Fenger High School Violence Reaction Article

A video of a Fenger High School student beaten to death by four other teens brought national attention to the violence surrounding Chicago public schools on the city’s Southside.
Derrion Albert, a 16-year-old Fenger High School honor student, was fatally beaten after school let out on September 24, 2009. A feud between students from two rival neighborhoods led up to the melee that resulted in Albert’s death. The entire scene was caught on video by an onlooker’s cell phone.
Fox News bought the rights to the footage and it wasn’t long before the video was posted all over the internet, including social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The shocking video garnered the attention of President Obama, who sent U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan to Chicago to speak with public school officials as well as some of the students of Fenger High School and their parents.
The video and the overall subject of violence in Chicago public schools remain very controversial even a month later. Many Chicagoans are unhappy that it took this much publicity over the death of a student for the city and Chicago Police Department to finally step in.
“While I acknowledge that it was a brutal way to take someone's life, it has become constant on the Southside, and just now Obama is paying attention?” said Alberto Velazquez, a graduate of Loyola University Chicago that grew up in the Southside neighborhood of Pilsen.
Although many believe that the situation was blown out of proportion due to the viral spread of the video, some are glad that the violence on Chicago’s Southside has finally received national media attention.
“This has been escalating the last ten years and little is being done to stop it. I hope more and more national media coverage will bring the city to do something,” said Lisa Scharnak, a senior at Loyola.
Clara Cinta, a former Loyola student and resident of the Southside, credits social media sites like Facebook as a tool that has helped to shed light on the problem through members posting the video and sharing their reactions to Albert’s death.
“I rarely have time for the news on TV because I’m always on the run, but I heard of this incident through Facebook,” said Cinta. “I actually took time to look up and read the details... So in a way Facebook became more of a resource tool of communication not just between friends but between communities.”
Whether most people agree that the spread of the video has helped the situation or not, mostly all acknowledge that at least something is finally being done to better protect students of Chicago public schools.
“If it weren't for the video we might not have even heard about it,” said Don Ducheny, a resident of Spalding, MI, that saw the video of Albert’s death online.
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This article was written as an assignment that required us to write a reaction piece about the murder of Derrion Albert.
Interviewing, CMUN 332, Loyola University Chicago

The Waterfront, Volume 2 Issue 1

The Waterfront is the online magazine for the Society of Professional Journalists Loyola Chapter. I am the Co-layout Editor for the magazine.

Olympic Reaction article

Many Chicagoans were shocked Friday morning when the city was eliminated during the first round of the International Olympic Committee’s vote to choose the host city of 2016 games.
Hopes had been high before the vote and many could not believe that Chicago had lost, much less that they had only received 18 votes, which kept them from moving on to the second round of the vote.
“It would have been so good for this city,” said Ellen Stewart, a 37-year-old mother of two, shaking her head in disappointment. “I just can’t believe it’s over that quick after all the buildup.”
Not everyone shared Stewart’s reaction, however, and were even glad that Chicago was not chosen. Some felt that Chicago faces more pressing problems, including the current swell of violence threatening its public schools.
Tamekia Johnson, 27, of Garfield Park, shares this sentiment. “We just had a boy get beat to death on the south side outside a school, kids are getting beat up and robbed every day, gangbangers are shooting up the streets and the city don’t care,” Johnson said.
Johnson, like many others who opposed the bid, sees it as a lack of priority management on the part of the city’s leadership.
“They spent $40 million just on the bid but they say they ain’t got no money to hire no more police. If you ask me, those people were right not to pick us; we can’t even take pay to keep people safe. How can we afford to host the Olympics?” she said.

*This was an in-class assignment based on quotes from man-on-the street interviews done on the day of vote

Interviewing, CMUN 332, Loyola University Chicago