UGH

I just want to blog about something happy. Not a tornado that killed a bunch of people. Not an explosion that killed a bunch of people. Not some psycho idiot that killed a bunch of people. Do you get where I'm going with this? The news is depressing. We all know that. This whole blogging about the news thing is really taking a toll on my happiness. Okay, that's a little dramatic but really.. I'm tired of writing about such sad, negative things. Something needs to change. I don't know what, I don't know how, but something needs to change. Scrolling through the news and thinking, "holy shit, what is this world coming to?" seems to be a daily thing lately. It's a mood kill. That's all I have to say about that.

Don't mind this random post about my thoughts. Just felt I needed to let that out.

Coach Says Shh About Sexuality

^^Say that five times fast


Brittney Griner is gay. If you didn't know that then you probably don't know who Brittney Griner is... Anyway, the point of this blog is: who the hell cares if she's gay? A lot of women basketball players are gay, not to stereotype or anything but, come on.


Well it turns out her old coach from Baylor has a lot to say about the topic. She literally told Brittney not to talk about her sexuality. She said that it would affect her chances of being recruited into the WNBA and would reflect badly on the Baylor Women's basketball program. Um, Brittney Griner is the best women's college ball player to step foot on a basketball court, she could have one arm and still get recruited with her level of talent. So that's a bunch of BS. And also, the Baylor Women's basketball program is lucky to have her represent them, like I said, she's one of the best college ball players in history! Need I say more?!

"It was more of a unwritten law [to not discuss your sexuality] ... it was just kind of, like, one of those things, you know, just don't do it. They kind of tried to make it, like, "Why put your business out on the street like that?"

I told Coach [Mulkey] when she was recruiting me. I was like, "I'm gay. I hope that's not a problem," and she told me that it wasn't. I mean, my teammates knew, obviously they all knew. Everybody knew about it."

I understand that Baylor is a private Baptist school, but uh does the coach know she got drafted by the Pheonix Mercury? She doesn't represent Baylor anymore so like I said earlier, who the hell cares if she's gay?! As long as her new team doesn't care, which they obviously don't considering they drafted her, then who gives a rats behind. Good job to Mulkey for making the program look bad herself. Dumb lady.

CWU Source

Last Thursday I attended CWU's SOURCE - the Symposium on University Research and Creative Expression. Events were put on throughout the day for students to showcase some of their work from the year. 

The event I attended was a collection of pictures from the Taylor Bridge fire that took place last summer. Each collection of pictures were from a different point of view. For example, we saw pictures from a lady that did animal rescue during the fire. She helped save tons of horses and pigs and other animals as well. She said the best part of the whole experience was getting to reunite people with their pets. 

I took away a few different things from attending this SOURCE session. First of all, it was great to see how close-knit the Ellensburg community is. The minute news of the fires broke out, hundreds of volunteers were ready and willing to do whatever it was that was needed of them. So much so that after a certain point people were turned away because there was nothing for them to do. Everyone in the community came together to help with whatever they could. Whether it was animal rescue or donating food and water to firefighters. There was no hesitation from anyone on whether or not they should help. 

Think Twice Before You Send That Snap!

Snapchat, the app that became popular late last year has been getting some attention in the media the past few days. The app is used to send pictures to a certain person or people for a select amount of time. Once the receiver looks at the picture for the allotted time, it is then deleted; or so they say!

A forensics examiner from Utah has discovered a way to pull Snapchat photos from an Android by downloading data from the phone and removing a ".NoMedia" file extension. Wait, they only said Androids so does that mean us iPhone users are in the clear?! For now we are, apparently this guy is  currently working on a way to get into the iPhone data.

The guy who figured this out posted his findings online and a local TV station showed a video on how to do it.

I bet Android users everywhere are trying to think of the inappropriate snaps they may have sent and are hoping they never get used against them. If necessary, snaps can be pulled from a phone and used in a court case as evidence!

As of now the creators of Snapchat have been keeping quiet. No comments have been made about the recent findings that the pictures don't actually disappear, like they claim they do! It will be interesting what they have to say about this one.

Another Shooting?

As if we haven't seen enough of it in the past year, there was yet another shooting in Louisiana today. During a Mother's Day parade in New Orleans, a gunman took fire and injured nineteen people including two children.

New Orleans is known for their parades that typically take place on Sundays. Today's parade was a special one dedicated to mother's for Mother's Day.

No one went to that parade expecting to get shot at. No one goes anywhere expecting to get shot it. New Orleans crime rate is continuing to go up no matter what they do to try and stop it. The Mayor made a statement challenging the community to get involved,

"It's important for us, as I have said, to change the culture of death on the streets of New Orleans to a culture of life, and it's going to take an all-hands-on-deck approach," he said.

New Orleans has been through so much in the last decade with the devastation that came after hurricane Katrina.  The Mayor and others should be working their hardest to keep the spirits of people in New Orleans up and positive.

The New Orleans Police Department has said they are going to attack this case aggressively and hopefully figure out who did this right away.

Louisiana, Pick Your Passion

What's the first thing you think of when you hear Louisiana? The New Orleans Saints? Mardi Gras? Hurricane Katrina? Or maybe nothing because you don't know much about the state.

Well, their slogan is "Pick Your Passion" and for those who know about Louisiana they know that people from there are extremely passionate. Whether it's passion for their football team or any other sports team for that matter, or just passion for their hometown, the people of Louisiana are full of it. I think their slogan is an appropriate and effective one for sure. It represents the state well. 

With the devastation that came after hurricane Katrina, the tourism department of Louisiana feared no one would want to return to the southern part of the state which was once a popular tourism spot. They had to step up their tourism game more than ever before, and they did. They could either dwell in the past or move forward. 

Louisiana is the birthplace of jazz and that plays a big role in their identity. On the travel website you see their state slogan with a large picture of a man playing the trumpet. They are also known for their delicacies, such as gumbo. They emphasize many different types of cuisine and tell tourists where to go based on what they want to eat.

Louisiana's department of tourism has done a good job of bringing back the spirit of the state after they have gone through such hardships. I was impressed with their travel sites and home pages. 

Shedd Aquarium

This week we were asked to analyze the communication techniques of the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. I started with their homepage, a well put together site that was easy to navigate and visually appealing. They had an interactive section that included different blog posts with relevant topics. April was fish month so they had a few YouTube videos with recipes on how to cook different fish. Their website also included little buttons that linked to their Facebook, Twitter, YouTube channel and Flickr page.

The Shedd Facebook page was very active. They post just about everyday, and sometimes more than once a day. Their posts are interesting and relevant to the target audience, which I would assume is a majority of parents with children.

Their Twitter was also extremely active. They tweet frequently and respond when people tweet to them. They had a trending hashtag while the name the beluga contest was going on, which shows they have a lot of followers (16,325 to be exact).

The Flickr page has 600 members and over 3,000 pictures uploaded into the group pool. I don't really use Flickr so I don't if those numbers are good or not, but the pictures were very pretty!

The YouTube channel was something that I thought was a great idea and that you don't see much of. They have 83 videos and 773 subscribers. They had a variety of different videos from recipes and tutorials to videos of meeting new animals at the aquarium.

Overall I was extremely impressed with the Shedd Aquarium's communication techniques. They are active and responsive with their followers. They keep their fans up to date and informed on what's going on at the aquarium. Keep up the good work Shedd!

Bachelorette Party Gone Horribly Wrong

Nine passengers were in a limo traveling across the San Francisco Bay celebrating a bachelorette party Saturday night. By the end of the night only four came out alive. The bride-to-be was among the dead. The limo caught fire on the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge and the driver and three passengers were the only ones to survive.

One of the survivors claims the driver did nothing to help save them. She said they tried warning him there was smoke and he only reacted after their second warning. By the time he pulled over, he claims, it was too late.

The survivors says she was banging on the glass asking for help and he did nothing. Luckily, she was able to climb through the partition and save herself.

The limo company released a statement saying,

"LimoStop Inc. will do everything possible to investigate and assist authorities in determining the cause of this fire in order to help bring forth answers and provide closure to the victims and their families," it said.

As for the driver, is the company going to listen to his story which claims it was too late for him to help, or the story of the survivors who claim he did nothing to help them? There is an investigation happening now to figure out what exactly caused the fire, I think it's in the limo company's best interest to put the driver on temporary leave until the investigation is complete. The limo was one passenger over capacity but it isn't clear if that could have had something to do with the fire.

The survivors are clearly upset about the loss of their friends, but even more about the fact that it could have been prevented. If I were them I wouldn't feel safe knowing that, even though it's unlikely, the driver could get himself in a similar situation and not help others in danger.

The driver was in a fight or flight situation and he clearly chose flight. It makes him look like a bad guy, which is extremely unfortunate for not only him, but the limo company as well.

To Go or Not to Go

Being from Washington we've all heard the story about Amanda Knox. Even if you aren't from Washington, there's a Lifetime movie about it. The girl who was accused and eventually convicted of murdering her roommate overseas in 2007. She sat in an Italian prison until a jury overturned her conviction in 2011.

An Italian appeals court overturned Knox's acquittal earlier this year. She says she is considering returning to Italy for a retrial but she admits she's afraid to go back.

Why would anyone that is guilty of murder want to go back and be retried if they didn't have to?

From a PR standpoint I think if Amanda is truly innocent then it is in her best interest to go back and prove it once and for all. Why waste the chance to clear your name and fix your reputation? They didn't have enough evidence against her before so why would they have enough now after it's been so long?

After recently being paid 3.8 million for her book deal she could afford to hire the best lawyer and clear her name once and for all.

Oh, So Now Bullying is Ok?

This week in class we've been talking a lot about ethics. What crosses the line and what doesn't? Who decides what the line is? Well, we've been asked to look at a story in the news and relate it back to the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) code of ethics as well as our own.

I found a story on the USA Today Sports paged that was titled, "Chicago asks fans to bully Derrick Rose into playing." I knew immediately this was my story.

Quick background about Derrick Rose, he plays for the Chicago Bulls but after a torn ACL a little over a year ago, he's made himself comfortable on the bench. The Bulls are currently in the playoffs and CBS Chicago, a radio station, has launched a campaign encouraging fans to write letters to Derrick Rose to get him to get his butt off the bench and help his team in the playoffs.

(Rose was cleared to play over two months ago so there must be a reason he hasn't been eager to get off the bench.)

Here's the deal, writing letters to encourage Rose would be one thing, but specifically asking fans to "yell at him, plead with him, convince him, and say whatever they want" is another thing. This station is condoning bullying. The headline itself says Chicago is asking fans to bully him. They're pretty much launching a campaign to bully someone. I've heard of countless campaigns to end bullying, but one asking people to bully? If this isn't ethically wrong then I don't know what is.

The PRSA code of ethics says a member should act in the best interests of the client or employer, even subordinating the member's personal interests. So, if they worked for this CBS radio station who wanted them to help launch this campaign that essentially is promoting bullying, this member wouldn't do it. They would know that this isn't in the best interest for the reputation of the station. CBS is going to look like a bunch of bullies if they continue this campaign. 

As far as my own ethics, I wouldn't necessarily NOT take part in this campaign, but I would definitely try my absolutely hardest to get them to change their strategy. Bully him into playing is not an okay thing to do. Instead of telling fans to yell and plead with him I would suggest telling them to take a positive route. For example, encouraging him and thanking him for his accomplishments with the team prior. Telling him how much he is missed off the court. Reminding him of what a huge asset he is to the team and how him playing could help in the playoffs. 

Ethics is something that a PR person has to think about constantly. It can be controversial when dealing with a client whose ethics are far different than your own. That's when you have to decide whether you want to ignore your own morals and do what is asked of you, or stand up for what you believe in.