san francisco chronicle

the trip to the chronicle was very interesting for all of you that couldn't go...i've never seen so much clutter--there was stuff everywhere piled up, and there were the weirdest things on the walls. i didn't expect it to be like that, i don't think i could ever concentrate on writing in an environment like that, i would be too distracted. it seems to work for them though, there were a lot of people busy typing away to meet their deadlines. nanette was very nice and took us around the chronicle and to talk with some of the other writers. we talked to one of the editors in the datebook section who also wrote some feature stories. he talked about how a lot of newspapers don't like their editors to do any writing, they feel it's giving them too much power. i don't remember why but i guess he's an exception. another writer we talked to is specifically writes science stories. i thought that was interesting, i didn't realize there were so many areas that had specific people writing in them. like nanette writes stories dealing with school issues. if i ever were to become a journalist i would much rather write all different types of stories. but as the science writer was saying, since he was getting older he wanted to specialize in something so that it would be harder for him to be booted out of the paper. speaking of age, there was one writer in the science department that is almost 90 years old! that might have been the most surprising part of the trip! we also went to see the sf gate section of the chronicle. we talked to one man that was in charge of designing the website. he was said how important online media has become and said it would be beneficial for our generation to know a lot about it because it will most likely continue to grow as the main form of media of the future. i thought the trip was really interesting and i'm glad i went. there is just so much to be learned from observing people and talking to them about what they do.

threatening myspace messages

the story below is about someone that hacked into myspace and sent threatening messages to a group of students at petaluma high school. the messages said things like "im sick of all your shit..im going to school strapped..im beating the high score of 33." the person is obviously referencing the virgina tech shootings with that statement. this furthers my fears of how scary the internet can be. its scary how some computer genius somewhere knows how to hack into myspace. i dont know that much about all the hidden tricks of the internet but i know they exist...and its sometimes makes me nervous that people have that ability to hack into some high school kids myspace and send them threats. its just not okay! its annoying how things that start as just some fun, a way to communicate to friends, turns into a scary place where you have to really watch who you let be your friend and watch who your talking to online. i also feel like they will be able to track the messages to some degree, i know that police have ways of viewing myspace and actually keep track of certain people they are watching. i haven't found any updates to this story online, maybe someone else did? either way this was probably just some lonely kid asking for attention and using myspace to do it--which to me doesn't seem very smart because myspace can be tracked.

MySpace hacker posts menacing statements to Petaluma High students

Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 9, 2007

(05-09) 09:18 PDT PETALUMA -- Someone hacked into the MySpace pages of several Petaluma High School students Tuesday night and posted statements on the networking Web site threatening to bring a gun to school today and kill people.

Police are asking parents, students and officials at Petaluma High School to help them identify the suspect today. Education officials said school remains in session, and there is extra police presence on campus.

The threats referenced April's deadly shootings at Virginia Tech, and warned students to stay home from school today.

Petaluma Police Sgt. Marty Frye said police sent out a "school alert" to employees and parents detailing the threats and stating that investigators do not know if it is valid.

According to the alert, the suspect wrote, "Listen up you people, I'm sick of all your s -- . Tomorrow I'm going to school strapped and none of you can do anything to stop me. I'm beating the high score of 33 thanks to you f -- ."

The person also went on to make additional statements in which they threatened to bring a gun to school and repeatedly referenced the Virginia Tech shootings, which left 33 people, including the shooter, dead.

Frye said it appears the suspect gained access to several Petaluma High School students' MySpace pages by hacking into the accounts and sent the messages without those people's knowledge.

Internet providers are cooperating with detectives and working to track down the origin of the messages, he added.

Petaluma City Schools deputy superintendent Steve Bolman said classes are continuing as normal.

"School is in session," he said. "We do have officers on campus, and students are being encouraged to stay in class."

the internet

i just read the e-mail from dr. robertson about the student that asked his/her name to be removed from the blog because of a stalker issue. i think this is a very interesting and important subject to talk about. are we putting ourselves at risk by being so open on the internet? i know speaking for myself, i have a facebook, myspace, and a blog...and even when you certain profiles on private, there are still ways for creepy people to find you and your information. i love being able to put my thoughts online for other people to read and i love communicating through online sites, but i wonder if one day it will come back to bite me like it did for that other student. the internet is just so huge, it connects so many peope and it really is an amazing invention, but as with most other things it has been corrupted. and it's sad that we have to worry about people tracking us down online but i think it is an important reality we all must realize and be careful about.

big story interviews

i definitely learned a little bit about stirring up some drama with my big story...which i really didn't predict! i don't normally like to make a scene or upset people, but i actually had fun doing so with this story. at first, it sort of upset me, especially when i went to interview professor barker-plummer and she refused to talk to me rudely saying my story was not appropriate and that my survey was not data. it sort of caught me of guard, i didn't know what to say to that. luckily, all of the other teachers were extremely nice and i didn't run into any other problems. i learned so much though, as most of them had some criticism for the way in which i was doing my story...atleast those teachers in the media studies dept. doing this story really showed me how much you can really learn by just sitting down and talking to people. i spent extra time just talking with professor kidd about numerous different issues that didn't even pertain to my story, what she had to say was just really interesting. i guess what i mainly took from the interviewing experience is that sometimes your going to have people that don't want to talk to you, and that's okay...you just have to suck it up and find someone better to talk to, which is exactly what i did.