14 April 2020

On March 30, 2020, Newsy posted the story “Fauci Says 100,000 To 200,000 In U.S. May Die From Coronavirus.” This Newsy video echoed a claim made by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who is also in charge of the United States coronavirus task force appointed by President Donald Trump.

This video story represents the starting point of my Story 4, which will address the response of the United States—government and population—to the novel coronavirus outbreak in the country. Today, 121,897 individuals have died globally, out of 1,945,055 confirmed cases of Covid-19, for a 6.2 percent. The United States reports 23,709 deaths out of 584,073 confirmed cases, for a 4.1 death rate. Reversing the math, using the latter rate and the estimated number of deaths claimed by Dr. Fauci, approximately 4,878,048 individuals in the United States will be infected with the novel coronavirus.

In my story, I will compare this tentative numbers with those of China, Italy and Spain, countries that have been greatly affected by the pandemic. In addition to the numerical comparison, I will calculate how much those numbers represent according to the population of each nation, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the response to the virus undertook by the American government and population.

https://www.newsy.com/stories/fauci-says-100-000-to-200-000-in-u-s-may-die-from-coronavirus/

In words of its creators, Newsy is a platform that provides concise video news to brief the viewers regarding topics and stories relevant both nationally and internationally. Once entering the platform’s homepage, the viewer can find all news are divided into different categories under the “News” tab, including sections that group videos about Coronavirus, Entertainment, Sports, U.S., and Health and Science. Additionally, in the same Menu, the viewer can access Investigations, Documentaries, Shows, and a compilation of news about Election 2020.

Perhaps the most notorious aspect of Newsy is that usually all the videos do not exceed the five-minutes duration. In fact, most of them vary from merely 1 to 2 minutes in length. This feature is paramount in Newsy’s popularity, given the stressful and dynamic life most Americans live, providing a succinct briefing in only a few minutes of their time.

Especially for HCC students and young adults, Newsy can be an alternative to the never-ending scrolling down in Instagram, Twitter, YouTube or Facebook.

As you may recall from my previous post, I had the opportunity to attend the 2020 Active Minds National Conference in Washington D.C., on February 21 and 22. I took part in the event, alongside five other students, as members of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars (NSCS), a club of which I am the Vice-president of Community Service here at HCC. Both NSCS and Active Minds were organizations created in D.C.. During our visit to NSCS National Headquarters, CEO Steve Lofflin explained the close work relation that exists between our organization and Active Minds. For my Photojournalism story I will share the best pictures I took during my days in the capital, and my participation in the event.

We had the opportunity to walk through the city, and visit incredible sites as the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial. In addition to those two historical places, we visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture. During the National Conference, I attended several sessions of which I will include pictures in my story. This event transformed my vision of life.

Stay tuned for more!

In the Spring of 2000, Brian Malmon, a student of only 22 years-old, decided to end his life after a profound depression and anxiety he never shared with his close ones. Alison understood the story of her brother was the same of thousands of American teenagers and young adults that take their lives due to Mental Health related issues. That’s why Alison decided to create Active Minds, a nonprofit organization to normalize the talks about Suicide and Mental Health. We should not have to wait for a tragedy to happen to talk about these issues.

Active Minds was founded in 2003, and 17 years later it has over 500 chapters nation-wide. I had the privilege to attend the Active Minds National Conference 2020; and I personally met Alison, a person I look up to.

Everyone has the capacity to help. Teenagers and young adults can often talk more about these issues with a stranger than with their relatives. We must learn to say “I understand you,” and “I am here for you,” and not “It’s all normal,” or “I will pass.”
It’s in our hands!

In 1976, an 11-year-old Jamaican girl moved to New York without imagining the notable changes her life was about to experience. Today, the Jamaican girl overcame many hurdles to succeeded as an HCC scholar: Dr. Suzanne Lynch. Dr. Lynch has a lot to say about race and ethnicity, not only because of her first-hand experience as an immigrant, but also given the time she has devoted to studying these topics throughout her career.

To Dr. Lynch, the America of 2020 presents an tremendous necessity to foster respect for other cultures. Current American President, Donald J. Trump, only stimulates discrimination regarding national origins. One of his first measures as President was banning citizens from several Muslim countries from entering United States territory. In addition, America’s population presents a steady increase, and the diversity of its population in states like Florida keeps in crescendo.

This story relates specifically to HCC students, since the academic contexts are the most appropriate place to develop a sentiment of respect for other cultures. Classes should be culturally relativistic—understanding other cultures according to their norms, not ours—and not ethnocentric—interpreting their actions through the lens of our culture.

When I selected Ismar Rodriguez as my interviewee I knew the main challenge would be one: the distance between us. Since Ismar lives in Miami, and has an extremely busy schedule, I confirmed a date and a time to do a video-call and record the interview. In order to develop a fruitful interview, I searched through his social media profiles and found some of his audiovisual productions and designs to create some of my questions.

At first we planned recording the interview as a Facebook live in one of the group he manages, but we did not account for seemingly different Facebook guidelines for live-videos. Facebook has disabled the feature of a live video with more than one person—or at least that day we could not find it anywhere. After three failed attempts, we had to keep it private, and we developed the interview using the Messenger video-call feature.

Ismar is a very knowledgeable professional, and the interview eventually drifted away from the focus of some of my questions. Even so, I obtained useful material which ultimately shaped my final interview story. The phone call lasted over 50 minutes, and the post-interview information gathering took me a few hours. With this exercise I learned the importance of anticipating technology problems, and the relevance of keeping a narrow focus on the questions asked to guide the conversation.

Ismar Rodriguez is a tireless creator with an amazing life story. Based on my previous knowledge of his career I decided to ask him the following questions:

1. What is your full name and hometown?
2. Are you more a graphic designer or an audiovisual producer?
3. In what point of your life you decided to make a living out of graphic design and audiovisual production?
4. How long has been your career so far?
5. How complicated was to work in the conditions of Cuba?
6. Which one of your videos or graphic designs makes you very proud?
7. What graphic designer or audiovisual producer you admire the most?
8. In your opinion, what is being overdone, and what is missing in today’s audiovisual productions?
9. Why Freekandele (his nickname)?
10. In which projects are you working currently, or plan to work in the near future?

The answers to these questions were beyond what I expected, enriching my vision of this very talented man. The virtual interview lasted for almost an hour! Stay tuned for more content!

Hello everyone!

My name is Darian (one of the few things my parents agreed upon), and I was born in a small southern town in Cuba, twenty-four years ago. I have been living in America since 2017. Personally, I could say I am an old-fashioned soul. The music I usually listen to is from the seventies, eighties, and nineties. I love rock and R&B, but I can enjoy any type of music that  feeds my soul and is not a mere product of a computer.

Regarding my academic experience, when I was in Cuba I studied Law for three years in the University of Artemisa, but my life passion was to become a journalist and a writer. Here in America, I have been given an opportunity to become the person and professional I have always desired to be, and I intend to seize this chance at the best of my capacity. I am looking forward to a fruitful class.

That is the reason why I am here today. Welcome to my blog!