Nathan's Blog

  Going into the semester, media writing was a concept that I had been introduced to but had never done. Gaining a grasp on this style of writing was easy in some ways, but hard in others. In this short semester retrospective, I will explain what I learned, and what I think I could have done better/what I am still struggling with. Before this class, writing to me was a process of following steps that I learned when I was in middle school: Make an opening paragraph, a couple of body paragraphs, then conclude. This was pure essay writing, and it was a habit that I had grown comfortable with (honestly, I still do it). I always knew that writing outside of what I thought as correct was possible, but I felt that it might get graded harshly for not following the parameters that had always been drilled into me. I'm not going to say this class was a revelation against that thinking, but it did help me to branch out a little.  When talking about pure, straight-up writing, The thi...

  Shattered Glass showed Glass’s insecurities  Shattered glass is not the type of movie that I like, but it was not a bad movie. It followed the true story of American journalist Stephen Glass (played by Hayden Christensen) and showed his fall from glory. The psychotic character Glass starts the movie by publishing a story about a teenage hacker. As the movie progresses it is uncovered that the story is fabricated. Glass lies saying that he was tricked by his sources and deepens his lie. In the end, all his credibility is lost when it is discovered that over half of his stories were fabricated.  The movie portrays the bad guy as the main character. Glass is a manipulator and a psychopath that believes his chronic lies. He builds his world and lives in a separate reality of our own. In the movie, we see Christensen's character continuously lie to cover his tracks. He does anything from blaming others, creating fake phone numbers, and flat out lying to his peers and colle...

  Planetary candidate detected outside of Milky Way galaxy The Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has recently discovered what they believe is a planetary candidate outside of our Milky Way galaxy. This awe-inspiring discovery is important because it is the first of its kind.  The possible planet was discovered in the galaxy Messier 51, a whirlpool galaxy that is located 23 million light-years from Earth.  In the report given, it is stated that the possible planet was discovered using a new method of detection called the “X-ray transit method”. This method is similar to another form of planetary detection that we use within our galaxy called the transit method. The transit method uses light as its main source of detection. For example, let's say we on earth are observing a star. While observing this star there is a constant amount of light hitting earth at any given time. When a planetary object passes in front of the light source being observed, the amou...

  Informational feature Recently, The Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics discovered a candidate for what they believe might be the first planet discovered outside the Milky Way galaxy. They did this through a method that has been classified as the X-ray transit method. Here is a link to the study: https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2021/m51/m51_paper.pdf .  This story is important because it marks a scientific discovery that could end up being the first of its kind. The research states that detecting a planet outside of the Milky Way is key to understanding galaxies other than our own. It is worthy to note that this study will take a long time due to the nature of the planetary candidate's discovery (factors such as distance, orbit, and pure chance), but the fact that something has been detected is important nonetheless. Knowing and understanding this, This story needs to get media coverage.  Human Interest feature Micheal Phelps is known as the greatest o...

  Week 12 assignments  Tweets https://twitter.com/nibrezzy226/status/1460073609750327307   https://twitter.com/nibrezzy226/status/1460080668147425285   https://twitter.com/nibrezzy226/status/1460070646621392898   https://twitter.com/nibrezzy226/status/1460065270349848583   https://twitter.com/nibrezzy226/status/1460094921940025344 For me, it is generally easy for me to summarize an article if I understand what is being said. That being said, if it is a topic I am new to, that can become a little more difficult. For example. In my article about the Vikings, I was able to summarize well because sports is a beat that I am always following closely. However, for a topic such as local inflation, I had a harder time summarizing because it is not something that has a large amount of my attention.

  This week the Vikings took on the Chargers in an NFC vs AFC battle and prevailed winning 27-20. This matchup was an important one for both teams as they were both second in their respective divisions going into the game.  The Vikings took on an aggressive approach early on and focused on getting the ball into the hands of the second-year wideout Justin Jefferson. In the game, he hauled in 9 receptions for 143 yards. Other notable players from the outing include Tight end Tyler Conklin who caught three passes, two of which resulted in touchdowns, and Dalvin Cook who totaled 118 yards from scrimmage and scored a touchdown.  Minnesota has been no stranger to close games this season. In their 9 games played thus far, 8 have been decided by one score. After the win today, Minnesota is 3-5 in those games. Head coach Mike Zimmer said that he “liked the fight of his team” in a post-game interview and that plenty of guys “stepped up” today referring to 5 inactive defensive s...