Final Blog Post: We’re Not Screwed Yet!
Against all odds, its actually happened.
Senate Democrats force vote to reinstate Net Neutrality
Senate Democrats got what they were looking for, the 51st vote. Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine supported the effort and backed the bill to halt the repeal of Net Neutrality. Today was last chance to halt Ajit Pai’s decision to repeal Net Neutrality in the short term and they did it. They are forcing a vote on a bill that will restore Net Neutrality. Now they just need a miracle to get it passed as the Republicans still control the House, Senate, White House, as well as the FCC. None the less, this day looks a little brighter for the future of Net Neutrality.
What a way to end this project. When I had originally proposed to do my story on Net Neutrality I had not realized that a few majorly important events would be taking place at the end of the semester. It certainly made for an interesting environment to produce my story, and I am very thankful it all worked out as well as it did. For the most part. My live video did not quite work out as I had planned it. I freed up my morning on Wednesday, May the 2nd the to drive down to Denver to attend a small business event in front of Senator Cory Gardner's office at 10 am. However, I had not been notified that they had delayed the event that morning due to rain and instead set it for noon. So, I had to think up something else in the next week. What I chose to do instead was use Facebook live to make a video on the article that had done so well for me on Reddit. I wanted to add my own spin to it though. So I decided to calculate out how much Senators sold out for per citizen of their state. I wanted to do this because I found it to be an engaging and interesting statistic that gave people a reason to watch my video.
So I posted this announcement to let our class know I was preparing to do my live video and what it was on. In the original post, I said that “ I’ll also be calculating how much per constituent these representatives sold out for.” I quickly realized that not only were the calculations harder than I thought to prepare, but there were just so many House representatives that it would be ridiculous to try. So I opted for just covering the Senators instead. Which, turned out to be a much better idea.
While the live video did have some rough spots, I expected it. I have always preferred to have multiple takes for my videos as well as having them scripted and edited before reaching the public. So this was a bit of an exploration of a new media for me. I really did enjoy it though and am pleased with how it turned out.
This project has been one of the strangest and engaging experiences of my college career and I am glad to have done it. But, I am also very glad it’s over. However, unlike my project, the fight for Net Neutrality is far from being over. The future is uncertain and murky. But, I am happy that through this project I was able to reach at least a few people and even potentially change some minds. It’s encouraged me to keep up with the issue and stay active. Thanks for reading.
