Wednesday, January 11. 2017

Today's schedule is B-A-D-C

B & C Block Social Studies 11 - Today we'll talk about the end of the war in Europe (Ortona, D-Day and the liberation of the Netherlands) and switch our focus to the Pacific where we'll look at the Manhattan Project and the use of nuclear weapons in Japan (Hiroshima and Nagasaki). This takes us to V-J Day and the end of World War Two.


A Block Geography 12 - Today we are going to make sense of ecosystem evolution and community Mount St. Helens to understand primary and secondary succession. We'll watch the last portion of the DVD "Fire Mountain: The Eruption and Rebirth of Mount St. Helens" in order to better grasp the rates of recovery for ecosystems around the volcano. The embedded video below from PBS is also a very good (specifically chapters 3 "The Blowdown Zone" and 5 "Bouncing Back") You'll need to complete questions 21 and 22 from page 662 of your Geosystems text along with a question on fire ecology and the effects of modern fire suppression. For more on ecosystem services and conservation see the National Geographic Earth Pulse website

succession (thrown in will be the terms establishment and extinction). We'll try to understand how species co-evolve and adapt to create complex communities (self regulation and emergent properties) and then we'll look at


D Block Crime, Media and Society 12 - Today we'll continue our look at the Russell Williams case from 2010. Yesterday in class we watched the CBC Fifth Estate documentary "Above Suspicion" on the case and it reflected the Canadian coverage of the case. Today we'll look at the American coverage of the case, specifically the CBS 48 Hours Hard Evidence documentary: "Name, Rank, Serial Killer" and/or the NBC Dateline documentary "Conduct Unbecoming". We'll look at the "Cross Border Crime Stories" handout I gave you and after watching the episode perhaps you'll have a better grasp on the differences between our two legal cultures when it comes to crime coverage in the media. The biggest difference is the limitations on what can be reported about criminal prosecutions. Consider the differences in what was reported and how it was reported.

Remember Schadenfreude? Russell Williams was a heavy weight in the Canadian military. He was a powerful person who "fell from grace" which is part of what made his murders of Marie France Comeau and Jessica Lloyd a "newsworthy" crime story. But what about another person with power...one who was completely opposite of the character to Williams. What of Rob Ford?







What is the difference between Russell Williams and Rob Ford? They both got an enormous amount of media coverage, but look at how Ford was lampooned in the media as opposed to Russell Williams. Rob Ford was treated more as comic relief as opposed to news.  CTV posted an article that claimed:

 The Rob Ford saga has received more intensive media coverage in the United States than any other Canadian news story since the turn of the century, newly released media-monitoring figures suggest. "No story in the 21st century has given Canada this much exposure," said Jean-Francois Dumas, president of the Montreal-based media monitoring firm. "It's not just the tabloids. It's not just People. It's the New York Times, the New York Post. All sorts of media covered this. It became a social phenomenon.... It's truly exceptional in terms of coverage."

Ford, of course, became internationally notorious last month when he admitted having smoked crack cocaine, "probably in one of my drunken stupors," while apologizing and insisting he's not an addict.
According to the Influence calculations, Rob Ford was mentioned in 14,385 stories on U.S. TV, radio, websites and in newspapers between Nov. 4 -- the day before his fateful admission -- and Dec. 1. Dumas said the story appeared in 75 countries and was the third most-covered story in the world on Nov. 6, while nearly 80 per cent of the foreign coverage occurred in the U.S.


I have three questions for you to answer:

1. Do you think the news coverage of Col. Russell Williams' sentencing was too sensational? Do you think the court was right to release so much information and that the Canadian press were right to publish it all, or do you think that there is such a thing as too much information, and that there are some details we really don’t need to know? (Watch the following CBC story to help...
2. How did the Canadian and American coverage of the Russell Williams case differ? Use the NBC Dateline episode "Conduct Unbecoming" as well as the Fifth Estate episode "Above Suspicion" as your sources of information.
3. Why did the Rob Ford story garner so much attention in Canada and the United States? Was too much information revealed about Rob Ford's problems? Given the different socio-economic backgrounds of Williams and Ford and the different crimes they committed was the Ford case more media worthy than Williams? Why?