The emergence and seeming dominance of cyberspace may have improved variety and access in the media. One can be tempted to use the overused adage “the more the merrier,” yeah? Well, my industry (newspapers) is anything but the merrier for it. Real hard news is taking a bludgeoning, continually. I daresay that as publishers’ worries about gloomy bottom lines and cost-cutting trump obligatory quality, we risk surrendering the traditional role of the fourth estate. It’s really sad.

“So much of nothing.” That’s how I feel about the proliferation of blogging and bloggers. It is often an exasperating experience when I read another analysis on the media about how newspapers in the country are cutting staff and editions or engaging their online forays to fight bankruptcies or extinction. As someone who has put in a good number of years plying this trade, I am vested in the future of newspapers. Need I play the old record of the somber present day?

With your indulgence, let me state that the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism has published its report titled “The State of the News Media 2010.” It painted the grim picture that for “far too many American papers,” they run the “risk of being insubstantial.” I hope that day never comes when one of the primary sources of history will be dinosaurs of our modern age. If I was looking for the gravity of the situation, I found it in this section of the report: “The plight of the industry and the erosion of journalism’s civic contribution have caught the attention of Congress and agencies like the Federal Communication Commission. There is little consensus with government – or even the industry – about what action would help or even whether government can be involved without damaging traditions of independence.” Exactly. Nobody (at least not me) wants to see a government bailout of newspapers. But…

If the newspapers are failing today, it is definitely not because they fail to run as businesses. Take our very own Sacramento-based McClatchy consortium, which owns some 30 dailies and 50 non-dailies distributed in 29 markets nationwide. They took over Knight Ridder newspapers in an expansion move. The past couple of years have seen them struggle to just stay in business. They have cut a third of their payroll, overall. They will be putting up bonds to pay off bank loans. Even as McClatchy CEO Gray Pruitt reports a reduction in their quarterly losses, it is still in the double digits. They basically run on a variation of refinancing like a mortgage owner.

Professionals in the news business are expressing the major constraints they face everyday to maintain the quality of news amid a dwindling staff to work with. The Society of News Editors reported they lost 2,400 staff nationwide in 2007. That number bumped up to 5,900 in 2008. An equally high number was axed in 2009. Advertisement revenues continue to be lost to online outfits, and even an adaptation of online marketing models is not enough.

So as someone who wants stay in the news business, do you want to look to television for rescue? Not so fast. Rephrase: do you care about good old journalism on TV as much as yours truly? Recently, I read Ted Koppel’s article in the Washington Post titled “Olbermann, O’Reilly and the death of real news,” in which he lamented the appalling reality that journalism or news reporting as we know it is no more in vogue. He was lamenting the activist and opinion-driven mode espoused and mastered by FOX (or is it FOX NEWS?) that was borrowed by MSNBC, apparently because that’s where the action and big bucks flow. People want to see their biases and beliefs reaffirmed on TV. Koppel said that it is being clear that among the rights our founding fathers envisaged, the “latest” is “news we can choose.” He stressed the danger of other professions that tell customers what they want to hear, claiming that Bernie Madoff types abound in the media.

After some four decades in the news business, Koppel knows that hard news was always an expensive business that hardly brought in profits. The entertainment and advertisement departments had to carry the burden. Foreign bureaus are a thing of the past for most media outlets. And who cares? Certainly not networks that cater to advertisers trying to reach mostly young audiences, who don’t care much for hard news. Alternative means of helping save the fourth estate are needed, direly. Foundations, trusts and private contributors with a little help from government, such as PBS and NPR, get by. Well, maybe I earlier misspoke ’cause I get much of my news from BBC that is government-funded and big on variety and news content.

Applying to UCD, I chose film studies partly because it was profiled as a program for students interested in journalism. Also, I don’t want an “insubstantial” career. Should good old journalism go extinct, pictures continue to tell a thousand words.

Reach FAYIA SELLU at fmsellu@ucdavis.edu.

Through the last nine columns, I’ve written at length about your health – what you need to do, what you can try, what you shouldn’t do, how you can do this and avoid that, why you should be healthy at all. While I tried to err on the side of simplicity, some of the advice could get complicated, the details too difficult to recall weeks later. So you might have forgotten every tip I labored onto paper. I’m here to tell you this week that it’s okay. Lucky for the both of us, all the advice I could ever hope to impart, and the only advice you ever really needed, was discovered by a long-ago marginalized Greek philosopher.

A little over 2,000 years ago, Epicurus authored more than 300 works on everything from ethics to physics. Few of those works survived history, but his core message seemed to make it through just fine: do what makes you happy.

What does the advice of Captain Obvious here have to do with a column on health? First, happiness is health. I don’t mean that happiness causes health or vice-versa. By this I mean your health means nothing without your happiness, and your happiness is nonexistent without your health. They’re not just related to each other. I mean that your happiness is your health. Second, the advice of Epicurus is not that obvious after all.

Pretend that Yoloberry makes you happy. If you were to follow Epicurus’ advice, surely you would do nothing but eat Yoloberry all day, every day. But even the most dedicated Yoloberry enthusiast couldn’t eat that much Yoloberry and still be happy. Your economics professor might call this the Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns. Common sense would call it moderation. Doing what makes you happy entails that you are keenly aware of what “enough” means to you.

For some reason, we don’t always do what makes us happy. Social scientists might characterize this as an inability to distinguish Near from Far, the short-term from long-term. For example, your 15-minute break between classes at noon might frame your food options as Near, which pulls you to the fast, cheap and easy option of CoHo pizza. When you get out of class, the decision to go home and nap is Near. Far is going to the ARC, even if we know it will be better for our health (and our happiness) in the long run. Doing what makes you happy also means thinking about your happiness in the big picture.

But this doesn’t mean you have to be perfect. And you certainly don’t need to be rational all the time. It wouldn’t make you happy to completely change who you are. To keep himself happy and healthy, Socrates danced every morning. Sartre would’ve gladly kicked the bucket if he had to give up smoking. Ninon de l’Enclos, a courtesan of Louis XVIII, wrote that life without love is not life, but prolonged illness. Julia Child was known to enjoy guilty pleasures minus the guilt. Doing what makes you happy leaves you room for you to be who you are.

A final bit of Epicurean wisdom is especially germane to finals. At his school-residence known as The Garden (I wonder if that sounded as sketch back then as it does today.), Epicurus and his students did not concern themselves with the public life of Athens. Unlike every other citizen charged with civic duty, Epicureans just didn’t worry much about politics. They didn’t worry much about the Pantheon of Gods either. In fact, they didn’t worry much at all about anything. Epicurus thought stress, more than anything else, was both the root and cause of all unhappiness. A particularly toxic form of stress came from things no one could impact. Doing what makes you happy means not stressing out about what’s out of your control.

That’s it. I’m confident that everything I ever wrote in this space comes down to this one-liner. The task now is to stop and think at each juncture about what exactly will make you happy. What will make you happy now, what will make you happy in the future, what you could live with (and without). To be sure, the answers will be different for everyone, even if the result should be the same. The stakes are pretty high. After all, doing what makes you happy is doing what makes you healthy.

E-mailing your thoughts to RAJIV NARAYAN at rrnarayan@ucdavis.edu will keep him healthy.

A penthouse in Manhattan, an editor position at Vogue – just two of the wishes I’d make if a magic genie were to now suddenly appear. Oh, excuse the Aladdin reference; I’m writing this column from home and am sitting beside my baby sister, who is currently in a daze watching the Disney classic.

The third wish – at the risk of sounding just a bit vain and slothful – is a complete sin: I’d wish to never have to work out.

I absolutely hate even the idea of working out – two of my biggest fears are sweat and body odor. But because of all the great food I devoured this past weekend, I’m almost up for a trip to the ARC. Almost.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way after a holiday notorious for its coma-inducing turkey feasts. But unlike many of you who will choose to run a little harder or eat a little healthier these next few days to compensate, I’ll stick to doing what I do best: Having wild, loud, it’s-been-a-while sex with my boyfriend.

That’s my plan of action: staying healthy and fit, one fuck at a time. After all, sex is vital to us as humans. In a WebMD feature on the health benefits of sex, Joy Davidson, a New York psychologist and sex therapist, backs me up: “[T]he idea that we are vital, sexual creatures is still looked at in some cases with disgust or … a bit of embarrassment. So to really take a look at how our sexuality adds to our life and enhances our life and health, both physically and psychologically, is eye-opening for many people.”

In my defense, sex burns calories. Though it doesn’t compare to a jog on the treadmill or a few sit-ups, it can help some. Studies show that a 130-lb. person can burn seven calories from having five minutes of rigorous sex. In half an hour, sex sheds anywhere from 85 to 150 calories, depending on how rough the lovers get. Sure, it might not seem like a big number now, but doing it a few times a week is sure to add up. And remember: the rougher the sex, the more calories burned.

Besides burning calories, sex can improve overall health and well being in many other ways. For one, it really does wonders for your self-esteem. In fact, it was listed as one of 237 reasons people have sex in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Even though I don’t really seek the boost in ego, I do go about my day with a little more pep in my step after a hot “good morning” romp. Or maybe I’m just walking funny for the obvious reason.

Though not scientifically proven, sex might also be able to relieve a little pain. During lovemaking (or even masturbation – I know not everyone has someone else around to tickle their genitals fancy), the brain releases a great amount of the hormone oxytocin, which could perhaps ease pain. So maybe instead of popping a Tylenol for that headache you get from cramming for finals, a good roll in the hay could be a more natural way to soothe.

Oxytocin can also help you fall asleep. And a healthy sleeping cycle does wonders for your body and mind. So if you’re tossing and turning, an orgasm could be just what you need to help you get to dreamland.

With winter right around the corner, colds and flus tend to come hand-in-hand with the frigid, rainy weather. But sex could help protect you: A study conducted by researchers at Wilkes University in Pennsylvania reveals that doing it once or twice a week can increase the level of immunoglobulin A (IgA), an antibody that defends against infectious bacteria and viruses, in your body. Of the 112 students who participated, those who reported having sex frequently had higher IgA levels than those who were abstinent and those who had sex less than once a week.

For men, regularly ejaculating in your 20s could help reduce the risk of prostate cancer in your 30s, 40s and 50s. Also, sex makes testosterone levels skyrocket, and while it’s more known for amping up sex drive, testosterone also strengthens muscles and bones. For women, estrogen levels rise, which reduces the risk of heart disease.

Lastly, sex significantly helps reduce stress. You don’t need me to tell you that we’re now at the end of the quarter, and a lot of us are beginning to feel the pressure with finals just a week away. But sex lowers your blood pressure, helps get your mind off responsibilities for a moment and helps you relax when you need it most. After all, it’s important you honeybees stay both healthy and calm before the storm of finals. So take my advice: Forget the apple. If you want the doc to stay away, try an orgasm a day.

MARIO LUGO really wants to keep writing in the winter, if you’ll have him. Did you enjoy all our sex talk this quarter? Or do you think he should’ve done things differently? Love him or hate him at mlugo@ucdavis.edu. But no matter what, he’s happy to have been your friend in the paper. Here’s to hoping he gets to do it again!