Alicia Graves

How one UCC student found her voice through journalism and continues to pursue it during her time at University of Oregon.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The time comes when silence is betrayal.” The time to break the silence has come again for the survivors of sexual abuse with the #MeToo movement.

What began as a simple hash tag trending on Twitter and Facebook in October 2017 has grown with millions of men and women proclaiming their independence from sexual violence.

I am a #MeToo.

It seemed simple enough to say those words when I first posted it on my Facebook page.

Agatha Christie, the queen of suspense, is arguably one of the best female authors in the past century. Known for her slight-of-hand murder mysteries where the killer is often introduced within the first chapter, her books have sold millions of copies, inspired board games like Clue and have been the basis for television episodes including “Family Guy’s” “And Then There Were Fewer” and the BBC’s “Miss Marple” series.

“Murder on the Orient Express” is one of Christie’s best-known stories.

Soldiers are often hailed as the heroes in a battle situation. But when the battle is done, the war is over, and it’s time to come home, they must discover who they are. Returning to civilian life is by no means easy for most.

When visitors enter the Student Center and approach the information desk, they may be greeted by a tall young man with a warm smile and arm tattoos. Rhys McMahon, as an ambassador for Diana Kelly at the front desk, happily greets, directs and assists those who call in or stop by. As the president of UCC’s Veterans Club, McMahon is a newcomer to the campus who began his schooling here in 2016.

However, McMahon’s journey didn’t begin here. He describes his life prior to attending UCC as “a whirlwind of experiences.” Born in California, raised in the Ohio state foster care system from the time he was two months old, McMahon is no stranger to struggles. He remained in the system until he enlisted in the U.S. Army. State-side, he was with the 101st Airborne Division for seven years. “My first deployment was from 2007 to 2009 in Iraq, a little south of Baghdad. In Afghanistan, I was part of the main surge that went in and took control of Kandahar, Afghanistan during 2010- 2011.”

Progress is not always an easy road to travel. Many roadblocks stand in the way, hampering some voices. In a show of solidarity on Jan. 21, 2016, five million worldwide marched regarding many of the issues facing America. The Women’s March on Washington extended throughout the world with every age, gender and race represented. What started as a movement in protest of President Donald Trump’s lack of respect for women and their rights became a symbol for additional neglected issues, including con

This past week has been a trying one for many in America. As the leadership of the country moves from one administration to another, changes are inevitable. Concerns surround what those changes are and how they will affect the populace in the future. As uncertainty rises, so does the need to speak out our thoughts, hopes and fears as we see these changes come about. Media is often the source we turn to in order to get some semblance of answers. What do we do when those outlets become unreliable?

Temperatures were chilly, and the skies threatened rain as families and friends gathered on the grass in front of the Stewart Park stage Saturday, Oct. 1 to remember the lives lost and affected by the shooting on Umpqua Community College’s campus just one year prior.

Several of the area’s religious leaders offered prayers and words of comfort to the gathered crowd, which was smaller than last year’s original gathering. Event coordinator Pastor Grant Goins from Douglas County Evangelical attende

More than 50 people gathered on the front lawn of the Douglas County Courthouse for a candlelight vigil to show solidarity for those slain in Saturday’s shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Including the shooter, 50 people are dead and 53 others are injured.

People held candles, sang songs of comfort and listened solemnly the name of each victim from Orlando was read. Others expressed grief about the victims in Orlando and shared personal stories.

Susan Sontag, author and filmmaker, once said, “All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.”

In the media arena, photojournalists are storytellers in their own right, conveying emotion, freezing moments in history that may last for centuries. As they capture events and situations one picture at a time, nothing seems hidden, as many celebrities can attest to.

When the media circus came to town Oct. 1, the day of the school shooting, the community was not only inundated with reporters and their microphones, but also with photographers and their cameras. The images that came from that month are still burned into our minds, and questions are still being raised as to why some of these photos were published. After I saw the images of campus on Oct. 1, I shut down and stayed away from media for days even though I’m a journalist.

Pictures are indeed worth a thousand words. Our emotional reaction to images is almost instantaneous while words create a more delayed response. Recently, E.A. Holmes and A. Mathews at the University of Oxford confirmed “that imagery does indeed evoke greater emotional responses than verbal representation.”

Photographer Michael Sullivan, who works for the local newspaper The News-Review, provided many of the unforgettable images of Oct. 1 that accompanied stories by reporters Ian Campbell and Troy Byrnelson.

The tendency to blame the messenger rather than the message may be human nature; it certainly has been applied universally to the media who report disasters and tragedies such as UCC’s Oct. 1 school shooting. But is that anger misplaced?