With all of America and the rest of the world watching,
Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States. Having a half-day of school Tuesday, I got home by 11 a.m., sat on the couch and watched the inauguration. But with the inauguration over, I, along with everyone else, have set my sights on the actual presidency. How will Mr. Obama actually change our country? What laws will be passed, and how soon will we see results? We all want to know the answers to these questions. But the way we find out about these historic events will probably be different.
I don't know exactly what about Barack Obama interests me, but I cannot wait to find out what he will do. The newspaper will be the main way I find out about his presidency, but I will probably find a few supplements.
One source I will usually not receive information from is the television. My family has never really been a big fan of the news on television, as it can be sometimes disturbing and inaccurate. For example, as I was watching the inauguration, there was a medical emergency. According to the news station's initial report, Senator Byrd had been taken off in an ambulance, when in fact, it was Senator Kennedy.
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Mitch Walsh holds the Jan. 21 Inauguration section of the Detroit Free Press. |
This past summer I saved my money and convinced my parents to let me get an iPhone. Though it has many features, I use it mostly as a phone, an iPod and a portable gaming device. In an attempt to broaden my news reading horizons, I downloaded
The New York Times iPhone app but don't use it very often. Why don't I get my news right then and there? In my opinion, it feels different and not quite right. Also, I prefer the style of the newspaper, and
I have a habit of reading it.
As if the iPhone was not enough, I further persuaded my parents to let me create a Facebook page. As most iPhone users know, there is an application for mobile Facebook. Contact with my friends could now be constant, and they share news. Yesterday, Facebook informed me that one of my friends was celebrating President Bush's last day in office.
With all of these great expectations for our new president, what will really happen? When I find out, it will probably be from the newspaper. But, if I hear about something important, I might not be able to wait until the next day. In that case I may be forced to use my iPhone or go on the computer to
the Web site of the Detroit Free Press, my hometown paper, for a taste, as the real meat comes the next day in the black and white of my newspaper.
Mitchell Walsh lives in the Detroit, Mich., area. He is the grandson of Bill Mitchell, director of Poynter Online and a former Free Press reporter and editor. Bill Mitchell was not involved in the writing or editing of this piece.
