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 4^th.

Junior communication studies major Steven Hauptmann tells his views on the election and why he didn't vote in this year's election.

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. 

"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.