Eye on the Triangle returned this week after a week off for N.C. State’s spring break, but this week’s episode was shorter than usual, giving you a preview of what the EOT team had in store for you in the week ahead. Read below to find out more. This week’s EOT covered the international (elections in Iraq) and the national (Health care) before zeroing in on the N.C. State campus (sports, Student Government elections and the Save Technician effort). Read more below.

NEWS
Newscaster Evan Garris  gave us the rundown of this week’s news from Obama’s health care plan to a California senator’s arrest. For these stories and more, check out the links below.

Obama aims at health insurance companies
Anti-gay rights California senator leaves gay bar, arrested for drunk driving
Biden visits Gaza
Despite terror against citizens, 62% of Iraqis head to the polls
Soldiers in Nigeria quell sectarian violence

SPORTS
As always, Tyler Everett gave us a breakdown of what happened in N.C. State sports this week.

To hear Tyler’s full analysis, listen below:

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EDITORIAL

Correspondent Evan Garris gave his opinion on the passed Health Care Reform bill.

Here are some of the points Evan made in his editorial:
The U.S. is the only industrialized nation in the world that doesn’t provide health care to its citizens.
Roughly 45 million Americans do not have health insurance.
Medical bills cause half of all bankruptcies.  Three-quarters of those filings are from people with health insurance.
The U.S. spends about $2 trillion on health care in a year—more than any other nation in the world.
Cubans have a lower infant mortality rate than Americans, and according to the U.N. Human Development Report, a longer average lifespan.

To hear Evan’s full segment, listen here:

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Send us your own thoughts about the issue to publicaffairs@wknc.org.

VIP
The candidates running for positions within Student Government have been campaigning their way toward the Tuesday, April 6 election. Eye on the Triangle is gathering these candidates together for a panel Thursday in the Talley Ballroom. The event will be broadcast live on WKNC and Wolf-TV. Make sure to check back for the full podcast.

If you’ve been checking the local news, whether online, on television or on paper, you may have come across stories detailing the fall of NCSU’s student paper, Technician. The paper, which has lacked an editor-in-chief since February, has suffered from staffing loss, overworked editors and tensions with their adviser, and budget cuts that have escalated over the years. Technician has been the student paper of NCSU since 1920, but has been produced daily since 2001. Former editor-in-chief (now public affairs director for WKNC) Saja Hindi was charged with creating a committee to detail out recommendations to the Student Media Board for the future of the newspaper and its search for an editor. In an effort to solicit feedback from staff members, students and alumni, project “Save Technician” was formed.

Vice President of the Society for Collegiate Journalists‘s N.C. State chapter May Chung and member Lucia Moser discussed Sunshine Week, a week dedicated to increasing awareness about open records laws, and the activities the NCSU chapter is hosting.

To hear previews of these events, check out the segment below:

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As always, e-mail us with comments, suggestions and gripes to publicaffairs@wknc.org, and keep nominating your friends for Wolfpacker of the Week!

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Since President Barack Obama’s election into office, health care reform has been a topic of heated debate among Democrats and Republicans. So this week’s Eye on the Triangle focused on this issue in several of our segments, giving both the Democratic and Republican perspective, as well as opinions from around the University and opinions from locals. If you missed the show, you can listen to the clips below, and you can also get more information on our interviewees and topics here. And if you are tired of hearing about the health care debate (though our segments are unique and a must-hear!), be sure to at least check out our Wolfpacker of the Week segment.

VIP:
Thanks to some of our friends’ connections in the political scene, Eye on the Triangle‘s Adam Compton and Saja Hindi spoke to U.S. Congressman David Price (D), serving N.C. district 4, and the spokesman for the North Carolina Republican Party Jordan Shaw by phone about each of the party’s stances on the proposed health care reforms.

N.C. GOP Chairman Tom Fetzer was scheduled to do an interview but canceled at the last minute due to a pending knee surgery.

You can watch a N.C. GOP video here on criticisms of the proposed reforms. You can also read a response from the N.C. Democratic Party on the president’s health insurance reform speech here.

Associate Professor of Public and International Affairs Steven Greene also gave his Eye on the Triangle his own analysis of the health care debate, a topic he has been discussing in his classes this semester. You can listen to the full segment from the show here:

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We also replayed Soundbytes from Sept. 7′s EOT about students’ opinions on health care reform, which you can access here.

COMMUNITY CANVAS
EOT’s Kelly Reid talked to local musician and licensed insurance holder Alex Maiolo about his role in leading HINT, Health Insurance Navigational Tool, which is part of the Future of Music Coalition, where according to Maiolo, “policy and law and music all sort of intersect — that’s where we are. Things that happen on Capitol Hill that affect musicians, that’s what we’re interested in.” Maiolo said his focus is on the health care crisis in the musicians’ community. To hear more about HINT, listen to what Maiolo told EOT:

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HEAR THIS
This segment was not free of a health care reform spin either. EOT’s Jacob Downey interviewed Mike McDonald, organizer of the Tom Cushman benefit concert scheduled for Sept. 27, from 3 p.m. to about 2 a.m. at White Collar Crime . Cushman, a local musician and veteran of the first Gulf War, was hospitalized for pneumonia a few months ago,  two weeks later hospitalized again due to lung failure and was admitted once again to the hospital last week. Eleven bands will be playing at the benefit concert to raise money for Cushman, who doesn’t have health insurance, to pay his bills. Read the Indy‘s article for more.

The song clips played in between segments of the show all came from songs from bands playing at the concert.

You can listen to Jacob’s interview here:

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WOLFPACKER OF THE WEEK

Wolfpacker of the Week, 2005 alumnus in English Language, Writing and Rhetoric Ben McNeely talked to us by phone about his new project, Modern Film Fest taking place Sept. 25 to 27. You can follow @modernfilmfest on Twitter for more information. Attached are some photos of the venue (courtesy Creative Commons, Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic) as well as the co-directors.

You can listen to Ben’s segment from the show here:

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Check back for updates about next week’s show. Send your ideas, comments, questions, suggestions and complaints to publicaffairs@wknc.org.

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