I Am Maru

Vice Magazine Beta or Better?

Vice is a magazine that just recently, within the past couple days, revamped their website. They added some unexpected online interactions like a self-updating feed with top, most popular, and latest stories. Users have to option to embed this feed onto their own websites like wordpress or maybe even blogger. There is even a not so appropriate NSFW (not safe for work) tab that classifies all the things that you wouldn't want your boss to see you looking at behind your desk. Thanks for making everyone who looks at Viceland.com no longer worry about scrolling down to see a topless model while you're killing time in a crowded computer lab. The new layout is much more organized and categorized neatly, I'm not familiar with their print publication that comes out monthly, but I can say that they're really stepped up their online game. The slide shows are much more user friendly compared to the old slide shows which were just one photo per page and you had to a click a link for the entire next page to load to see more photos. Even the video content is organized into a slideshow like series, where you can click onto the next video from a string of thumbnails. This site is just generally way more user friendly and interactive. Vice's entire existence is a hybrid of conservative and contemporary in that it presents news like any other site would, but it uses fresh language and often covers stories that well-too-do publications would most often ignore. I selected this site to discuss because in comparison to other more tradition websites, even something as off-beat and sometimes bizarre as Vice is, it still allows itself room for change. It's not so set in its layout to neglect it's online users and is always progressive when it comes to online "do's and don'ts".

Pitt Housing Resources

-Angela Reynolds, Pitt Housing "Expert".
-Pitt's University Center for Social and Urban Research blog could have many surveys and statistics to help us with our project.
-Powerpoint provided by Pitt's Off Campus Living program. This resource is factual and can help students differentiate between slumlords and land lords.
-College Prowler, a rating site that rates a University on it's off campus housing. Not necessarily credible, but interesting.
-An article from the Pitt News about a new prospective housing building on campus.

Credibility: Opinions and Biases

There are websites like the Onion and magazines like the National Enquirer that most people would have to be under the influence of illegal drugs to consider them a serious news source. Other websites such as Huffington Post and The Informed Vegan however, fall somewhere inside the interpretive spectrums of "fact", "opinion", and "bias".

I have some qualms with the Huffington Post. Yes, the tagline of the website does state, "Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post", but where is the distinction between the two? A friend of a friend recently got published on Huffington's website. When we asked her how she was able to be published online, she only said that she "had an in" and divulged nothing further. Even though I didn't go straight to the source and ask the managing editor of the website why she was published, this insinuation made me reconsider the validity of some of their articles. I find most information on the Huffington Post reliable, but this particular situation makes it seem like any Jane Doe with a personal connection to the magazine staff can be published. I am in no way invalidating her article, which discussed the importance of attending college despite the growing difficulty of finding sufficient funds to do so, I'm only analyzing the way in which Huffington Post goes about finding selections for online content. Maybe she's an intern and got the opportunity to submit an article, who knows.

Some other sites online may be full of facts, but are not taken seriously because of their emotional biases. The Informed Vegan is a site that I frequent often and despite the lifestyle bias that surrounds this site, I find it completely credible and reliable. Most opinion based websites aren't usually backed up by statistics and facts. For example, the Informed Vegan has daily news stories (surprisingly there are enough animal rights/vegan charged topics to create a web platform for them) from various sources like CNN, NY Times, and others. The articles are written in colloquial language and obviously speak out against the abuse of animals. The most common technique is taking an article that describes some animal misuse and cynically explains why Sara Lee, for example, is a terrible corporation. This may deter some readers. By saying this information conversationally, does it make the posts less reliable? I don't believe so. They also embed links into their articles that take readers back to the source of the story or other related information. Even the Statistics link on the website looks a little less than trustworthy, with it's "Post Secret" structure, but each entry is backed up with a link containing those statistics. I think it's important for the website to try as hard as possible to dissuade non-vegans from writing off the information as "militant vegan bullshit". Even if I wasn't vegan, and I happened upon this site, I would still find it informative and wouldn't doubt it's content just because most meat-eaters view them as ranting hippies. I am not saying however, that some other websites are credible only because they supply facts. This is seen in the case of Wikipedia. Site members can make up facts and post false entries that are either a meager attempt at humor or just complete absurd. In the case of The Informed Vegan however, I'm only saying that it's harder to dispute news findings from other credible sources.

Sometimes websites become discredited because of the biases that the people who read their websites conform to. I find that this is the most common way that internet sources because less reliable. Most people get news via word of mouth, and in my experiences, most people exaggerate, leave out key points, or shift the story to favor a certain person or point of view. The Internet is a never ending resource that allows people to research the validity of their information, but if false news comes from a seemingly-but-not-so-reliable friend, than those facts have already been polluted. This stuff is even sometimes recycled not only verbally, but through the internet. Twitter posts, message board threats, or Facebook updates can parade this stuff as true when in reality, the facts are skewed and people accept them at face value.

This goes to say that one shouldn't never stop researching facts online. If something seems sketchy, look it up. If something seems too good to be true, look it up, and if you just want to be doubly sure? Look. It. Up.

CD Wright's "One Big Self"

What do you think about people who take non-fiction experiences and use that in a more creative way?
CD Wright interviewed women from three maximum security prisons in Louisiana and wrote the book One Big Self based from these interviews with inmates.
Most of the content and language is pulled directly from the mouths of these interviews. She used recording tools and took notes during this whole process, the way a journalist would.
Does this still count as non-fiction? I feel that it's recounting experience in a journalistic and experimentally poetic way.

Links to my favorite non fiction writers:

David Sedaris excerpt from Me Talk Pretty One Day


Sylvia Plath excerpts from her Unabridged Journal's

Extra link:
Chuck Klosterman
Excerpt from my favorite Klosterman book, "Killing Yourself to Live"

Why I'm taking this course:

Social media is so prominent in my daily to day life that I often overlook the education opportunities that it provides. I hope to advance my knowledge of current events and further my experience in non-fiction. Becoming fluent in non-fiction is a way that I hope to market my English degree in poetry. I want to receive my certificate in Professional and Public Writing, so that I can hopefully work for some sort of agency, publisher, or other employee that requires non-creative writing while I simultaneously pursue my poetic career. Ideally, I'd like to work for a poetry or music magazine. I'm at the point in my life where knowing what is happening in the world, societies, and other communities around me is a priority in my independent education.

I also want to be able to update my social media platform in a more progressive way, rather than a daily vomit of personal thoughts and events. You'd never think that "growing up" would include one's behavior on social media, but this class just proves the point.

My favorite non-fiction writers are David Sedaris, and even though Sylvia Plath is a poet, she has an amazing personal journal kept from her times at Smith College. She has always been someone I have admired because of her strength and spunk as a writer and woman in the academic realm. Her vision and use of language is intense, brutally honest, and innovative. David Sedaris is just so clever and intelligent. I like that I can pick up "Me Talk Pretty One Day", read a story, laugh, and be on my way with a pleasant sense of his experiences and personality. From this class, I would like to become more familiar with well know authors of non-fiction. I'd like to learn their styles and techniques to help guide my growth as a non-fiction writer and translate those practices into poetry.

-Molly Burkett