News Writing Final: NFL Playoff Prediction Podcast

I decided to sit down with my good friend Taylor May to talk about the NFL. We talked about who we though would win each division, who would appear in the AFC and NFC Championship games and who would eventually make it to Super Bowl 50 and win it all. Take a listen.
http://dword1488.podbean.com/

First Arkansas Razorback Game Experience

 On October 31, 2015 I experienced my first ever Arkansas Razorback football game with my fiance Christa. The events that led up to this experience were quite interesting.

 We began our journey on October 30th from Camden. Yes my fiance does the driving. She says that my driving scares the heck out of her. No joke. But what is funny is that for weeks she had been telling me that I was going with her to Rogers, Arkansas for a class for her job and she didn't want to drive by herself. Well I believed her of course. But then things got interesting.

 After stopping in Arkadelphia for gas I got back in the car and noticed an envelope in my seat. I opened it up and noticed two Razorback tickets and hotel reservations for Christa and I. The card wrote "Merry Christmas Dillon. Love your future Mother in law Jill." This was my reaction when I opened the envelope and Christa caught it all on video.

We finally arrived in Fayettville at around 4:30pm and decided to get a late lunch/early supper at the Boars Nest restaurant in town. Quite impressed with their BBQ food their.
 

Later that same night we decided to go down to Dixon Street on the University of Arkansas campus and watch the annual homecoming parade. Yes it was cold and raining.

After a good nights rest we woke up the next morning ready to go cheer on our Razorbacks. WPS!!!

As we arrived at the stadium and stood in line for the traditional Hog walk we noticed Coach Bret Bielema heading our way on our side. I had my hand out hoping he would shake my hand but at the last second he switched over to the far side. I yelled out "Come on now Coach" all he said back was "Woo Pig"

 

We finally made our way into the stadium and a put my eyes on this massive stadium in person for the very first time. 

 

We then made our way down to our seats which were really great seats I must add. First row right behind the field goal. Great view of the action that afternoon.

 

 Arkansas would win the game 63-28 against UT Martin and as we made our exit I noticed that the players gathered at midfield for a post game prayer. A great way to end a great experience. WPS!!

#24EVER: A look back at the career of Jeff Gordon.

 

 23 years of competing at the top level in NASCAR, 93 NASCAR wins, 4 time NASCAR Champion and one of the greatest drivers of not just this generation but of all time, Jeff Gordon has finally decided to hang his helmet up for the final time and retire this year. Growing up in the mid 1990's I quickly became glued to the sport of NASCAR. I began watching NASCAR in 1997 and two drivers quickly became my favorite. A hard charging intimidating driver of a black #3 car named Dale Earnhardt and a driver who was fairly young and drove a rainbow colored #24 car in Jeff Gordon.Earnhardt will always be my favorite driver but it was something about Gordon that I always loved. Early on in his career Gordon was fast from the very drop of the green flag. He would begin his career in the same race in which "The King" Richard Petty would start his last ever NASCAR race in the Hooters 500 from Atlanta Motor Speedway in November 1992. The very next season Gordon would win one of NASCAR's highest honors for young first year drivers and that was Rookie of the Year. Finally in 1994 Gordon would claim his very first victory at the Charlotte Motor Speedway in NASCAR's longest and most grueling race in the Coca-Cola 600. Later in that same year Gordon would score an emotional victory in his home race and the inaugural Brickyard 400 at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The young 24 year old was looking like a super star early on and would continue that success into 1995. Gordon claimed his first NASCAR Championship in only his 3rd full time year. In his 1995 championship season Gordon would have a breakout year in terms of wins by claiming 7 victories. Gordon would go on to dominate the 1990's winning 2 more championships (1997 & 1998) and claiming 49 victories in total (including his Coca-Cola 600 and Brickyard 400 victories from 1994) in the decade. Gordon would hit some what of a slump in the year 2000, only winning 3 times and finishing the lowest in the final championship standings (9th) since his rookie year in 1993. Jeff would claim his final NASCAR championship in 2001 and 4th total after winning 6 times.
For the rest of the 2000's after 2001 Gordon would go on to win 35 more times. Throughout his 23 year career Gordon only had 3 win less seasons (1993, 2008 & 2010). At the beginning of the 2015 season Gordon announced that this season would be in fact his final one of his career. Gordon would struggle in the early parts of the season and some how would find a way into NASCAR's chase for the Sprint Cup which is their playoffs. Jeff would catch a few lucky breaks and come the third round of the playoffs Gordon found himself in prime position to be one of the final 4 cars contending for the Championship at the final race at Homestead-Miami. Gordon would claim his 93rd and final victory of his legendary career at Martinsville in October. The win propelled Gordon to be one of four drivers with a shot the championship at Homestead. But the glass slipper did not fit and the fairy tale season ended with Jeff finishing 6th overall in the race and 3rd overall in the championship standings. Gordon finished his career with many records in NASCAR. Most wins all time at restrictor plate tracks (Daytona & Talladega) with 12, most road course wins (Sonoma and Watkins Glen) with 9 including 6 consecutive wins, most wins at Indianapolis with 5, most wins at Kansas with 3 (tied with Jimmie Johnson), most wins at Pocono with 6. Gordon is also NASCAR's IronMan with 797 consecutive starts. He never missed a race in his 23 year career. And finally Gordon ranks 3rd all time in terms of wins with 93 (1st Richard Petty: 200, 2nd David Pearson: 105). 
Jeff Gordon will always be one of my favorite drivers of all time. He transcended a sport that was at one point a dead brand in some people's eyes into mainstream. Gordon was a high profile driver who made the sport into what it is today. Hosting Saturday Night Live, appearing in TV commercials, movies, and countless other appearances made Jeff Gordon just not a sports icon but a national icon. Going into 2016 it will be different not seeing Jeff behind the wheel of that #24 car but Jeff will be enjoying his new career joining the Fox Sports NASCAR Telecast in the broadcast booth. So for now all I have to say is #24EVER!

Bleacher Report Sports News App

For this assignment I wanted to look at a specific sports news app. My favorite sports news app that I have on my phone is the Bleacher Report Team Stream App. There are many things that I love about this sports news app. One thing that you can do on this sports news app is to customize you own settings. You can pick what teams, sports, and athletes you want to keep up with. This allows you to get news notifications about these certain sports, teams, and athletes. Interactive sports news articles, sports news top 10 lists, and interactive links are one of my favorite things about this sports news app. Once you click on a specific tab such as NFL, it will give you articles on the sport and also will include interactive tweets from twitter from sports news journalists about breaking sports news topics. Being able to set the app up where I see just what I want to see is a big plus to me. Yes you can do that on other sports news apps but you can only set up your favorites for just specific sports teams. With this app it is great to do individual sports and sports athletes. Critiquing this sports news app is very easy for me because I really don't have anything to say bad about this app. To me this app is much better in terms of customization compared to other sports news apps such as ESPN, FOX Sports, and CBS Sports. I often check my Bleacher Report app on a daily basis to check things such as Arkansas Razorbacks, NASCAR, Dale Earnhardt Jr, and WWE.

Should we expand the College Football Playoff to 8 teams or not?

On October 16th 2013, college football announced that they would do away with the very controversial Bowl Championship Series (BCS) and adapt the new College Football Playoff. The College Football Playoff is made up of the top four teams at the end of the season playing in two high ranked bowl games respectively. The match ups for those two playoff games are set by number 1 playing number 4 and number 2 playing number 3. The Playoff had a terrific first year with Ohio State winning it all after beating #1 ranked Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. With that win the Buckeyes advanced to take on and defeat the #2 ranked Oregon Ducks in the first College Football National Championship. The problem with this CFB Playoff is that it only has four teams. Four teams in my mind is too few of teams. It needs to expand to 8 teams now. Reason being that it will help both TV ratings and schools. If you have the conference champion from the SEC, BIG 10, BIG 12, PAC 12, ACC, and then the first two teams who have either an undefeated record who didn't win conference championship or has a 1 loss record and put them into a 8 team playoff you would for sure have an interesting field for sure. As of now if you look at the rankings and predicted who would win the conference championship you would have these 8 teams advancing to the CFB Playoff: Clemson (ACC), Alabama (SEC), Ohio State (BIG 10), Oklahoma (BIG 12), Stanford (PAC 12), Iowa (BIG 10, Undefeated Record) and Oklahoma State (BIG 12 will have 1 loss after losing to OU). An 8 team playoff is much better than a 4 team playoff because it gives us match-ups that we regularly that we wouldn't see in the regular season. As a huge fan of College Football I would love to see this happen in the near future. It would boost TV ratings, School exposure and the all important MONEY!!!

Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani in a relationship

The entertainment world was hit with a wake up call a few weeks back when Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani announced that they are now together in a relationship. Stefani 46, and Shelton 39 both are judges on the hit NBC reality show "The Voice". Recently before their relationship came out, a fan who attended the live taping of "The Voice" told People magazine that "Right when they called for the break, Blake ran over to Gwen's chair. They were talking close and laughing until makeup duties called." Shelton was previously married to fellow country music star Miranda Lambert. Those two were married back in 2011 and filed for divorce earlier in 2015. Stefani is just recently getting over a divorce of her own from her ex husband Gavin Rossdale. This relationship between Shelton and Stefani comes as a surprise to many people in the entertainment world on the fact that they are co workers on "The Voice'. But for many months in the past in was very obvious that Shelton and Stefani had a flirtatious side between each other . It appears that in the entertainment light that Shelton is happier than ever before and it all has to do with Stefani. People magazine recently spoke with Shelton and asked him how the relationship with Gwen was going and he replied back "Good really good." So for now both Stefani and Shelton are happy together, lets hope that this happiness stays together. But always remember that these two have histories of divorce.
http://www.people.com/article/blake-shelton-gwen-stefani-hotline-bling-the-voice
http://hollywoodlife.com/2015/11/19/blake-shelton-talks-gwen-stefani-romance-going-good/

Chilean priest punished for sex abuse claims he is innocent

Rev. Fernando Karadima of Chile has been punished and accused of sex abuse by the Vatican. On Wednesday November 10, 2015 the gray headed priest walked into a court room to plead his innocence.  Three victims have brought cases against Rev. Karadima that he sexually abused them in times before. The Rev was escorted into the court room by several police officers and was questioned for more than 2 hours. Karadima stated that "I don't recognize the abuses, with children. Never, ever,  I maintain my innocence ... I never had sexual relations with those who accuse me." Protesters were seen outside trashing Karadima's SUV and yelling "Pedophile!" at him. This isn't the first time that Karadima has been accused of sexually abusing people. Back in April of 2010 Karadima first had allegations of sexual abuse brought up against him from a case nearly six decades ago. This is still an on going story in the country of Chile.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/chilean-priest-punished-sex-abuse-claims-innocent-35140671

Numeracy

What exactly is Numeracy? Numeracy is is the ability to reason and to apply simple numerical concepts. Numeracy is right now at the heart of data journalism. Data in numeracy can answer some questions but not all questions. Let’s say you want to do a story prompted by your thoughts on horses and bridges, and you are (happily) not reacting to a local collapse. You need to first gather all the data that there is. Then you need to start asking any questions you can. Once you gain all the data that you needed and have asked all the questions to you want to ask you can move on to the next step. Always remember that Numeracy requires confidence. Always have confidence in yourself that you can get all the information that you need for numeracy. Remember to read, gather enough data, and fill out a well thought out plan. But the last thing to remember is dont have a very big project, always start small and it will be very easy to deal with it. 

41 People take oath for citizenship

On Friday October 23, 2015 41 people to the oath of citizenship to become a legal citizen of the United States. These 41 citizens came to the United States from over 29 countries. United States District Judge Gina M. Groh presided over the ceremony in her courtroom in the Federal Building at 217 W. King St.in Martinsburg, West Virgina. Many Americans took for granted on what these 41 new Americans had to learn in order to gain citizenship. The 44th President of the United States Barack Obama even congratulated these new Americans stating that "today was a special day in your life. You took a long path to get here. Use your talent to enrich your new country and write the next great chapter of the American story." Many of the new Americans were asked why they decided now to become a citizen of the United States and many of them said that they have always enjoyed the United States and felt that the time was right to become a citizen of this great country. I honestly feel that any person that lives over seas and wants to immigrate and come over to the United States to gain citizenship should have that option to. The United States is the land of opportunity and a great place to live. Home of the free and home of the brave.

Listening Posts

In my hometown of Camden, Arkansas there are not many places to go in town where people go and chit chat. But there is one place that I can say that is a popular stop for elderly people to spill the gossip and that is a little restaurant called the Cardinal Cafe. The Cardinal Cafe is located at 212 Cardinal Southwest in Camden. The Cafe is a popular place amongest the elderly people. Most of them usually go there early in the morning, grab a plate of breakfast, a cup of coffee, read the newspaper, and chit chat with their friends and family. I can remember when my grandfather was still alive going just down the street from his house and go to the Cafe to meet with his friends and talk sports and political news. Most people that go there can spend almost 4 hours there just talking. Now the restaurant is a very great place to go grab a bite to eat anytime of the day. 

Public Records Part 2

The Camden Police Department were dispatched to the local Walmart in Camden to respond to a burglar. The CPD were notified that there was a man who picked up some beer and walked out of the store without paying. While CPD were speaking with employees who work in the customer service department, they noticed that the same man walked back into the store. Officers were notified a few minutes after talking to customer service that the man was back in the drink section, drinking another alcohol beverage. The man tried to hide from the police but was unsuccessful. The man had a strong odor of alcohol on him and told the police that he was going to pay Walmart for the beer but only when he got paid himself. The man was then placed under arrest and transported to the Ouachita County Sheriff's office for shoplifting and public intoxication.
http://yesradioworks.com/new

Public Records

Many in people in the great state of Tennessee are disagreeing over weather viewing public records should be a crime or not. People in the state are very confused if they will now have to pay a fee to view public records after Rep. Steve McDaniel and Sen. Jim Tracy sent a bill to the Tennessee office of open records counsel stating this claim. Many people in the state are concerned over the claim to charge to view public records because many believe it hinders government hindsight and leaves room for abuse with the records. Deborah fisher the executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government said that “This is very concerning. We think that if there are fees charged to inspect records, it will essentially shut down access for people." This is a continuing story in the state of Tennessee as many people in the state are still fighting and trying to not have pay for free public records.

100 years of SAU Homecoming

 

Southern Arkansas University celebrated 100 years of Homecoming this past weekend. There were many events going on during the week of Homecoming that not only the students and faculty of SAU could take part in but the general public as well.

The Homecoming festivities began on Monday with a Pep Rally taking place in the Greek Theater. The Pep Rally helped introduce the 2015 SAU Homecoming court as well. Also on Monday the Rankin College of Business’ held their third annual “Light for the Fight” ceremony. Many events took place in the Mall area on campus on Tuesday with Hot dogs and Burgers being cooked and sold to the faculty and students. And as well were other extra curricular activities in the mall area as well occurred. The festivities continued on Wednesday night with a drive in movie held in the Reynold's Center parking lot. The movie that was shown to the students that came was "Ant Man", Thursday had the annual Spirit Log and street painting on the Farm road. As Friday came upon us it saw a long list of events taking place such as Greek SAU Camp out and Bonfire, the Alumni Golf Tournament, Homecoming Heartbeat, Hall of Fame dinner, and the Black Alumni Dinner. 

Then the big day came on Saturday. It all began with the 100 years of Royalty Brunch followed up by Mulegating on the Ridge. Then finally the 2015 SAU Homecoming court were presented to the fans at the Homecoming game against Oklahoma Baptist. Mia Hyman was crowned Queen and Jacob Johnson was crowned King. The Muleriders capped off a great homecoming week with a win against Oklahoma Baptist winning by a score of 38-20

Campus Crime

A University of Central Arkansas student was arrested on Monday October 6th after a terroristic threat on campus. Samuel Davies an 18 year old student at UCA made this post on the social media site YikYak stating "Fellow Yaks, you all seem like good people and I care for you, so if you read this, please stay in your dorms or off campus next Wednesday, I care too much for you all to fall victim of the event."

Within an hour of Davies making the post authorities came and took Davies out of his Thompson Hall classroom and arrested him. Police do say that the threat was an empty one after searching his campus dorm and found no weapons or any kind of firearms. Davies did state that he "did not mean to post it" police said they do not know what he meant by this statement.

Davies has not been charged as of yet and he is being held in the Falukner County jail on a $15,00 bond.

http://www.katv.com/story/30189047/uca-student-in-custody-following-online-post-of-possible-threat-on-campus

SAU Tech helps out of state student achieve her education dreams

SAU Tech in Camden, Arkansas is a 2 year technical college that offers many people fresh out of high school or adults looking to go back to school the opportunity to further their education. Katrina Clark moved to Camden from Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 2010 to make a better life just not for her self but also her children. Clark wanted to obtain her GED after working in her sister's day care for a while and decided that wasn't the career field that she wanted to pursue. After taking the GED test the first time Clark was a few points shy of passing, but she quickly turned that around and took it again and passed it finally on the second try. Clark then wanted to enroll at SAU Tech but was turned down due to a loan balance issue. Katrina decided not to get down but to work to pay off the existing loan balance and enroll in school at SAU Tech. In August of 2014she began classes at Tech with sights set on an Associate's degree in Business Administration. Clark is looking forward to walking across the stage to receive her degree in no time. That just goes to show that you can never give up and always try your best to achieve you eventual goal.

Murder at Texarkana Gas Station

Around 10:30pm on September 25th a disagreement occurred when two men by
the names of Jesse James Hamilton and Marvin Stanton argued over a
parking spot at Raceway at State line in Texarkana. Hamilton was in the
parking spot when Stanton arrived with two other people on motorcycles.
And according to many witnesses Stanton threatened Hamilton with a gun,
then the two wrestled for a little bit before Stanton fired one round
and shot Hamilton. Hamilton was quickly transported to St. Michaels
Hospital where he under went surgery and then later died from the
injuries. Stanton was immediately arrested and at first was charged with
1st degree battery but is now facing a 1st degree murder charge.
Hamilton's body has been transported to the Arkansas State Crime Lab for
an autopsy.
http://txktoday.com/news/raceway-shooter-now-facing-murder-charge-after-victim-

Twitter News Stories

Bret Bielema and Kliff Kingsbury lash out against each other after Texas Tech defeats Arkansas http://t.co/g2wW6QJVrr via @SDS

— Dillon Word (@D_WORD14) September 22, 2015

Homeless Veteran performs National Anthem on Monday Night Football http://t.co/yNQHmoOf6I

— Dillon Word (@D_WORD14) September 17, 2015

Harmony Grove High School pull hair on new school ruling http://t.co/EeaP9kuLLU

— Dillon Word (@D_WORD14) September 16, 2015

High School football coach in hot water for praying with his player. http://t.co/XREezhRNQk

— Dillon Word (@D_WORD14) September 15, 2015

Manhunt underway for Delta State killer http://t.co/oiUU7mjWDg

— Dillon Word (@D_WORD14) September 15, 2015

Lockheed Martin: Camden awarded army contract http://t.co/29bFaFXkco

— Dillon Word (@D_WORD14) September 15, 2015

Hulk Hogan lets it all out on his recent WWE relase and who laid the smackdown to eventually fire him http://t.co/YDex65sDT9

— Dillon Word (@D_WORD14) September 15, 2015

Better battery performance coming with Apple's iOS 9 http://t.co/5NvfPtIfLm

— Dillon Word (@D_WORD14) September 15, 2015

Carson gaining ground on Trump in the latest polls| http://t.co/aRkFiabj1c

— Dillon Word (@D_WORD14) September 15, 2015

WWE Mega Stars John Cena and Sting take time to meet a 7 year old cancer survivor after WWE RAW http://t.co/eXCZA99Trj via @Complex_Sports

— Dillon Word (@D_WORD14) September 15, 2015

Covering a Twitter news story

I decided to focus and keep track of a story that is still happening in my home town of Camden and that is the search of an escaped inmate from the Ouachita County Detention Center.

In December 2014, 19 year old Austin Hill murdered grocery store manager Rick Anders. Hill is facing a Capitol murder charge. Well on September 9, 2015 Hill escaped a police van that had just arrived back at the detention facility after going to the hospital for a broken wrist earlier in the day. 

BREAKING: Inmate accused of capital murder escapes from Ouachita County Jail http://t.co/0HwyWiKvTe #KATV7 more at 6 pic.twitter.com/Rk0JHwb17R

— KATV News (@KATVNews) September 9, 2015

KATV Channel 7 news in Little Rock sent down reporter Matt Mershon down to Camden to cover the fast breaking story. So I decided to take a look how he was covering this story on Twitter. 

At 7:59pm Mershon tweeted out that the Arkansas state police helicopter had been flying around the Camden area in search of the convict because the area in which the detention center is located at is very wooded. 

NEW: Authorities acting on a tip on South St. in Camden right now. Guns drawn. No sign of Hill yet. @KATVNews pic.twitter.com/w3oxNC0Cq7

— Matt Mershon (@MattMershonKATV) September 10, 2015

Mershon would tweet out another piece of interesting news at 8:28pm saying that  Hill escaped officers because of his broken wrist and wasn't fully shackled and is now on the loose in nothing but boxers and socks. 

And then the final two tweets of the night that I saw were at 11:04pm and 11:10pm where the first tweet was saying that authorities were acting on a tip of the sighting of Hill around South St in Camden and that guns were being drawn but no sight of him. Six minutes later Mershon tweeted out saying that it was just a false alarm and authorities continue to patrol the areas of Camden. 

NEW: Camden PD and local authorities acting on tip near rest area off Hwy. 79. Witness saw black male wearing shorts. pic.twitter.com/23nXhDd1Uv

— Matt Mershon (@MattMershonKATV) September 10, 2015

At around 5:30am September 10, 2015 Mershon tweeted out that authorities were getting ready to once again go out in the early daylight in search of Hill. Authorities reacted to a tip at 10:20am on Hwy 79 near the rest stop when someone spotted a black male wearing nothing but shorts. Mershon's latest tweet came in at 11:26am when saying that authorities are searching in fields near Hwy 376 and many police units are scattered in the area. 

As of this posting Hill is still at large and authorities are continuing their search for him throughout the day. 

I loved how Mershon kept me up to date on all the action that is happening just across the river in my hometown. Great coverage on a story that has rocked this community since it happened in December 2014. It just showed a different side to me on how you can cover a news story differently on twitter than a 24 hour news or local news station can. Where as on the local and 24 hour news you may get a 3 to 5 minute segment on that story and that is it. On twitter you are getting what seems like a minute by minute update of the developing story.

What in the world is News?!?!?

To me the word news can mean a lot of things. It can mean information, knowledge, insightful, reports, publications, and reports. But more than all of those to me and for a lot of people news is how most of us start our days after we wake up.

News is one of the best things in today's world and my oh my how news has been given has changed over the past couple of years. For years you would just get news by two different ways, TV and radio and if you didn't have either of those then you were pretty much SOL. Now a days news is being delievered in many forms. Yes TV and radio are still around for news to be delivered on but there is also social media, internet websites, and many more for you to get your news.

I myself am a sports news junkie and its one of my biggest hobbies. Most of the time I will wake up and watch Sportscenter on ESPN. Its the complete sports news show for me. They hit the big news topics over and over in their show. But usually when I dont get the chance to watch it I will usually check either Facebook, Twitter, Bleacher Report and Instagram on my iPhone for all the news that I have missed.

So again news is how I get my day started after I wake up and is a way of life for many people and not including myself.