"I don't know what the gates of hell look like, but it's got to be like this,"



 I was in my 5th grade math class, I was called to the main office because my mother was coming to school to pick me up early. I was very confused to why my mom would be taking me out of  school early but I wasn't gonna complain about it. When my mom got there she looked real nervous, and now I started to worry about what had happened. When we got in the car my mom told me that there was an attack in the city and that my dad had to go down there and work. I didn't know what to expect, but when we got home my mom hurried to put the news on and then I saw what was happening to us. I was very young and never understood why the attacks were happening, and then after reading chapter 15 I was able to expand my knowledge about a day that will never be forgotten.





When the terrorist attacks happened the US wanted to know answers. We needed the media to give us knowledge about 9/11, however they failed to explain one of the five Ws. Why? They didn't tell us why the terroristt attacked the World Trade Center and the pentagon. The newspapers covered millions of ways how the story happened after the attacks, but not one said what the motivations of the terrorist were. Our president George W. Bush's explanation for the attacks were simply "cause terrorists are bad and America is good." And when asked why do they hate us? Bush answered "They hate our freedoms- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble." However, our president and the journalists didn't mention anything about Osama bin Laden's criticisms of American foreign policy.





Lucky for us technology leaves us limitless. Even though Bush and journalist didn't want to educated us on the real details of the attacks, the Internet took leap forward with information. People wanted answers so users of the Internet found some. They searched the web and found  a statement from Osama Bin Laden that was published in 1998, called The "Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders". By 2001, it was posted all over different sites for the public to see. It was now clear to us that Bin Laden hated us for a reason, "... Laden saw himself not as evil terrorist but as a heroic defender of Muslims who wanted to fend off what he believed was a Western invasion that threatened his faith and culture much the way that the Christian Crusaders had done some 900 years earlier." (Mightier Than The Sword, Rodger Streitmatter) This statement gave us answers to why the attacks occurred. Since Bush and mainstream news didn't inform us about the why, this made people debate if we could trust our country and why were they trying to hide all of this?



Bush did a very good job with convincing the people that terrorist were bad and we were innocent, he declared us to go to war. The reasoning for us being there was to weaken al-Qaeda, and to weaken the Taliban. Then we were told that the president of Iraq was a evil man and that he had nuclear weapons to use. Americans trusted in our president, then one cold day in the White House something was releaved. Bush's former  treasury secretary told everyone that Bush had been planning a attack on Iraq for more than 8 months before 9/11 occurred. Economists have estimated that the Iraq War could eventually cost as much as $2 trillion, and 3,000 U.S soldiers lives had already been taken. If journalist had done their jobs and covered the 5 Ws, we would had been aware of the situation. It was said that "The American media failed the country badly," however, the Internet was awarded for covering the information when no one else would speak up.



I found this chapter very interesting to me. Since I was only in 5th grade I never really understood but after reading I feel better that I now know what caused the Trade Centers to dropped and how the war started. What I liked about this chapter is how it ended, I liked that it ending with them answering the 5th Ws. Why did George W. Bush want to go to war so badly? They listed several reasons, he could have wanted to bring freedom to the people, to control the production and distribution of the world's oil supply, to finish what his father started in the Persian Gulf War. We will never know what his motivation was, but what we do know is that we failed American by leading us into the Iraq War.

"If the men own the paper- that is, if the men control the management of the paper- then the women who write for these papers must echo the sentiment of these men. And if they do not do that, their heads are cut off."

Till this day women are looked down upon. Men feel as if the women can not think as sharply, work as hard, make better judgments and so on. And that's why I chose chapter 3 to blog about. This subject stood out to me the most because I am a proud women and I stand up for the women around me and for myself. It breaks my heart when I witness women being "thrown around" by men, when women allow men to talk down to them, to abuse them, boss them around. Women have a voice just as the men do, so why not use it, and use it proudly.



In the 18 century women were not allowed to state their opinions, they had no rights. It's been said that the women would base their place in socity by her husband's identity. For a women could not think to the fullest, and wasn't capable of making the right decisions. Once being married, their lives consist of making their husbands happy, cleaning around and taking care of the children. Having no rights also meant, they weren't allowed to claim property. It didn't matter if the property belonged to the women before being married, the land now was in control of the male figure. If the married couple got a divorce she would then lose her property and the children she gave birth too. Women weren't being treated right and something needed to change, but how? Women weren't allowed to speak their mind, influnce the media with journalism.







 Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the first women who became a leading theorist, writer, and orator. She lived in Seneca Falls, New Yourk and she started the Women's Rights Movement. She was happily married to a lawyer, he was rarely home due to work so Stanton was left home with her seven children. She grew to be bored and tired of not having rights, so she realized something had to be done. Stanton posted a public note in Seneca County Courier stating "A convention to discuess the social, civil, and religious riights of women will be held in the Wesleyan Chapel, Seneca Falls, New York, on Wednesday and Thursday, the 19th and 20th of July." 300 attended to her call out for a change, and at the end of the two day meeting, she got 68 women and 32 men to sign their names to a Declaration of Sentiments.



Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The men of our nation were not happy with this movement. There were magazines, newspapers, anything involving the media influencing their thoughts. While I was reading the chapter, there were quotes from the men's article that I didn't like reading. Men really thought that women couldn't think for themselves and that we were denpendent people. Ladies Magazine reads "Placed in a situation of difficulty, they have neither a head to dictate, nor a hand to help." The Rochester Daily Advertiser called us women " extremely dull" and " hardly worth notice". The New York Herald said female leaders were "weak and silly heads" and being " candidates for admission into lunatic asylums," And lastly another one reads "A women is nobody. A wife is everything."



Susan B. Anthony

Susan B. Anthony was the second women to stand up for Women's Rights Movement. She came together to work with Stanton, putting two great, strong minds together created a great partnership. They created hundreds of women's rights meetings, public lectures and petition drives all over the country during 1850's and doing this they got thousands of people to support them. These two women were doing everything they could to give rights to the women. After the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendement was made to give former slaves the vote. So now slaves have rights and women still didn't, so this just drove Stanton and Anthony even harder.



Stanton and Anthony realized in order to make this movement sucessful , they'd have to make their own source of communication to get through to their readers. They published a newspaper called The Revolution, and the mass head reading read "Men, Their Rights and Nothing More; Women, Their Rights and Nothing Less." This newspaper was very controverisal, they wrote about aborotion, social issues, prositution, divorce and prison reform. This paper wasn't too sucessful, it lasted for only two years and had $10,000 of unpaid bills. 

Carrie Chapman Catt



Finally after twenty years of being unequal, the Women's Rights Movement was united in 1890 to create the National Women Suffrage Association. From the years 1870 and 1910, the women held 500 campaigns nationwide. It wasn't until the Progessive  Movement when sucess started to show. This era had many changes occuring so Women's Rights didn't seem so radical. In 1916 Carrie Chapman Catt began an organization for help the movement. The book said her "winning plan" help presuade the House of Representatives into passing the 19th amendent in 1918. Then  two years after that, women's suffrage became the law of the land in August 1920. It took 72 years for women to become equal with the men.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

"The bills are an honest effort to go to the heart of the evils that have grown out of the use of hood and robe..."



Out of  the chapters I could have chosen from, the seventh chapter called DEFYING THE KU KLUX KLAN stood out to me the most. I take this subject to heart, and it means a lot to me. Racism has been around for many many years, people everyday have to live their life being judged just because the color or their skin is different, or they practice religion that's out of the norm. Some people feel that if  others aren't white and believes in God then they shouldn't be here, or shouldn't have a voice and a opinion. The color of our skin or what religion we practice doesn't make us any different from the people we share this earth, were all children of God and should all be treated equal.

The KKK started in the year of  1866 by Confederate veterans. They believed that this organization would stop the former slaves from having rights. After starting the KKK, they thought that they accomplished what they were aiming for so the KKK only grew from there. In 1915, William Joseph Simmons was the leader to a dozen men, they marched through Georgia with the American Flag proudly flying through the air, Bible in hand and a pine cross burning. This ceremony started to expand throughout the decade, it was now nationwide and all the American's who were unhappy about the dramatic changes in the 1920's. The KKK orgization thought that they were true American's and that Catholics, Jews, Blacks and immigrants were unworthy and should be punished.

The KKK was getting bigger and bigger, they were taking over the nation. The KKK crew were now getting voted into the governement. The book reads "The Invisible Empire became a force to be reckoned with. Texas klansmen elected one of their own to the U.S senate. In Oregon, the KKK captured the governorship and enough of the legislature to ban parochial schools. The klan also elected both senators from Colorado as well as both senators and the governor in Indiana. In 1925, the KKK invaded the nation's capital as 40,000 robed figures paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue."



Mightier Than The Sword

I'm usually a person who does not enjoy reading unless I am able to choose what type of novel I get to read. I find myself not being interested in what I read and have no motivation to carry with the book, however, in journalism and democracy I find the readings to be very interesting. I like learning about how journalism came to be and the policy's that go with it. The Elements of Journalism was enjoyable to read since I was able to grow knowledge about how journalist go by writing their pieces and the guidelines that help them. When the professor said we were reading Mightier Than the Sword, I just hoped that I would have the same interest as I did for the other book.

Once I started to read this book I liked that Rodger Streitmatter stated that he has two specific audience in mind, the college students and then the men and women who want to learn about the media and the history behind it. The fourth page already had me wanting to read more. 

In the second chapter, Thomas Paine and Sam Adams basically are trying to impact the society by their writings.The both of them were ppatriotic, however, Paine's opinions were more inspiring to the public when Adam's were more vulgar and exaggerating so that he could get his point across.



Samuel Adams



Thomas Paine

                                                             

Rodger Steitmatter