Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Texas stays Red after 2014 mid-term elections

The Republican Party not only had a successful national showing on Election Day, but they also dominated the majority of the races in the State of Texas, including the race for Governor on Tuesday night.

Republican candidate and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott entered the evening with a sizable advantage over his opponent, Democratic nominee and Texas State Senator Wendy Davis. That continued on Election Day as Abbott won in a decisive victory that was called less than an hour after the polls were closed.

“Thank you Texas for electing me Governor,” Abbott said in a tweet last night. “With honor and dignity, I will fight for you and your future. God Bless Texas.”

Abbott defeated Davis with 59.25 percent of the vote and had 2,790,227 total votes. Davis had 1,832, 254 votes and 38.91 percent of the total vote.

In her concession speech, Davis had congratulated Abbott on the victory and wished him the best. She also tried to console her supporters at her rally.

 “I know tonight you are disappointed and being disappointed is ok, but being discouraged is not,” Davis said. “What we have before us is an opportunity to remake this state in your image.”

In a speech at his victory rally, Abbott said that all Texans want the same things and that they all can rise up above any adversity.

“I am living proof that a young man can have his life broken in half and still rise up to be the Governor of this great state," Abbott said.

Another race that caught the state’s eye was the race for Lt. Governor.  Republican candidate Texas State Senator Dan Patrick defeated Democratic nominee Texas State Senator Leticia Van de Putte. Patrick beat Van de Putte with 58.13 percent of the vote. He had 2,718,406 votes casted for him, while Van de Putte had 1,810,720.


Another big Republican win went to John Cornyn, who was re-elected to a third-term as one of Texas’ U.S. senators. He beat out challenger Democrat David M. Alameel by a wide-margin, with 61.55 percent of the total vote. Cornyn had 2,855,068 total votes, while Alameel had 1,594,252.


It was a rather big election for those in the city of Denton as multiple local and national races impacted their city. In congressional district 24, incumbent Congressman Kenney E. Marchant won re-election in a landslide, with over 65.07 percent of the total vote. Marchant had 93,446 votes compared to the 46,360 votes his challenger Democrat Patrick McGehearty got in the race.

In the Texas House, four districts that belong to Denton County were in play. In the race for House District 63, Daniel Moran, a student at UNT, ran on the Democratic ticket challenging incumbent Republican Tan Parker. Parker won in convincing fashion, with over 70 percent of the vote. Parker had 30,769 votes compared to the 9,016 votes Moran had.

In other Texas house races, Myra Crownover was re-elected back to the Texas House district 64 by defeating Democrat challenger Emy Lyons. Crownover had 23,583 votes and Lyons had 12,578.

For Texas House district 65, Incumbent Republican Ron Simmons won by a convincing margin over challenger Alex Mendoza. Simmons had 18,786 votes compared to Mendoza’s 10,419.

Texas House district 106 also had a non-competitive race as Pat Fallon was re-elected over Democrat challenger Lisa Osterholt. Fallon got 24,387 votes compared to the 9, 586 votes that Osterholt had.

The voters in Denton didn’t just have representatives to vote for as seven propositions were on the ballot for consideration.

One of the major propositions that caught a lot of attention in Denton was the move to ban hydraulic fracking inside the city limits. The vote passed with 14,881 in favor of the ban, while 10,495 voted against it.


There was also a vote on a proposition to allow liquor to be sold inside city limits, essentially making Denton wet. The proposition passed with ease as 18,575 people voted for the motion. Only 6,551 people opposed it.

There was also a city bond election worth $98.2 million dollars, but the vote was separated into four parts. The first proposition passed with 20,732 votes to 3,745. The second one passed with 19,494 votes to 4,784. The third passed with 19,282 votes to 4,272. The fourth passed as well 17,977 votes to only 6,258.

The final measure the citizens of Denton voted on was a proposition to do a land swap on property on the edges of North Lake Park. The motion was close but passed in favor of the swap with 12,378 in favor of the move. 10,752 people voted against the measure.


The election also proved that Denton County is still leaning towards the Republican Party. In a straight party vote, Republicans had 64,785 votes.  The Democrats had 23,721 votes, the Libertarians had 883 and the Green party had 264.





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Thursday, October 30, 2014

Fracking among others drawing in student voters at UNT

As the elections draw closer, UNT students are noticing a lot of activity with politics on campus. Sycamore Hall is the site for early voting at UNT and it is running through October 31, 2014. While the Governor and Lt. Governor’s races are drawing most of the attention, UNT students seem to be drawn to the fracking issue.

Since the city decided to allow the voters to decide whether or not there should be a ban on fracking, there has been a lot of heated debate from both sides of the aisle. There are even tables set outside of Sycamore Hall for both sides to appeal to voters before they make their decision. Directly outside of Sycamore Hall, the UNT College Republicans were offering their side of the coin. Their vice-chair Baileigh Posten is a senior double majoring in political science and psychology. She said the fracking issue is something that UNT students need to be aware of.

“They think it is just a Denton specific issue and that is absolutely ludicrous,” Posten said. “This is the start of a long process to try to ban drilling and if they think this is going to start and end in Denton, they are ridiculous.”
Senior double political science and psychology major Baileigh Posten opposes any ban on drilling or fracking.

Posten said she supports drilling and fracking and mentioned that UNT has made money with drilling as well and sees no evidence of health effects from drilling.

“You don’t see people walking around with brain tumors and nose bleeds walking around,” Posten said.

Right next to her was someone who was on the opposite end of the political spectrum, senior geography major Gillian Murphy. Murphy, was arguing for the ban on fracking and drilling and said this is also an important vote, but for different reasons.

“It exists on our campus and our university gets the perceived royalties from the wells and I don’t believe that should be on campus or in Denton,” Murphy said.
Senior geography major Gillian Murphy believes that students can turn the tide for the Democratic Party. 

Murphy said she also wants students to vote on campus, because of the strong push the Democratic Party would get.

“If more people thought that voting matter, we could really turn this thing around,” Murphy said.

Others on campus like junior philosophy major Laura Abril maybe voting for other issues, but fracking is the single most important issue in the election for her and her group, Frack Free Denton.

“I feel like issues like the fracking ban, something that hits home here in Denton, it is something a lot of students here are super passionate about,” Abril said. “They want to take a stand and come out here and vote.”
Junior philosophy major Laura Abril said students are very passionate about protecting Denton.

Abril didn’t want to reveal who or what party she voted for but said she did vote for the ban on fracking.

While students across campus seem to be big on the democratic process, some aren’t up to the issues and would need to be educated more on the issues. Junior communication studies major Steven Hauptmann, who moved here from California, hadn’t voted in an election since the last presidential election in 2012. When he moved to Texas, he didn’t vote because he simply didn’t know enough.

“I know I should, but I rather make an informed decision,” Hauptmann said. “I want to get into everything before I go and make a decision.”

Haputmann said he knew of the fracking situation in the area but other than that he simply didn’t know enough to go out there and vote on the issue.

The UNT student body seems to be coming together on the issue of fracking and of course the move to make Denton County wet. Yet, there are a lot of students that didn’t know or care about voting this year. 

Early voting ends on campus tomorrow and the regular election will take place on Tuesday, November 4th.
Junior communication studies major Steven Hauptmann tells his views on the election and why he didn't vote in this year's election.


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Wednesday, October 22, 2014

WikiLeaks: Friend or Foe Case Study Essay

Initially, reading this case study, I felt like the Guardian and their editor kind of just jumped right into this one. It seemed like there was little thought too should we do this, it mainly was how we do this. I think if I was in charge, I would have sat my staff down and talked over if this was that big of a story and was it really worth all the danger that could be incurred.

So the Guardian openly admits they are a left-leaning newspaper that supports the actions of U.S. President Barack Obama. They also were concerned about the impact these cables and war logs would have on his re-election. My question was why is that an issue? They are journalists and they fell like they have a major story that has to be told. Why would it matter about your allegiance to a man or a political ideology? This was not a journalistic move here by the Guardian.

A lot has been made about whether or not the U.S. was friend or a foe. While the British government didn’t allow the press to have much freedom, the U.S. government did and they still initially managed to work with the press with the first of the leaked information. I think the U.S.  Government is a friend, but will act on its own accord when necessary. I would not trust the British government because simply they have no freedom of the press.

The Guardian did a good job of trying to handle Assange, by coddling him initially and then playing hardball when they needed too. They made sure their interests were secure and managed to keep Assange happy.

When Assange decided to break the terms of the agreement with the Guardian, the staff had the right idea that they had a right to break their agreement.  Once Assange broke his side, it opened up the Guardian to do what they pleased. There is no reason Assange can break it but the paper can’t.

The argument to share the cables or not to share the cables was a big dilemma, but in the end, Leigh was right in sharing that information. You already had trouble with Assange and found a way to break through his demands. The New York Times is a partner and it was a great outlet for that information to go. I totally agree with the decision.

When teaming up on a project like what the Guardian did with Wikileaks, you will have to team up with some international partners, and that has good and bad effects. The pros to the situation are you are expanding your audience and that is very important when you have information like what the Guardian had. The down side is that you have to deal with different cultures and governments and their different requirements to report the news. It makes it just harder to get the info out.

Some of the key technical issues they faced was sometimes the sheer volume of the information would not be easily read or accessed. They had to have system editors manufacture databases to make them easier to search and read. Some of the resourced needed is a high-tech security lock on your database and have a lot of passwords. You also need a bunch of memory space to fit all that data into your computers.


The Guardian seemed extra cautions when they went through redacting the cables and that was a good thing. You can never be too careful when people’s lives are at stake. You want the truth out, but you don’t want to inflict more harm than there already is. 
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Tuesday, October 14, 2014

"The Paper" Reaction Blog

The Paper was an intriguing documentary that focused on the lives of some of the members of the Penn State school newspaper staff. It examined the trials and tribulations of the staff during a school year at the University.

One of the major issues in the film was how the paper dealt with low circulation. Since the paper was an independent paper, they really needed high circulation to keep their advertising. That is how the paper essentially survives and in this year it is low. Initially, they don’t know the reasons why and it worries them. For the most part of the year, the circulation is clearly dropping and it gets to the lowest numbers that it ever has.

That leads us into the second issue that affected the paper, concerns over diversity. Different groups such as African-Americans and gays were outraged over the coverage they received in the paper. Ironically, the paper got an uptick in their circulation because of all the controversy, regardless of the backlash the paper had received.

The third issue centered on the stress some of the reporters had trying to cover their stories and the roadblocks they encountered. It seemed to take a very big emotional toll on the reporters, as you saw multiple times they wither got angry, depressed, or even cried. The sports reporter went into tears because her coverage was cut off from the team. Though she knew she broke the rules, she felt like it was unfair still.

Yet, with all the drama the reporters went through, they still managed to carry out their mission of serving the readers. The staff was committed to getting out a good newspaper that had something for their readers and was true journalism. With all the ramifications that happened to the paper that year, they showed in the end they were true to their journalistic values.

On the issue of their news judgment, the senior members had very good news judgment. You can tell in one scene where two of the female writers wanted to pitch a dating and gossip column. The editor and managing editor did not agree that would be beneficial to the readers. However, they let them publish the article and so they didn’t stick to their values.

Being on a newspaper staff myself, I really related to the sports reporter and her struggles to get coverage. At the NT Daily, the sports reporters have to deal with the Sports Information Directors and they can be difficult sometimes. So I felt what she went through when the Penn State SIDs did the same to her.


Overall, the move was a good look into how a newspaper works and gives the viewer a good look into the emotional side of being a reporter.  It is a tough job that has a lot of stress and it the documentary helps people see another side of reporters, especially college-aged ones. 
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