Poll by The Associated Press shows that American’s still favor timeless pieces, like the film “It’s a Wonderful Life” and song, “Silent Night”

By Ima Riter

December 1, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. EDT

Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is the highest-charting Billboard Hot 100 holiday hit in 60 years, but Americans still prefer hearing carols such as “Silent Night” and “Jingle Bells,” a new poll shows.

12 percent of Americans named “Silent Night” as their favorite holiday song followed by “Jingle Bells” at 8 percent, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The open-ended question showed that “It’s a Wonderful Life” is a fan favorite among holiday films, followed closely by a mix of recent comedies and classics.

Nine percent of respondents listed the 1946 Frank Capra classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” as their favorite film. Jimmy Stewart plays a conscientious family man who faces a seemingly insurmountable debt and attempts to end his life, but is stopped by a guardian angel on Christmas Eve.

“It’s a story of redemption,” said Michael Germana, 65, who called the film his favorite. The California native is also among the 21 percent of adults 60 and older who choose “Silent Night,” which was first performed 200 years ago.

“It’s a song of inclusion,” Germana said. “There’s no strife.”

Americans under 30 are more likely than those older to name “Jingle Bells” (12 percent) and Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” (7 percent) as their favorite.

Carey’s song only trails the 1958 song “The Chipmunk Song” by David Seville as the highest-charting hit on Billboard. Other popular songs on Billboard charts include Kenny G’s “Auld Lang Syne” and “This One’s for the Children” by New Kids on the Block.

“All I Want for Christmas Is You” was named by 3 percent of adults overall, while “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” which has drawn criticism in the #MeToo era and led some stations to stop playing it, was named by 5 percent.

There were more contemporary choices among respondents when it came to film. Seven percent chose 1983’s “A Christmas Story” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” but most people didn’t specify whether they preferred the 1966 animated television special or the 2000 live-action adaption starring Jim Carrey. A computer animated version, “The Grinch” has earned more than $239 million domestically since its early November release.

Six percent selected the 2003 comedy “Elf” starring Will Ferrell, the Chevy Chase-led “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” and “Home Alone,” a 1990 box office hit starring Macaulay Culkin as the burglar-thwarting Kevin McCallister.

Also listed as a favorite by 2 percent of respondents: the 1988 Bruce Willis action film “Die Hard.”

Overall, Seventy movies or Christmas specials and 107 songs were cited as holiday favorites by poll respondents.

• Accident causes truck to catch on fire with flames as tall as 15 feet
• The accident took place at U.S. 63 and Interstate 70
• Over 50 tons of soil along Hinkson Creek is contaminated with diesel from the accident

A passenger was killed in a truck accident Tuesday after the truck jackknifed and slid through the guard rail.

The accident occurred near Hinkson Creek spilling diesel from the turned over truck into and along the creek.

Online:

Tuesday night the West Lafayette City Council voted 7-to-1 to donate land to the new homeless shelter.

“This donation of lands means we are one step closer to a new homeless shelter in West Lafayette,” said Jennifer Layton, Executive Director of Lafayette Transitional Housing.

The new privately owned center will be located downtown West Lafayette at 100 State Street.

“We have to address this problem. It’s not going to go away. And with this solution, it really won’t cost the city anything,” said council member Gerry Keen.

This shelter will serve as the city’s main shelter, with Our Savior Lutheran Church helping house on an as need basis.

The West Lafayette Police Department says financially this will save tax payers money, as they will not have to arrest as many homeless if they are in the shelter.

Broadcast:

Tuesday night West Lafayette City Council voted 7-to-1 to donate land to the new homeless shelter.

The new privately owned center will be located at 100 State Street in downtown West Lafayette.

According to a spokesperson for the city council, this is their way of addressing the issue that it is not going to go away.

Word count: 60

November 10, 2020

Headline : Domestic terrorism is happening, here and right now

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.- Dr. Zulli and her colleges at the Brian Lamb School of Communication performed research on public relation approaches to domestic terrorism.

Zulli questions in her research, “How do we actually manage a domestic terrorism crisis when the perpetrators are homegrown?” She also questions how these perpetrators are connected to the morals and values of our nation.

Why is this research worthy? Like Dr. Zulli has stated her reasonings, and The Center for Strategic and International Studies agrees with her. Saying that domestic terrorism is happening now and will get worse, especially being in an election year.

They studied the unfolding crisis of domestic terrorism between the years of 1990 and 2020. Dr. Zulli explained the first real domestic terrorism event was the bombing in Oklahoma City in 1995.

In 2019 their research shows that domestic terrorism was talked about more than ever in the media. This is due simply to numbers rising. As you can recall there was the El Paso shooting, the Dayton, Ohio shooting and more shootings and stabbings in general.

Dr. Zulli and her team performed their study with the method of content analysis. In this case they were researching themes of domestic terrorism in broadcast media, like ABC, NBC, CBS and more.

The research questions they asked were:

RQ1: Which sources are most prominent in news coverage of domestic terrorism?

RQ2: Hows does news coverage contextualize domestic terrorism in reference to prior terrorist attacks?

RQ3: Does news coverage differentially apply ideological labels to groups associated with domestic terrorism?

RQ4: How does news coverage question the designation of an act as domestic terrorism?

One of the major trends they found was that as years went on presidents spoke more on the domestic terrorism happening. A few years back it would have been industry and advocacy speaking on the matters. This is due to the political leaders having more of a media platform of their own now. We expect the president to get on twitter, bypass the media, and tell us what is going on in real time.

Going along with this finding, presidents would contextualize these attacks to other terror attacks.

Domestic terrorism is probably not going away anytime soon or lose relevance, thinking about how news organizations frame domestic terrorism will always be really important, says Zulli.

Writer: Clara Boles, 765-894-6621, boles1@purdue.edu

Sources: Dr. Diana Zulli, dzulli@purdue.edu

and Seth G. Jones, 202-741-3955, sjones@csis.org

October 28, 2020

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.- Two Purdue alumni will be giving advice on how to find jobs here in Tippecanoe county at a Beering panel on Nov. 20.

Trevor Peters will be one of the two alumni, he is an anchor and news reporter for WXIX-TV of Cincinnati, formerly of WLFI-TV. He was a 2016 BLSC graduate.

The other alumni sitting on the panel will be Ashley Scott. Scott graduated in 2010 and is now the president of AGS Consulting in Indianapolis. She is the former operations manager at MatchBox Co-Working studio in Lafayette.

“One of the most valuable things we can do as a school is provide our students with access to our esteemed alumni who have so much knowledge to share,” said Marifran Mattson, head of the BLSC.

The topic of this panel is how to find jobs post graduation if you are wanting to stay in the Lafayette/ Indianapolis area. The panel will be Q and A between the students and alumni.

“I was amazed that I didn’t have to go to a larger city to find an interesting job,” said Scott. “I think a lot of students just don’t know what is available here or how to find it.”

The panel is at 3 p.m. on Nov. 20 in Beering 1284. The panel is open to all students, even outside of BLSC.

Writer: Clara Boles, 765-222-8888, boles1@purdue.edu

Sources: Marifran Mattson, head of BLSC, 765-494-3300, mmattson@purdue.edu & Ashley Scott, panelist and BLSC alumni, 765-222-1111, ashley@fakeemail.com

Rebecca Nagle spoke her truth on her indigenous culture at a Purdue University Diversity and Inclusion event Tuesday night.

Nagle spoke on the hard issues her nation faces everyday. These include the hard facts that eight in every ten indigenous women are sexually abused.

Of these hard statistics Nagle also added that one in every three indigenous women gets sexually abused every year.

This sexual abuse is not just happening to indigenous women, but also children. Nagle is very passionate about stopping this, as a survivor of sexual abuse herself.

“I believe in the power and voices of the people,” said Nagle.

As Nagle has dipped in many different sections of advocating from art, to teaching, to being a journalist and a writer, she says she wants to focus where her work can have the most impact.

After writing a piece in a Baltimore newspaper about sexual violence, she realized a lot of people read it and responded to it. This is when she learned the power of her narrative.

Nagle has done research on laws for the indigenous people, as well as being an advocate and trying to acquire new laws to be passed.

In Baltimore Nagle did law work, she talked about the amount of layers and work it took to just get something moving and it might not ever even get changed.

Nagle mentioned after witnessing organized people advocating, it is even more empowering to make a difference.

She is best known for being a founder of The FORCE project, and her podcast, “This Land.” In her podcast she is passionate about making complex law issues easier to understand.

In “This Land” she also wants to bring to light all of the troublesome things happening in the native tribe. She said a lot of her listeners come away saying, “I had no idea.”

Nagle challenged non-indigenous people to become more engaged with indigenous culture, like, following native media, connecting with indigenous people, and even just following indigenous people on social media.

The big challenge the indigenous people face is that they feel that they have been erased from culture. They are not taught about in schools, talked about in the court system, or even showing up in something as simple as a TV show, says Nagle.

Nagle says that she maintains hope for the indigenous people by looking at her tribe and seeing where it was and where it is now.

Dr. Stephanie Masta was the moderator of the event, she was able to relate to Nagle as she is an indigenous woman herself.

Rebecca Nagle spoke her truth on her indigenous culture at a Purdue University Diversity and Inclusion event Tuesday night.

Nagle spoke on the hard issues her nation faces everyday. These include the hard facts that eight in every ten indigenous women are sexually abused.

“I believe in the power and voices of the people,” said Nagle.

As Nagle has dipped in many different sections of advocating from art, to teaching, to being a journalist and a writer, she says she wants to focus where her work can have the most impact.

Nagle has done research on laws for the indigenous people, as well as being an advocate and trying to get new laws passed.

She is best known for being a founder of The FORCE project, and her podcast, “This Land.” In her podcast she is passionate about making complex law issues easier to understand.

Which Americans are eating out again

People’s confidence is now being measured in their willingness to eat in a restaurant again.

A survey was conducted by Franklin Templeton- Gallup Economics over Americans going out to eat within the pandemic.

The findings were that people who had families were more comfortable eating out in public again, inside or outside dining.

Peoples political affiliation was also recorded. Republicans have dined in doors a significant amount more than Democrats.

The findings reflect the social aspects that come along with eating out. They think once members of their social circle start going back out more will follow.

More people are comfortable going into restaurants with the guidelines the food industry is making. Restaurants are reducing seating and now tables are placed six feet apart.

The alcohol industry has given a new meaning to Trick or Treat, according to Jerome M. Adams, who spoke at West Lafayette High School on Monday night.

Adams explained how alcohol companies are targeting young people to drink on Halloween and how dangerous it can be. He added that alcohol is the nation’s number one drug problem among youth.

The National Parent-Teacher Association puts on a “Halloween Ball,” which is an anti-drinking program. Adams is the honorary chairman of this year’s event.

Adams is traveling to different locations within the nation to inform people of the danger between our youth and alcohol.

I also find it scary that we continue to consider beer and wine as “soft liquor.” There’s nothing soft about ethyl alcohol, said Adams.

He talks about how the availability of alcohol to young people is part of the problem. The glamorization and society acceptance feed into the problem.

The National Institute on Alcohol abuse and Alcoholism reports that, currently four point six million teenagers have a drinking problem.

Adams added about how Saman, the ancient Keltic Lord of the Dead, summoned evil spirits just like the distilleries are to our youth around the time of Halloween.

“What I say is scary is the possibility of increased carnage on our highways. Last year alone 40 % of all deaths in young people were due to crashes, and about half were alcohol-related, said Adams.”

Adams encouraged the audience to be part of the solution by taking action by volunteering, donating, and providing resources.

“For their sake and our own, let us keep Halloween sane, safe — and sober,” said Adams.

West Lafayette High School will be partaking in the “Halloween Ball” this year. Adams hopes this event will encourage the youth to celebrate Halloween safely, not the way the alcohol industry wants.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The main reason why terrorists commit acts of terrorism is often time more to get attention, and not to kill or harm, said Micheal Stohl Dean of International Programs at a seminar Monday evening.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue University’s new campus, “Purdue NewU” was approved Thursday morning by the Purdue Board of Trustees, this is to meet the demanding needs of online education.