Press Conference

Virtual World Releases New Element
Linden Lab, creator of Second Life®, a 3-D virtual world used for social networking, unveiled the launch of their new product, Second Life Showcase, at a press conference on Wednesday, November 19, at Washington State University.
Web Editor for Linden Lab, Brett D. Atwood, said “Showcase is a web and internet based 3-D guide that basically allows existing and or potential users of this particular virtual world to find and discover new and cool places inside the ever expanding virtual world and product of Second Life.”
Second Life is a global virtual world that is created by it’s users, known as Residents, for personal creativity, collaboration, commerce, and entertainment. Residents create a 3-D persona, called an avatar, to explore the ever changing virtual world and communicate with other avatars.
Second Life Showcase makes it easier for people to find cool and exciting content they are interested in. It allows them to explore and discover what is new or most exciting in the Second Life world. Showcase highlights the best places for Residents to go in the virtual world of Second Life. These listings are updated regularly so visitors will return frequently to discover new ways to explore Second Life.
To make searching easier, users can refine their search by looking at the Showcase subcategories including Arts & Culture, Education & Nonprofit, Fashion, Hot Spots, Music, Photos & Machinima, and Tutorials. Atwood said these categories were determined by figuring out what the “big, hot areas” were globally in Second Life. Fashion being one of the most popular searches because “people like the ability to customize and personalize their avatars,” Atwood said. They also like to make their personal space customizable.
In Second Life, Residents are surrounded by the creations of other users. According to Secondlife.com, because Residents retain intellectual property rights in their digital creations, they can buy, sell and trade with other Residents. There are vast opportunities throughout this virtual world. People can put on 3-D concerts, virtually dance at a night clubs, watch or make a movie, design clothing for avatars, attend a meeting or press conference, or explore universities, or even other countries.Since opening to the public in 2003, Second Life has grown dramatically and today has millions of Residents from around the globe, 70% of the users are outside of the United States, according to Atwood.
Atwood said that the amount of virtual space that Second Life takes up is larger than some small European countries.

Feature Story

Finding Time For School
Being a full-time student occupies most of a college students time, especially with finals around the corner. However, school isn’t the only thing on their minds.
Adam W. Jones is a 19-year-old full time student at Washington State University. Not only does he complete his homework and study for exams, he finds time to be a ‘gamer,’ hang out with his friends, and attend various church activities five days a week.
“If I could describe myself in three words, it would be ‘geek for Christ,’” Jones said with a smile.
Jones attends Living Faith Fellowship, an interdenominational Christian Church, at least five nights a week. A typical week at church includes Bible study on Tuesday and Thursday nights, 7 p.m. church service on Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m. Campus Christian Fellowship, a WSU youth group, on Fridays, and morning church service on Sundays.
Besides going to the church, Jones finds other ways to worship. On Tuesday and Thursdays, he meets with a group of people on the Glen Terrell Mall at WSU to sing songs of worship.
“He’s an all around good guy,” said Josiah D. Haworth, Jones’ best friend of three years. Haworth said they met in a video production class at Olympic College in Bremerton, Wash. “I walked into our first class and saw a guy wearing a black tee-shirt that quoted a Bible verse on the back” Haworth said. “I went up to him and asked if he was a Christian also, we’ve been friends every since.”
Jones previously attended Olympic College for over two years until he transferred to WSU for its communication program.
When Jones goes home from school, he lives with his family in Bremerton. He gives credit to his family for getting him interested in his Christian faith. “Christianity has always been a center focus in my family growing up and we really feel strongly about it,” said Jones.
Not only does Jones participate in all of these activities, he finds time to volunteer around the community and play anywhere between 15 to 25 hours of videogames a week.
“He is a very serious guy who wants to know a lot of stuff and help out whenever he can,” said Adam J. Ratliff, Jones’ good friend of three years. Ratliff first met Jones four years ago when Ratliff and his fiancé rented an apartment from Jones’ father in Pullman, Wash.
“We started talking and found that we had common interests in technology, computers, video, and Christ” said Ratliff. When Ratliff was getting a team together three summers ago to update the Living Faith Fellowship’s electrical wires, Jones immediately volunteered. “It took about six weeks and we ran roughly 2,000 feet of cable through the floors and walls” Ratliff said. “It was a big team effort”
After all his church activities, school work, and volunteering, Jones finds time to play videogames with friends. He said he would want to play at the competitive level of gaming, but his school work takes up most of his available time and is a higher priority. When Jones plays his favorite videogame, Counter-Strike, he plays on a Christian server. He plays on these servers because they’re curse free and the people are generally friendly. “People who break the rule of no cursing are generally banned from the server” said Jones. Counter-Strike is an online action game where one team tries to eliminate the other. “People ask me questions like ‘why are you playing such a violent game if you’re Christian?’” said Jones. “They question my morals.” Jones says he plays just for fun and entertainment, like everyone else.
Another challenge Jones faces from being so committed to his Christian faith is from people questioning his opinion. Jones says that people sometimes discredit his opinion because they think that all Christians believe the same thing.
Jones does not let people questioning his beliefs get to him. Jones said attending Living Faith Fellowship encourages him to follow his faith.

International News

1. How effective do you think the Internet will be for Al Jazeera as it attempts to reach a U.S. audience?The Internet will indeed help Al Jazeera reach US audiences however I do not think that it will be effective because people will not want to branch out of their already found news sites. I think that if it does reach people in the US, it will be younger generations who like to use their computers instead of watching television. I also think that will all of the negative connotations around this station that people will not be drawn to it. I think that people in America will only watch this for an alternative view point on issues, not for their main news source.

2. Based on your own observations, do you think that Al Jazeera English should be allowed to broadcast in the U.S.?
*I think that Al Jazeera English should be allowed to be broadcast in the US because it gives people different images and different ideas about controversial and well known topics. I think it would be good to give people the option to watch it if they desire. However, it shouldn’t be something that is on a main TV station to replace something else that is already on air.

3. What, if anything, do you notice about Al Jazeera's approach to telling the news? How is it different than the U.S.-based TV news outlets that you have experienced?
*Al Jazeera has a different approach than US-based TV outlets. For the most part, Al Jazeera looks at a more broad view than US stations. Also, it focuses more on places outside of the US to give a wider range of news stories.

4. While on the Al Jazeera site, be sure to check out the network's published Code of Ethics. Based on your own observations, do you think they are adhering to them?
*I do think that the Al Jazeera website adheres to all the Code of Ethics. It may even follow them more closely than other news stations. It establishes that it is a credible site and it has a wide variety of reporters and news.

In-Class Research Exercise

1) In Pullman, Sexual Orientation is the particular “hate crime” of concern. There are four reports in 2006 and no reports in any other hate crime. Pullman compares to other Washington countries by being one of the few cities that only have one type of “hate crimes.”

2) Dino Rossi received the most political donations in 2008 with a total of $7,587,579. Dino Rossi and Christine Gregoire are the top two leading governor candidates. Rossi’s largest donation, aside from his own political committees, was $15,330 from health professionals. Gregoire’s largest donation, aside from her own political committee, was $55,110 from lawyers and lobbyists.
Republicans received most of the donated money from the "forestry & forest products" industry in Washington state in 2008. They received 36.48% of the donations. Democrats received the most donated money from the "lobbyists & public relations" industry in Washington state in 2008. They received 93.98% of the donations.

3) * Digital Video Recorder: http://www.google.com/patents?id=dGGNAAAAEBAJ&dq=Digital+Video+Recorder&as_psra=1
* Social Networking: http://www.google.com/patents?id=fVsGAAAAEBAJ&dq=%22Social+Networking%22
* Automobile: http://www.google.com/patents?id=Kh9TAAAAEBAJ&dq=%22Automobile%22

Special Lead Paper

Put Yourself in Her Shoes

Wearing hot pink patent leather heals, Kelsey L. Hodgin strutted back and forth on the grass for the men who stood in awe wearing their own pair of high heals.
Hodgin walked with ease next to her wobbling friends in heals for a mile march near campus.
Hodgin was one of the many participants in the fundraiser Walk a Mile in Her Shoes: The International March to stop sexual assault, rape and domestic violence, hosted by Panhellenic and IFC Councils. Everyone met on the lawn between Beta Theta Pi and Alpha Gamma Rho on Saturday afternoon.
The men and women who joined together for the march raised over $2,000 which was donated to Alternatives to Violence in the Palouse for violence prevention efforts and rape crisis services in the local Pullman community.
“This event couldn’t have come at a better time considering the three assaults that occurred earlier this week,” Lauren B. Koszarek, a junior at Washington State University who also participated in the march, said. “I hate that I don’t feel safe walking in the dark, especially when I’m alone.”
According to the web site, http://www.walkamileinhershoes.org, for Walk a Mile in Her Shoes, one in six women in America are victims of sexual assault. Having this event helped educate the Pullman community to improve gender relationships and decreasing the potential for violence.
“I was glad to have the opportunity to participate in this fundraiser this month considering October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month,“ Hodgin, a sophomore at WSU, said. “I wanted to help bring awareness to the issue at hand. We are the generation that has to lead people to stop this violence.”
Wearing heals was optional, however most everyone chose to wear them to support the cause. Payless Shoe Source donated heals in sizes that would fit the men who participated.
“It was hilarious seeing all the men wearing high heals,” Hodgin said. “It looked like they were trying to use them as ice skates on the cement.”
Everyone who participated in the event paid a $10 entry fee which covered the cost of the t-shirt worn for the mile long march. The black t-shirt has a women wearing high heals that says ‘put yourself in her shoes.’
“Having the men participate and actually wear high heals the whole time shows how supportive and understanding they are over this issue,” Koszarek said.
Before the march, the participants read the pledge for the event in unison. “It was an amazing experience to be apart of,” said Koszarek. “While we marched the mile in our heals and matching shirts, we all chanted ‘stop the violence and rape, walk a mile in her shoes.’”
According to the web site, there are 126 walks scheduled in 2008 throughout the United States. There has been an increasing number of men, women and families joining the marches each year.
The march took approximately 20 minutes for every participant to complete. Men in their heals raced to the front to finish.
“Even though I didn’t make a direct attempt to stop the violence, I felt like I contributed just by being there for support, creating awareness and having a good time,” Hodgin said.

Ethics Assignment

1. When referring to the allegation that Mayor Jim West was pursuing underage boys online, why do you think editor Steven Smith differentiated between a legitimate news story and one that is not legitimate when he said, "If he's [Mayor Jim West] engaged in this activity … we need to know that. If he's not -- there's no story”?

- I think that the editor of the Spokesman-Review, Steven Smith, said that statement because he doesn’t believe that it is news just to out the Mayor on his sexual orientation. He only wants to make this story if he has evidence that the Mayor was perusing underage boys.

2. How did reporter Bill Morlin justify the use of a concealed identity on Gay.com as part of The Spokesman-Review's and the FBI's "sting operation"? Why didn't Morlin himself create the assumed identity to engage Mayor West online?

- Morlin himself did not create the assumed identity to engage with Mayor West online because it is against the Spokesman-Review’s code of ethics be pretend that you are someone you aren’t. Instead, he hired a retired FBI personnel who was in charge of online “sting operations” because Morlin believed that this was the only way to find information out about the Mayor.

3. Why do you think The Spokesman-Review ultimately published so many articles on Mayor West's alleged improprieties?

- I think that there were so many articles about Mayor West’s alleged improprieties because there was so much new information about the beginning accusations. They couldn’t have just posed one news article about what they thought was going on in office. The Spokesman-Review needed to be totally correct with all of the new information that presented itself after the first scandal broke out.

4. In the final analysis, who benefited from The Spokesman-Review's decision to expose Mayor West and his alleged improprieties? Who was hurt? Do you think the outcome was worth it? Explain your reasoning.

- I think that the editor of the newspaper, Steven Smith benefited from the decision to expose the Mayor because once he did so, he was on a lot of national TV programs discussing the issue at hand. This in a way, put him ‘on the map’ in a way where he became noticed for posting this story. I think that the Mayor was ultimately the one more hurt from the exposure. He was recalled from office by a vote of 65% to 35%. Also, I think that the gay community was also hurt from the exposure because they realized how much the Mayor was against the gay community, included bills to have no gay teachers or gay marriage. They were hurt by his decisions and how much he hid on the inside. I do not think the outcome was worth it because in the end, there was really no conclusion. The Mayor, to the day that he died, denied the accusations against him.

5. The Spokesman-Review has been criticized as conducting a "witch hunt" in its reporting on the private lives of some city officials. Below is a link to another recent article on Spokane Deputy Mayor Jack Lynch. Do you think that there are any ethical problems in the reporting in this story? Why or why not?

- I think there are many ethical problems in reporting this article. They have no actual evidence that Spokane Deputy Mayor Jack Lynch was participating in the assumptions the newspaper led on. I don’t think that it is appropriate to write a story about this when there is no actually proof.

Special Leads

Contrast Lead
Seattle high-schoolers can now get failing grades
"For the first time in seven years, Seattle public high-school students who do poorly can receive a failing grade on their report cards."
Seattle Times


Narrative Lead
To many, homeless man was a loved one
LA Times