Jeanine L'Ecuyer

Jeanine L'Ecuyer came to the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Media to talk to some of the journalism students about her experience in Arizona during a prison scandal.
January 18, 2004 two male prisoners escaped to a prison tower with two hostages. While making their escape, the prisoners injured two other prison guards that received medical treatment.
Jeanine L'Ecuyer had been working as a spokeswoman for Governor Napolitano at the time. Given the circumstances of the event, it is safe to say that she was thrown into the lions den. Luckily, her history as a journalist helped her control the situation.
The government gave the media and viewers very little information about the prisoners and hostages. Names were not even provided until each hostage was released.
The hostages were Lois Fraley, a female prison guard, and another male prison guard. The male, Jason, was released before Lois. However, while being held hostage he was hit in the head with a shovel. When released from the tower Jason was immediately sent to the hospital for treatment. However, due to the severity of the injury, Jason became fully disabled.
Lois, on the other hand was held hostage for the entire 14 days. During the time, Lois was raped several times by both men, only having them stop after lying to them about having a bladder infection. She was also starved and physically injured. In the mean time, the two prisoners were being treated to pizza, cigarettes and anything else that the government and prison officials could trade for information or possible release of Lois Fraley.
While in the tower, the only form of communication or information the prisoners and Lois had was a radio. Lois said the radio was in fact the one that kept her fighting through all the physically, sexual and emotional trauma she was going through. She knew, because of the radio, that people were in fact praying for her and doing what they could to free her from the tower.
After 14 days, Lois was finally released and the prisoners were captured. Lois received medical treatment and counseling. The prisoners were sentenced to more life sentencing and were relocated to prisons closer to their families.
Jeanine L"Ecuyer explained that the media did everything they could to get information out of the government and prison officials. However, they were not budging. There were a few leaks, like the name of the hostages. However, they did not say the names on air after being asked by the government to refrain from giving names on t.v. Because of this, people at home did not know much detailed information about the prisoners and hostages. Today, however, with the popular use of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outlets, information would spread more rapidly and it would be harder to keep information under wraps after it was leaked and published online.
L'Cuyer made it a major effort to point out the importance of social media networks and the major role they play in news today.

pictures provided by Aubree Pearson

The OU Wire goes potluck

A Gaylord student advances her career by assisting in a video production in hopes to compete in the Sundance Film Festival this September.
The production consists of around 35 students who are mainly Film and Video Studies and Broadcast and Electronic Media majors. Given only a small budget to begin production, the students will be having fundraisers throughout filming, in hopes to raise $2400.
The film, "Potluck", is about a young man from Harvard named Simon who gets sent to OU with little money after getting in trouble at home. Simon finds himself in unfortunate circumstances once at the university and with the help of his roommate attempts to dig himself out.
Stephanie Townes, Sophomore, is a co-producer of the film and has high hopes that it will succeed at Sundance.
"Besides working with the OU Wire, I have not been extremely involved with my major, so when this opportunity came to me I was excited and nervous to jump on board," says Townes.
The film will be in production the remainder of the school year and must be finished and submitted to the festival by September.

Picture provided by Stephanie Townes

Big Event

The University of Oklahoma hosted its annual Big Event community service project this Saturday. For the event, various student organizations were put into teams and placed at different locations to serve. The locations of the students consisted of renovating and painting houses in neighborhoods for the less fortunate, helping at retirement centers, and other forms of community service.
Volunteer, sophomore Ella Thompson, helped paint a house in Norman for an elderly woman who could not afford to renovate her house herself.
"It was great being able to come together with my fellow students at OU and having the opportunity to help out in our community," Thompson said.
The university puts much time and effort into the preporation for the event and continues to have successful results.
Big Event team leader Kenzie Kirk explained the preparations for the event and why exactly it is important for OU to continue hosting Big Event year after year.
"The Norman community relies on the university students to host Big Event every year and it is important to keep students interested and excited in participating while attending OU," Kirk said.
Kirk claimed that the goal of Big Event is to make a difference and help out in the Norman community with the help of as many students as possible.
Big Event is a nonprofit community service project that has been successful for years and will hopefully continue for years to come.