The Daily Show with Trevor Noah

As an International student and a apolitical person, I have never watched any TV news program that talk about politics before. To be honest, I am really not a person who will sit down and watch news on TV or on my laptop. Instead, I usually see, or more precisely, skim the news articles on my phone, which is the quickest the way to update myself with all the new information. So this was my first time to watch a TV news program so seriously. However, The Daily Show was not as serious or boring as I expected. I watched the show of October 22nd which is about John Harwood. Personally, I am not interested in political issues at all but the way Trevor talked about them attracted me to watch more. He started the Daily Show in a really humorous tone. And he played a clip of Hilary Clinton hearing in congress, which was edited to be pretty funny. And he kept making fun of several politicians such as Hilary Clinton, Trey Gowdy, Jeb Bush and Ben Carson. Also, the talk between Trevor Noah and John Harwood was really interesting: John Harwood seemed that he had no stairs and graces at all during the whole talk. And Trevor kind of made joke of him but John was not angry at all and he even laughed while Trevor was playing joke on him. This is what I found that is really distinguishing from the politicians in China. The politicians in China are always so serious and make people feel like they never laugh like a normal person who has feelings. It is impossible for them to go to a comedy show like the Daily Show to be made fun of. Therefore, I think the Daily Show actually delivers a good impression on American politicians because of its informal but interesting form. I would definitely become more interested in politics after watch it. In addition, I think shows like the Daily Show are good for democracy since they let people speak out their inner overlapping sound and politicians don't really get angry at what they said because that's people's voice. Therefore they seem to be closer to the society. So from now on, I would binge-watch The Daily Show for sure just like how I watch 2 broke girls.

What does the front page say?

Most coverage of the front page of The New York Times on Wednesday, October 14, 2015(National Edition) talks about political related issues. 30% of the page reports the outbursts led by Palestinians in Jerusalem. Seven people died in this riot and many people got injured. What a tragedy! This coverage is at the top of the page and it is with a picture that visualizes this tragedy happened in Jerusalem. For me, It's not hard to understand the editor's intention to put this report of the outburst at the most eye-appealing place. I personally see this as a respect from the editor to those people who died in this outburst, hoping they can rest in peace while it is also a warning to people especially to those who are in Jerusalem that there is a danger that could potentially be spreading out now.

Another report on the front page is about Obama's rethinking of pullout the troops in Afghanistan, which is another political and military involved issue. In addition, coverages of questioning Obama's promise of the immigration plan, swelling afghan chaos and the changes of planned parenthood fetal tissue policy almost take up the rest of the page. It seems like the editor is aim to not only inform people of world news like riots in other countries, but also to increase people's attention towards political issues like policy change or troops evacuation, which is important to the country but people normally wouldn't search for.

Well, honestly, I don't find these political issues are posted in the front page of the New York Times surprising at all. Since political issues are indeed national concerns, they go up to the forefront without saying. However, what really surprises me is that the democratic presidential debate is not up there. However, I checked the other versions of the New York Times and I found the presidential debate is reported on those versions and it is above the fold. I found it interesting that how the newspaper reports differently but subtly according to the differential attention of concerned issues. On top of that, I do think coverages accompanying images are more appealing. I usually read those reports that have image with them because images are really direct and story-telling. Sometimes a picture says it all. A good captured picture can narratives better than a coverage that is full of words.

Social media is eating my life.

As a college student who was born in a technological age, I believe that 80% of other student spend most of their time on media. We check our smartphone consistently, browse our Facebook feeds, "like" our friends' status or pictures one by one and then half of the day has already passed. In this technology age, media has just been inevitably blended into our daily lives. I have never lived without media. When I was a child, watching television was my daily routine. After I grew up a bit, I became an online-game devotee. And now, I admit that I am totally addicted to social media. Nearly every waking hour of every single day, I use my phone or laptop to see what is going on in other people's lives and what events or incidents just happen in the world. 

Last Saturday was just another typical laid-back Saturday for me: I woke up at 9 o'clock in the morning. And the first thing I did after I opened my eyes was to look for my phone. I checked the time and then I just started diving into the news feeds until my friend called me out for lunch. During the lunch, every one was also checking her/his phone all the time. Even though while I talked to my friend, she was looking at her app message instead of looking at me. Only till that moment did I realize that how we are heavily addicted into social media.

Social media has indeed brought me some convenience: I don't have to go outside and look for like-minded people by joining a club or social so hard in order to know more cool people. Instead, I can just sit down and search for groups that I'm interested in on Facebook on my laptop. And after several clicks and words, I just make a new friend. However, this kind of "convenience" makes the relationship between me and others much shallower than before. Sometimes people like me just spend(waste) too much time looking for some new easy relationship rather than sit down and have a nice catch-up talk with our old friends. So let's put away our phones for a while, think about what has social media brought to us and what has it taken away from us. And ask ourselves: do we really want this kind of shallow relationships?