Initial Questions- Current Events Reporter Practice

This article is about the debate that is currently going on in China about whether or not the one-child policy should be gotten rid of. The issue came to the forefront of the news after a man was fired for having more than one child. The story was then picked up by many publications after he wrote about it on his blog. There are different sides of the debate, but for the most part, many scholars, a long with most of the public, believe that giving birth shouldn't have to do with the government. Some scholars now believe that is it necessary to convince the Chinese to start having more children instead of convincing them to have less children because they need to raise the fertility rate.

The story that sparked the debate occurred in March when Yang Zhizhu was fired after having more than one child. The story has been analyzed a lot by many people and now they are starting to wonder if the one-child policy is the best thing for China, or if it should be repealed.

Some of the questions I have and would need to answer in order to fully understand the article are: What happens when somebody has more than one child? What are measures that both families and the government have gone to adhere by this policy? Why was this policy originally put into place?

Remembering News Worthy Events

Which news worthy events do you remember from your lifetime? What of these events do you remember?

Thinking about what new worthy events that happened in my lifetime, I can only think of bad things. The feelings I remember most vividly are the times when I was scared, when we all were scared, and I think it says something important about our society and how we are constantly focused on the bad things that happen to us.  I couldn’t think of one news worthy event in which something good happened. The first things that came to mind were the attacks on 9/11/2001, Hurricane Katrina, and

I remember that I was in 3^rd grade on September 11, 2001. We were all in class when my teacher got a phone call and then ran to the TV in the corner of the room. They kept replaying the same 30 seconds or so of video clip, and we all just stared in awe at the screen. We didn’t know what we were watching, but we couldn’t believe it. It felt like we were catching a peak of a movie we’d never be allowed to watch at home. To us, it wasn’t real life. There were kids in my class crying, but at that time I don’t think they really knew why, we are all just scared. It didn’t really sink in until my teacher was trying to explain it to us in elementary terms, but at that time, all anyone knew was the basics. She told us that two airplanes had crashed into the World Trade Center and that a lot of people had died. It was a half-day of school, and I was supposed to go apple picking that afternoon with my Girl Scout Troop, but we didn’t go. I remember worrying all day that something would happen in St. Louis, that something would happen to me or my family. I didn’t really understand what a “terrorist” was, but I remember being afraid to go anywhere except for home and school. When your 8, something bad happens and it’s all you can think about, even when you don’t understand it. I had friends who thought Osama Bin Laden was going to show up at our school. Over and over again we’d hear how many people had died, how many people were still missing, and all the theories that arose as the story was developing 24/7. It consumed the entire country for what seemed like forever, but then again it still does.  The “War on Terror”, heightened security at airports, and just recently the debate over whether a mosque should be built near Ground Zero. It’s changed not only our country, but what it means to live in the United States and be an American, forever. I didn’t personally know anyone who was directly affected by the attack, but it’s more than just a part of U.S history. It’s apart of my history. Even though it happened almost 9 years ago, whenever somebody asks what’s the biggest event you remember in history, I’m sure I wouldn’t be the only person where September 11^th is the first thing that comes to mind.

The 2^nd event that comes to mind is Hurricane Katrina. I remember thinking before it hit, that it might just go away. The biggest question I had was why everyone couldn’t just leave? Why they would ever stay there and risk everything. I remember that same helpless feeling I had when September 11^th happened and it felt like there was nothing I could do to help. I remember people talking about it at Whitfield during assembly, talking about how we had to help, and they were right. I remember all the drives we held for basic every day things that we took for granted helped someone. Constantly hearing about the news and all the things that were happening not only during the hurricane, but the aftermath and everything that followed. I remember wanting to help, but in 7^th grade, you still feel pretty helpless.

The 3^rd event that I remember was the Tsunami that hit Thailand in 2004. There isn’t a lot I remember about it, but I remember being confused and not really knowing exactly what that meant.  I couldn’t believe how many people had died, but I remember again, being scared and wanting to help. I remember reading an article about a girl who had survived, but her family had not, in Seventeen magazine. I sent in the $20 so I could get the T-Shirt that Seventeen Magazine had designed to sell and donate the money to help aid efforts there. It obviously wasn’t a lot of money, but when you’re in 6^th grade you don’t really understand what’s going on or what it’s going to take to fix everything.

I asked my mom the same question and the events that came to mind were Kennedy’s assassination, Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. She remembers when Kennedy was assassinated. She remembers she was in school and she remembers that they had nothing on T.V for the next 4 days except for stories about Kennedy. She also remembers when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. She was 12 and on a school trip in Washington D.C. She was at the hotel swimming pool when she heard about it remembers hearing sirens and fire engines and police cars. The next day when they drove out of the city, they saw all the places that had been burnt down in riots. She remembers watching the first man walk on the moon on T.V with her family and thinking how hard it was to imagine somebody being able to walk on the moon.