This is "can't put it down" journalism that leaves one with a clear sense of the problem and all of its ramifications.

The personal stories about experiences of teen gays takes this powerful article into our emotional psychos. This isn’t merely facts and descriptions information. It’s a story of mindless prejudice and strong-armed tactics bent on destruction of what some consider aberrations outside God’s domain and the results of their devastating tactics. Throughout my career in the film business, I worked with many wonderful, talented people who also happened to be gay. To a person they considered themselves born gay. Which makes them God’s little creatures. Which brings into question what God thinks about such treatment of his creations.

Enterprising and needed journalism, told in fearless detail that communicates the emotional impact of the societal hate that is so fierce it leads to suicides. Strongly recommended reading for anybody with a heart and an ability to handle a tough story.

This article addressed inequalities that LGBT teens face in this county, particularly because of activist conservative anti-gay organizations and policies that forbid school personnel from speaking about homosexuality in favorable terms. Because this article is addressing something that no one in the county wants to address, I feel that barriers of communication are being broken down. Because particular cases will be recognizable, and because the story of Sam and other bullied teens puts a face to "homosexuals," negative stereotypes can broken down. However, anti-gay groups will likely find information that fits within the stereotypes they have and dismiss other information. It is not all useless, since teens who find themselves ... More »

In "News in a New America" we learned that journalists sometimes leave out important stories when they cannot relate to the subject matter at hand. "Gaps in coverage and off-base ways of framing a story and its importance...usually result from journalists' shortage of background knowledge and a surplus of assumptions." This article is one of the stories that should be shared around the country because it is relevant to the world we live in. There are many people in this world who are considered homosexual but nobody is willing to talk about the hardships they face because sexual orientation is such a hard topic to talk about. Many kids who are labeled as gay or lesbian face many stereotypes from their peers, which causes ... More »

This is a good example of how scripts, adapted from media or other sources, can affect behavior. It begins with one child that, for whatever reason, begins to form patterns of intolerant bullying behavior. The script goes something like this: the targeted child has an unusual appearance or demeanor, and the bully then goes unpunished, or with a slap on the wrist. This pattern essentially encourages other students to act similarly, since there is no negative reinforcement associated with it, it blossoms and spreads to other children. This is similar to the influence that newsreel scripts have on viewers (discussed in Prime Suspects: The Influence of Local Television News on the Viewing Public.) The article does a good job of ... More »