Juiced nation

A new study by Careerbuilder.com just ranked the most caffeinated professions, and PR professional came in at #2, moving up seven spots from the previous rank of #8.  Woo hoo! Oh... wait a sec... my kidneys may not be celebrating.

My kidneys and I united, however, in our pride in being second only to scientist/lab technician. That's awesome, because I was terrible at science in school. Kind of makes me feel like I'm a little more on par with those smarty pants. As an aside, Isn't that why we all go into journalism/PR? We can't do math or science?

I wasn't yet convinced, so I looked around my desk for proof and sure enough, there it was.

My array of dirty coffee mugs

In my "spare" time I teach a class at OSU Tulsa and professor comes in at number 8. Guess that justifies the two cups of coffee I had this morning. Here's the full list... where do you rank and how scared are your co-workers if you don't have your morning fuel?

1. Scientist/lab technician
2. Marketing/public relations professional
3. Education administrator
4. Editor/writer
5. Healthcare administrator
6. Physician
7. Food preparer
8. Professor
9. Social worker
10. Financial professional
11. Personal caretaker
12. Human resources benefits coordinator
13. Nurse
14. Government professional
15. Skilled tradesperson (plumber, carpenter, etc)

Yes... I'm blogging again.

Yep. After almost 10 months of being dormant, I'm back. For those of you who actually noticed I was gone... thanks! But to be more realistic, I'm pretty sure there wasn't a huge void left in any of your lives.

So what's drawn me back in? For starters, I was starting to feel embarrassed that I consider myself a fairly innovative communications professional, yet I couldn't even manage to update my blog. Secondly, I was being shamed by the the aptly titled "It Ain't Called Olds... It's Called News..." Uh... yeah. The blog by that name was getting old. Ooops... Lastly, and probably most importantly, I'm teaching a writing class for non-news majors in the School of Media and Strategic Communications at OSU. Part of the their curriculum is to keep a blog for the semester. And can I really ask them to do something I'm not willing to commit myself to? I think not!

So for my first revived blog post I would like to expand upon a debate that one of my students and I had recently in class: Are bloggers journalists? In a nutshell, I said no and he said yes.

Our staunch difference of opinion left me questioning my own views though. Have I been wrong to unequivocally deny that bloggers are, indeed, journalists?

In researching the topic, it's a debate that's been happening since at least 2005, noted here:

http://archive.pressthink.org/2005/01/21/berk_essy.html

My student actually blogged about this as well, and here is his take on things:

http://okedition.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/bloggerism/

My main point of contention is that there isn't a standard code of ethics for bloggers, and they're usually a one-man show. So where are their checks and balances? Others may say that keeps them more honest, because there isn't a management structure concerned with selling ad revenue. But recently, I was informed that some bloggers sell their space in return for coverage. If that's not the anti-journalist, I'm not sure what is.

So what do you think? Are bloggers journalists?

The real trainwrecks of reality TV

I'm going to make a very embarrassing confession. I watch the Bachelor. Pretty much religiously. I've watched it since the second season, and even spearheaded a money pool for a few years, betting on which girls would make it through each week. But recently I was flipping through the TV channels and stopped on the Real Housewives of somewhere, a franchise I've never watched. These were the most terrible, cattiest, attention starved women I had ever seen. Then I realized that I also occasionally watch Basketball Wives and Football Wives on VH-1, and they are certainly no better. In fact, they're probably worse. Both shows seem to have very few "wives," but a lot of ex-wives, girlfriends and mothers of somebody important's children. The Basketball/Football "wives" are probably worse, because none of them are married, but actually just glorified groupies that managed to trap a millionaire athlete for sperm donor purposes.

But hey, to each his own, and I certainly am not the type of person to judge. If that's the way these "ladies" act in real life, great. But do they really have to rewarded with face time on national television? I'm probably not alone in feeling like these types of shows are actually quite damaging to the women and little girls who watch them... Wait, scratch that... they're damaging to pretty much all women in general. What these shows say to me is that nasty, crazy, selfish behavior can be rewarded with lucrative TV contracts and celebrity status. Is this what passes for being a successful female in America?

I've worked in TV and currently work in PR, so I know better than anyone that smut and dirt sell... But more women than men are graduating from college these days, the salary gap between the sexes is closing and women could very well outweigh men in the workforce in the next few years, so why hasn't some production company exercised some degree of social responsiblity and produced a show that showcases women for being smart and successful, instead of being shallow and snide?

Just once I feel it would be refreshing to see a show about women competing in business, athletics, academics, charity or just SOME area that doens't involve yelling at each other, calling each other names or fighting over men. True, I admit that I do get some level of entertainment by watching these shows, but I also feel ashamed that these are hours I will never get back. Luckily, I can also separate reality show trainwrecks from actual reality. But there are a whole generation of little girls growing up and watching this trend on TV. Let's hope and pray they have strong role models who can counter these influences... or at least install a v-chip on their TV to block it for as long as possible!

P.S.-- I would still totally go on the Bachelor, but I pledge to not be there for the "right" reasons... I just wanna go rock climbing, jump off waterfalls and take helicopter rides over volcanoes. :-)

Kanye West: Crybaby or victim of the media?

In case you haven't heard, Kanye West is apparently feuding with Matt Lauer of the Today Show. Seriously Kanye? You can't feud with other rappers, you have to pick a morning talk show host? Was Fifty Cent not returning your texts?

Anyway, you all may remember five years ago when celebrities came together for a telethon to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Kanye famously spouted off "George Bush doesn't care about black people," as he stood next to a very stunned looking Mike Meyers. In an interview with Lauer early in the week, George W. Bush called that moment the most disgusting moment of his presidency. Nevermind the thousands of servicemen and women who died fighting two wars, a financial meltdown that nearly sent us into a new depression and a huge surplus left over from the Clinton administration that was completely blown. Kanye West was apparently more disgusting than all of those things. But hey-- that's neither here nor there.

So Kanye is being interviewed and gets incredibly pouty when being asked about the Taylor Swift mic-snatching moment at last year's VMAs on MTV. As he is being asked about that incident, the producers roll footage of it. If you want to see the actual moment, skip to about six minutes into the video below.

(continued below...)

So Kanye claims the Today Show set him up, and was so angry that he cancelled a concert that was set for Friday on Today, and in all his maturity, fired off some nasty tweets about Matt Lauer and Today.

But does he really have anything to be angry about? I know the media gets blamed for ambushing people and whatnot, but did this really cross the line? Would love to hear feedback from some viewers on this one!

The argument for NO

Today Oklahoma voters are deciding eleven state questions... questions that, if passed, would become amendments to the Oklahoma constitution. The proposed amendments range from banning Islamic law in Oklahoma courts, to funding education at the regional average, to forcing voters to show ID at the polls, to depositing more money into our rainy day fund.

Upon reviewing the plethora of proposed amendments, it occured to me that the United States was founded on only 10 amendments, and Oklahoma voters are being asked to decide eleven in one election?

What amendments to the constitution ultimately do is remove lawmaking from the hands of lawmakers, and put it in the hands of judges to interpret. So what are our lawmakers there for? I feel there are better ways to pass laws then amending our constitution. My reasons are:

• Many laws may become outdated and useless 20 or 30 years from now. It's much easier to repeal a law passed by the state legislature, rather than amend the constitution again... which leads me to my next point...

• A constitutional amendment should be something we, as voters, should be comfortable with for a lifetime. Are there really eleven things of this magnitude that need to be decided in one year alone?

• Oklahoma is one of the youngest states, with the longest constitution, and every new amendment makes the document less and less valuable. Passing several amendments every couple of years on a whim will eventually make our state constitution a very long, very useless document, filled with nonsense.

• I consider myself a fairly intelligent person, but a few of the questions were even confusing to me. It was then I realized that if I have no clue what the state question is addressing, then it probably hasn't been impacting my life in a negative way, therefore, so why change anything? Again, it's more difficult to change the constitution than it is a law passed by House or Senate bill.

All in all, some of the state questions, particularly the one addressing education funding, were authored with good intent. Good intent doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be included in our state's governing document, however. We are basically asking average citizens to make complex legal decisions.

It was for all these reasons that I chose to vote no on every state question proposed. It may not have been the right thing for each individual question, but I felt I needed to stand on principal and reject the notion that new laws should be cemented by constitutional amendment.

I know many will not agree, and I welcome the differing opinions, because at least then I know people are practicing critical thinking.

Real social media stalker, or shameless self promotion in disguise?

So one of my co-workers alerted me to this Twitter account, run by a kid who claims to be OKC Thunder star Kevin Durant's neighbor. His name is Mathias Murphy and his Twitter handle is kd35sneighbor. This kid (if it really is the kid in the profile pic) uses Twitter and You Tube to spy on Kevin Durant from across the street and through his windows. There's video of him shooting hoops, taking out the trash, and even eating Fruit Loops in his kitchen! If this is real, uh.... CREEPY!!!!

But part of me wonders if this is just Kevin Durant (and/or his publicist) using fake accounts to self-promote? The Twitter account "kd35sneighbor" was opened on October 20th, just a few days before the NBA season opened. Apparently Durant even posted his phone number on his Twitter account recently. Sounds like a guy who really likes to get his name and info out if you ask me... not that there's anything wrong with that. :-)

But just today, KD himself tweeted: "Yo @kd35sneighbor quit snoopin around my house with ur camera!!! If you wanna chill, just come over...I’m around bruh bruh" Of course, @ replying to the alleged "neighbor" is just going to give the kid more followers. As of this writing, kd35sneighbor has 526 followers. Let's see how many he has after all of Durant's followers pick up on it.

Maybe I'm just cynical... But if you want to do your own detective work and come to your own conclusions, here are all the links to get you started:

http://twitter.com/kd35sneighbor
http://www.youtube.com/user/kd35sneighbor
http://twitter.com/KDthunderup

Okies once again...

We're all pretty familiar with the stories of how Okies went by the thousands along Route 66 to California during the Dust Bowl, and even up until the 1940s and 50s, to find work and a better way of life for their families. My dad's family was one of them, and my dad, the fourth of 11 children, was even born in Bakersfield, Calif. From what I can remember from family stories, my grandpa was a migrant worker, and the family lived in Bakersfield for just a couple of years. Here's a picture of my dad's family when he was a kid. Not sure if this was in Cali or Oklahoma, but it definitely paints a picture of the times.

For the last few years, there has been a lot of talk about a "reverse migration" though... A migration of Californians coming back to Oklahoma. Cost and quality of living are part of it, but some also cite a desire to get back to their roots. Heck, I even gained a next door neighbor from the trend! Here's the latest story from USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-10-12-oklahoma12_CV_N.htm

Now I must admit... I do have reservations about this alleged trend. My grandpa on my mother's side always told me that when all the Okies moved to California, it raised the IQ of both states. Yeah, so maybe that was a Will Rogers quote, but so what. :-) Still sounds like solid info.