Gang Violence Threatens Mexican Journalists

              As gang violence continues to escalate along with kidnappings and murder in Northern Mexico, the freedom and safety of journalists in the region are being threatened.

This was one of many discouraging revelations about the state of the Mexican press German journalist Laura Schneider gave to a University of Georgia journalism class during an interview Monday morning.

             The threat of murder by drug gangs, especially in smaller Northern Mexican towns, has a devastating effect on journalists, causing many to self-censor themselves and leaving few to want to be the first to report controversial news, Schneider explained.

Schneider, 27, recently worked for a Mexican newspaper, and when there was a recent event where over 30 people were murdered by a gang, “no journalists of the local newspaper wanted to write about it because they’re afraid for their lives if they do.”

The University of Hamburg graduate was even personally affected by the escalating dangers, admitting that one of her fellow journalist had been kidnapped while she was there.

“I think it’s like a vicious circle. If you don’t know what’s happening, you can’t react to it. And if you can’t react to it, more things will happen and journalists will still self censor themselves,” Schneider explained.

Members of YOUnited Give Insight on Recent Campaign

Imagine attending organization’s meetings, talking with group leaders, giving interviews to the press, debating other tickets, and painting banners all on less than five hours of sleep while also dealing with the stresses of a regular student’s life. 


Although one might mistake these for the activities that the Romney and Obama campaigns engage in, this was the reality of members of the University of Georgia Student Government Association’s recent YOUnited campaign.

Kevin “Femi” Brinson, campus liaison, and Jenny Grifenhagen, treasurer, were both interviewed Sunday night at the Tate Center to discuss not only their activities as a part of YOUnited, but also to shed light on the strategy and politics that were involved with running their campaign.

Both made clear that it was the message of YOUnited’s presidential candidate, Sean Malone, about connecting with students on a personal level and coalescing the campus, that drew each of them to want to become involved.

Brinson, a sophomore finance and management double major, was actually approached by some of the other tickets to help out, but he identified better with Malone’s message “of giving back to the people.”

The YOUnited campaign strategy was unorthodox because it specifically targeted multicultural organizations that in most SGA elections, fail to receive significant attention from the major tickets, Brinson said.

“When we found out only 4 percent of campus voted last year, I made the bold statement of saying let’s go after the other 96 percent,” Grifenhagen, the junior advertising major, explained.

Even though two members of the three-member ticket are a part of Greek organizations, the campaign went against the conventional strategy of targeting the important Greek vote with the hopes that it would be split amongst the four tickets, giving no one ticket a clear advantage, Grifenhagen said.

Instead, YOUnited concentrated on personal connections with organizations like the NAACP to get informal endorsements, which Brinson acknowledged, “It was kind of difficult, but what we tried to do was have people involved in different organizations reach out to their lower divisions on a personal level.”

Although the campaign hoped to bring a fresh new attitude to SGA, it was the media, like the Red & Black newspaper, that gave them the title of the “outsider” ticket, due to their lack of SGA members on the ticket, the pair both said.

“We did want to be an external ticket, but at the same time, we wanted to show that we do know what we’re doing if we are getting into SGA. So that was a part of getting our public message out and making sure people knew that we had experience, but that they knew that we were different,” Brinson explained.


 “Our strategy was SGA is a good vehicle, but needs new drivers. We don’t want to change the vehicle; we just want to change the culture within it,” the finance and management double major elaborated.

Although the pair said YOUnited kept a positive, upbeat message about unifying the campus, they were “shocked” with some of the negative attacks from other rival tickets, which they felt mirrored politicians on the national level.

“I didn’t realize how negative it would be because some of the comments were towards YOUnited members they had worked with before,” Brinson admitted. “I was kinda disappointed and kinda shocked, but I guess that is the nature of the beast when it gets so competitive and people are so fired up about a cause.”

Although Grifenhagen said these negative attacks were effective and might even be a necessary part of a winning strategy, she wouldn’t have changed YOUnited’s decision to not engage in the negative antics.

"I think 100 percent of the time I would rather stick to my morals and go about it that way and make real relationships with people and not win, then go the “effective” dirty politics route.”

Austrian Journalist Gives His Perspective on America

For Americans,  a trip to the local supermarket is a routine event, not an eye-opening one.

Thomas Frank, a 33-year-old Austrian Transatlantic Media Fellow,  expressed in an interview Monday morning by a UGA journalism class how a trip to a supermarket or differences in American communities highlight key variances between the U.S., and what he is used to in Europe.

Frank was initially shocked that American stores had so many brands for simple items like milk, where in his home country Austria, there are only two.

“For a European, entering an American supermarket is really a big thing” the freelance writer explained. “Oh so you have like 30 different options of granola, oh there are ten different types of milk. I had no idea this could exist.”

Frank also noticed how Americans define themselves by their neighborhood and area that they live in.

Unlike in Europe, where the freelance writer feels communities are more conformist, Frank noticed in the U.S., communities are more greatly divide among lines of race, socioeconomic status, and urban vs.rural.

"Here, it comes down to what is the community you live in. Is it like a college community? Does it have to do with what you earn like blue-collar or white-collar jobs, or race," the media fellow explained.

The Austrian journalist will be in Minneapolis next week to continue his three-month tour of the U.S., and has already visited New York City, Boston, Washington D.C., and Chapel Hill.

Looming Jobs Report is of No Concern for Junior UGA Student

                     Although many people are eager for the release Friday morning of the Bureau of Labor Statistics employment rate report for March, Junior University of Georgia student John Fowler is not among them.

                   In an interview at the Student Learning Center Monday morning, the economics major, who has secured an internship with Sen. Saxby Chambliss in Washington D.C, said “because I am still over a year away from graduating, I still think I have some time before I worry about the state of the economy."

                   But even if Fowler was fast-forwarded to this time next year, he still says he wouldn’t care to discover the numbers from the report stating, “whether I read the statistics or I don’t, I still am going to work very hard to secure a job after graduating. 

            He  continued, "No numbers, good or bad, are going to affect how well I interview or how proactive I am in searching.”

                   For those who are awaiting the 8:30 a.m. release of the CPS, many will be focusing on whether the data will support Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke’s cautious predictions about growth.