwed.

Anyway, Sunday is rumored to be decision day for winter beats. I'm only going to be here for a semester (studying abroad second semester), but I would still like to get men's basketball while I'm still here. I truly think that I am prepared and working with one of the most professional coaches at UMass in Rudy helped me so I could make the adjustment to basketball, where Coach Kellogg will be mobbed by local and national media.

There's going to be some adjustment if I end up getting basketball, but it would be a lot of fun.