A reflection on my time as a UF journalism student

I still remember my first tour of UF. My preview staffer had been a journalism student. As we walked past Weimer Hall, she said "If you are planning on majoring in journalism then you'd better get used to this place. It's going to be your new home away from home." I remember looking around the unfamiliar new place and wondering if that could ever be true.

Now, three years later, I am at Weimer hall daily. The majority of my classes are there and in addition to that, I have spent so much of my time in the INC, or Innovation News Center at the University of Florida. The INC is UF's newsroom.

It has been my home for the past few years and I know it like the back of my hand. I have spent countless hours there recording and re-recording my projects. I have spent long nights editing packages on the computer and trying to finalize my work into the perfect product. I have also done shifts in the newsroom for radio and TV. On my shifts, I have gotten a chance to gain hands-on experience writing scripts, editing packages, conducting interviews, and appearing live on the 5 o'clock news. Everything that we produce in the INC goes on Channel 3, a PBS affiliated NPR station that broadcasts throughout Alachua County.

I have gained some truly great experience through WUFT News and my work in the INC. As a UF student I have been able to utilize all of our incredible programs. I feel very blessed to be a part of such a great journalism program. The CMIR, or Center for Media Innovation and Research is constantly coming up with new projects and ideas in the world of journalism.

I frequently use the CMIR facilities. I use the newsroom every week during my TV 2 shifts. I also use the AHA lab often, it is the best place to work on group projects or get some quick work done in between classes! As I reflect on my time as a journalism student at UF, I would like to include some pictures from this past semester as a TV 2 Reporter. I included photos from two of the stories that I covered this year. One story was about a retired police K9 named Justice who apprehended a criminal on his last night of service for Gainesville Police Department. The other was about home buyer trends in Alachua county and what buyers are looking for when purchasing a new home.

The Tipping Point

I recently got the opportunity to read The Tipping Point written by Malcolm Gladwell. I found the book to be super informative and also surprising. The point of the book is how little things can make a big difference. The introduction to the novel started out with a few old fashioned stories to explain what a tipping point is. There is one really that caught my attention. It was very personable and taught me about Hush Puppies, a brand of shoes. The idea of the “tipping point” was that a style of the brand of shoes that was so obviously out of fashion but was able to seamlessly make a comeback once they hit the tipping point. According to Gladwell, the shoes went from being thirty dollars and owned by a handful of downtown Manhattan hipsters to being in every mall in America in a span of only two years. The notion of a tipping point is a truly fascinating one. The introduction really set the stage for the rest of the novel by showing what can happen when a trend or idea spreads like wildfire. There is no stopping it or slowing it down… it is contagious behavior. Throughout the novel, three recurring characteristics of a tipping point are shown. One is contagiousness, another is the fact that little causes can have big effects, and the third is that change happens gradually but at one dramatic moment. According to Gladwell, “The name given to that one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once is the Tipping Point”. The novel goes on to explain many epidemics and pinpoints the causes and tipping points of each of them. Reading about the past was interesting because it gives a lot of insight to history that I had not previously considered. Diseases like Syphilis, AIDS, HIV, PCP, and many more. Besides the history aspect of the book, a lot of what I read surprised me. I found myself constantly asking, “Is this really possible?”. I was also surprised that the tipping point phenomenon applied to so many stories that I have heard throughout my life but never really considered. It even applies perfectly to the story of Paul Revere and the American Revolution. I really sped through the book. It was a light and easy read, full of anecdotes and different stories to keep a reader constantly entertained. Throughout the process of reading the entire novel, I was still constantly surprised by what I read about tipping points. Gladwell kept that pace of the novel quick and lively, it was spiced up with all sorts of different fads, fashions, and epidemics that he observed and evaluated. One story that really caught my attention was the study conducted at Princeton University by Darley and Batson. The study was based on the parable of The Good Samaritan. The results of the study differed from what I expected and proved, according to Gladwell, “that the convictions of your heart and the actual contents of your thoughts are less important, in the end, in guiding your actions that the immediate context of your behavior”. The study proved that the words “Oh, you’re late” had the effect of making someone who was ordinarily compassionate into someone who was indifferent to suffering. In the chapters about smoking, Gladwell writes, “Smoking was never cool. Smokers are cool”. Gladwell explains that the smoking epidemic began in the same way that suicide epidemics or word-of-mouth epidemics began. A very small group… a select few are responsible for driving the epidemic forward. That’s all it takes and it spreads like wildfire. Gladwell explained how devastating the results can be, all due to the Law of the Few and the Stickiness Factor. Overall, I really enjoyed reading The Tipping Point. I feel that the novel did a great job informing, surprising, and entertaining the readers with a variety of content and lessons. It teaches the strength of word-of-mouth and evolving trends throughout society.