Yesterday in JOUR 1550 we had the privilege to meet with Meg Kissinger, a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. It was fascinating to learn about Kissinger's evolving career in journalism. She's covered a variety of topics, from obituaries to gossip to science, but when two of her siblings committed suicide, Kissinger began to write stories about mental illness at a time when it was an uncomfortable subject for many people. In many ways, it still is, and the mental health system has, unfortunately, remained inefficient and inconsistent. She told us that Milwaukee has the highest rate of emergency detentions in the nation, and there have been five deaths at the Milwaukee Mental Health complex this year. Through her reporting, Kissinger's goal is to find out how mental health care in Milwaukee can be improved.

In preparation for her visit, Professor Lowe requested that we take a look at Kissinger's excellent multimedia piece Imminent Danger, which focuses on how the health care system for patients with mental illness got so broken and how psychiatrists and the government are trying to fix it. Kissinger interviewed mental health advocates, psychiatrists, family members of people with mental illness, the husband of a victim at Virginia Tech and a victim of the shooting at Tucson.

What really struck me about Kissinger was her positive energy. Despite the struggles she's faced with her family and her own health, and despite the heavy nature of the topic she covers, she has a very upbeat personality and she even had the class laughing at her anecdotes and wisecracks throughout her visit. Not only is Kissinger a great role model as a journalist; I believe she's also someone to look up to for maintaing a strong will and a positive attitude in the face of personal challenges. This semester we'll be working with Kissinger on our own stories about mental health in Milwaukee, and I can honestly say I'm looking forward to it.
 
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Florida ranks relatively low in all four economic indicators.
With two debates already behind us and the presidential election less than a month away, this week I thought I would take a look at the Miami Herald's election coverage. Like Wisconsin, Florida has often been a swing state in presidential elections, and its status is no different for this year's election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. As a result, I was expecting to find a lot of news about both candidates' triumphs, gaffes and policies.

In terms of story content, I was a little disappointed. There were very few recent articles on national politics, and the ones I did find weren't unique to the Herald. Many were written by reporters from the McClatchy News Service or the Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau. There was, however, a great article about a poll which showed Romney moving ahead of Obama with likely Florida voters due to each candidate's debate performance. The story seemed to exemplify Florida's swing state status, revealing Romney's sudden 51-44 percent advantage among Florida voters.

What caught my eye, though, was the Herald's comprehensive and interactive infographic about swing state economics. The graphic shows the United States map with each of the 14 swing states shaded in according to how that state fares in one of four economic indicators: jobs, housing, pocketbook and output. The last tab, rankings, measures each swing state's economic standing in relation to the other states.

I was impressed with the infographic because the creator, Marco A. Ruiz, managed to pack a lot of information together in a very visually appealing and interactive way. It's interesting to observe how the swing states are faring economically compared to the rest of the country and how the states have improved or worsened since 2008. After the election is over, I will most definitely be going back to this graphic to search for a pattern in how the swing states' economic standings might have influenced voters.
 
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The Freedom Flights database is the only public record of refugees that fled to the United States during the Cuban Revolution.
This week, as we collected our audio and put together a final structure of our One @ Marquette projects, Professor Herbert Lowe asked us to find something exceptional about our beat websites. At first I wanted to write about El Nuevo Herald, The Miami Herald's Spanish-language companion. I thought it was pretty unique for a newspaper in the United States to have such close ties to a newspaper that's published in Spanish and reports on issues in Cuba, Venezuela and Colombia. But Professor Lowe wanted us to write about "something screaming digital journalism," and El Nuevo Herald is just a sister newspaper to The Miami Herald, and while I think that's something to be commended, it doesn't quite "scream" digital journalism to me.

I looked around The Miami Herald's website a little more and was surprised but pleased to find a special page dedicated to The Herald's 10-part series on the Cuban Revolution; it seems to have been posted in late 2008 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of the Revolution. The producers went so far as to create an interactive graphic which visitors can use to navigate through the different parts of the series: 50 Years: Then and Now, The Freedom Flights, The Freedom Tower, "Plantadas," Nostalgia (El Encanto), Society (Race-based clubs), Revolution Anniversary, The U.S. Reaction, Yanqui Comandante, and The Insider. By clicking on the tabs, visitors can read a description of that particular aspect of the project and click on links to relevant articles and multimedia elements like photo galleries and videos.

One of the most prominent aspects of the project is the documentation of Cuban refugees' flights to the United States, referred to as the Freedom Flights. The U.S. government sponsored the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of Cubans, who entered the country through the Freedom Tower in Miami. Visitors to the page who took part in the Freedom Flights are encouraged to share their stories and videos, and The Herald has compiled a number of video packages profiling individual refugees. The project creators did an excellent job of combining hard news and feature stories with multimedia to take a look at how the Cuban revolution has shaped Cuban and American societies.

What impressed me most about this project was the Freedom Flights database, the only public record of the resettlement program. Visitors can type in the name of a friend or family member who fled from Cuba to the U.S. in the Freedom Flights and see what date he or she arrived. This is such a great way for people to connect with their roots and learn a little about their personal history and the history of our nation.