Top News Assignment #3

The San Jose Mercury News posted an article about California's new plan to eliminate our $40 billion dollar debt. Basically, the plan is to raise taxes, spending cuts for programs, and borrowing money. This plan will be put to a vote on Friday. What caught my attention the most about this article is how it will affect us as students. The government will be cutting huge amounts of money towards public programs, such as universities, public schools, and health and human service programs for the poor. I am completely expecting our tuition to go way up and receive less benefits from the campus as a student as well as the salary for teachers going way down. As if we are not paying a ridiculous amount for tuition to begin with, more will be coming out of our pockets. It will also cause a tax increase in around 1 cent per dollar, raise the sales tax, and other tax increases. We will also be borrowing billions of dollars from the federal government as part of the federal stimulus package.

I think that this news story contains almost all of the news values: impact, timeliness, prominence, proximity, and currency. It includes impact because this plan will have some sort of affect on all of us. It directly affects taxpayers and the cuts of programs will have an influence on the rest of Californians. It includes timeliness because the voting hasn't even happened yet, it will on Friday. It is just recently that we heard what this plan will entail. Prominence can be found in this article because it involves Arnold Schwarzenegger, the "governator" of California. It also briefly mentions President Obama with regards to the federal stimulus plan. The article obviously includes proximity because it is all about the effects the plan will have on our state. As I mentioned earlier, all of us will see this plan touch us in one way or another. After all, the plan is based in our own state. Lastly, it includes currency because this story is definitely of public concern. Many people care about this issue rather than just a few who will be affected by the plan.

The link to the article is:
http://www.mercurynews.com/topstories/ci_11680407