Snopes.Com...Problematic or Not?

I have heard of snopes.com before and I do tend to use it. Not for urban legends (though I have seen those there before) but I have used for fact checking articles or when I feel I want a story verified before posting. Snopes has actually been there for quite some time on the internet and thus I feel I can give it a certain level of trust—meaning it has never been wrong for me. I can’t say if it’s been wrong for other people. The layout for Snopes is kind of in two things. Urban Legends and Conspiracies or things like what they call “Fact Checks” and that is usually a news story or something political has come out that needs to be fact checked. The ratings run from “True, Mostly True, Mostly False, and False”.  Much like political fact checking websites when it is a fact check they seem to have everything together and it seems to be correct. They also fact check news stories that come out and gather steam—especially hot button issues such as the Syrian refugee crisis. As far as coming under fire I’m not sure how they have come under fire because I’ve never seen any bias they have. However, I did notice some articles from conservatives….I’ll politely say whining that they have a liberal bias because supposedly since it is a 2 person husband/wife team doing research they can’t possibly be right and that in general they have a liberal bias in their Snopes articles when this is simply not true. The two people aren’t even politically involved in anything.  

In general I don’t find anything wrong with using Snopes to fact check an urban legend, a conspiracy theory or a current event and would trust their site for information. 

Assessing The Sentinel and the concerns of students at KSU

I looked today at the archives of The Sentinel which is the KSU Newspaper. Every issue has listings about events and some features like Opinions, Sports, and Arts & Living etc.  Some concerns or articles I saw right away weren’t exactly linked to campus concerns. One article for example was about the various political debates and who students liked and supported. Unsurprisingly, Bernie Sanders has a lot of support because of his support for free public college for all. It also stated he has support among Republicans because of the behavior of the Republican candidates. I also saw an opinion piece featuring a discussion of Planned Parenthood and the government funding it receives. (Though honestly it shouldn’t have been published being that it was just the same garbage opinion being bantered about by two people that PP are supposedly selling parts which isn’t true but I’m not here to get into an argument. It should be two opposing opinion---but that’s just my feelings on the matter.)

Other stories in those particular issues where contrasting opinions on college life—and in that I mean should students be focus on “living life” or the “carpe diem” approach or “focusing on career and grades”.  Both are important to students—especially young students who are just starting their lives. I read some more opinion articles focused things like the lack of acknowledgement from the KSU administration about Hispanic History Month which honestly is pretty bad not to acknowledge. I expect better since my small technical school even acknowledged it. Another important story was the concerns about consolidation. This is something that affects me because had it not happened I would be an SPSU student—not KSU and I feel like the consolidation has kind of bungled things for many SPSU students and potential SPSU students. I also know there is parking issues on campus and I saw this mentioned a couple of times in little comments. They are called Owl Yaks and there are lots of little things said. It’s kind of cute.

An article I read about which seemed to be a big deal was the recent shooting near campus. Many students discussed that while they felt they still were safe on campus the police on campus and emergency notification department on campus did a bad job of notifying people about what had happened. Unfortunately, this effected some off campus housing nearby and the students were inconvenienced so while they may have been scared by the shooting they don’t like how they’ve changed the hours for some amenities.

Overall, I would say that still parking, safety, how to balance college life, and their future are the concerns of this campus and population.