On the Front Page

The last few weeks have been amazing, I have been working 

on my internship with Honolulu Weekly and already my work

is being published this week was the first time that I had a photograph

taken on the front page of the newspaper. So far this is the achievement 

I have reached in photography and I hope it continues. I ll be using

pictures like this as resource for my portfolio and hopefully it lead 

to a job as a photojournalist.

Design

It's already that time of year where I will need to go into study mood for next weeks finals. I can't believe that the semester is about to end. This semester has been good I have learned a lot from using Photoshop, Indesign, Dreamweaver and Illustrator this tools have helped me to understand how visual design is important in attracting a reader. This semester has been all about design from taking production design, art class , web design  and electronic journalism. I will incorporate everything  i learned about design  in my future projects such as photography.

Reluctant Activist

I have never considered myself as a activist or protester, but recently something came to light that motivated to do something. Recently I created a online petition to set up a student meeting with the president to discuss the recent budget cuts to HPU programs. I am trying to drum up support for using social media in hopes to bring awareness to the issue. Programs like the HPU cheer team have been successful in winning national titles for the last 10 years but HPU has canceled the competitions because of high cost of travel other programs like Arabic have been cut as well. I  can understand that the university would need to make some budget cuts to its programs but the fact of the matter is the university is increasing our tuition and the announcements to the cuts were made close to the end of the semester. I believe that when it comes to this issues the university can not stand behind pr releases to justify their decisions. They need to be discussed in an open forum like a student hall meeting.

Please sign the petition

The Bus change

If you ride the bus than you are aware of the bus schedule and routes. But recently The Bus has been considering revising the route schedules and discontinuing some routes altogether. One such example is the  C country express bus, which goes from Makaha to Ala Moana and serves has a important link for those living on the Leeward side of the island to connect to Honolulu. currently the routes run every 30 minutes on weekdays and weekends. At times the C bus can be overcrowding, but with the proposed changes the bus is considering to make the C bus run  every 45 minutes on the weekdays and the weekends the bus will only run every hour. making the buses crowded more than ever. What makes the C bus a really great route is that it takes the freeway from Kapolei all the way to Dillingham saving time for the commuters only taking 40 minutes to reach downtown.  the other option would be to take 40 bus which takes the city streets  and takes at least 1 hour and 30 minutes.  But fortunately nothing has been set in stone, the Bus will be holding meetings to get the public's reaction on the proposed changes. the C bus is not the only route being affected if you are a bus rider than please visit

www.thebus.org and see if your bus route is being affected.

Meeting Locations
(all meetings start at 7pm)

Bus Route Adjustment Meetings

Tuesday, April 17	Nanakuli NHB	Nanaikapono Elementary
Wednesday, April 18	Kaimuki NHB	Kaimuki Chistian Church
Wednesday, April 18	Kalihi-Palama NHB	Kalihi Union Church
Thursday, April 19	Waialae-Kahala NHB	Hoaloha Kai Montesori School
Tuesday, April 24	Hawaii Kai NHB	Hahaione Elementary
Tuesday, April 24	Pearl City NHB	Waiau District Park
Wednesday, April 25	Waikiki Regional Circulation Study	Jefferson Elementary School
Thursday, April 26	Waipahu NHB	Filipino Community Center

Thursday, May 3

Downtown / Chinatown NHB

Pauahi  Recreation Center

Monday, April 16

Wahiawa / Whitmore Village NHB

Wahiawa District Park

Opportunity

Recently I applied for an internship program for Honolulu Weekly and heard from the production editor on Tuesday. He like the photo portfolio I sent him, and he wanted me to come in for an interview. So yesterday I went to Honolulu Weekly for my interview and I was accepted as a photo intern. This will be a great opportunity to future my photography career I have done some freelance work with Midweek but it has been slow lately. So I will working at Honolulu Weekly doing production layout and whatever else they help with. And they will give me 2-3 photo assignments per week ranging from entertainment or local politics.

Life Changing Moments

Recently I had the opportunity to reconnect with the children I met in Cambodia during the winter session. I called the teacher's cell phone Nita Smile who became one of my closest friends during my phone conversation with the teacher Nita put her cell phone on speaker phone. All the children greeted me and said "Hi Joana we miss you and love you". After the phone conversation, it had me thinking the time I spent in Cambodia while short has left a life long impression on me. It was the first time I felt that I had doing something either for myself and it made me humble.

The children of Palm Tree are either orphans or had been abandoned by their parents, they have done through of the most tragic moments any person could ever go through. But it still it did not take there smile and joy away from them. It put things in perspective for me that the problems I may have cannot compare to what they have gone through and yet they can still smile and give so much love to others at the darkest moments in their lives.

I would encourage anyone to do some sort of volunteer work when you help others. It can be the best decision  you can in your life. Now while I teaching children how to speak english, I learned more from them like how to be positive in any given situation and to believe in the good of humanity.

Rogue Journalism

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I really enjoyed watching this segment, it shows the direction online journalism is heading. But it also made me concerned about How Blogs can go off the deep-end. Gawker break all the rules of Journalism, they do not check their sources and report on rumors. But they do not stop there they take news articles from other news organization and make it their own. You would think the people working for this Blog sites would  have no sort of training in Journalism, but come to find out that some employees from the blog site have a master's degree in Journalism one in particular from Columbia University. Denton's empire is estimated to be worth $300 million dollars. 

Andrew Breitbeirt Well Known Blogger Dead at 43

One of the most controversial and conservative bloggers, Andrew Breibert died today. Known for posting the Weiner's twitter photo and was criticized for realeasing an edited and incomplete video of Sheirly Sherrod, a Department of Agriculture employee who gave a speech were she  supposedly discriminated against a white farmer,which led to her resignation,Breibert was also a fox news commentator 

Breibert was a founder of many blog websites such as Breibart.com, Big Hollywood.com, BigJournalism.com, and BigPeace.com

I may not agree with  Breibert politically but she served as an example on how bloggers could be taken seriously especially in the political arena .Breibert understood this and used blogging to voice the conservative tea 

party movement.

photo courtsey: wikimedia commons

Dying to Tell a Story

With the recent death of two journalists in Syria, reminds us how far journalists will go to seek the truth and report it to the world. Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlick were the recent victims of  Syrian president Al Assad's regime. They were one of the few reporters in Homs,Syria.  Reporting on the constant shelling the city of Homs from the Syrian military resulting in a massacre. If it were not like Marie Colvin and other journalists who have gave their lives to seek the truth and beside the professional journalists the Syrian civilians have become citizen journalists capture images and videos and posting on twitter and youtube, documenting the atrocities being committed by Al Assad's military and milita . The world would be veiled by a lie. But Syria is not the only place journalist have lost their lives according to according to the Committee to Protect Journalists the most dangerous countries to report in are


20 Deadliest Countries

Iraq: 151 Philippines: 72 Algeria: 60 Russia: 53 Colombia: 43 Pakistan: 42 Somalia: 37

India: 27 Mexico: 27 Afghanistan: 24 Turkey: 20 Bosnia: 19 Sri Lanka: 19 Brazil: 19

Rwanda: 17 Tajikistan: 17 Sierra Leone: 16 Bangladesh: 12 Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory: 10 Nigeria: 10

Since 1992 over 902 journalists have been killed.