BEN'S BUBBLY BLOGS

Last Sunday, a foot bridge collapsed in Morbi, India which left 135 dead.

The foot bridge is a colonial period suspension-style bridge that has been the cities main attraction for quite some time. The bridge collapse sent more than 300 people plummeting thirty feet into polluted waters.

According to Pokharel and Lahiri at the Wall Street Journal, the bridge is believed to have been damaged in a 2007 earthquake. Since then, the bridge underwent a series of repairs. Authorities are investigating the accident, including the businesses who did the repairs.

This article is news because it’s both bizarre and of human interest. Anytime a bridge collapses, it’s usually considered a bizarre event. Additionally, it is human interest because of the bridge collapsing and the lives involved.

This article seems to be written from an objective standpoint. It does use quite a few onsite interview attributions. The article is geared towards telling the story of an individual who was trying to meet a prospective bride for his brother. I don’t think those affect the objectivity of it though.

Additional comment: I noticed something very interesting about this article. Instead of focusing on the 135 that were killed and the additional 170 that survived the fall, the article focuses on safety and business malpractice. I found this very intriguing because although the news is the bridge collapse and the people who were killed or hurt, it tries to shift your focus away from that. Writing about business malpractice or safety is definitely not as exciting to hear about as the human interest or bizarreness of death by bridge collapse.

*audio noises for intro*

Today, conflict continues between North and South Korea. Are they nudging closer to a war?

Then, do you work in a toxic workplace? It could be affecting your health.

Later, are you addicted to your phone? And does the screen time notification actually help, or hurt you?

*audio noises* This is news with Ben at ten *more audio noises*

(Article 1):

Are North and South Korea nudging closer to a war?

The latest updates come as North and South Korea fired warning shots into the waters just off their west coast. They are blaming each other for breaching a de facto maritime border.

Evidence is unclear who is poking the bear more. But the occasional “accidental breach” may be pushing these two countries closer to conflict.

MAC office Vice President, Jacob Murphy commented, “Yeah, I don’t really see this conflict escalating. I just think it’s more so that they don’t like each other and don’t respect each other enough to not do anything.”

What can we expect next from these neighboring countries? I guess only time will tell.

Transition: Up next, turning our focus towards toxic workplaces.

(Article 2):

Do you work in a toxic workplace? Disrespectful or cutthroat workplaces could be detrimental for your mental and physical health. 

A toxic workplace has a variety of definitions. One main definition includes working long hours, having limited autonomy, or being paid a low wage.

Workplaces are receiving more scrutiny after a recent comment where surgeon general Dr. Murthy said, “Toxic workplaces are harmful to workers—to their mental health, and it turns out, to their physical health as well.”

His statement comes as several million people report stress from work.

We talked to Justin McElligott of Morningside to hear his experience with toxic workplaces, “It was not a great work environment and it affected a lot of people in that place. Many people quit, and so did I.”

The stress caused in these environments can disrupts sleep, weaken your immune system, and increase your chance of physical or mental health illnesses.

Transition: Stress isn’t the only thing that disrupts sleep. Phone addictions may also be contributing to sleep insomnia. Which brings us to ask:

(Article 3):

Are you addicted to your phone? Does Apple’s screen time report actually help curb phone addictions?

According to a recent 2022 Gallup poll, six in ten Americans believe they use their phone too much. Apple’s screen time tracker was developed to help people forge better relationships with their devices.

I asked Morningside student Caden Schulte about his phone time usage notifications, “Whenever I see my screen time alerts, I think ‘oh no’ and realize that I certainly need to get off my phone and get out in the world a little more.”

While the normal Sunday morning screen time notification might help some forge a better relationship. Others say that all it does is instill anxiety.

Transition: For better or for worse, *audio noises for outro*

Outro: That was news with Ben at ten. Thanks for listening. I’m Ben and it’s been my pleasure.

Over the weekend, 154 young Halloween-goers were trampled to death in South Korea.

According to Jiyoung Sohn at the Wall Street Journal, the crowd began to amass in the streets and alleys. The trampling occurred in an alley when half the crowd was shouting to move forward and the other half was pushing back. Before they knew it, people began to “fall like dominos.”

South Korean officials are investigating exactly what happened, and if there were proper safety measures in place to handle the large crowd.

This article is news to me for multiple reasons. First and foremost, human interest. I’m not a huge Halloween-goer myself, but the thought of my friends and family getting trapped in a tight alleyway and getting crushed to death is terrifying. I think so many people feel deeply touched, saddened, or hurt by stories like these. Secondly, this is news because it’s bizarre. It’s not everyday you hear of Halloween-goers being trampled to death.

This article is also objective. Surprisingly, the author did not include any emotional comments unless they were a quote from someone else at the scene of the accident. I can imagine this would be quite difficult to write a story about without any emotion. The story did include a few statements that seemed to metaphoric, which could play into the objectivity of it.

Life’s journey is about how you touch people, and the journey requires support.

Stuart Scott, prominent ESPN and NFL sports commentator has been persevering through a rare form of cancer for eight years. Last night, Scott was the recipient of the Jimmy V Perseverance Award. His comments induced a crowd that had tears in their eyes and smiles on their faces.

The way people have impacted Scott along the way are his greatest memories. He recalls Coach Valvano’s famous words, twenty years ago, “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.” Scott feels that he too has a responsibility to also never give up.

Being around people who help lift you up is key to fighting through hard times. Scott said, “People who fight, when you’re too tired to fight.” He described this in memory as he said his bosses would offer to get him food after chemotherapy.

Scott said, “The journey requires support.” He said that friends, family, and people that he loved would visit, talk, sit in silence, and love him throughout his entire journey.

He credits his two daughters as his heartbeat, and his reason for standing on the stage. He then calls his youngest daughter, Sidney, up on stage to give him a hug as he gives his closing message. The emotional speech had the whole crowd standing in applause, and many tears flowing from the audience’s eyes.

The print version leads in by saying that the residents of Jackson, Mississippi have filed a class-action lawsuit that left 150,000 people in the city without clean water. While the video version leads in by saying that clean water was restored. Then stating that there was roughly 150,000 people who were effected. Then that the water-boil advisory was under effect until a week prior. Then finally, the video version says that the residents have filed the class-action lawsuit.

One of the plaintiffs was described in both video and print version. In the video, the lawyer of the plaintiff talked for a good portion of time. While in the print, the plaintiff herself had attribution instead of the lawyer.

There was also several more specific facts about Jackson, MS in the print version than in the video. Such as demographics of Jackson.

Video

Print article

A wedding reception turned sour Saturday night. The 50-year-old man shot his newly wed 38-year-old wife with a handgun.

One of the couple’s neighbors told us, “I heard the sound of the shot, and then the son came out yelling ‘she’s been shot and can’t breathe!'”

Additionally, Sergeant Mann said, “It happened after she threw a plate of wedding reception macaroni salad at him. His whereabouts are still unknown.”

Hospital officials at St. Luke’s say the bride was shot in the abdomen, but she is in satisfactory condition.

Do you work in a toxic workplace? Disrespectful or cutthroat workplaces could be detrimental for your mental and physical health.

You might be in a toxic workplace if you work long hours, have limited autonomy, or paid a low wage.

Chronic stress disrupts sleep, increases vulnerability to infection, and conditions ranging from heart disease to depression.

Surgeon general Dr. Murthy said, “Toxic workplaces are harmful to workers—to their mental health, and it turns out, to their physical health as well.” The statement comes as several million people report work stress and difficulty concentrating.

On the contrary, a healthy workplace includes growth opportunities, work-life balance, community, protection from harm, and employee influence on workplace decisions.

Elon Musk has been covering the costs of Starlink internet terminals in Ukraine. Musk previously tweeted complains about having to cover the costs and said that SpaceX couldn’t finance the service indefinitely on its own.

Musk tweeted on Saturday, “The hell with it. Even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.” According to this article, it is estimated that Starlink has 20,000 terminals operating in Ukraine. The terminals have helped maintain Ukraine’s communications during the war with Russia.

This article is news because it is impact or consequence, has timeliness, and some human interest involved. Many eyes and ears are on Musk as he is currently a prominent figure in society. The human interest is the war in Russia. Perhaps if Musk wasn’t funding Starlink, the war may be over by now, and possibly more lives lost.

This article is objective. It states strictly the facts. Some of the quotes may not be objective, but the article in itself is not picking any side or biased on facts presented.

Neflix announced today that the company will be introducing a new $6.99 ad-supported plan.

The plan will be named “Basic with Ads.” This is the latest attempt for the company to attract new customers. According to this article, they also believe that this will increase their average revenue per user. This gets them up to date with other competitors who have already offered cheaper subscription options with advertisements.

I believe this is newsworthy because it is relevant to me. As a broke college student, I may be more apt to purchasing a subscription that is cheaper but has advertisements. This article is objective. It includes a few statements from Neflix’s CEO. It is not written with any type of emotion or “friendly” matter.

The squeeze of a Twinkie matches that of a sponge. If you squeeze hard enough, much like water flowing out of a sponge, the vanilla cream flows out of the Twinkie. The squeeze of a sponge isn’t the only thing that the Twinkie resembles. The texture also matches that of the sponge. Some would say it is a spongecake. Once you get past the doughy exterior, your mouth salivates to the dissolving flavor of vanilla cream. The light tug as your teeth enter the dough and the “give in” feeling that the cream suffices at the end. The Twinkie coated my fingers in grease.

After gorging into the Twinkie, I was still hungry. I went for the Piroquette’s in hopes of getting my fill. These felt much more crunchy than the Twinkie. The flavor reminded me of a mocha Frappuccino and the chocolate fudge inside reminded me of my grandma’s homemade brownies.