Should Boise State win the NCAA football championship if it is undefeated this year?

Yes, once again there is a debate, more specifically “The Great Debate”, in the wild and wonderful world of sports. Some believe that Boise State is worthy of its ranking, others don’t. I’d say this is a pretty fair debate but it’s probably one that can never be truly resolved…at least, not until the season is over.

Some argue that since Boise State is a smaller school, it’s not deserving of its ranking. One side of the debate says that it is all about who they play and since they only play two other ranked opponents, this causes the controversy. They say that other schools are in far more competitive conferences than Boise State. However, just like in all sports-related controversies, there is some level of favoritism involved. The opposing side believes that if Boise State does get defeated, then it will ruin the chances for any other schools that may find themselves in a similar controversy in the future.

The Boise State Broncos were ranked No. 3 by the Associated Press, as noted via Sports Illustrated’s website and No. 5 by the USA Today Coaches Poll in the preseason. They opened their much-anticipated 2010 campaign with a surprising 33-30 comeback win over the ACC title favorite, Virginia Tech.

Heisman-hopeful Kellen Moore threw for 215 yards and three touchdowns on the night of the game. He also led the team to win the game with a 13-yard touchdown pass to Austin Pettis with just over a minute to play.

Despite what the critics will say in the weeks to come, most believe that the Broncos are a very good football team. Most everyone seems to agree they belong in the Top 5, noted in the Week 1 edition of the About.com Power Rankings.

At the end of the day, no one is really winning this debate. Like I said before: at least not yet. Only time will tell on this one.

Pro Publica: A Reliable Place for News

Pro Publica is a new-found place to get my news, thanks to this assignment.

The thing that seemed to catch my attention first was Pro Publica's objectivity. I really enjoyed how the writers of Pro Publica didn’t seem to show bias and were fairly objective throughout the site based on the stories I read. I do like how they present stories in the public interest and demonstrate this by having a sidebar on the main page that lists the readers’ favorite stories by vote. They also show their credibility by presenting a box on the right hand side of each page that shows links to other investigative reporting made by other credible sources, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. Another thing I liked about this site was that Pro Publica has a blog: a place where they can be opinionated without letting their bias interfere in the stories.

I also thought the style was appropriate because there was a lot of information on each page and that it was organized in a clean manner with certain stories and features boxed off from the rest of the page. I like the site’s professional, clean look but it isn’t too formal at the same time. I also liked how there’s a bar on the top of the page that reads “Don’t Miss:” and then provides several of the biggest and most popular current stories as links separated as tabs. However, there are some pages that seem too cluttered because of the sheer amount of information presented all at once. I think they could've separated some categories of stories into a sidebar down the left hand side of each page with a few different broad categories to break up the clutter. Nevertheless, the site is functional and clean-looking so that readers can navigate fairly easily and not feel overwhelmed.

There are plenty of pictures, audio, and video elements on each page, and each page contains at least one of these, if not more. They have captions underneath each picture and/or graphic. I didn’t see any videos when clicking throughout the site, but I could’ve easily missed them with all of the information and news stories available there.

I also noticed plenty of places for interactivity on the site. Many different links and buttons point you in the right direction of contacting someone or so you can sign up for their e-mails to get daily updates, etc. There is also a comment box below every article so that readers can post their opinions and interact with other readers as well as the journalists.

On the main page there is a box entitled “Follow ProPublica” that has links and logos of the social media sites that they correspond with, including Twitter, Facebook, the site’s Podcast, their iPhone App, and RSS.

Overall, I think that Pro Publica presented their information and stories in an organized fashion. They also use everyday, readable language that is easy to follow and relaxed. I'm definitely coming back for more daily news, that's for sure.

Online Sources Assignment

Britney Spears links:

• http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/spears_britney/artist.jhtml#biographyEnd

- Includes a full biography in all aspects of her life from where she grew up and started out her career to where she is today.

• http://www.britneyspears.com/rumors/index.php

- Her official site; includes “BS Alerts” that show tabloids and rumors posted in the media and tells whether they are true or false.

• http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005453/bio

- Britney’s IMDB page includes everything from her bio to which movies/ TV shows she appeared in. This site has a lot more accurate information about her career as a pop star and actress.

• http://www.britney.com/us/home

- This site has a news feed, blog, music, lyrics to Britney’s songs, photos, videos, events and more.

• http://www.hollyscoop.com/britney-spears/16.aspx

- This site is another site that has plenty of news about Britney Spears as well as photos and a bio posted on the site.

I chose these sites because they seemed to be the most reliable after looking through their content. I stayed away from sites that had “gossip” somewhere in the URL or as a description of the site so that I could filter out the false information from the true facts.

An introduction, a purpose, a story to share.

Well, it turns out that I already had an account here. I meant to keep up on it after I first started it but, eh, life happens. Too many things got in the way.

So, where do I begin?

Let's see...I'm Alyssa, a 20-year-old Public Relations major at SRU. I'm in the New Media class because I've always had a passion for journalistic writing but chose PR as my career path. I believe that new media writing, such as making this blog, is an extremely powerful way to reach your audience. I have strong emotional ties to my reason for starting this blog, however. As you have most likely read, I originally started this blog to write about my uncle (as mentioned below) but somehow never got around to doing so. Everything seemed to happen in a whirlwind of events and emotions that year that I didn't really have too much time to keep up on it.

That was my first semester of college. I was trying to keep up with the college workload, trying to adjust to living in a dorm, and trying to keep up and check on how my uncle was doing on a daily basis through phone calls, e-mails, Facebook, and my aunt's blog. Her blog was essentially the only efficient way to keep every single person in my family updated about what was going on that day, week, etc. during his treatment.

I could give away the ending of this sad story, but it would do no justice to all of the hours my aunt spent pouring every last emotional detail into her blogs for our family's sake. The ending isn't a happy one. He didn't make it through.

My aunt still uses this blog as an outlet for her emotions and any other news she wishes to share with us. I really hope to follow in her footsteps by making my blog have a purpose, even if it's not for the same purpose as she had. My purpose will be to write so that my audience can have something to read about my views on the world and so that I can have a place for them to give their feedback to me. My ultimate goal is to have a powerful influence on my readers, just as my aunt did.

At the end of the day, that's what really matters most.