U.S INVOLVEMENT IN THE WAR ON DRUGS
STUDENTS & CERRITOS COLLEGE
CHAPTER 11 PRODUCING ONLINE NEWS
This day is very special to many Americans. To myself? A quiet day to relax while everyone is out watching the Big Game elsewhere. Personally, I hope the 49ers win. And that is my two cents about that.
This morning I read an article about the WAR ON DRUGS and the amount of money the U.S is spending, the amount of troops being deployed, and its goals to stop trafficking in Latin America.
The article was quiet long and detailed giving specific strategies and tactics on fighting these corrupt Drug Lords. According to the Associated Press & Yahoo! News over the past decade has spent 20 billion on battling the WAR ON DRUGS. This number keeps rising and the battles waged on these notoriously violent cartels has only escalated to bloodier attacks on locals and law enforcement.
Three things spoke to me as a reader:
1. ENGAGING THE AUDIENCE- The paragraphs were short, packed with statistics, and detailed descriptions of the U.S strategies. It reminded me of Mr. Cameron teaching us about shorter sentence structure and leaving out information unnecessary to the reader. If you look at my earlier blogs my paragraphs are quite long.
2. CHAPTER 11-Responding to the readers. There was only one comment on the Associated Press release of the article today. In Yahoo! News, over 1,700 comments. Maybe there aren't as many American's watching the Super Bowl today. The reporter of this article is Martha Mendoza. You can find her on twitter at @mendozamartha. Based off the 10 comments I have read on Yahoo! News I, as a reporter, would filter the comments based off negative responses, questions unanswered, and what my readers are looking for.
- -Most of all these readers find it useless that the U.S is spending so much on what they are calling the FONY WAR ON DRUGS.
- -They want to know this money is not being spent on education, employment opportunities, and feeding the homeless.
- -They are upset by this article and seem like they are demanding an explanation to these facts presented in front of them.
- HOW I WOULD RESPOND
- -As a reporter I would seek to find those answers and give them helpful links to write letters to their local congress, representatives, and state governments.
- -I would find out how much the Obama Administration is spending on enhancing education and Gun Control.
- -I would also encourage my readers to contact me with information they feel might help me find those answers.
- All of this information I learned from reading CHAPTER 11. It lays out the foundation of a MULTIMEDIA BLOGGER reporting on BREAKING NEWS. What to do when you are faced with a problem where your readers want more and how to go about it.
Reading this article rose all these questions and I, personally would like some questions answered.
So, what does this have to do with CERRITOS COLLEGE AND COLLEGE STUDENTS?
Cerritos College is fortunate to still have a lot of departments not shut down and still maintain its stability. Long Beach City College has shut down their nursing, music, and (I believe) journalism departments.
With 20 billion spent in gun, training, and weapon specialization to combat these Drug Cartels and our local Colleges in California being threaten to not have the opportunity to have summer school is crazy.
I think we can all agree that what is going on in Latin America is horrible and should be stopped. I do not think anyone would disagree that these countries do need help and training to combat this horrific terror they endure everyday.
With that said, I do firmly believe and think all my readers would as well that the best way to combat street violence, drug trafficking, bloody wars, and drug abuse is to be educated about its effects.
COMBAT VIOLENCE IS TO LEARN ABOUT IT. Educate our young Americans to be a better, stronger, nation. The only way to do that is to make it easier for us College Students to stay in school and have the resources we need to stay in and finnish.
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