About
September 18, 2007
My name is Jackie Barrientes, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina, living in Concord, NC. I received my bachelor’s in journalism at the University of North Texas and I’m originally from South Texas.
This blog will record my research on the impact journalism has had on Mexico. How has journalist’s fight for free press changed how the politicians view the press? What before was a scripted events, press conferences with presidents are vibrant and informative. As Chappell Lawson says in his book, “Building the Fourth Estate:”
“Questions were often planted by government officials; independent newspapers were underrepresented if they were represented at all; and the entire performance was carefully edited before being rebroadcast by the country’s reliably pro-government media conglomerate, Televisa. Aggressive and hostile inquiries were simply not part of the regularly scheduled programming.”
November 11, 2007 at 11:54 pm
I think you’re right about the importance of recycling/reuse of cell phones—especially the phones from people that are changing providers—these phones are often in good working order. I encountered this problem when my daughter destroyed her cell phone only 1 year into a 2-year contract. I decided that, rather than fork out $200 for a new one, I would look on the web to see if I could find a used one. I couldn’t. I was surprised. Then, I remembered the two good phones I have stashed in a drawer upstairs. It appears that we, cell phone users, aren’t making the connection that we can resell our old phones in the same way we sell our other used stuff.
I found several sites that were helpful in this regard. One was cell phones for soldiers at http://www.cellphonesforsoldiers.com/about.html. The 501c3 non-profit was founded by two teenagers from the suburbs of Boston. They collect old cell phones and use the money to buy phone cards for soldiers overseas. AT&T recently hopped on board to help.
ReCellular at http://www.recellular.com/ claims they are “The World Leader in Used Cell Phones” with offices in the U.S., Hong Kong, and Brazil. It looks like the company is mostly interested in buying phones in bulk, but its web site says it will help your organization start a cell phone donation program.