Four

The speakers who addressed the issue of drinking at Penn State did a good job of describing the situation in ways that their audience, which is anyone who happens to listen to the radio, could understand. They not only gave facts to support their argument but they also told stories from their own perspectives. The main reason that I think this issue was investigated was because the Princeton Review had rated Penn State the number one party school in America. With drinking always being a problem on college campuses, what exactly makes a school a top rated party school was an intriguing question to investigate. The speakers quote a variety of different people in the State College area from students at Penn State, to bartenders, pizza delivery guys and neighbors who live in the surrounding area around the college. The facts that the speakers provide are just that, facts. They aren’t biased towards not drinking or for drinking but they tell the truth about the subject matter at hand. Some of these statistics show how different groups are affected by this issue. One example of this would be the section of the talk where they discussed how different businesses were adapting and actually flourishing to the party school’s reputation. The owner of Maclanahan’s while not directly being affected by the drinking that happens at the bars still feels the effects of the party atmosphere that the school has.

I think that the point that the speakers want the readers to realize is that drinking on college campuses is a problem. The major problem for the universities being able to reach the students to make them realize what a problem drinking can be. Every year a new grade of students comes in and as they said in the talk, “they [The University Staff] have to start all over again.” While no one actually comes out and says that this is their opinion, by the stories that they choose to tell and the statistics that they decide to show it is somewhat obvious what their stand on the matter is.

This was really interesting towards me because when I first heard what we were supposed to write, an investigative journalism piece, I was kind of disappointed. I thought it was going to be a somewhat dry piece that I would read in the newspaper where all the facts are there but there is no real creativity. After listening to this talk I realize that just as much can be told about an issue by telling a story about it than just spelling it out plain and simple can. I really liked the stories that they incorporated into the piece because it gave me something to visualize other than just being read fact after fact. The only thing that I didn’t like about this piece was the topic choice. I agree that drinking on college campuses is an issue but it seems like it would be such a morbid topic to look into.