Eighth in a series of stories by Hunter students describing their communities and especially focusing on their methods and strategies for getting important news information that could effect their lives.
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The area of Atlantic Avenue and 92nd street in Ozone Park is a predominantly white and Hispanic neighborhood in Southwest Queens and ranks in the top four for the highest percentage of uninsured adults in New York City.
Over 1 in 4 adults do not have health insurance and more than 1 in 3 are uninsured or went without health insurance this past year. Almost half of the residents do not take part in any form of physical activity. The lack of health insurance and physical activity of the area residents explains why heart disease hospitalizations are common in Southwest Queens, where one in five adults is obese, and one in 10 has diabetes.
All this information and more is available on the web site of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
The chances of being a victim of violent crime in Southwest Queens are one in 229, however, the chances of being victim of a property crime drops to one in 67. Thirty-one percent of its residents are white, 29 percent Hispanic, 11 percent black, 15 percent Asian, and 14 percent other. Forty percent of Southwest Queens residents were born outside the United States which is greater than the 36 percent of foreign born residents in New York City overall. Thirty eight percent of the population, aged 25 and older, has had some college education, about 8.5% lower than New York City and Queens in general.
The alarm clock sounds at 6 in the morning. I click on the television and take a sip of today’s first cup of coffee. CBS 2 News This Morning is usually the program of choice. The television plays in the background as I go about getting dressed, fixing my hair and preparing to leave. It informs me of the latest weather and traffic updates so I know what is waiting for me once I step outside my front door. Sometimes its other news reports are interesting.
My neighborhood is not a place I am very involved with. I go there to eat, sleep; I head out to work in another part of Queens or school in the City. I’m always on the go, and my mother at times teases that my home is merely a hotel room for me. I can say community in Ozone Park is a quiet place where not much goes on during the week. I don’t see many people unless I walk to the surrounding areas or it’s after three p.m. and the junior high school has released students for the day. One of the busiest places is the Pathmark, a block away, on 92 street, where I definitely could find some interesting characters and that reality makes me wonder where they all run off to after they leave the store.
Ozone is a diverse place and depending on the location one can find a mix of Hispanics, Italians, or African Americans.
Following the news has never been one of my strong points. That is definitely not something to be proud of but the biases in the news media, the overwhelming amount of celebrity gossip, and unimportant news presented on television make it very frustrating to watch. I’m sure many can recall news coverage, this past February 17th, of the dreadful chimpanzee attack and the follow-ups done on that story about people who owned a chimp or other wild animals as pets. Granted, it was a tragic occurrence but how many actually own a chimpanzee or know someone who does?
How is seeing people who can cohabit harmoniously with chimps relevant to the important issue at large? News should be more about what is important to us as a people, the real issues at hand, not how much entertainment value does the story have? Or what stories will really shock us or how raunchy can they make this piece sound to really grab an audiences’ attention?
I feel, considering the economic situation, the number of people currently unemployed, those who are sadly losing their homes or the people suffering from lack of healthcare are issues of the greatest importance. Message to the news media; Do not show innumerable follow-ups on how to live side by side with a chimp. Show me how to better help improve the economic situation to ease the stress my family and I go through daily wondering, how we are going to pay the rent, the credit card bills, the cell phone, college tuition and books.
And on that note I wouldn’t mind seeing more coverage on tuition hikes in colleges or students’ financial aid being cut.
If it weren’t for the television in the background, the free Metro newspaper handed out at the subways, weekly media related assignments for classes and the occasional episodes of the Daily Show I enjoy to watch, I probably would not purposely sit down to read a paper, flip on the channel to the evening news, let alone surf the web for online articles, blogs or video clips. In an effort to increase my news awareness, daily emails with top headlines for the day do make their way into my internet mailbox, which can be accessed directly from my blackberry, making it much easier to stay connected for someone like me who is not only a full-time student but works full time as well.
In an article by former New York Times Public Editor Daniel Okrent, headlined, “How Would Jackson Pollock Cover This Campaign?” Okrent addressed bias accusations the Times received via email or telephone calls from readers about the Kerry and Bush election coverage. Conservatives and liberals have complained that either the paper is being pro-Bush and once again bashing Kerry or attempting to get Kerry elected by criticizing Bush.
Okrent respected the involved readers for being so passionate and interacting with the reporters at the Times but made it clear that “passion is a distorting lens that makes it hard to perceive the shape of things. Partisans will see the depredations committed against their man, but won’t notice similar articles or headlines or photographs that may damage the other guy.”
People are more willing to judge others opinions before their own. Their beliefs are what draw their attention to news that they want to read so when they see a headline that challenges their opinions they take note of it. It is what matters to them that they notice not what they agree with for they find it to be nothing out of the ordinary,
Okrent said that no matter how Times’ reporters choose to write a story there will always be an unhappy reader. “Those readers who long for the days of absolutely un-tinted, nothing-but-the-facts newspapering ought to have an Associated Press ticker installed on the breakfast table. Newspapers today, and especially this newspaper, are asking their reporters and editors to go deep into a story, and when and where you go deep is itself a matter of judgment. And every judgment, it appears, offends someone.”