Assignment 4

The day was April 20^th, 1994. A day that many people don’t really think about very often anymore, seeing as it has been almost 21 years since it happened. However, something happened that day that may not be seen to most people as a significant event yet, but in due time it will be. No I am not talking about the Serbian army bombing a hospital in Goradze, Bosnia. I am also not referring to the space shuttle STS-59 landing. I definitely am not referencing the fact that April 20^th is commonly known as “national cannabis day” either. What I am talking about is the birthday of the soon to be famous Grant Cole (Famous for what you might ask? Only time will tell). April 20^th, 1994 is the day Grant Cole was born, and that day will next be described in detail.

So what exactly happened on that day? Well Vanessa Mateer, the mother of Grant Cole, finally gave birth to her first child. A child that was supposed to be born on April 19^th, but for whatever reason didn’t really feel like revealing himself to the world until a day later. Why he decided to do that, I am not entirely sure. To most it just seemed like another ordinary Wednesday, but there was a lot going on in the world that day. The Serbian army bombed a hospital in Goradze, Bosnia, killing 47 people. 

A space shuttle STS-59 also landed. One other example of something going on outside of that hospital room was the firing of a Miami policeman who ignited a riot back in 1989. A fatal shooting of a black motorcyclist caused the riot. The shooting led to a race riot, and the shooter was eventually acquitted with manslaughter charges. 10 months later, on the day of Grant Cole’s birth, the policeman was finally fired. In today’s society, one would think it shouldn’t take years to fire a police officer after an incident similar to that. Another event that happened on the day of Grant Cole’s birth was the death of Robert O. Peterson, the founder of Jack in the Box. 

Ironically, Grant never (to this date) has eaten Jack in the Box in his life. However, this is still relevant to millions of other Americans who choose to do so. Speaking on millions of Americans, or rather who represents them, the House passed a vote on that day as well. The House voted for $13.5 Billion to go towards state prison systems. There was concern over the early release of violent criminals. The House voted to authorize $13.5 billion over five years to help build and operate new or expanded prisons, which more than quadrupled earlier crime bill funding proposals. One provision allocated $10.5 billion for prisons, on the terms that violent offenders had to serve at least 85% of their sentences. Also, the house voted to authorize $3 billion in spending over the following five years to build state or regional prisons for violent repeat offenders.

So all these events are going on in the world on that day in particular, yet none of them really pertain to Grant Cole or his interests. What then was going on at this time that would be relevant to Grant? Seeing as Grant is one of the biggest music fans you will ever meet, he would have found it particularly relevant that Kurt Cobain had just passed away the week before due to suicide from self-inflicted gunshot. 

Clearly, this was still a major headline a week later, as is the case with most high profile celebrity deaths. Grant would grow up to become a big fan of Kurt Cobain and his music with the band Nirvana. The Division Bell by Pink Floyd was the number one album on Billboard for weeks following Grants birth. Grant would grow up to also become a big fan of Pink Floyd and their work, although ironically that album in particular is one of his lesser favorites from the group. Grant is also a big sports fan, particularly basketball. Ironically, at the time of his birth, the biggest figure in the basketball world (Michael Jordan) was retired temporally.

 However, the NBA season was coming to a close and the playoffs were right around the corner. Most of the games being played at the time of Grants birth were essentially meaningless, aside from teams trying to secure certain playoff spots or make the playoffs at all.

In conclusion, the day Grant Cole was born wasn’t just “another day” in history. Many events happened, including the Serbian army bombing the Goradze hospital, the landing of the space shuttle STS-59, the firing of the Miami policeman, the death of the Jack In The Box founder, and the House voting for funds towards State Prisons. There were also many things going on in the world of music and sports. There were also many other things going on that I didn’t even get the chance to list. Most importantly however (sarcasm, don’t take offense), Grant Cole was born. Without him, you would not be reading this blog which is more than enough reason to be thankful for that day in history, right? 

Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2014. http://articles.latimes.com/1994/apr/20

"Today in History for April 1994 - HistoryOrb.com." HistoryOrb.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2014.

Assignment 3

After briefly analyzing both the Huffington Post and Google News websites, they both seem like pretty good sources for news. However, for this assignment I had to choose which one I thought was better. I am going with Google News, and here is why. There is more variety in the available news content on the front page, more information underneath each news headline, and what appears to be more “important” news on the front page. I realize important news is subjective, but in my opinion it is important to have more, as apposed to less, of an abundance and variety of high profile news stories on the front page. 


The amount of variety on the front of Google News’s homepage is important because people have a tendency to click on a website, view the front page (or even just the top of the home page) briefly then decide whether or not they want to stay on that website or look elsewhere. This is actually a very common practice, as some of the articles we had to read for this week (“A Lot Of Top Journalists Don’t Look At Traffic Number’s. Here’s Why” to be specific) talked about how media consumers will often click on a link to a website (in this case, a link to Huffington Post or Google News) and will often only glance over the top of the page, front of the page, or the major headlines.  The fact that Google News has a higher variety of topics on the front top portion of the page makes it superior in that aspect. Another reason Google News is superior to the Huffington Post is because there is more text under each news headline. As we learned in class and from some other assigned articles (“How To Optimize Headlines Using The 65 Character Rule”, etc.) not only do media consumers have a tendency to glance over the front page of websites, they also have a tendency to only want to read or see the top headlines when it comes to news. They often times will not even read the entire article. This is why it is important to have those brief little captions under each news headline like Google News does, so that each news story can hopefully grab the readers attention so that they may want to read more. Huffington Post does do this for some of the news headlines, but not all like Google News does.  Also, one last point, when looking over the Google News front page, I saw more news stories overall covering a wider range of topics. Huffington Post does offer a wide range of topics as well, but they are not all right in your face on the front page like Google News. You have to click a separate section at the top of the page to access stories that aren’t “front page” news topics. Google News isn’t as much like this. Granted, you do have to click links on the side of the page to access more in depth news for certain subtopics, but the overall front page seems more diverse on Google News. Also, the news stories seem more “important” on Google News’s front page to me than Huffington Post, but I realize that is subjective and therefore isn’t really a true argument. 

In conclusion, I enjoyed Google News more than the Huffington Post and thought it to be a better overall site for media consumers to get their news from. However, I don’t think you can really go wrong either way!