ashlyonsblog

Watergate is the kind of thing young journalists like me dream about. Not that I want there to be another massive political scandal involving espionage that leads to the resignation of a president, but if it were to happen I definitely wouldn’t mind writing a little thing or two about it.

The Watergate scandal changed not only American politics, but investigative journalism. Americans began thinking more critically about their own leaders and trusting journalists more to speak out against injustices . The situation became so notorious that it spawned a novel written by the journalists themselves and a movie just a couple of years later.

“All The President’s Men” is the name of the narrative non-fiction novel (like “In Cold Blood!”) that follows Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they unraveled one of the biggest instances of political corruption in American history. Even bigger than when “The New York Times” blew the whistle on Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall.

And these two men accomplished this without even using a computer. I know I must sound so millennial right now, but we have access to worlds of information at our fingertips. We can find records on anything we want. We can crowdsource in minutes without even leaving our seats. Research can be done without even opening a book.

Yet, the same principles of proper investigative reporting is still there. Woodward and Bernstein just had to make more phone calls if they wanted to find something out and actually “sleuth” around a bit more.

For example, back then when Bernstein called the White House Library to find out which books Howard Hunt, consultant to the White House, was checking out about Kennedy, the library assistant remembered Hunt “…took out a whole bunch of material” on Kennedy but then suddenly she didn’t remember anything anything about it. So the duo had to make more calls and locate the records they needed in person – something that isn’t always necessary in the digital age.

Bernstein and Woodward took a cab to the Library of Congress and found the office that handles White House requests for material in the library. Speaking to the reporters in a hallway, rather than his office, a librarian informed them politely that White House transactions were confidential. Eventually, the reporters found a more cooperative clerk and spent the afternoon in the reading room sorting through thousands of slips of paper—every request since July 1971, when Hunt was hired by the White House.

It was only a slight road bump in their investigation, but one that is much more easily avoidable today. Such as when KNOE caught word of the name Quinton Tellis as someone possibly in custody for the murders of Meing Chen Hsiao and Jessica Chambers, reporter Lacey Sharp pulled up the man’s criminal record before I could even look up how to spell his name.

She had pieces of the investigation in front of her, so when she called the police department to question exactly what “fugitive of justice” meant on his record, there was no “sorry ma’am we don’t know what you’re talking about. Because she could hit them with “well it says right here…”

Woodward and Bernstein didn’t have that luxury. They had to rely on each other, interpersonal communication and body language with the people they met throughout the investigation and their own judgement. Not that we don’t do that today, but honing those skills when your only resources are landlines and typewriters can get you a lot further than using emails and digital databases.

And mistakes were made.

…the report was incorrect, and the decision to rush it into print was a mistake. Weeks later, Woodward and Bernstein learned that the initial FBI report had not made it clear whether the memos [Alfred] Baldwin had seen were of the wiretap conversations or were merely routine security memos. Eventually, the reporters became convinced that they were routine memos which had nothing to do with wiretapping. Three men had been wronged. They had been unfairly accused on the front page of the Washington Post, the hometown newspaper of their families, neighbors and friends.

Three men were named as being involved in wiretapping. But that doesn’t negate all of the hard work and history making these two men went through to expose the Watergate Scandal. I personally think journalistic mistakes are more detrimental in the modern day because in the age of mob mentality and groupthink on the Internet things tend to go viral and leave a bigger stain on the history-making process.

Does that mean I don’t think mistakes made 40 years ago weren’t a big deal? Of course not. But I think this is one part of bringing down the government pre-digital age that worked in their favor.

No matter what happened or how it happened, Woodward and Bernstein stuck by their journalistic integrity and ethics. They owned up to mistakes and even today still talk about it. They sought truth and clarification before confirming anything to the public, especially when things were told to them off the record.

They held each other accountable and, despite their differences at first, understood each other’s strengths and weakness for the greater good of getting the story done.

 

What better way for me to combat writer’s block and the inability to focus on a book than by reading a book and writing about it? That’s only half sarcasm. Face your demons.

If you keep up with my blog then you might notice that I’m a tad obsessed with adulthood and being in my early twenties. I’m obsessed with what it means to be an adult and the idea of being a twenty-something.

I’m obsessed with the relationships and life experiences that come with being a twenty-something. Think back to every birthday you’ve ever had. There was always that one person who asks you how it feels to be another year older as if something magical was supposed to happen.

I always hated that question. Except when I turned twenty-two I did feel different. It was as if life suddenly slapped me in the face and yelled, “here I am!”

One moment I’m posted up in my dorm room eating peanut butter out of a jar in my bathtub and then all of a sudden I’m an adult with an apartment, a job and bills to pay. I have to make the tough decision about whether to have beer or wine with dinner. I have to think about life after college.

I’m obsessed with it.

I’m at the point of my life where I can just buy a plane ticket and start a life somewhere else. Not that I’m going to do that. I already talked about why I can’t do that in a previous blog post. It’s just interesting to think that I can.

So I picked up the book “Nobody is Ever Missing” by Catherine Lacey. This story is about 28-year-old Elyria who actually did do that. Elyria was a staff writer for a soap opera living in New York with her husband. Elyria was unhappy.

Living in the shadow of her sister’s suicide and not living her life to the fullest, Elyria runs away to New Zealand without explanation to try to understand what her fullest is.

With nothing more than a backpack, she spends weeks hitchhiking and meeting other lost travellers. Lost as in lost souls, not geographically lost. Her game plan is to get to Werner’s house. Werner is a writer she met in New York who offered her a place to stay if she was ever in town.

Elyria knew he didn’t mean it. He said it to be polite. But she travels into tomorrowland anyway. A lovely transsexual woman named Jaye asks Elyria what she plans to do when she gets to Werner’s and after she leaves?

Elyria doesn’t know. She doesn’t know anything.

For half the book I rooted for Elyria to finally make it to Werner’s house. He kicks her out after a few days. He doesn’t want to be around a sad person. Elyria is alone again trying to figure out what to do and what she wants for the remainder of her story.

This novel is like looking into the mind of a depressed person as she tries to escape herself and navigate a world like but unlike her own. This novel made me think of “Lost in Translation.”

At first, the way this book is written bugged me. Run-on sentences that lasted for pages, dialogue in italics and tiny chapters. The editor in me felt anxious by Lacey’s style.

But this book is written from inside Elyria’s head as she describes what’s happening around her and looks back on the memories that put her there. The run-on sentences are much like streams of consciousness that begin with one thought and end on another.

The italics make the dialogue seem dreamy and the words float on by just like Elyria is floating around New Zealand. It was interesting. It doesn’t make it right, but it was an interesting way to write a first novel. I have to give it to Lacey for trying to break the mold.

The end doesn’t give the reader any closure. I could only wonder what Elyria could do now. But then again, Elyria doesn’t even know what she’s going to do now so why should I?

Lacey has a talent for showing instead of telling. She makes you think about things in words that you didn’t think could be described in such a way.

But I got what I wanted from this book. It’s a story about trying to live as a twenty-something and how different relationships, no matter how small or quick, can shape where you end up.

It’s okay to be depressed. It’s okay to be lost. Being lost doesn’t have an age limit. I don’t have to have my whole life planned out at twenty two just like Elyria wasn’t sure about her own. You have to think about yourself and your needs. Just don’t achieve it by running away and hitchhiking across a country.

 

I was born a writer. I’ve written stories ever since I learned how to write. I remember being at least 5-years-old and stealing “computer paper” from my father just to write and illustrate little stories. I remember one about a mermaid that a prince kidnapped from the ocean and he snuck her away in a giant bag full of water.

Some of the stories I shared with my parents and others I hid in my closet because they were just for me.

In middle school, I kept notebooks full of character bios. I started writing about magic, ghosts and serial killers. I had an affinity for horror and unexplainable things. I remember writing about things that scared me would sometimes help me deal with it. If I could put myself in the author or the screenwriter’s shoes and create the horror from nothing, then it didn’t seem so scary anymore. It was make believe.

Then in high school it all kind of faded away. I stopped writing and I stopped drawing. I even stopped reading. It was like my motivation and imagination just dissipated into nothing and I was left with little fragments of stories in my mind that I couldn’t figure out how to put on paper.

Whenever I could find the motivation and the will to write a scene I clung onto it for dear life. I wrote the same scene multiple times from different perspectives and different angles.

As a child I wanted to be a published author before I graduated high school because I had it in my mind that you were supposed to be successful as young as possible. That talent only mattered if you were the absolute best and got there first.

When I turned 22-years-old, I felt old. People always ask you on your birthday how it feels to be another year older. But I never felt any different until I turned 22. I felt a little different at 21 because that was the moment I realized “Wow, I’m an adult now!” Then at 22 it became “Damn, I’m an adult now….”

And I’m still not a published author. Yet I’m learning more and more everyday that that’s okay. Like I’ve mentioned in a few of my other blog posts, it’s okay if things don’t go exactly according to plan. Real life happens and sometimes what you thought was a straight road could veer off into a dirt path.

I’m hoping that once I graduate college I will have more time to focus on my writing and myself. One a day I will be a published author just like one day I will travel the world. I have my whole life ahead of me, decades worth of work and accomplishment just waiting for me to find my way to it.

I’m not too sure what the point of this blog post is because for once I can’t come up with a solution and I don’t have any statistics to include. I guess this was just a way to get out my frustrations with writer’s block and kind of confront the issue. Maybe someone who feels the same way will read this and feel better because they aren’t alone.

No matter what, I’m certain I was born a writer and one day I’ll find my way back to it.

There is still used gum stuck to the fire alarm in the office I work in. There are two trashcans inside the office and a bathroom across the hall, but this person decided to remove the gum from his or her mouth and place it on the wall as they exited the room.

Not only is this disgusting, but it’s also disrespectful. We hold open meetings every week for students to come learn how to write for a newspaper and take paid assignments, and this is the thanks we get.

 

Am I being dramatic? Maybe. But maybe if someone came into your place of work and stuck their germs to your wall you would feel disrespected, too. Especially after you spent the last half hour playing host to these people, getting to know them and making the environment as friendly and welcoming as you can so they feel comfortable working there.

This begs the question why people think it’s okay to do something like that, to leave trash around or to litter the outdoors.

You may think it’s no big deal because you’re only one person and it was only one paper cup, right? But what about all the other people who thought the same exact thing?

Then there are all the people before and after you who committed the same offense – leaving Styrofoam food containers in a parking lot, tossing gum wrappers out of their car window or unsuccessfully throwing balled up paper at a trashcan.

It adds up. Outdoor littering can kill animals, harm plant life and even hurt humans. When garbage is littered it can stunt plant growth or prevent it from flourishing in certain areas.

Unfortunately, few people think about the biological harm done by litter as opposed to the aesthetic harm. It costs the city a lot more money to clean up litter every year than it costs to invest in a recycling bin or biodegradable trash bags.

Litter can make its way onto the roads and cause accidents. How many times have you swerved to avoid boxes or debris in the middle of the street? Or had to replace tires after driving over broken shards of glass?

Small animals could crawl into bottle or small containers and get stuck. Insects could get caught in something sticky and die. Bugs are gross, but they don’t need to die because someone couldn’t find a trashcan.

Dolphins and turtles regularly fall victim to plastic six-pack rings. Not only that, but the ocean is their home. It’s their habitat being disrespected and damaged. That’s like walking into someone else’s dorm and throwing garbage on the floor.

Just because it’s someone’s job to clean an area does not mean you can disregard how you treat it.

Don’t make a janitor’s job harder by leaving things around. Clean up after yourself. It may be a janitor’s job to pick that gum off the fire alarm, but he or she shouldn’t have to because it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

Remember that time you accidentally touched old used gum under a desk and your entire world came crashing down? That’s how the janitor might feel. That’s how I feel knowing used gum is stuck to our fire alarm. It’s been there since August.

According to litteritcostsyou.org, people between the ages 18-34 years old are most likely to deliberately litter. Now being a part of this age group, I know I hate it when people judge the millennial generation for the smallest offenses. Yet little things like this aren’t helping us gain respect from older generations.

There is never a reason to litter. Fight the urge. Find a recycling bin or reuse. Not only does repurposing products like glass or plastic bottles save money, but it’s a creative outlet and a way to channel your energy into something productive.

Make a mirror out of old spoons, a bulletin board out of wine corks or lotion out of coffee grinds. Littering is ugly and it’s unsanitary.

So make beauty, don’t destroy it.

The biggest pressure from being a graduating senior isn’t passing my classes or getting my GPA back up. It’s been finding a job. The pressure of finding a job right after college has been looming ominously over me since the school year started.

As graduation is approaching, it’s all anyone can talk or think about. Some people expect us to already have jobs lined up before we even graduate. Some of us will do it, but it’s not realistic for everyone (especially in this economy) and that’s okay.

I don’t have a job yet. But what I need to worry about in this moment is passing statistics and writing papers. Let me get to the finish line first before I start thinking about what’s beyond it.

After all, I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. I’ve changed my mind on my future career more than I’ve changed my hair color. Today I want to be an investigative journalist and a travel writer. Tomorrow I’ll probably want to be a photojournalist or an artist. Last week I wanted to work in non-profit healthcare. I want to work in radio; I want to be an author.

Just because I haven’t found a job yet doesn’t mean I failed. I haven’t even started. Looking back to when I was a freshman, I never thought I would be where I am now. I never thought I would have accomplished the things I have or been to the places I’ve been. Hopefully in a few years I’ll look back to this moment, as a senior in college, and think the same thing.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a reporter at my internship. He just started working there recently after about eight months of unemployment. It’s his first real job since he graduated college. Again, it took him eight months to find that job. And he’s a very good reporter.

He told me that it was hard on him at first. Like every recent graduate, he expected to have a job right after college. Other people expected him to also. He has a friend who started working two weeks after graduation, but it just wasn’t happening for him.

Then he realized that worrying about it wasn’t worth it. Worrying wasn’t going to get him a job. He’s only 22-years-old and he has his whole life ahead of him to work and be successful. It doesn’t matter when it happens, just that it does.

I know I’ll be successful one day because that’s who I am as a person. I won’t settle and I take chances. Even if I have to work as a barista or a bartender for a few months before I get that job in my field then I will. Of course that’s not ideal. But it is realistic. After all, this is a learning experience. Not having a job is just as much life experience as having one.

And as I said before, when I was freshman in college I never thought I would be where I am now. I have several journalism awards, I’ve raised thousands of dollars for my favorite charity and I’ve travelled from one coast to the other. I have an apartment waiting for me in downtown Denver. 

None of that happened over night. It happened over time.

To wrap this post up, I interviewed a couple of my friends who do have jobs lined up after we graduate (because I’m proud of them). And they will say the same things I’ve been saying, “you just have to jump in there and learn as you go” and “sometimes your plan doesn’t always work out the way you intended.”

And that’s okay.

New technology will always have its naysayers from landlines to cellphones, from horse-drawn carriages to automobiles. When the Model T hit the streets, people said man wasn’t meant to go that fast. And the Model T could only go up to 45 miles per hour.

Even the printing press had haters. People said man wasn’t meant to have access to such an unmanageable flood of information. This was around 1440. Yet isn’t this essentially the idea behind online media and digital apps? To have access to a flood of information at our fingertips?

Socrates warned against writing because according to him, it would, “Create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories.” A man actually advocated against writing in favor of remembering things.

Older generations always warned against new technology in favor of the old and they always will because it’s what they know. As someone who has worked for a print newspaper for almost four years now, there is still a special place in my heart for it. I was born into a world that had a special place in its heart for print media.
The newer generation and younger millennials weren’t. Print newspapers are becoming something they no longer know. The older generation might want to blame the millennials for the “lost art” of a tangible newspaper, they might say that the younger generation doesn’t appreciate it, but the real issues here are money and availability.

Cody Grimsley, 24, calls himself a “news junkie” and if you see him on his phone he’s most likely browsing Google News or the Huffington Post. He downloaded The Huffington Post because it doesn’t have any special permissions and doesn’t “spy” on him, he said.

But Grimsley is torn on whether print newspapers still have a place in the media industry or whether it may be a dying art.

Grimsley believes if there is still a place for it, it’s increasingly becoming irrelevant.

“Much like the landline,” Grimsley said. “They’re still around, but who’s using them? The older generation.”

Will kids one day look at print newspapers like they do landlines and say, “Wow, you still use those?” Grimsley believes the only thing that could revive the print industry would still take away from it – active display papers.

“It would be a cheap technology that you could throw away. We’re still a few decades away from that,” Grimsley said.

But traditional print and the machines used to make them would then be obsolete, something you would see in a museum. A newspaper that has no digital presence at all has no place in the modern world, Grimsley believes.

“Even the smallest or most local newspapers have a website. That’s the only way my mom was able to read the Hawkeye and keep up with my school,” Grimsley said.

The New Day, a young British media outlet, covers broad topics from pop culture and sports to political and advice columns. Yet The New Day has refused a digital presence – no website and no app – in an age where older organizations like The Independent have gone totally digital.

This month-old newspaper targets the older generation who grew up with print and, while on their commute to work, might use some of their disposable income to pay 50 pence, or about 70 cents, for a copy.

Emma Herrock, 24, might not be a part of that older generation but she doesn’t think that business model is a successful one.

While she believes that there is still room for print papers in the media industry, she understands the convenience of news apps.

Because of the fast-paced world we live in, if Herrock can find the same information on her phone that’s in a print newspaper she would rather use her phone, which she has on her at all times.

“I don’t have time to sit down and read an actual newspaper…I use Twitter for a lot of my information, but I also downloaded the individual news apps on my phone,” Herrock said. “Paper isn’t convenient anymore. It’s actually almost a nuisance.”

Many national papers such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Washington Post are already staples in the media industry. They have been around for years and will likely continue to be.

“They’ll last because they end up on the table in a waiting room somewhere,” Herrock said. People recognize them. People respect them.

Herrock, a former editor for the Hawkeye, believes the college newspaper will always have a place in print media because of the specific demographic it targets. College newspapers often have news in them that can’t be found anywhere else.

The Hawkeye is distributed through a small “society” with breaking news relevant to that society.

What information could The New Day provide for the UK that no other newspaper could? What could be found within the pages of The New Day that can’t be found online at the Daily Mail?

Grimsley said that The New Day’s audience will slowly (and literally) die off, but the Hawkeye’s audience will always be around because there will always be college students. Students that will want to read the news and be up-to-date about their campus and fellow students, news they can’t find in the Washington Post.

Bob Lenox, former news director at KEDM Public Radio, now works as a journalist for The News-Star. But he didn’t see the job switch as taking a chance. He agrees with the sentiment that small-town, or small “society,” newspapers will have their place in the media industry for years ahead as long as the news remains local.

“But even those small society papers see the, often monetary, benefit of an online presence. They understand what is convenient for most of their readers,” Lenox said.

Lenox will sit down and read a newspaper, but the novelty of the old act is not lost on him just like it’s not lost on Grimsley.

“I’ll pick up a newspaper if it’s there, but ultimately if I can get that same news online that’s where I’m going,” Grimsley said.

The first time I toured the halls of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital I walked past a little girl, who couldn’t have been more than two years old, with no hair and a little purple dress. She held her mother’s hand.

I watched them as they walked down the hallway. The hallways were painted with murals of the seasons. There were clouds on the ceilings. Everything was beautiful and vibrant.

I was seeing all of this for the first time and I thought it was incredible. But I could go home afterwards. So many kids there can’t and they see the same things every single day and they just want to go home. That was in 2014.

Last weekend, a New Orleans road trip I’d planned fell through. I was so upset as if I haven’t been to New Orleans approximately one million times already. I moped around thinking, “what if I don’t get another chance to experience New Orleans before I leave Louisiana?”

Then it hit me. I looked around at my apartment that I pay for, a fridge full of food that I bought and my boyfriend of six years. Suddenly my silly road trip meant nothing. I thought of that 2-year-old girl and other St. Jude patients who may never get to experience their own apartment or meeting the person they could marry one day.

In 2010, Markell Gregoire was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a common bone cancer in children, at age 10 and beat it. In 2012, the cancer returned and he lost his leg. On this past Feb. 13, Markell lost his life.

Osteosarcoma has a survival rate of 75 percent unless the cancer spreads to more dangerous areas. Markell’s cancer spread to his spine and lungs. His chance of survival became 30 percent.

Markell was a very popular patient and his nickname was “Mr. Hollywood.” He was from Acadiana, La., which is something I didn’t even know until after he died. Louisiana is the state that sends the second most patients to St. Jude.

It was pretty shocking to see that Markell has passed away because he’s always been one of the shining, smiling faces of St. Jude. His image adorns posters and Up ‘til Dawn event décor. Up ‘til Dawn ULM actually has his poster that we would hang up during on-campus events.

If I see that poster again I know it’s going to be hard. I didn’t know Markell personally, but stories like his really resonate with me. His face and voice became synonymous with the happy parts of St. Jude.

Markell’s poster represented that hope we have that childhood cancer is not a death sentence. His poster reminded us that we helped fight for his life, his future and here he is smiling back at us. Now his poster means something different.

I remember meeting Chelsea, another St. Jude patient with osteosarcoma. She spoke to us at the patient panel this past summer when we visited St. Jude for the Collegiate Leadership Seminar. She smiled and cracked jokes through the whole thing.

Afterwards, I went over to meet her. We hugged and tried to sneak in a selfie together, but I got caught. No pictures with the patients. She looked me in the eyes and thanked me for everything I do to support St. Jude. I could have cried right there.

That day was actually her last day at St. Jude and she was excited to return back to school. Thankfully, Chelsea is still with us. Chelsea gave me her Instagram name and later that day when I followed her she immediately followed me back. I still think about her and scroll through her pictures sometimes.

These kids radiate positivity even in their darkest times. People as a whole can learn a lot from that. I never thought a couple of 14-year-olds could teach me how to appreciate my life more than Chelsea and Markell have, but I like to think I’m a better person because of it.

When I’m feeling down, I just stop and think about kids like them. I think about how I need to quit moping about dumb things like a party I couldn’t attend or a cancelled road trip. Life is so much more than that and I want them to live to see it.

A couple weeks ago Chelsea posted a photo with the caption “sometimes you just got to stop and take a look around because this life is pretty amazing.”

So I did.