Juicy Campus

So I know this is technically not a news site, but I had to post on this because I couldn’t believe it existed.

Juicy Campus is an anonymous beta forum where people can post heinous gossip about people on campuses around the country. I first heard about it from a friend at Dook, and then I realized you can search for other campuses from Pepperdine to yes, UNC.

While the site doesn’t seem that active at UNC, yet, I have already noticed some hateful posts. Many of the posts, however, seem to be made by students at other schools since they insult Tyler Hansborough. One post mistakenly identifies sororities at Duke as sororities at UNC.

It seems to be an anonymous forum for Perez Hilton-wannabes, and it makes me nervous.

Obviously, anonymous posts lack credibility, but that doesn’t mean the word isn’t out there. In fact, once a post is up, users can not delete it. The only option is to either reply or apply a “thumbs down” sign. Oh and the site suggests taking it “with a grain of salt.”

I know I wouldn’t want my name on there at all. And if your name shows up, you have no way of knowing who posted the comment.

How could this affect life on campus? Does campus life really need to be any more catty?

The Daily Pulp

For today’s news site post, I thought I would share with you all a hometown journo favorite of mine.

While working at The Miami Herald a couple summers ago, I realized that The Daily Pulp was on the list of things to do upon arrival at the office.

The Daily Pulp is written by Bob Norman, an investigative reporter for independent weekly the New Times in my home county Broward and author of Florida Pulp Nonfiction: True Crime in the Sunshine State.

Norman writes a salty blog about news and media in South Florida. His credibility is high in South Florida newsrooms from The Miami Herald to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel to The Palm Beach Post, although he has often shown favor to the Herald over the Sun-Sentinel. (I grew up with The Miami Herald so I often agree with his bias).

He criticizes much of the mainstream media for grabbing stories from the New Times, which has Miami and Broward-Palm Beach issues.

But a nod from Norman often brings clout and praise in the newsroom. In fact, the one time my name was mentioned in his blog was worth spending another summer at home.

If you ever want to know more about the dirt in South Florida (of which there is PLENTY) check out this blog. It’s honesty causes me to continue to read the blog even though I know spend most of the year in North Carolina.

Away from Ipanema

On the hills of Rio de Janeiro above the famous Ipanema Beach sprawl shanty towns known as favelas where the city’s poor live in dangerous and dirty conditions.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva visited Cantagalo this week, touting promises of change for the long-neglected areas, according to BBC NEWS.

The economy in Brazil has grown in recent years with its continued self-sufficiency in oil and its exports of iron ore to China. The added income has led President Lula to start a $1.7 billion program in the favelas of Rio. A third of the population in Rio and Sao Paulo live in the cities’ slum areas.

The money will go to improve sanitation, roads and housing, according to BBC NEWS. Lula has also taken an agressive stance on the drug gangs familiar in the favelas.

Samba music greeted Lula in Cantagalo, the first such visit by Lula during his presidency. Lula was born in the poor northeastern region and spend much of his childhood in Sao Paulo.

Huffington Post

The Huffington Post has a visually appealing homepage, as flashy as it might be. It features video prominently, with coverage of Karl Rove on Fox News. I also like the scrolling headlines at the top, which to me provides some sort of serendipity in a medium where that is hard to find.

 Most of the site links to the reporting of other Web sites. I like the idea of a quick read option. It gives users the chance to decide whether they want to follow through to next site or go back to The Huffington Post without reading the entire article.

The site also takes advantage of the trend of using tags, giving users related tags when they click on a blog post. I particularly like the blogs in the Living section.

The Top News section is interesting because instead of just listing the most read stories in general, it lists the top news in each subject from media, to politics, to business.

Some of the photos The Huffington Post used were annoying. It seemed like the site was trying to find an image–any image–for each of its stories. This resulted in a picture of Anne Hathaway for a story that had nothing to do with her and video game company logos that appeared to be advertisements.

Overall, I like what the site has done, but it would have more credibility with better reporting and better photos.