Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Thoughts on Snopes.com


Snopes is not a website that I’ve used in the past and sadly, I hadn’t even heard of it until today.  It seemed very interesting to me and I spent quite some time on the website as I am very inquisitive and am always trying to find out the “truth” based on facts.  I guess that’s the Human Resource in me.  Something that I liked about Snopes is that they present the facts and mark it a green check mark if they’ve researched the information and it’s factual and if the information/rumor checks out to be fake, then it’s marked with a red “X”.  Now if the information/rumor is partially correct, then they have the marked area half green and half red which tells you “only half of this is true’’.  My personal opinion is that everyone has a bias.  They say that the news is “unbiased” and that they don’t present their opinions, they just present the “facts” but if that’s the case, why is CNBC known for their liberal views?  And why is FoxNews known for their conservative views?  It’s because no matter what, you’re stating facts with a covert spin (and sometimes not so covert).  While I didn’t notice a direct bias on a specific topic on Snopes, I am certain that they exsist.  I will certainly continue to visit the Snopes website in the future as I see it provides information on an array of topics from Business, College, Crime, Travel and heck … even love!

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Sentinel - KSU Newspaper

Whether or not I agreed with the articles on the Sentinel, they all seemed interesting to me.  Two articles in particular got my attention.  First, “Student petition for extended hours at the Commons”, March 17, 2015 and “Report pushes In-State Tuition for Immigrants”, October 13, 2015.  The March article argued that the Commons dinning should open past 8:00 pm from Monday thru Thursday in effort to accommodate working students.  Apparently, there have been 400 signatures collected to make this happen.  The Director of Culinary and Hospitality Service argues that if the demand is there, he has no problem with extending hours of operations as needed; however, there is a cost associated with the extended hours and if students are able to cover this cost, this is basically a non-issue.   The students that signed this petition are okay with the cost being added to everyone with a meal plan.  What’s frustrating to me is that I have a meal plan which I didn’t ask for; therefore, I would be stuck paying yet another fee for something that doesn’t apply to me.  Awesome! 


The October 13, 2015 The article asked: “How can in-state tuition given to undocumented immigrants affect KSU”.  Pretty loaded question in my opinion.  I couldn’t agree more with the Director of Global Admissions, Julio Espana.  “It’s hard to take a side.  I believe in education and we should be supportive of everyone, but having said that, I think they should go by the law, follow the rules and then be able to have in-state tuition.” 

Sunday, November 1, 2015

Letter to the Editor - Cosmopolitan

Letter to the Editor - Cosmopolitan

Original Article:  Cosmopolitan’s 21 Beauty Trends That Need to Die in 2015 (January 5, 2015)

There was a break down on Twitter  (“straight up racist "@KillioussBey: Boycott @Cosmopolitan this is downright disgusting. pic.twitter.com/1KN7RwHIYP") where Cosmopolitan was being accused of being racist.   Their article included  several pictures of women being compared for beauty “do’s” and “don’ts” and the images included the captions “RIP’s” and “Hello Gorgeous”.  “RIP” represented the fashion statement that should go away and “Hello Gorgeous” represented the new “in”.  Sadly the perception was that the images that were used with a woman of color were all “RIP’s”.  Even before the letter to the editor was released, Cosmopolitan put out this apology as a rebuttal to all of the negative social media on Twitter regarding this article at the time:

“This article focuses on beauty trends with images that represent those trends. Some images have been taken out of context, and we apologize for any offense. Celebrating all women is our mission, and we will continue to work hard to do that.”

Letter to the editor:

“With certainty, the insensitivity of your decision to dichotomize fashion do’s and don’ts with the use of Black models, has been called to your attention. That must be the reason why you released this apology”


As you can see, the Cosmopolitan reader to this article is highly upset because “as a 25 year old black woman with a career in media and avid fashion lover, she could not identify herself with the article.