HAVING BALANCE

      For many people, balance can be difficult to achieve. Whether it's friends or your boyfriend/ girlfriend, work and at home life, or even diets, finding an equilibrium takes trial and error. With finals coming up, many students I know are extremely stressed, and some feel the only thing they can do is study all day. Don't get me wrong, I study a lot, because grades are important to me, but I've learned studying all day isn't always the best. With the amount of studying that I have to do, it can be a bit overwhelming. I want to be able to go home after school and let my mind rest up some, but I end up studying until I accidentally fall asleep. Personally, if I study and do homework after school all day, the next day at school, I just want to sleep. Everything, even small problems, pile up and make one big ball of stress. Lately balancing school and doing what I want has been a challenge, and I've noticed my friends feel that way too, so I decided to look more into their opinions.
      Amelia, one of my close friends says "most of my time during the week is spent studying." I invited her over after school the other day, she said she didn't want to because she wanted to study. I told Amelia that she would have the other days and over break, but she said that she wouldn't be able to have fun knowing that she had tons to do when she got back home. Over the week days she spends all day studying and stay up super late, so lately she has been tired and doesn't always work as efficiently at school. Another one of my friends, Sara said,"Its hard to balance school and life" She mentioned that she has to choose between friends and homework on a daily basis. She knows that if she spends time with her friends, her grades will be affected, but if she does the opposite, she might drift away from her friends.
     Balance is an important thing to have. Having balance organizes your life and helps you avoid problems. Don't wear yourself out everyday, take your time, but get things done. Balancing your time can be different for everyone because everyone has their own things to worry about, but there is one thing that goes for all. Don't invest all of your time into something all at once. It is important to give yourself time to relax.
   
*names in this article have been changed for their privacy*

MEDIA LAW

A new concept for me was libel. Libel is something that you can be arrested for, but still commonly occurs. To prove libel, you have to prove five things. The first one is defamation. Defamation is basically defaming someone by writing something that hurts someone’s reputation. This cannot be proved if the writing was written by someone in a government position and also can change with time. 

The second of the five is identification. When proving libel, the person you are accusing has to be able to be identified. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to include an exact name, and it doesn't mean it has to be a certain individual either. For example, you could say 'a sophomore cheerleader' or a basketball team.

Third is publication. To prove libel, the writing has to be public for people to see. The rules sort of fit together. You cannot defame someone if the writing isn't public to begin with, and you can't defame someone without saying who they are. 

Fourth is fault, this can be proven two ways. One, they had to have known that what they were writing was false or likely false. The other way would be to show that they didn't look into their claims or information well enough. 

Lastly is damage. The more damage that the piece caused/the more people who saw it is equal to the intensity or the punishment or consequences. Even though fake news is almost everywhere, this law helps keep the number lower. In law helps the world of journalism by providing the internet with quality news. This also helps bring attention to the real stories fake ones

FAKE NEWS

Fake news is all over the internet, but can often be hard to identify. For me especially, I am a bit gullible when it comes to fake news. On Instagram, my friend sent me a picture from a meme account. The picture said that Halloween would fall on Friday the 13th this year. This is an example of fake news and also shows that you can find it anything. I'm pretty sure most people would automatically know that it was fake, but that wasn't the case for me. I often believe everything that people tell me because I feel that I have no reason not to. 

Another thing that I often fall for is clickbait. I have always known what clickbait was an often able to identify it, but didn't know that it was considered fake news. Clickbait is when someone takes a small amount of the truth or what happened and over exaggerates it, sometimes to the point where it is completely untrue. 

Clickbait isn't only making something sound better than it really is, clickbait can also be just capitalizing words, using an excessive amount of exclamation marks, or even having a captivating thumbnail. I mostly see clickbait on YouTube, in fact many people that I watch use clickbait. People tend to use it to bring more attention to their video over another's. Even if you're just grocery shopping, you will see clickbait. When Waiting in line glancing at magazines, there are bolded words and dramatic expression trying to get you to buy the magazine, or to just simply read the article. You can find clickbait on products claiming that it is 'NEW' or the 'BEST PRODUCT'. You can even find it in coupon books, forcing you to come back for more. This is also commonly used in journalism. Some journalist stretches the truth for their headline. While some may call it strategy, it is actually just fake news and is everywhere.