Media Ridealong: Her Campus

Her Campus is a new website run by student journalists and is described as “a colegiette’s guide to life.” It is an online-model magazine geared toward college women, and it has individual staffs at more than 120 campuses across the country. The website was founded by Stephanie Kaplan, Windsor Hanger and Annie Wang while they were still undergraduate students at Harvard in March of 2009.

Since its launch, it has formed content partnerships with several large magazines such as Seventeen and Self, as well as marketing partnerships with several companies like Juicy Couture, Pinkberry and Rent the Runway. Kaplan, Hanger and Wang have been named to Inc. magazine's 30 Under 30 Coolest Young Entrepreneurs, Glamour magazine's 20 Amazing Young Women, and The Boston Globe's 25 Most Stylish Bostonians.

In an interview, Her Campus’s chief executive officer and editor-in-chief, Stephanie Kaplan, said the three founders met while they were running Freeze, Harvard’s lifestyle and fashion online magazine. Once that website started taking off, they wanted to start something similar on a national scale, so they came up with Her Campus. She said all three women felt that there was a demographic not yet being met by the current media.

“There is a lot of media for teen girls and a lot of media for young women, but very little media targeting college women directly,” Kaplan said.

She said the founders did not have to raise money for the site. The site has been profitable from the beginning, she said, because they have kept costs low and have brought in enough revenue. What also helps is that they don’t have much competition, she said.

One of the company’s missions is to “define and provide a model for the future of online magazines by individualizing content.”

“Her Campus supplements news sites rather than competing with them,” she said. “We do not see any real competitors since no one else has a comparable model to ours of national content supplemented by local content, all produced by student journalists.”

The site is marketed mainly by word-of-mouth. Facebook and Twitter are the main traffic sources for the site. Even on the University of Florida campus, marketing for Her Campus can be seen everywhere, from flyers on Turlington Plaza to hand-drawn chalk advertisements on the sidewalk in front of Weimer Hall.

Kaplan, Hanger and Wang are the only three full-time, paid staffers. They currently don’t pay their writers, but Kaplan said they plan to make their first full-time hires at the end of the summer.

“Our writers benefit by getting clips and experience,” she said.

The website makes money by doing what Kaplan describes as “strategic marketing programs” for companies that are looking to reach the college market. Advertising is just a small piece of that plan. The programs often include sponsored content, product sampling, on-campus events and integrated branding on the site.

For example, Sara Kaner is a sponsored blogger for Her Campus at UF. She started writing in December, specializing in weight loss, exercise and diet. She is one of multiple people writing for the “Lose the Freshman 15” blog, writing about her efforts to lose weight.

The Freshman 15 blog is written by Her Campus staffers all across the country. It is a contest partnered with Self Magazine, and the best blogger wins a summer internship with the magazine in New York City.

As a sponsored blogger, she receives free products from her sponsors, including Sargento Cheese, Honest Tea, New Balance, Pop Chips and Truvia. Kaner blogs every day. She had more than 2,000 people read her first post, and on a good day, 600 to 700 people read.

“It inspires me that people say they can do the same thing I do and also work out and lose weight,” she said.

She tries to engage her readers as much as possible, responding to comments they make – whether good or bad.

“It’s the reality of the blog world – you’re gonna get the good and the bad,” Kaner said.

As editor-in-chief of UF’s Her Campus, Victoria Phillips is the last person to see any content that goes up on the website. She is responsible for the content management system, inputting all of the stories and making sure it uploads correctly.

And “content” includes more than just words. Phillips edits photos and video on top of stories.

One of her duties is making sure that the content follows what the national office deems appropriate for Her Campus. A region director reaches out every week to check in on stories, marketing and publicity.

“The national office does a great job of keeping everything cohesive and the same,” Phillips said. “The types of things I’m going to be publishing, and the way I’m publishing is going to be the exact same as Her Campus UC or Mizzou.”

They are only required to publish one story per section per week, but they update twice a day.

“We want to be the place students come when they want to know what’s going on on campus, when they want to procrastinate instead of studying for exams – we’re the website to go to.”

Blog No. 7

The future of the journalism industry has been a constant topic of conversation since I enrolled at UF. I always it was a very unclear future, but after these past two weeks' readings have shown me that in order to avoid what some consider an inevitable death, there needs to be dramatic changes.

The person who made the most impact on my opinion was John Nichols. Before watching the video, I would have never thought government-run media would be a good idea. In my mind, media should be totally separate from government to avoid corruption and bias. However, after hearing his argument, I must agree that perhaps government-run media is the only way to keep the industry alive.

The more I thought about it, the more I think the arguments of old-school media idealists have no ground. With the Internet thrown into the equation, it seems nearly impossible to charge people for information. When information spreads faster than wildfire, it's not feasible to expect people to pay for it. As Nichols puts it, "information cannot be caged and it cannot be stopped."

URLFAN

The two websites I submitted into ://URLFAN were The New York Times website, my favorite news site, and The Onion, my favorite “fun” site.
The Times placed eighth out of 3,783,534 websites. It was mentioned in 51,877 unique feeds and 337,604 posts. Bloggers mention nytimes.com on average every two hours. It listed three sites as more popular than nytimes.com: Myspace (No. 7), Google (No. 6) and Facebook (No. 5). It didn’t really surprise me at all that these websites outranked The Times. The website’s ranking was exactly what I expected it to be. I just hope it stays that high after installing its paywall.
The Onion ranked No. 90. It was mentioned in 8,855 unique feeds and 20,567 posts, being mentioned by bloggers an average of every 15 hours. I think this is one website that will grow in the future. They’re quite hilarious and they do a great deal of video and multimedia.

Tumblr

www.emilymarieblake.tumblr.com

Resume Wordle

Blog Wordle

My Blog, Wordled

Resume Link

My Resume

Case Study 12: Wordled Speeches

When I first visited Wordle, I just thought it was a tool that created cool-looking collages. But then I read further and learned that “the clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.” I think this could be an incredibly valuable tool for journalists.
    It can show what people, politicians and leaders deem most important, what issues are most prominent in the world. For example, the Inaugural Speeches link reveals how the tool can be used to compare the inaugural speeches of various presidents. By examining which words are most prominent, the reader can easily see what is most important to the leaders of their country. The New York Times does this to compare a speech by Obama with one by Bush, both on the economy. The Times concludes: “The objectives of the two speeches are of course different. Mr. Bush’s speech was intended to explain and calm anxieties, whereas Mr. Obama’s speech was intended to make the case for significant, permanent policy changes (which perhaps explains Mr. Obama’s relatively greater willingness to use terms like “crisis” and “failure”).”

Blog No. 6

    The future of newspapers has been the topic of conversation since The New York Times announced that it would be charging readers for online access if they view more than 20 articles per month. The question is, will people be willing to pay for their news? Are readers that loyal to The Times? As much as I would love to say yes, I don’t see this benefiting The Times. At first I thought it might work IF they included video in the 20-story limit. The Times has video that other newspapers can’t even begin to compete with. And although their writing is extraordinary, people can find these stories anywhere. The video, however, they can only find at The Times.
    Why would readers pay for something they can easily find elsewhere? To me, it seems counterintuitive to charge for stories but not for video. As Schaffer puts it in her response to our previous reading, “In looking to reconstruct journalism, I’d start not by asking how do we get money for what we’ve always done. I’d ask instead: How do we provide something worth paying for?” To me, outstanding video and multimedia is worth paying for. The LA Times makes an interesting point, too: “Journalists and media outlets will have to plunge into new territory and do it without any assurance that the extra work will make them enough money to keep reporting the news.”
   

Facebook

During my internship this summer, the editorial interns (the mere 12 of us) had lunch with interns from other departments of The Times. We went around and introduced ourselves and stated what department we were working with. At least one-third of them were social media and marketing interns. It became a joke, almost, among us editorial interns. Many of these interns were responsible for maintaining The Times's Facebook page and Twitter accounts. It became very clear to me that social media is becoming a huge part of the news industry, even at the most traditional newspapers. I would define "social media" as any website that promotes interaction among users.

Journalists are now using Facebook to promote their own stories and gain a more loyal readership base. Facebook allows them to see what their readers think of their stories, whether they "like" them or not, what comments they post. There is more interaction between the providers and recipients of news. And it's free, which is a major plus given the state of the media industry.

Many journalists (at least a lot of my fellow student journalists) also use Facebook to find sources. So many times I've seen statuses by my fellow J-Schoolers asking for help finding subjects ("Does anyone know anyone who ______?" "Have you ever ____? If so, message me!") This use of Facebook does raise some ethical questions. Is it acceptable to scope out sources through Facebook? I personally have never used the site in this manner, because I personally think it's a bit unprofessional. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's unethical. I think people at traditional media outlets would frown upon it, but as times change, I believe these methods of newsgathering will become more and more acceptable.

I think Facebook could be used to see what readers want to read before a journalists starts a story. The journalist could pose the question on their page, "what do you want to read?" and see how people respond. This would be a good way of maintaining a good relationship with readers and ensuring that they stay loyal as long as possible.

Story

This is a story I wrote for Orange and Blue magazine.

    “Welcome to my castle,” Dragan Kudjunzic says with a smirk, beckoning me into his cave-like office for what he calls our “intravein.” He removes his black jacket to reveal a charcoal shirt, buttoned to the brim so his neck is hardly visible. There are three jars of chocolates at the edge of his desk, and he signals me to try one of the round ones in the middle jar. 
    “I like to give my students something to sink their teeth into,” he says, the smirk reappearing.
    Dragan is a professor of Slavic and Jewish studies at the University of Florida and the pioneer of the undergraduate course Vampire Stories: Jewish and Christian Studies. He even has an Eastern European accent eerily similar to Count Dracula’s. But he made it clear that he doesn’t actually believe in vampires – except, of course, the ones that live inside every one of us.
    “There is something in vampires that are a part of us,” he said.
    Every human, fully fanged or still teething, has instinctive desires similar to vampires, he says. Even his students – whom he calls his “children of the night” – come to him with a hunger for knowledge. They crave the truth about the bloodthirsty villains haunting recent television shows and movies. 
    But Vampire Stories allows them to indulge in more than just the taste of the pop culture vampire and leaves them satiated with a deep knowledge about the real-life significance of the classic vampire tale.
    Christine Farina, a sophomore nursing student, said vampires had always been her favorite creatures of the night, a fascination that sprang from her adoration of Bram Stoker’s classic 1897 novel, “Dracula.”
    “I saw a course about vampires, and I figured you really can’t go wrong there,” Farina.    
    She expected to study the classic and contemporary vampire novels and films. What she didn’t expect was to learn how vampires shape modern culture, and that they roam our own country.
    “Before, vampires were just mythological creatures with no ties to real life,” she says. “Now I feel like I take them seriously.”
    “I urge my students to sink their teeth into the rich vein of vampire narratives,” Dragan says. “Once they do, they’re hooked.”
    He knows from experience. Because he’s been hooked for over a decade.

vEmpire: The Monstrosity of Our World
    He sunk his teeth into that rich vein back in 2000, when he was teaching at the University of California, Irvine. Born in the former Yugoslavia, now Serbia, Dragan moved to the United States in 1986 and graduated with a Ph. D. from the University of Southern California.
    After a close study of Stoker’s novel, Dragan was intrigued when he learned that the count, a 15th century Romanian prince, was avenging the battle of Kosovo. That battle, he said, fought by the Serbian troops in 1389 against the Ottoman empire, ended up in Serbian defeat but stopped the onslaught of the Turkish empire into Europe.
    Dragan started looking at the vampire’s presence in geopolitics, examining the rise and falls of the world’s empires, past and present. The more he researched, the more he started to believe that vampires do, indeed, exist.
    “I believe what vampires stand for. I know that to be real.”
    It’s a concept he coined vEmpire. Examining both the historical and modern geopolitical climate, he sees that humans have been waging the same war since the beginning of time: “good” versus “evil,” a dominant force versus “the other.” The vampire narrative is legend of this battle, though perhaps a bit more romantic. The world, Dragan says, views the vampire as something that must be destroyed or purified. In the real world, nations view their enemies as monsters, as entities that must be destroyed or, perhaps, democratized.
    “There is a constant monstrosity of ‘the other’ as repugnant and threatening,” Dragan said, citing the Holocaust as an example. The Nazis had their own definition of what was pure, and anyone who did not fit the blue-eyed mold was eliminated. The Holocaust is a disturbing portrayal of the vampire tale, he said. It’s chilling proof that the desire to purge evil is deadlier than any vampire figure, that human desire to destroy anything unordinary is eviler than any monster.
    But in reality, he said, there’s no one “good” side in the battle, as every culture – and every human – has a dark side.
    “Every culture is a culture of blood,” he said, adding that blood can stand for several resources, such as oil.
    Every culture, Dragan emphasized, including the United States. And what is the stage for a America’s production of the classic vampire tale? The South, slavery’s stomping grounds. And in this rendition, the whites are the monsters.
    “The white folks were feeding on blacks, and the blacks were left drained,” he said. 
    And though slavery is gone, vampires still roam in our own backyard. They even walk among us on campus. They sit next to us at football games. Take a closer look and you’ll notice that Albert’s and Alberta’s razor-sharp teeth may resemble those of Edward Cullen in the “Twilight” series. The seemingly harmless Gator chomp so many fans perform is alarmingly similar to a vampire’s bite.
    “Our university has a jaw as its totemic emblem; we want to devour the competition,” he said.

   
It’s All About Sex
    Destruction isn’t the only thing vampires want.  They want what everyone else wants. They want what every teenage boy daydreams about in Algebra II. They want sex.
    And luckily for them, vampires are downright sexy.
    “Vampires are frightening but enticing. They’re terrifying yet erotic,” Dragan said. “Everything about them is sexual.”
    Vampiric desires dwell in even the purest forms of affection, kissing. He says even most innocent pecks stem from our inner desire to eat one another.
    The vampire bite itself is a metaphor of sex, sex that sees no gender.
    “The mouth is not gendered,” he explained. “There is a unique fluidity of gender in vampires.”
    This sexy side of bloodsuckers is one of the main reasons the vampire narrative has become so popular in literature and film, Dragan says.
    But he makes it clear during the first day of class that “no bodily fluids will be exchanged in this course.”
    Farina said she knew Dragan was a different breed of professor on the first day of class. He walked in and immediately requested the class to pull down the light shades because “my skin is sensitive to light.”
    “He’s humorous in a different sort of way,” said Brett Pokorny, a senior journalism major enrolled in the course. “He does make some pretty bad jokes here and there.”
    Along with an abundant stock of tantalizing candies, Dragan promises an exciting course, and eternal life.
    “I guess that is why they keep coming back, the children of the night.”

Strat18

http://www.alligator.org/blogs/corrections/article_33e81b36-34bd-11e0-9774-001cc4c03286.html

Although this is a clarification rather than a correction, this shows the holes and bias present in the original version of the story. The story was about a debate at a student Senate meeting about a proposed legislation that would allow guns on campus. The story includes only one source for The Unite Party and one for The Progress Party. Carly Wilson, with Unite, supported the legislation, and the Progress Party senator did not. Although there is nothing factually inaccurate, only relying on these two sources makes it seem like The Unite Party is fully in support, but in reality the majority of them are not. The writer should have realized this. Skeptical editors would have questioned it too, especially if they had been keeping up with SG politics.

Blog No. 5

Even though there were only two readings this week, I learned a lot about the future of journalism. The most important lesson is that the journalism of the future needs to rely on the participation of the community and the cooperation of various organizations and the government. Newspapers can no longer expect to be able to report the news without the aid of these key players. Unlike in the past when people looked to newspaper editors and writers as people who were more knowledgeable, newspapers are now going to have to rely on readers' knowledge and cooperation to provide information in an accurate and timely manner.

Editing Exercise and Case Study

Chicago Murder Trial Begins for Former Model

Jeanette Sliwinski Killed 3 Beloved Musicians With Car in Bid to End Her Life, Prosecutors Say

They probably never saw her coming.

It was July 14,  2005. Lunch hour in Chicago.

Three local musicians who worked day jobs together at an audio electronics company were stopped at a traffic light in a Honda Civic in a suburb north of the city.

At a speed authorities estimated at 70 mph, a former model who police said was trying to kill herself ran three red lights and slammed them from behind in her red Mustang convertible.

Both cars flew airborne on impact, witnesses said, landing crushed upside-down on the pavement.

The three young men died. The woman walked away with a broken ankle.

More than two years later, Jeanette Sliwinski’s murder trial begins this week.

Sliwinski's lawyers have denied that she was attempting suicide. Her current lawyer did not return a call seeking comment on the case.

The crash and subsequent arrest brought Sliwinski Internet fame. Many blogs and Web sites have posted modeling pictures of Sliwinski since she was arrested.

Case Study
Especially after taking a look at the readings about linking, I would definitely not have included the links to the pictures of the model. A lot of the pictures are very risque, and I don't think they should be linked to on the website of a professional news organization. Also, the pictures just aren't necessary. The reader does not need to see these pictures to gain a better understanding of the story. A more appropriate use of linking would be to provide the link to the original story. That way, the reader could gain more background information about the case. If the reader really wants to see pictures of her, he or she can look it up. It's not worth it for the newspaper to damage its reputation, even if the website it is linking to is completely separate.

Cutlines

The Royal Caribbean cruise ship, the Monarch of
the Seas, sits docked at Port Canaveral prior to
embarkation on March 7, 2011. 

A towel animal, suspected to be a swan, rests on
a bed in a room of Royal Caribbean's Monarch
of the Seas cruise ship on March 7, 2011.

Charlotte Smith, 21, left, and Emily Blake, 21, right, head into
the crystal blue waters at Coco Cay, a small island in The Bahamas
owned by Royal Caribbean, on March 8, 2011. 

Cruise guests enjoy the sun by the pool on the
Monarch of the Seas on March 9, 2011. Guests
could also relax in one of the ship's two hot tubs.

A view of Nassau, The Bahamas, from the Royal Caribbean cruise
ship the Monarch of the Seas, on March 10, 2011.

Team Story ideas

Kofi Protests Continue – The buzz on the plaza is about today’s protest by The Coalition for Justice Against Police Brutality on the one anniversary of the shooting of a UF graduate student by the University Police Department. Instead of just covering the protest, we would expand the story to discuss recent administrative changes in UPD and whether or not the department has followed through with its promises. The bigger picture is how UF is different a year after the incident. Photos of today’s protest could run alongside an infographic on the UPD changes. Sources: UPD Information Officer, Protest Organizers, SG liaison to UPD.

Florida Alternative Breaks – As many UF students are preparing for a week of debauchery, several hundred will be spending their time off volunteering. The Center for Leadership and Service is sponsoring 15 trips this break. The bigger picture is what students can do on their breaks besides getting drunk in Mexico. We could try to find photos from last year’s trips, photos from their training or perhaps an info box with a list and synopsis of each trip. Online: a slideshow of pictures and video interview with previous participants. Video interviews with those who were helped last year. Sources: Center for Leadership and Service, Trip Organizers, Trip Attendees, those who were helped.

Blog No. 4

    Last week’s readings showed me how news organizations can use the Internet – their alleged enemy and downfall – to gain readers, and possibly revenue. There are a lot of websites, of both traditional and untraditional media organizations, that are doing really cool, original things with the Web. I think maps are a great way to present information, and using them to present news is an efficient and fun way to engage readers. Cincinnati.com’s CinciNavigator and The Washington Post’s TimeSpace are two examples of how news sites are using maps to allow readers to interact with the news. This is a great way to divide news into different regions, besides the traditional foreign and national news departments. Google also uses the map in a very effective – and possibly even lifesaving – way. Their Flu Trends maps out the areas in the country (and world) that are most susceptible to flu outbreaks based on what people from those areas are searching on Google. I’m not sure if this is a scientifically sound method for predicting outbreaks, but it is a great way of employing maps to display information that just wouldn’t be sufficiently communicated in words. And if it is a sound method, it could save lives, or at least a few doctor visits. 
    The Chicago Tribune’s Colonel Triune and Politifact’s Obamameter are more examples of how media organizations are trying to present news in a fun, engaging way. Colonel Tribune is described as the newspaper’s “Web ambassador,” and is designed to keep readers informed on the latest news. The Obamameter ranks the president’s success in fulfilling campaign promises through engaging graphics. I think the Obamameter is a very effective tool, but I’m not 100 percent sold on Colonel Tribune. I think the Colonel takes the “fun” side of news a little too far, and may come across as ______to readers. Newspapers have to trust that their readers are intelligent, and presenting the news with a fictional tour guide may be insulting to their intelligence.
    Of all the links listed on the blog, I found www.spot.us to be one of the most original and interesting ideas. I’m interested to see if the idea of readers funding news stories works out. Do people care enough about investigatory news to pay for it? If they do, this could be a very profitable form of journalism, though it defies all the traditional rules and ethics of the industry.
    This week’s readings again reminded me about the importance of being skeptical when editing. After reading so many bogus trend stories, I can’t help but wonder if any of these types of stories have any real worth. These stories often make assumptions given only a small number of statistics – figures that may not even be accurate. It’s with this skeptical eye that I read the letter/advertisement from the president and CEO of the Newspaper Association of America. Sure, he throws around some very convincing statistics about the strength of the newspaper industry, but what is he not telling us? He’s leaving out the alarming number of layoffs that newspapers have experienced in recent years, among others. I can’t help but read this wondering if he is just trying to reassure himself that his industry is not indeed dying. 

Case Study 8

    After reading all these bogus trend stories, I think I will be much more attentive when I come across one of these in the news. I was surprised as to how many established and reliable newspapers fell for the lies of various government organizations. It’s easy for reporters to attribute information to a spokesperson or “expert” without double-checking whether it’s true. I suppose when the information is coming from someone else’s lips, reporters seem to think it’s not their fault if it’s not true. Skimming through these stories, I made a list of words, phrases, etc. that should raise a red flag in stories about trends.
1.    The use of confidential sources, especially on issues that aren’t particularly serious. If the source refuses to be named, it might be because they don’t want the spotty information attributed to them. This is seen in the shoplifiting story by The New York Times.
2.    Many: What does this word even mean? One of the first lessons we learned in Reporting is to avoid this ambiguous, meaningless word like this. One person’s “many” could be another person’s “few.” If a reporter can’t get a number or percentage, he or she shouldn’t use the word.
3.    May/seem: This word, like “many,” means nothing in the world of news. There’s a lot of things that “may” happen, but they don’t make the paper because they haven’t indeed happened yet.
4.     Curious numbers and statistics: If a story relies completely on one study or one source for its numbers and statistics, an editor should be careful. When faced with numbers and statistics, I ask myself, “do these numbers add up/make sense?”
    I think what happens a lot of times is reporters are assigned to “go see if the economy makes people do this or that,” and they may find a few statistics to back up that it’s true, and a few people who are prime examples, and they deem it a trend. But you can’t let a few people represent an entire population. You can’t let a few numbers stand for the behavior of an entire nation.

Strat3

Story idea: How will  Obama’s changes to NASA affect the Space Coast economy?
1.    How much does the Space Coast rely on the Kennedy Space Center?
Will any jobs be lost as a result of the changes? (Especially contractors, engineers?)
Are there going to be any launches? By private agencies other than NASA, for example?
If there will not be any launches, how will the Kennedy Space Center be used?
How do local residents feel about the changes? Employees?
If there is an expected downturn in the economy, how are people preparing?
2.    Most of my previous questions revolve around change. How will the Space Coast be changed?
3.    The unusual: Perhaps finding someone who has gone to a lot of launches in their lifetime. I’m sure there’s someone out there who has gone to nearly every one. What are their thoughts?
4.    I enjoy reading from the perspectives of the people affected, so I would try to include that as much as possible.
5.    What is the Space Coast going to be known for now, if not for space? Its entire identity is changing. How are they going to advertise themselves to potential visitors as the Space Coast?
6.    Already talked about talking to the people most directly affected
7.    Who? Who is going to be affected most severely? Who is in support of the changes? Who is against them?
What? What are locals doing to prepare for potential changes?
Where? Where are potential tourists going to go if they choose somewhere other than the Space Coast?
Why? Why do people visit the Space Coast in the first place?
When? When will the economy start having real effects on locals?
8.    How are residents going to prepare? How will the Space Coast advertise itself? How many people are going to be directly affected?
9.
10.

Strat7

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20110226/ARTICLES/110229560/1169?p=4&tc=pg
This enterprise story, published in the Gainesville Story, is a sort of “one year later” story, following up on how the University of Florida’s student health center has adjusted to the shooting of UF doctoral student Kofi Adu-Brempong. Although the writer answers a lot of the questions I had, some holes remain. My first question is, have a significantly greater number of students utilized the health center’s services since they made their adjustments? I ask because I know personally that not many of my friends would feel comfortable going to a mental health counselor at the university. Do people who are mentally unstable really want to see a mental health counselor at a university? The way the story reads, it sound like the mental health center is just trying to make itself sound noble, saving lives and preventing suicides. But is this really true?