What truly is a zing?

While listening to the conversation between Brooke Gladstone and Alex Goldman, I tried to really use comprehensive and objective listening. It was clear that Brooke had a term "Zing of Authenticity" that she used to describe the accountability of information coming straight from the source. In this case she was referring to the radio scanner feed of the Boston City Police. She had found that because the information came directly from the police in real time many people agreed that this source of information was probably most reliable thus giving the police scanner a Zing of Authenticity.

Mr. Goldman stated that in the heat of the moment hearing the information from the police in real time felt like the very most accurate account he could hear so he Tweeted all the information he could even though some of it was code and not very helpful to most. He later found while in the middle of his reporting, information he was hearing that he assumed was accurate was changing and the story wasn't really coherent and stable. When he started listening he and about 80,000 other citizens believed they were listening to a narrated version of what was happening minute by minute. Later he realized that really not all of the information was correct and even he had been Tweeting false information that hadn't been verified. 

I agree with Mr. Goldman completely. I understand how hearing information straight from the police could feel authentic but if you imagine what is happening in that moment as a police officer on the street seeing things happen and then also relying on the information of the other officers and of the dispatch you could see how even the police don't take exactly what is said to them over the radio as Bible. Its like a mystery game of Clue. When you play the game you have to use a few facts that you know and then try to pay attention and listen to the other players all while trying to figure out the unknown and trying to remember that you as an individual player of the game do not have all of the facts and some of the information you do have is opinion based on the information you gather and unconfirmed information that fits into your idea of what you think is happening.

I think that the title of Authenticity can not be given to a source of information unless it has been thoroughly checked and checked again. Even eye witness accounts are jumbled with personal opinions of how they remember accounts happening. 

Even news sources are not reliable anymore because of something that Goldman said, "There is a thrill of being the first to know and the first to report the information." This is true of News stations, CNN, Fox, NBC all in a competition to break the news first. Accuracy is important but because of the Internet and regular citizens playing journalist, being accurate is not as important as getting the information out the fastest.

It saddens me to see how much information that's out is easily taken at face value and then spread along to the rest of the masses. 

I think a while ago I talked about my Face Book  feed and a lot of re posted stories that are just spreading fear and ignorance. A couple of months ago a girl re posted a story of a poisonous spider new to the USA that had put five women in the hospital. I found the story on snopes.com and shared the link to the facts in the comments. Just today I saw the same story on a different feed and it even had a different picture of the supposedly same new poison spider. I'm at the point of exhaustion. I want to re post the snopes.com link but whats the point? Fixing misinformation problems may not be found by giving people the facts but in some way training everyone to research information before spreading it. I don't think people really realize the destruction they are doing by spreading stories like this. Maybe people don't realize it at the time but the audience will subconsciously tuck that information into their brain and instead of just becoming cautious of their surroundings they become paranoid and un trusting of our world as a whole. Just think of how many scary facts have been told that people take at face value. It seems to me that now instead of urban legends like Moth Man or the babysitter who gets a call from inside the house by a deranged maniac, there is a 50/50 chance that the information you see, hear, or read is just our society's new urban legends

I feel a rant about how our government may benefit by keeping the citizens in fear so instead here are the two pictures of the one new poisonous spider. 

In a weird highly inaccurate way I feel like my Zing of Authenticity source of news information would have to be The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I know these shows are just based around joking about the news but I guess I listen closely because it feels more like the objective view of a trusted friend observing the stories with me and thinking the same way about the information but presenting it in a much more humorous and interesting way. Regular T.V. News anchors seem to be talking heads that spew information that is biased and skewed to the Left or Right.

To me the Zing of Authenticity is not the source that is in fact most accurate but the source that the audience feels is the most accurate. 

And now Your Moment of Zen...

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-april-22-2013/this-is-cnn-

App Review

I don't download much but one thing I love to do is Crossword puzzles. Yes it might seem like the kind of fun a retired person might enjoy but I find it stimulating for the mind. The two thing I suck at are spelling and hand writing. These would be skills have only gotten worse for me because of computers and T9. One thing that has helped me is crosswords. My favorite crossword is the one that comes in The Spectrum. That specific crossword is Joseph crossword, other papers might use Joseph or Sheffer or their own crossword. file://localhost/Users/katiemaxwell/Desktop/New%20York%20Times%20Crossword%20September%205%202008.jpg

Four Ways Crossword Puzzles Benefit Your Brain

1. Enhance vocabulary
2. Strengthen word recall and memory
3. Stimulate problem solving skills
4. Improve focus and attention

http://www.marblesthebrainstore.com/blog/2012/04/04/the-brain-benefits-of-crossword-puzzles/

file://localhost/Users/katiemaxwell/Desktop/Unknown.jpeg

My favorite app for Android is the Shortyz Crossword app. You get a bunch of different daily crosswords everyday. The best is getting the Joseph crossword which means you don't have to spend $1.00 on The Spectrum but I guess the downside is not getting Dear Abby or the daily Spectrum horoscopes.

I now have an IPhone and guess what? Shortyz is only for Android. I downloaded 4 different crosswords for IPhone and here is what I found. 

Honestly I hate all of them, New York Times, and Crossword require a subscription and the other ones interfacing suck. The only one that is OK is Crosswords :-) from Devarai

file://localhost/Users/katiemaxwell/Desktop/Unknown-1.jpeg

file://localhost/Users/katiemaxwell/Desktop/Unknown-2.jpeg

Gun Control and polarizing rhetoric

I have so many of my own thoughts about this issue I'm not sure I will be able to clearly explain my thoughts on this but i'll try.

When an issue like gun control arises it seems like most of the information people talk about is based on what they read on the Internet, next might be t.v. news, and lastly news papers. 

Both the Obama administration and the NRA and other organizations have used social media and the Internet as the main source of spreading "information." http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2013/01/social-media-outreach-part-of-obama-gun-law-campaign/. "Forbes Insights and Opinions looked at the data for the week prior to the Sandy Hook tragedy and trended the data over the subsequent 5 weeks to determine the ebb and flow over the gun control debate.  We found that the NRA and the pro-gun rights voices are winning the influence battle and will continue to be strong and more influential if the pro gun control voice remains fragmented. On the flip side, the pro gun control voice could certainly gain influence if they establish a more united voice." Bruce Rodgers, Forbes staff. http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucerogers/2013/02/01/nra-winning-the-influence-battle-over-gun-control/.

I don't have Twitter or Instagram but I do have Face Book and one thing I noticed right away was the paranoia surrounding gun rights after the Sandy Hook shooting. The thing that bothers me about people and the use of social media is the lack of responsibility for fact checking. It seems anyone can make a MEME http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_meme. It seems most people I know on Face book will either read a meme or post a meme and believe whatever it says. 

One meme I kept reading was the FBI statistics that more people die from blunt objects then from guns. I did a little research myself and found this isn't true. This link gives you links to the statistics. http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/baseballbats.asp
 It seems like people don't want to know facts with this topic and the fuel for the argument on either side is emotion. Another fact I researched is that New York Chicago and Washington DC have complete gun bans and they have some of the worst gun crime. "There are a couple things worth keeping in mind when looking at Chicago. Other than Hawaii, no state is an island. Almost none of the guns used in these homicides were first purchased here because we don’t have gun stores in Chicago. They were purchased either somewhere else in Illinois or in a state with weaker laws. Because borders are so porous, it is hard for cities to regulate their way out of this problem. This is an area where federal legislation could have a more pronounced impact than city or state legislation. Like air quality, what happens in one state can have an impact on what happens in another state."

I like this video mostly because I like hearing rational thought through opinions... http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NyYYgLzF6zU
Read more: http://nation.time.com/2013/02/01/qa-guns-cities-and-the-death-of-hadiya-pendleton/#ixzz2K9J84m1h

I know for a personal fact that it isn't very hard to take a gun over a state border just like it's not hard to buy alcohol in mesquite and bring it to St. George but it's still bootlegging. I personally had a close friend who's job was to take guns and assault riffles into Mexico where the drug cartels would give him drugs in exchange because believe it or not Mexico has very strict gun laws and bans as well. "Mexico bans virtually all civilian gun ownership and requires that toy weapons be made of transparent or brightly colored plastic." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/05/realistic-shiny-toy-guns-crime_n_2415398.html

I do think that one good thing in all of this is that everyone having to do with social media seems to have a voice and a right to speech and opinion. I wish people could be more responsible and accountable in fact checking before spreading anything that feels like it supports your view.

I did not fact check either of these MEMEs that's the point these are two opinions that are being spread as fact.

I don't own a gun and I'm not against guns either. I do think better practical laws and information needs to be the key thing to think about. We can't get rid of guns but I wouldn't think most law abiding citizens would want just anyone to have a gun? right? When things like this happen my mind always goes to conspiracy's. not that the Government wants to take all guns away but that they want American citizens to be polarized in opinion so we will become paranoid and turn against each other,and I think that has been accomplished. Our media does seem to be a mirror of our fears and we feed it and we are drawn to it because it makes us feel like we understand something and we are right about it. The problem is too much emotion in all of this.

First post

So I lost 3 friends to drug o.d.s last week and one of them was a DSC student and incredible artist. I was talking to a friend who was worried I might have a problem since I know people like this. I assured  him I don't and I haven't even smoked a tobacco cigarette because I can't imagine having a ridiculous vice like that. I told him dealing with and feeling stress and pain is part of actually living and if you can go through it you will be stronger in the end. He sent me an interesting text that had more to do with his views on social media and communication that I thought was kind of interesting.

"Time x Environmental pressures = evolution...theoretically. Communication and knowledge are the most important thing. What is knowledge without communication and what is communication without knowledge? It's a lonely world filled with systematic insecurities.. but surly there has to be a way to communicate and share in an efficient form. Social networking is not the answer. It's supposed to bring people closer together but I felt the opposite. Ha ha seems off the subject but I fell like It's part of the bigger picture." John Hoff

I just thought it was something to think about:)