Sasquatch! Music Festival wraps up eighth year at The Gorge Ampitheater

George, WASH.- Sun beaming down on bare skin. Melodies blaring from giant speaker. Smiling faces. Technicolor on a big screen. Crowd sways to the rhythm of the music.
The 2009 Sasquatch! Music festival arrived at The Gorge Amphitheater this past memorial weekend of May 23rd through the 25th to large crowds and temperatures of 85 degrees and above.
The music festival is known to many as one of the “greatest untouched music festivals that exist right now,” said concertgoer Gabrielle Merz.
“I think that at a time right now when there is a lot of people pushing the same type of music, that isn’t unique, its nice to get to come to a cool venue and see some different types of musicians,” said Merz.
The line-up for the 2009 festival included artist such as: 80’s band Jane’s Addiction, the rock-trip Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the dance-themed Santigold, who is on tour for the first time with a full band.
Sasquatch! Music Festival was formed in 2002 by concert promoter Adam Zacks, who previously worked for The Roseland Theater in Portland. The festival began as one day and has evolved over the past seven years into a three-day musical experience that brings large crowds from all over the country.
In addition to people coming from different areas for the music, many people come to experience the diverse crowds and The Gorge itself, which also offers camping for the three-day music festival.
Due to the high demand for camping and the sold-out days of Saturday and Sunday The Gorge Amphitheater was forced to open up other sections on the area to accommodate the campers.
“I’ve come to The Gorge for a lot of different concerts and I’ve never seen it so jammed packed with campers,” said Washington State University student and Sasquatch! attendant Ksenyia Braginskaya. “It’s really cool because I feel like the line-up was so good this year with band like the Kings of Leon, as well as Chromeo and that brought a lot of people who just want to have fun, camp and listen to good music.”
Sasquatch! kicked off Saturday with The Gaslight Anthem on the main stage and ended the night with the Nashville-based Kings of Leon. Some highlights from Saturday include The Decemberist playing at Sasquatch! for the second time in the festivals’ history as well as The Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ singer Karen O performing Maps and Skeletons wearing neon green legging and a glove, consisting of glow sticks.
Sunday brought the lead singer, Boots Riley, of the Oakland-based group The Coup and Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine together to perform with there new band Street Sweeper Social Club. The band performed MIA’s Paper Planes to a cheering crowd and offered free mp3’s of their music to the audience.
Monday wound down the festival with a long performance by the indie-rock group Grizzly Bear, which is known for their soft melodies. Other performances included an R&B set from Erykah Badu and Ben Harper and the Relentless 7 ending the weekend.

Feeding the Beast

+I think that we as a society are the beast. Were are on a constant high of now and immediate. Our society has come to expect things right then and now and I think that that is how we look at news. Anymore print news is not fast enough so we turn to sources that we will get immediate gratification from.
+The reason it needs to be fed is so that we keep coming back for more. News stations are constantly trying to get the most important, most dramatic news to keep the viewer watching and that means new issues at every moment need to be addressed.
+I think compromises that will occur are a lack of correct accreditation for a news story. With all the people working on a story only few gets the credit for it. I also think that details of a story get blurred and sometimes are incorrect because they are reported too soon. If stories were reported when full details were known that wouldn't be as much of an issue.

Special Leads

Example of feature writing
Who is Sonia Sotomayor?
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/26/sotomayor.bio/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Example of narrative lead
U.N. seeks full access to Sri Lankan refugee camps
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/24/sri.lanka.united.nations/index.html?iref=newssearch

Bruised Books can aid students in finacially tough times

PULLMAN, WASH. – Pullman students will be able to gain extra cash in this economic crisis with the help of Brused Books, a used bookstore located in downtown Pullman, where students can trade in thier used books for money.
Brused Books was founded in 1980 by owner Bruce Calkins during his time as a graduate student at Washington State University. The business started out as two shelves located in The Combine, a past coffee shop that once resided in downtown Pullman. Over the years it has moved locations twice, eventually finding a permanent home on Main St. in 1999.
The bookstore houses over 50 different sections of and is always looking for different array of books to place on their shelves.
“We try to hit everyone, we have Christian fiction to books on far-left issues such as gay rights, but we also try to have specific books to the geographic area, with sections in the store on veterinary and firefighting,” said Sally Burkhart, a long-time Brused Books employee.
In a time when businesses are failing and many individuals are in financial turmoil, Brused Books has stayed at a steady and growing pace. With subjects of books ever-changing and getting more broad over time the bookstore is constantly taking in books from residents of Pullman, as well as acquiring different titles from locations such as Spokane, in order to keep up with the needs of customers.
The bookstore takes in books following three main criteria: books that they think will sell, that they need, and that are in good condition. They price their books at half or less of the cover price. The customer that brings in those books will receive a credit of 45 percent of the price Brused Books decides to sell the book for. If the customer takes the option of cash they will receive 25 percent of the sale price.
“It’s a great way for students to earn cash and get rid of some clutter they might have during the summer when a lot of people are moving locations. People would be surprised at how much you will receive for the books they will take,” said frequent customer Cori Youngblood.
The bookstore takes in all types of books and is always looking for rare and interesting texts as well as books that will sell a lot during a specific season. Spring time is a popular time for people to trade in books. During this time they see a lot of textbooks come in.
“We will take textbooks if they are in good conditions, from the last couple of years and will bring in money for the store. People find a particular interested in basic math or algebra books so we often take more of those,” Said Burkhart.
During summer the bookstore takes in and sells a lot of paperback fiction novels as well as the growing books genre known as “chic lit”, which appeals to the females from the ages of 18 to 30 years old.
“During Summer many people are looking for easy reads for lazy days at the beach as well as books that have been turned into movies that are coming to theaters this summer. We have recently been selling a lot of Dan Brown novels since Angels & Demons has hit the theater so that’s something we’re currently looking for but ,we welcome any and everything,” said Burkhart.

Summary News Lead

Obama unveils mpg rule, gets broad support
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30810514/

-Includes the 5 W's
-Shows relevancy
-Relates to to national spectrum ("Americans")

Story Pitches

Dear Editor,

Summer is upon us and with this season comes the time to relax more than any other time of the year. With the free time many students are looking for things to preoccupy their time with. One of the things that one could do with that time would be to read books for leisure. I have recently become interested in Bruised Books, the used book store located in Downtown Pullman. They offer a large array of books in different categories as well as allow customers to trade in books for credit or cash, which I think would beneficial for students that are strapped for cash.

This story would be intended for print as possibly a feature. I would interview the owner of the bookstore, Bruce as well as a customer that was shopping at the bookstore.




Dear Editor,

Doing volunteer work is a great way for a student to gain experience in the workplace as well as good for their resume. Their has been a decline in volunteers at such organizations as the Women's Transit and The Pullman Humane Society. I think it would be beneficial to students to shed light on the organizations where they can volunteer at over the summer and also the things that they can gain from it.

I think that I would interview the people that run the places that are being featured in the article as places to interview. This would be meant for a newspaper.




Dear Editor,

Many people have a hard time speaking in front of an audience. WSU has a chapter of Toastmaster International called Cougar Communicators Toastmasters. Toastmasters is a non-profit educational organization that is devoted to helping people become better public speakers. I think that students would find this helpful for the future within the working world. They meet once and week and I believe it would be important to shed light on this organization.

I would interview Sue Semler, who is the main contact for CCT as well as a member of the organization for a newspaper article.

Compare and Contrast News Outlets

The three news sites I chose to look at are: CNN.com, USAToday.com, and Guardian.co.uk.

CNN.com
The stories that get the most prominent placement on the page seemed to be the latest news within the USA. The main story was about the family of a plane crash victim who were seeking answers as to why this happened. The story was new but it seemed more like a piece that would touch peoples' emotions as oppose to affect them directly. The other stories on the page where ones that seemed to be more life interested. They had stories such as a story about the boy on the milk carton from 30 years ago that was never found. It seemed like they had more fluff pieces then hard news on their front page.

I think that CNN. com adhered to the "Morrow Standard" of being fair and balanced because it had some hard news pieces but they were intermixed with softer pieces. I think that this conveys to the reader the options they have. I didn't feel like I was bombarded with information or opinions that I didn't want to see. I think that the main story was apparent but that their were other options easily available.

I think the primary audience for CNN.com would be middle class, middle age, Americans. It didn't really have very much international news offered right on the first page, so I think that it is focused more on people that care more for news that they can easily relate to. I also think that some of the stories focused more on a middle aged group, because they were more life pieces such as stories about book clubs, news on Oprah, or commentary on issues.

Guardian.co.uk
The story that seemed to get the most prominent placement I believe was the most important international news. The main story was a story about a charity group that is being accused of giving aid to Mumbai attacks. Other stories that seemed to be the most important were stories from all over the world, such as the story of Obama wanting to 'stifle' the abuse pictures and the amount of people who have died in a Sri Lanka hospital shelling.

I think that the Guardian.co.uk adheres to the Murrow standard for the most part. I think that it definitely gives fair space to the different stories. It seemed to really show the international news from each country and give fair space to different array of stories. It also seemed to really focus on hard news. There were not many soft pieces apparent on the first page.

I think that the target audience for this website is people from all over the world. It seems that this website is most focused on bringing news from all over to everyone. Its focused seemed to be people who would be most interested in hard news that was happening in places that they didn't have first hand access to it.

USAToday.com
The story that seemed to get the most prominent placement was a story about how Shuttle Atlantis grabbed Hubble. The other stories that got the best placement seemed to be hard news from around the country. Stories such as the Obama/abuse pictures and how retail sales are falling. It seemed that it was focusing mainly on the most important news of the moment in the US.

I think that it is fair pertaining to the Murrow standards. It seems that it is giving priority to news within the USA but they seem to be marketing themselves as a news media with more of an America focus. I think that for the people that are using their website they are giving them what they want as readers.

I think the target audience would be normal Americans. I think that this is displayed when the focus is more on stories within the USA. It also seemed that the news stores that were prominent were ones that a middle class American would be interested. There wasn't very many stories about international news on the first page but it was apparent that the option would be there if that was an interest to the reader.

Which news outlet would I use?

I think I would use USAToday.com. The reason I would use this website would be because it shows hard news that is going on right now that as an American I feel like I can relate to what they are talking about or at least understand the stories. I also feel like if I wanted to read other stories about other countries this website would make it readily available.

Chevron/Texaco V. Ecuador

I think that each of these news reels are both bias in one way or another, but I think that what makes them separate ethically is how they each have different agendas. In the 60 Minutes news reel the point is to make the listener or consumer aware of this situation for their benefit. They are trying to inform the public of what may not directly affect them at the moment but something that has the ability to affect their purchasing choices as well as their opinions about a company. I feel like they are taking a more ethical approach because they seem like they are bringing actual news to the consumer/listener. They talk to both parties involved while also investigating the claims. I think the "news" reel that is supported by Chevron/Texaco is more for the company's benefit then anything. It seems like they are only bringing their side of the story when they only have people that work for their company discussing this conflict. The other news reel discusses the situation with both parties involved, whereas the Chevron/Texaco reel only pointed blame towards others and never even took the time to look towards the people of Ecuador. I think that that is the biggest evidence of journalism being unethical in this case. In the Chevron/Texaco reel they didn't even give the opposing side a chance to discuss their situation.