Blog #1: Chapter 1 Response,"What is Journalism for?"

        The most surprising things I read was that only 42% of Americans read a daily newspaper the day before and only 3 out of 10 Americans can even name their congressmen over the last thirty years. I actually thought it would be less considering the current generation of Americans read less. They tend to other things instead. I agree with Lippman, one of the nation's most famous journalists that people know the world indirectly and perceive how the media portrays it to be. As Lippman said, "Citizens are like theatergoers who arrive in the middle of the third act and leave before the last curtain, staying just long enough to decide who is the hero and who is the villain. People aren't looking at the whole picture they just look at the problems and not the solution and the media has played a part in that. According to historian Mitchell Stephens, "People crave news out of basic instinct-what we call the Awareness Instinct. They need to know what is going on over the next hill, to be aware of events beyond their direct experience. Knowledge of the unknown gives them security; it allows them to plan and negotiate their lives." I agree with him, this is one of the main reasons why I would watch the news in the morning and at night. We need news to live our lives. to protect ourselves, bond with each other, and identify friends and enemies.

       When I first heard about this on the news that a U.S. marine killed 16 Afghan villagers, 9 of those being children I was stunned. At first I thought that the villagers did something but that wasn't the case. According to military officials he left his small combat outpost in Panjwai district early in the morning last Sunday, walked into two nearby villages and shot or stab 16 people. He has been deployed four times and had a exemplary record. He's been injured twice once one being on his head with traumatic brain injury and another incident where he lost part of his foot. Pentagon officials believes that it's a combination of stress, alcohol and domestic issues that made him snapped. He's also a father of two. This creates more tension between the United States and Afghanistan where peace talks have stalled between both presidents. I hope they get to the bottom of this and find out what truly went wrong otherwise it could get nasty real soon.