Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a revolutionary ahead of her time. Her vision for female equality was so far advanced from the barbaric thoughts of the masses. Her impact was not only felt in the media, but throughout the country during the Women's RIghts Movement. She is one of the more overlooked suffrage activists in the history of the United States. She is often overlooked in loo of Susan B. Anthony. I hadn't ever heard of Stanton until my second year in the journalism program. Now there are multiple classes where I am learning about Stanton. There should be more of an effort to teach about the doings of Stanton and the rest of the activists in the Women's Rights Movement.

Juan Gonzalez

Sitting in on Juan Gonzalez's visit was an interesting trip through the history of minorities and the way they impacted media. I had never heard of Gonzalez before this evening. I was overwhelmed with his appreciation of the history of hispanics and blacks in journalism until I learned he was hired at the NY Daily News just months after it became policy to employ minorities. Gonzalez believes it is that rule that give him a job at such a prestigious daily newspaper. The instances of race riots and differences in the way these pioneers saw journalism was revolutionary. Identifying the propaganda and corruption within mainstream journalism was key for the progress made in journalism.
Gonzalez spoke of one advance after the other. The reason for new advances in journalism was the decentralization of each new phase of journalism. First came the U.S postal system, after that was decentralized by the government, the radio became a tool for journalists to use for protesting. Television and the internet eventually came about. I believe the internet is the best tool yet. Government can do their best to regulate what information is released, but it is just too big, too open to the public and too free for the government to begin to regulate the information.
Gonzalez is an inspiration to all young journalists, especially hispanic and black journalists.

Bearing Witness 2.0

I believe what China did was right. While it did protect the traditional journalist, it discouraged those who thought of covering the event, which hurt the growth of journalism. They removed whatever freedom and independence there was in journalism by closing the area off. The Chinese media crossed the line on this one.
I do understand why they did what they did. They tried to control the coverage of the incident, but that does not give them the right to deny thousands of citizen journalists the right to deny access to the event.

Ray Lewis

Following the Baltimore Ravens' second Super Bowl title, questions have come up about future Hall-of-Famer Ray Lewis and the possibility of his using performance enhancing drugs. In my personal opinion, you must be crazy to think Ray Lewis wasn't taking a PED. Lewis suffered a torn triceps muscle in the later part of the season, at least late enough to confidently say he would not play for the remainder of the regular season and playoffs. The normal recovery process for the injury Lewis suffered is six months, he came back in 10 weeks. Another suspicious element to the Lewis story is how he performed this miraculous recovery in the last year of his career at age 37. Many would say when Lewis returned from his injury, he was playing even better than he was before he was hurt.

Bill Simmons wrote an article grantland.com asking why no journalists or reporters have asked Lewis whether he has taken any PEDs since suffering his severe tear in his triceps muscle. The best point in the Simmons' article was made about Lewis' age. He compared Lewis to other older superstars who both returned from injury abnormally fast and also players who posted career-bests later in their careers. In addition to his head growing at the age of 35, Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs at the age of 36. Prior to that record-breaking season, he had never hit even 50 home runs in a single season. A subject more similar to Lewis would have to be Mark McGwire, who hit 70 home runs at age 34 after tearing a pectoral muscle. 

The two baseball players mentioned in the paragraph above were both linked to PEDs and both denied entry to the Baseball Hall of Fame, as I believe Lewis should be also. I am not saying there are no former NFL players in the Hall of Fame who have taken PEDs, but it should be taken into consideration during the voting process for Lewis because I do believe he can be linked to them.