News Coverage of Gilmore's speech

First of all, I would like to say "thanks!" to everyone who came out last night.  I must admit that it was nice to see that all my publicity work actually paid off.  I was quite pleased with the turnout, as well as the number of media outlets that were represented: The DNR, News Leader, WHSV TV-3, The Breeze, and New Dominion blog all provided coverage of our event.  

Here are links to the articles for those who couldn't make it last night:

"Gilmore Stops at JMU" by Kelly Jasper, Daily News-Record.

"Gilmore Stumps at JMU" by Nicole Barbano, Staunton News Leader.

"Gilmore Visits JMU" WHSV TV-3

"Gilmore addresses war, economy issues at JMU" by Chris Graham, The New Dominion.

I was personally quite impressed with what the former governor had to say.  Following his speech, he fielded questions from the audience, which consisted of College Republicans, College Democrats, members of the student body, and citizens from the local community.  I admired his ability to address the questions that were presented to him in a tasteful, yet unwavering manner.  Though I realize his battle against Mark Warner for John Warner's Senate seat will be a tough one, I wish him luck in his bid for the GOP nomination.

Gilmore to Make Campaign Stop at JMU

This is pretty much a shameless plug, but since I'm in charge of publicity for CRs, I figured that I might as well publicize this event on my blog, as well.  In case you haven't already heard, former VA Governor Jim Gilmore will be speaking at JMU on Monday, January 28th at 7:30 p.m. in HHS 1302.  Click here to read the DNR article for more details.

Hope to see you there!

Thompson Drops His Presidential Bid

As I'm sure most of you have heard by now, earlier today Fred Thompson officially withdrew his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination.  I was disappointed to hear this, considering that he was my favorite of the nominees, although I must admit that his chances were looking very slim.  Now we're left to choose between Huckabee, McCain, Romney, Paul and Giuliani. Unfortunately, I cannot seem to get excited about the idea of any of these guys as our nominee. While there are a few things I like about each candidate, there are also a few (in some cases more than a few) things that I dislike about each of them, as well.  Now that Thompson's out, I need to figure out who to support in the VA primary on Feb. 12.  So, if any of you who are reading this have already aligned yourself with a candidate, please tell me who you are supporting and why.  Any input is greatly appreciated as I am interested in hearing your opinions.

Please Support Adopt-a-Platoon!

The College Republicans kicked off our Adopt-a-Platoon drive this past Tuesday. Kaleigh Maher, news editor for The Breeze wrote an excellent article about it: 

College Republicans adopt...a platoon, that is.

I realize that many of the people reading my blog affiliate themselves with the party at the opposite end of the political spectrum from myself, however, this really is a bipartisan issue.  As Mike Sargent points out,

"...it’s not a Republican or Democrat thing. There are people who need socks whether or not they’re a Democrat or a Republican."

 Despite whether or not you support the war, I urge you to show your support for the brave men and women who are putting their lives on the line in order to defend our freedom.  So I'm asking, when you see us out on the Commons throughout the semester, please donate whatever you can.  I realize that college students don't have a lot of extra cash, but every little bit helps. On Tuesday, it was heartwarming to see so many people stopping by to support our drive.  I'd like to say a huge "Thank you!" to everyone who has already contributed.  This cause is especially dear to my heart, as my brother's high school best friend/college roommate is being deployed to Iraq within the next month, and I'm sure that many of you also have family and friends serving overseas.  Please help show the troops how much you care....support Adopt-a-Platoon today!

Is the Media Biased?

During our last class, we discussed the article "What Biased Media?" by George Case.  This topic has always been of interest to me, seeing as how I am planning for a career in broadcast journalism.  Back when I was in high school, I used to tell people that I intended to be an effective reporter, however, I was going to be different from the others in that I would present the facts of breaking news in a completely unbiased way.  Since then, I have come to realize that this was probably an unrealistic idea.  As much as any reporter may sincerely intend to present news stories in an unbiased way, his or her strong personal beliefs regarding certain issues are likely to slant their presentation of the story at least slightly.  This is not to say that reporters intentionally use their positions in order to sway the public into becoming aligned with their personal beliefs and values.  It is simply a part of human nature to think more favorably of causes that you support and less favorably of opposing ones.  I'm certainly not suggesting that this makes the media any less credible, however, I do believe that the public needs to take this into consideration when consuming news from the various media outlets.  In order to be well informed citizens, we should attempt to get our news from several different sources.  As I have been taught in several of my SMAD classes, "the media doesn't tell us what to think, but rather, what to think about."  Major media outlets decide which stories are of interest to the public and then present them to us.  Once we learn the basic facts of these stories, it is up to us to use other available resources, along with our intellect, in order to decipher these media messages.  If we choose to get our news from only one source, then we have no right to complain about the "biased media."  By getting the story from several sources, it should be easy to distinguish the facts from the biased views.  Although it actually requires a little bit of effort on our part, each of us is consequently able to determine our own view of newsworthy events. 

Textbooks

Though this may not be a political issue, I feel the need to rant briefly about something that all college students face: textbook prices.  I just purchased the final books that I need for this semester, bringing my total to a whopping $493.29.  I find this completely ridiculous and appalling.  I am taking 6 classes this semester, 2 of which do not require textbooks (God bless those professors!), which means that the aforementioned total is for 4 classes.  That comes out to be approximately $123 per class...ouch!  Even worse is the fact that some of my friends in other majors fork out even more than that!  Usually, I try to buy used books, however, when new editions are printed and selected by professors for class use, buying a used book is not an option.

Well, that's my rant.  Please share your feelings/experiences on the topic.

My Blogging Debut

Hi there!  Welcome to my first attempt at running a blog!  

I created this blog as an assignment for my SCOM 353 (American Political Culture and Communication) class at James Madison University.  Although I have frequently followed the discussions on many Virginia political blogs in the past, I'm pretty excited about actually contributing my own perspective to the blogosphere.

Please visit often to see my new posts and feel free to leave your own comments/reactions.  I will also appreciate any suggestions anyone has to improve my blog, since I'm new to this.

In the meantime, have a wonderful week!