I live in a fairly residential neighborhood in North East Portland Surrounded by Portland Public Schools. Therefore my neighborhood has been plastered with yellow signs indicating that they will vote “yes” to the May 17th election for the bond to renovate the Portland schools if left unattended to could pose a danger to the children attending them. This is breaking news in Portland for many voters claim that the bond of 543 million is too high and will leave Portlanders paying 290 dollars towards this project. The imposing side insists that, the poor structures of the schools on average built between the 1950s and 1960s will have serious repercussions to the children such as, pipes that leak asbestos and boilers that pose a fire softy hazard. I feel that this is the number one story around Portland since it effects Portland school children; they should have a safe environment to learn and grow. This is also a timely issue since the ballots have just come in the mail and the election will occur within the next couple weeks.
The second important story around Portland was the shooting of 14 year old Shiloh Hampton in Holladay Park near the Lloyd Center on April 18th 2011. It was a shock to me to hear that this had happened in my neighborhood. This has not been the only shooting that has occurred in my neighborhood, just last year another person had been shot just a few blocks away. This story has been a heartbreaking story that has caught the attention of many Portlanders and their desire for a crackdown on violence. I walk through Holladay park at least once a day, I see so many children, families, innocent people and kids I fear for their safety and I feel terrible that an innocent young man was killed.
All around Portland and the metro area, many had all night parties many hotels had rooms full of people staying up to watch the Royal Wedding. Unlike the billions of people around the world who were glued to the television on April 29th in the early hours of the morning, I must say I did not watch the Royal Wedding. However despite my feelings of ridiculousness towards the Royal wedding, I had a flaming curiosity that I was almost embarrassed of the next day to take a look at what the Bride wore. After looking at photos of her gown, I wound up spending a good ten minutes checking out pictures of horse drawn carriages, the streets of England filled with thousands of people, “was this really a wedding or a parade? I asked myself. I believe that my curiosity as well as the hype this wedding has gotten is due to the ideology of marriage that a majority of us possess within us. This wedding happened to be a spectacle unattainable by the viewers. My mother, a seamstress and fashion fanatic has read that many wedding dress designers will be making replica of Kate Middleton's dress, thus further proving that this spectacle will be the expectation to live up to. I feel that this was an important story around Portland as well as the rest of the world since it was almost an escape from reality. Since the news is usually filled with depressing stories of disaster and death it's a nice distraction for a change.
Like many of your colleagues, you approached this assignment by assessing the importance of the news against your personal values, and without adopting a systematic or objective standard for determining what constitutes big news. In the context of this assignment, your choice is completely valid, and well fits the requirements of the task. But this assignment will be more successful in its intent if you can examine the news and begin to think in a general way about what constitutes importance, and think further about how our major media outlets assess news in comparison to your standard.
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