Occupy Wall Street Art Exhibition

It's being three weeks since Wall Street was "occupied" by protesters demanding that the 1% which represents the "rich people" of the country, pays off the debts that they have generated from the financial capital of the world. Many people from all over New York took the Zocotti Park and Liberty Plaza to get their voices heard. Dozens of them have been camping in the park since day one and have no intentions of leaving until their demands are being satisfied. The demonstrators have the challenge to spread their "occupation" throughout the country, and they have obtained what they expected for; The "Occupy Wall Street" movement started with a few people in downtown Manhattan, and now thousands of Americans from all over the country are joining the cause. Among the demonstrators we could find students, union members, people that have lost their jobs and others that are risking theirs by starting a new life in the park.
Despite the violence that was present in the first days, these protesters have found a very unique and artistic way to broadcast their message; not only do they started an official newspaper which is called " The Occupied Wall Street Journal", but they have also created pieces of art to transmit their message.
I was honored to assist to the "Occupy Wall Street Art Exhibition" last saturday, and I was literally amazed by every piece of art. The event was held at the Historic building built in 1914 as the headquarters of J.P. Morgan right across The New York Stock Exchange building. The building has been closed for five years and was opened to welcome the public to see the art made by the young artist of the protest. at the entrance a poster that said : "Leave your Ego At The Door" welcomed all visitors raising their curiosity to know what else was inside. After i walked in, I was impressed by a burned-dollar-bill curtain hanging from the ceiling. Those who were not artist had their opportunity to make a collection of all their posters and present them in a wall as a glorious piece of art. There were many video presentations, body paintings, and little performances. Something that really caught my attention was an I-pad in the middle of the entire room, projecting the messages that people were writing on a wall.
Definitely, this Art Exhibition was so "orgasmic" and breath-taking. It was awesome how these young people coming from different places and having different reasons to be there, put all their effort and creativity together to create such artistic event.

Troy Davis' Case In Relation To Public Opinion

According to chapter one “what is Journalism for?” of the book “The Elements of Journalism” by Bill Kovach & Tom Rosenstiel, the primary purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with the information they need to be free and self-governing. This chapter also addressed the different types of citizens that the news have; 1) The involved public, which are those who have a personal opinion in the issue and a story understanding. 2) The Interest public: they have no direct role in the issue but they are affected and respond with some first-hand knowledge. Finally we have the uninterested public; these citizens pay little attention to an issue but will join in only after the contours of the diverse have been established. Furthermore, when a social event is narrated with such great characters and facts, the public start to raise their voices. All citizens become involved and interested despite which category of the Interlocking Theory they belong to. This is the case of Troy Davis, an African American man convicted and executed of the murder of police officer Mark McPhail 22 years ago. There have been many stories about executions under the death penalty in the United States, but few of the stories have grabbed the attention of the public like Mr. Davis’s case.
The article of The New York Times dated September 16, 2011 “Digital Age Drives Rally to Keep a Georgia Inmate From Execution” by Kim Severson, explains in details the impact of Mr. Davis’ story on the public. According to the author, many people didn’t know who Mr. Davis was until a well narrated story by the press caught the attention of millions of citizens. Mr. Davis had been scheduled for execution four times. This last time was different because millions of people from all over the world took a position on the issue and were in favor of Mr. Davis’ right to live, considering the fact that there was not enough physical evidence to convict him of this crime. Many people have compared this case with the Casey Anthony’s case, which in fact, was one of the most controversial criminal cases in America, because the public opinion got involved.
Unfortunately and despite all the protests asking for clemency for Troy Davis, he was executed as scheduled; on Wednesday September 21, 2011. This court decision left the public with many questions; was this a racial case?, what does “human rights” mean by the American Justice System?, Is there something call “justice” in this country?
The public had the power to influence many other citizens that were not really interested in the subject. In addition, the public opinion helped to introduce Mr. Davis’ story to the world. It also helped to convince citizens of the flawed American Justice System. However, the public opinion didn’t have the power to stop the execution of Troy Davis. Therefore, I ask myself, how much power the public opinion could have in order to change a nation?

What Is Journalism For?

In Chapter One of the book “The Elements of Journalism” by Bill Kovack and Tom Rosenstiel, the author gives us a clear definition of Journalism since its beginning until today. The reader could appreciate the difference between how journalism was seen in the past and how it is today. According to the author, back in the days Journalism was defined based on whatever the journalists said. It was mainly controlled by the government, corporations and organizations. Furthermore, It was a crime in some countries such as England to tell something that was not approved by any of these powerful institutions. However, the essence of journalism from the past has changed over the years. The definition of journalism based on the reporters, journalist, or government’s word is no longer accepted because of the advancement in technology. In the digital era journalism needs to be based on something more unchangeable and solid rather than the technology or the techniques journalist employ. Journalism has to be defined based on the effects the news bring to the public. How does the news function among the citizens is so much important than the skills and the word of a journalist. At the beginning, newspaper was the main source of news worldwide. Today we have various sources such as the internet, TV and radio. Therefore the values of journalism are based on a solid reason; public opinion. Journalism has a great power in the citizen’s life because it gives the public a freedom of speech, a democratic society and the right to differentiate between the lie and the truth. As a result of this, a journalist has huge responsibilities with the citizens because of its direct influence on public opinion. Journalism has to be guided by the public interest not organizations, governments or corporations. Moreover, a journalist needs to be a critical thinker. This means that they must have the ability to think out of the box, to view things from different points of view in order to be objective and precise with the real facts. The public of today is not expecting the journalists to tell them what they “should know” or what they shouldn’t. The journalists have the responsibilities to tell always the truth about what’s happening and give the public the right to take an action out of it.

10 Years After and It Feels like Day 1.

The day of September 11th, 2001 I was in Dominican Republic taking my English class. It was about 11:00 am when my English teacher received a call from a family member that was living in New York by that time, he paused the class for a moment to take the call. It was an unusual time to receive a call from a family member during work hours. I noticed there was something wrong when I saw his face expression. After a few seconds he claimed: "The Twin Towers are falling down?”. Immediately, we all knew that he was talking about those two tall buildings that each of us had seen in those American movies at least once. I saw a tear coming down his face. I didn't know the magnitude of the tragedy until my professor walked out of the room unexpectedly. That behavior increased everybody's curiosity to know all the details about what was going on. As a result of this, the rest of the classes were cancelled and every body was dispatched. Since I was being a victim of my curiosity, instead of accepting my best friend's invitation to our favorite ice cream spot, I decided to go to my house to find out what had happened in New York City. I turned on the TV and I astonished by those images and videos taken at the precise moment. I simply couldn’t believe what I was watching.
Watching a tragedy like this on TV it’s totally different from being there. It must been really frustrating for the live spectators to watch people die and couldn’t do anything to avoid it.

If we talk from a journalistic prospective, to witness an event like this as a reporter certainly change the way of reporting the news. The task of a reporter while covering a news is to stay calm, and aware of what happens around them but it is hard to maintain the objectivity when you are directly being part of a historically event like this; Some of them witnessed people jumping out of windows from the last floor of one of the towers, they watched colleagues dying for getting too closer. While I was reading the article “9/11 remembered: for TV reporters on the scene, stress lingered long after the cameras stopped” by Richard Huff, I was stunned by the testimony of these reporters. It made me realized how hard and dangerous the task of a real reporter is. I learned that in order to be a good reporter is not enough to have a good education, or the best experience, but above all to have courage and run towards danger in order to bring the best out of an event of this magnitude, That's the real big challenge of a reporter. Inevitably, 9/11 changed their lives completely especially because in some way they were the heros that were defending the real facts about this tragedy in order to inform the public by risking their own lives.