As the FOX News video showed, Hilton posted a blog after the pageant calling Miss California derogatory names and  implied that she answered with no brain. I highly disagree. The reason behind the interview portion of a pageant to me is to reveal truly who each contestant is and how she handles questions. Prejean responded by first acknowledging that everybody has their own right to believe whatever, since we live in a land of freedom. She then continued to answer the question honestly, instead of being fake and trying to simply please people, and stood firm to reveal her true self.

People are criticizing her for answering this question, but why? The judge asked what she thought about it, and she gave her answer. She did not call gay marriage derogatory names, but simply said that based on her personal roots, she does not want to legalize same-sex marriage. Would the pageant rather listen to a fake answer and have a fake Miss USA?

In Hilton’s blog post he is the one who used derogatory names and claimed that Miss California did not lose because of her view, but because she did not say, “It should be a decision left up to the states.” If she had said this like Hilton was hoping, wouldn’t that still be considered fake and giving an answer that the judges wanted to hear and not showing who she actually was? Again, to me  the interview catagory should be to show the contestant’s ability to speak publically about issues, but it should also be to see more of the personality of the contestants.

Hilton’s blog was used to hurt and to harm Prejean. He was the one who was being derogatory about the answer and not being open minded. This is how bloggers lose many viewers; posting irrational feelings that are out to harm others.

Hilton should have treated his title and opportunity as a Miss USA judge as a job.Therefore, bashing a contestant, who should be equivalent to a client, is completely unprofessional and definitely something that does not need to be posted for the world to see via the Internet. If the top executive of Coca-Cola posted a blog bashing a community for not increasing its yearly sales of Coke products, I do believe that Coca- Cola consumers would be extremely upset and possibly cause a decrease in sales. I have not heard about any drops in Hilton’s  blog readers yet, but I know that I will not follow his blog in the future. I will instead use the blog post as a reminder of what not to post on the Internet.

Special Thanks to Fox News, “Asked and Answered” video posted on April 20, 2009.

Photo Credit: Eric Jamison on nj.com  and Seoulbeats

Intertwined within the multiple final projects, tests, and last minute assignments I have due, I am closing the door on  my leadership responsibility as the Freshman and Transfer Council Leader at the BCM by planning a pool party. I am also coordinating a brunch for the Girls in Action group I lead at a local church. These each require a lot of detail and work…but I’m soaking it all up!

 I am  really focused on having an amazing and relaxing time at with the freshmen at the pool party. I feel like a proud mother to each of them. They have worked so hard this year helping me coordinate the weekly worship service, and I  have been blessed to see them grow and mature as leaders.

The brunch has been so fun to plan! I’m being able to use my creativity freely and it’s an awesome feeling! The fourth and fifth grade girls have each invited their guests and started to plan what they’re going to decorate their  brunch tables with.

I am also so proud of each of them. Last night at GA’s, the girls wrote about a favorite GA memory or service that they have participated in this year. Their memories were unbelievable! Almost every girl wrote about a specific event and most importantly they each noted something about how they have become closer to God and more willing to serve him. It literally gave me chills reading some of their papers.

I guess many people get really stressed at the end of the year with everything wrapping up, as I sometimes do myself. However, I have realized  this year how blessed I am to be a part of all these activities and while the end of the year is busy, I would not trade it for anything!

Photo Source: First Baptist Church of  Blairsville  and my personal BCM photo!

Ashton Kutcher was in a race against CNN to see who could reach 1 million followers first. A student said that Kutcher was on  Larry King  Live discussing the competitive race. According to an article from the Los Angeles Times, Kutcher has already won the race!

Nixon then explained that even Oprah Winfrey now has a Twitter account. I had seen this on Twitter thanks to Ike Pigott on Saturday and was skeptical of the account. Today in class, Nixon verified that the @Oprah account was the legitimate Oprah Winfrey though.

Nixon brought up a very good and new point about celebrities attaining Twitter accounts. Besides the fact that an average Joe can make an account, claiming to be a celebrity, Nixon said that viewers around the country were sending Tweets to Oprah asking her for help. Women that have been abused, sick people, or financially hurting people, are all posting tweets to her pleading for help.

This creates a new element for Twitter. Are celebrities ready to have another media outlet open for the public to respond to? Are users going to get mad at Oprah for not constantly replying to the Tweets? Is Twitter going to have to make regulations about Tweets for celebrities? Are celebrities going to be scared away from creating accounts in fear of being harrassed by the public?

For me, I will follow the celebrities out of pure curiosity. It is always interesting to see what celebrities are doing. I guess it’s just human nature to be interested in this! I do hope that this does not become a problem though.

Picture Sources: Ashton Kutcher and Oprah Winfrey’s Twitter accounts

I am not a person who normally celebrates Earth day, but I do believe that First Choice Power’s campaign is going to be positive for the environment and the company. Planting new trees on an earth that is constantly cutting tree’s down is an excellent benefit to the environment. This is even a bigger benefit to the company though. This campaign shows customers that the company is very serious about protecting the environment; serious enough to plant trees with no additional costs! The pledge promotes credibility for the company and might even encourage workers within the company to help participate in planting the trees.

I hope that the citizens of Texas will take advantage of this amazing opportunity to help the environment, but I also hope that this event will lead to greater business and publicity for First Power Choice.

Information based from the news release, “In Celebration of Earth Day and Arbor Day, First Choice Power Will Plant 10 Trees on Behalf of Each Customer Who Signs up for a 100% Green Electricity Price Plan“, posted by PRNewswire on April 20, 2009.

The night was awesome! A friend of mine from Emory University came down to visit for the weekend and accompanied me to the affair. We had a sit down dinner complete with a huge piece of chocolate mousse cake, followed by the traditional BCM awards. These are always interesting. There were jokes made about anything and everything from the year. They gave me a one-liner by making fun of my family group’s lip sync dance and the infamous kiss that happened on stage. I knew that was coming though!

We completed the night by dancing for about two and a half hours. It was so fun! We all danced with everybody and I don’t think anybody stopped smiling the entire time.  By the end of the night we were all dripping with sweat from dancing under the lights…..real appealing right? We were all completely exhausted too! My voice was actually gone from yelling while the music was blaring throughout the night.

The night was simply fun.  No worries. No drama. No pressure. No pain. This was an accomplishment in itself. It was a night for us as the BCM to come together and just have fun. Fun?…..That is something  we all need a little more of in our lives!

Photo Source: Rob Eakin’s facebook album, “Formal 09 (1)”

Press Kit to promote McWane Science Center's Dinosaur exhibit.

I am such a nerd. Chapter 14 from Cameron and Wilcox’s Public Relations: Strategies and Tactics 9th edition has made me want to just walk into a PR firm tomorrow and start writing news releases and preparing a creative media kit. This stuff is right up my alley! 

This chapter discussed the basics to writing a variety of news releases,preparing media kits and pitching ideas. I was very familiar with the print news release format, but I was surprised to see that an emailed press released, e-release, should be so different than a print version.  An email requires single-spaced text, a maximum of 200 words and a very solid and straightforward subject line. Journalists want to read the release quickly, because they have many more emails to adhere to. These releases should also provide a link to the company’s newsroom or website to see further details and even photos.

I particularly liked and got really excited about writing media alerts. These are simply a bulleted list of items answering the 5 W’s of the event, product, or organization. These are very easy to read and keep journalists informed about upcoming events. Journalists get tired of reading paragraph after paragraph, so this bullet style is very effective.

Media kits are the most exciting to me! Creativity is involved to create a unique folder to contain the 7 basic elements:

1.  main news release
2. a news feature about the development of the product
3. fact sheets on the product, organization, or event
4. background information
5. photos and drawings with captions
6. biographical material on the spokesperson or chief executives
7. basic brochures

This chapter has definitely been the most enjoyable so far. I am so excited to work on building creative media kits and writing news releases in the future. My creativity can finally be released! 

All information is based off chapter 14 in Public Relations: Strategies and Tactics (9th ed.) by Dennis L. Wilcox and Glen T. Cameron

Photo Source: McWane Science Center at Flickr.com