.
How Do We Know What to Believe in the Presidential Campaign?
Jessica, a Media Smarts student, writes:
“I received this forward from a friend not too long ago and it kind of freaks me out. Especially where it lists Obama’s tax policies. I normally wouldn’t pay too much attention to forwards, but this one sources its information. I am just curious as to what your take on this is? I could ask my parents, but I don’t necessarily want the conservative version of whether this is accurate. If you have time it would be great to hear your opinion. The election is so close and I just want to make sure I have all the information before I vote. Thanks!
Professor Pease replies:
Yikes, Jessica. This IS a bit frightening (of course, it is Halloween). I’m not well enough versed on all the comparative policies to give you a reality check on all this (except that I’m a little suspicious of any supposedly independent/neutral source that would have misspelled Barack Obama’s name....).
I do see a number of misrepresentations of both candidates’ positions, at least as I understand them. If this freaked you out, Jessica, that was clearly the intention of the sender. I Googled “Obama-McCain comparison” and found a number of sites, some helpful, some not so much. The problem is that you don’t know who has put this stuff together, and with what intention (sound like a media literacy issue?). Where did your comparison table come from, for example?
Take a look at this site, for instance, by a self-described “Southern ex-conservative” (?), who goes through your comparison table point by point. I don’t know whether to trust this site, either.
What I do know about Obama’s income tax proposal is that it would raise taxes on those in the highest income brackets—way past anywhere I’ll ever be, for example—and reduce taxes on lower- and middle-income people. He also would cut back on tax benefits to big companies (Exxon just reported record earnings for the most recent quarter—$11 billion-something—while everyone else is tanking...how does that work?).
One way to evaluate all the claims, so many of which are partisan in one direction or the other, is to look for sources that you find credible and see what they think. That’s one reason newspaper endorsements can be helpful (as per some of our previous discussions on SmartTalk). But you have to know the newspaper’s history in order to know whether you agree with its position. Here’s a story from the Chicago Tribune that provides an overview of recent newspaper endorsements (and if you click on the Editor&Publisher link (that's a newspaper trade mag), you get the full list of what newspaper has endorsed whom). And click on this site for a handy U.S. map of endorsements.
WAIT! Here's a pretty good one, from CNN I can't seem to find this kind of thing from the NYTimes, but this is what I’d want—comparisons not from some blogger or some partisan whacko (left or right), but assessments from a more credible, neutral source. Of course, some would say that CNN or the NYTimes is no more neutral or fair and balanced than Fox (although I believe they are).
And perhaps the most non-partisan, neutral source might be Factcheck.org from the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
I’m afraid there's really no easy way to do this—it’s like studying for an exam. But I do think the comparison table you were sent is not as accurate or dependable as some of these other sources.
Thanks for asking, Jessica. It is a tricky thing to figure out. Did you see Obama’s 30-minute “informercial” the other night? Very impressive, both substantively and in the ways it framed him and the issues. Just like what we’re studying.....
Good luck to all of us in making sense of this.
TP
Friday, October 31, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Campaign '08—Coverage Varies, Study Finds
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Wednesday, October 29 — Where one goes for news about the presidential campaign makes a real difference, according to a study of campaign coverage released today by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.
The study offers hard evidence of an ideological divide between two of the three cable channels—MSNBC and Fox News—while CNN’s coverage resided somewhere in the middle. On MSNBC, the story was more favorable for Barack Obama, and unfavorable for John McCain than in the press overall. The Fox News Channel provided nearly mirror image of MSNBC’s coverage. CNN’s coverage, while more typical of the press generally, was also more negative than the press overall.
Traditional network news, in contrast, did not reflect any such ideological divisions. The nightly network newscasts tended to be more neutral, and less negative, than the press overall. On the morning network shows, Sarah Palin was a bigger story than she was in the media in general.
In print news, online stories tended to be driven by poll data. On newspaper front pages, which tended to be the morning-after stories, McCain was covered more harshly than in the overall media.
These are some of the findings of the new PEJ study, which examined 2,412 stories from 48 outlets during the time period from September 8 to October 16. The report is a companion to a study released October 22 about the tone of coverage overall. This new report breaks down the coverage of tone by specific media sectors—print, cable news, network television and online. The Project, which is part of the Pew Research Center in Washington D.C., is funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Read the full report online.
The Color of News:
How Different Media Have Covered the General Election
Wednesday, October 29 — Where one goes for news about the presidential campaign makes a real difference, according to a study of campaign coverage released today by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.
The study offers hard evidence of an ideological divide between two of the three cable channels—MSNBC and Fox News—while CNN’s coverage resided somewhere in the middle. On MSNBC, the story was more favorable for Barack Obama, and unfavorable for John McCain than in the press overall. The Fox News Channel provided nearly mirror image of MSNBC’s coverage. CNN’s coverage, while more typical of the press generally, was also more negative than the press overall.
Traditional network news, in contrast, did not reflect any such ideological divisions. The nightly network newscasts tended to be more neutral, and less negative, than the press overall. On the morning network shows, Sarah Palin was a bigger story than she was in the media in general.
In print news, online stories tended to be driven by poll data. On newspaper front pages, which tended to be the morning-after stories, McCain was covered more harshly than in the overall media.
These are some of the findings of the new PEJ study, which examined 2,412 stories from 48 outlets during the time period from September 8 to October 16. The report is a companion to a study released October 22 about the tone of coverage overall. This new report breaks down the coverage of tone by specific media sectors—print, cable news, network television and online. The Project, which is part of the Pew Research Center in Washington D.C., is funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Read the full report online.
Palin Mis-Mediated?
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“If you watch Fox News talk-show host and commentator Bill O'Reilly (which I do every night), there is no question that Palin has been treated unfairly by the mainstream media. … But while partisans can dismiss the depiction of Palin as the product of liberal media bias, the abandonment of the Alaska governor by mainstream and credentialed conservative columnists and politicians cannot be explained away the same way.”
October 28, 2008 · Let’s start with a hypothetical. Suppose Arizona Sen. John McCain loses the election. Do you think Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin emerges from the campaign a net winner or a net loser in terms of her relative position inside the Republican Party and on the national political scene?
On the plus side you’d likely never heard of Sarah Palin and now you certainly have. In politics, that’s like going from last place to first, from cellar to the World Series. Palin is the Tampa Bay Rays of Republican politics. On the campaign trail, she proved enormously popular. She made the accusation “palling around with terrorists” a national catchphrase.
The downside, the damage to Palin’s reputation, becomes the long-term political question. Palin’s interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric and Tina Fey’s impersonations of Palin on Saturday Night Live cast the governor as out of her league. She attracted to her rallies the true believers of the GOP, and the combination of her fiery rhetoric and her audience’s intense dislike of the senator from Illinois created moments of political anger and passion. Barack Obama’s race suffused these moments with interpretive uncertainty. Was this acceptable conservative vs. liberal or unacceptable white vs. black? If both, then in what measure? Any reporters who believe they know the answer should be more wary of what they think they know.
If you watch Fox News talk-show host and commentator Bill O'Reilly (which I do every night), there is no question that Palin has been treated unfairly by the mainstream media. That point of view is passionately shared by the vast majority of conservative media and Republicans in general. In the long term, that will help Palin recover from her political wounds. But while partisans can dismiss the depiction of Palin as the product of liberal media bias, the abandonment of the Alaska governor by mainstream and credentialed conservative columnists and politicians cannot be explained away the same way. That is a comeback hurdle that will be harder for Palin to clear.
And what about the liberal media, anyway?
I spent my teenage years in Durham, N.C.; my father was a professor at Duke University. From the early ’70s on, we had season tickets to Cameron Indoor Stadium, and I became an avid Duke basketball fan. There is no fan in all of sports more familiar with the accusation “your team won because the referees were in the tank” than Duke basketball fans. And at no time were these allegations louder than while Duke was winning five Atlantic Coast Conference titles in a row. Duke won because it was “8 on 5” (five Duke players plus the three refs against the five opposing players). If you ask fans of other ACC teams, there is no question but that this is true.
Well, was it true? Bias is in the eye of the beholder. The charge should never be dismissed outright, nor should it be taken unreservedly to heart. There is always the possibility that Duke was better.
- Related Stories: Oct. 17, 2008: Blaming The Coach: McCain's Misfortunes
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Smarts: Critical Analysis Essays
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Smarts students write at least two critical analysis/reaction papers each semester. These should be 3- to 6-pages in length, applying the course content (theories, lectures, readings, etc.) to a mass media issue, book, reading, film, etc., in the context of the course’s central theme about the mass media: How do we know what (we think) we know about the world?
Below are 1) general directions on the analysis papers; 2) evaluation criteria; and 3) examples of current student papers that earned A’s.
During the semester, you will write (at least) two critical analyses on topics that are part of the Media Smarts curriculum. These may include:
• Movie Night screenings
• Readings/essays
• Events
• Media coverage/analysis of events
A Media Smarts Analysis Essay is more than just your reaction (“This sucks!”), but—as outlined in the syllabus—should be your thoughtful, well-reasoned, critical examination of the media and society issues involved in the topic of your choice.
That’s correct—the topics are up to you (with instructor approval). The instructor will offer some options—films (e.g., Absence of Malice or The Front Page or Broadcast News or The Paper, etc.) that deal with the ethos and pressures and performance of journalists and how they see their role in society; or events that will occur during the semester (e.g., John Bul Dau/Lost Boys of Darfur, or Matt Wald and environmental journalism—and how the world media tell the story); or take an essay like Alana Taylor’s critique of journalism education as a starting point; or review a book on media and society that interests you (lists are available).
Your essays will address the content of your chosen subject film/essay/book in a detailed assessment of its strengths and weaknesses. Don’t just regurgitate it— explain its arguments and themes and relate them to what we’ve discussed about how mass communication and society interact. Most films, etc., have their own perspectives—what is your film trying to achieve? Are you being convinced? Why? What communication processes are in play, either in the content or in the author/director presentation? Discuss why and how, in your view, your film/whatever is or isn’t compelling/effective.
Incorporate references to readings in this class (including the key mass communication theories we’ve studied) or from other authoritative (not Wikipedia!) sources that support your arguments. That is, your paper should include your critical reactions and arguments based on additional authoritative research (articles, scholarly papers, books, news media, etc.) that you cite (include full citations at the end).
Be sure to include specific examples to illustrate and support your points, and typing them to the central theories and, ultimately, to the course’s central question. I want to see that you have engaged in your topic, evaluated it critically and in detail, and have engaged your brain to synthesize other material relevant to the study of mass communication and society in the context of your subject.
Mechanics:
Critical essays are 3- to 6 pp. (~1000-2500 words, not counting references), typed and doubled-spaced in a 12-point font. They will be evaluated on the basis of a) content, b) synthesis, c) argument, and d) mechanics (see evaluation criteria below).
Essays are due within a week of an event (Movie Nights, speeches, etc.), or may be scheduled with the instructor. One essay is due before midterm (Oct. 11) and the second before the final class meeting (Dec. 4). Additional essays are possible with the instructor’s permission.
MediaSmarts • Critical Analysis Papers Evaluation Criteria
Critical Analysis essays are evaluated on the basis of the following:
1. Content: Substantive review of the book/movie/event/subject being analyzed; use of substantive other sources in discussing the subject and constructing the critical argument.
2. Synthesis: Discussion/evaluation of subject in the context of relevant mass communication theories, external sources, in relation to the course's core theme: How do we know what we think we know about the world?
3. Strength of argument: persuasiveness of critical argument/assessment, supported by other sources; depth and insight beyond the obvious and beyond personal opinion;
4. Mechanics: Writing, grammar, spelling, etc.
Examples of “A” Essays
Reality
By Tamara Jeppson
The film “God Grew Tired of Us,” along with speeches by John Bul Dau (one of the lost boys of Sudan), raises questions about what we know or think we know and how we came to gain that knowledge. The majority of Americans will never go to Africa and out of the small number of people who make it there, an even smaller number will reach Sudan. While it is the minority that will every set foot on the continent of Africa, let alone the country of Sudan, we all seem to think that we know what it is like there. We base our knowledge on what we see on television, read on in the newspaper, or hear on the radio but sometimes the people, places, and events of the world are incorrectly portrayed in mass media or they are not shown at all.
Media representations can lead to the development of prejudices based on race, gender, size, and other physical characteristics. Television and movies often portray African American males as aggressive, menacing, or unruly (Coltrane and Messineo, 2000). While mass media cannot tell us what to think a steady diet of media messages, that are similarly framed, can influence how we perceive the world around us and promote opinions about the people and places we do not normally come into contact with (Pease, 2008). The lost boy’s neighbors in America initially feared the boys because their opinion of young black men was based on negative media messages. As result the police asked the boys not to gather in large groups because it frightened people. However, the people who got to know the lost boys realized that the media stereotypes were incorrect and the lost boys were not mean or aggressive.
On the other hand, the lost boys were told that America was violent place. They were told that American girls where crazy people who would shoot the boys if they were rude. In the movie, Dau mentions that he was told that walking the streets of New York would get him killed. However, once the boys had gotten to know American girls and walked the streets they realized it was not as dangerous as they had first been told.
In America, Africa is usually portrayed as an undeveloped, often savage country. The people who live there are shown as aboriginal. We tend to think of them as poverty stricken, lacking homes, and living in the wilderness. In “God Grew Tired of Us” a lost boy is shown talking to a group of young children at a swimming pool in America. One of the children asks the lost boy if he lived in the forest in Africa. To the lost boy this is an odd question. People cannot live in the forest; they live in homes. A home in Africa may be very different than a home in America but to the lost boys it was still a home. The home may be a mud hut and it may lack the technology the American people are use to but it does not mean that the lost boys were not happy there. Dau mentioned in both movie and speeches that he loved his home in Sudan and he was happy there; to him it did not matter that his Sudanese home lacked the technology that his American apartment contained.
I think that the purpose of the film “God Grew Tired of Us” was to educate people about the problems in Sudan but also to show how little the people of Africa and America know about each other. The mass media do not have the time or space to tell every aspect of a story; the stories are framed to emphasis certain aspects, minimize others, and leave some parts out all together. Framing can lead to a distorted view of the world, if the story’s audience blindly accepts what they are told. To gain a more accurate view of the world, consumers of media messages must think about the framing – what is the purpose of the message and what is being left out? The ideas that the lost boys of Sudan and the people of America had about each other before they met and how those ideas changed after they got to know each other helps to show how different the media’s reality can be from the actual reality.
Coltrane, S. & M. Messineo. (2000). The perpetuation of subtle prejudice: race and
gender imagery in 1990s television advertising. Sex Roles, 42. Retrieved Oct. 2, 2008, from http://www.springerlink.com/content/h178421623515025/
Pease, T. (2008, Aug. 21). Media smarts – theories. Message posted to
http://askdrted.blogspot.com/2008/08/media-smartstheories.html
Matt Wald—So what?
by Lorene Nance
My response to Matt Wald’s presentation earlier this week was, “So what?” I had a hard time really pulling any useful information from his presentation because, at the end, I couldn't look back and really see any call for action, or even any particular attention drawn to one alternative source of energy or anything. Altogether, Mr. Wald was strikingly knowledgeable and—this is the key—objective. This was a surprise to me because I expected to hear him set more of an agenda and frame the issue differently (or at all, really) in his presentation.
Mr. Wald’s method of presentation showed the effects of our media environment. We have talked about the media’s inability to tell us exactly what to think regarding issues and their knack for telling us what issues to think about, but on the issue of global warming, this theory seems to be questionable. Based on Mr. Wald's remarks, global warming is an issue that, contrary to that theory of agenda-setting, the media has told us more exactly what we are to think regarding the issue. They have told us that global warming is reality, not myth; that global warming is caused by human activity, not just the natural cycle of the Earth; that lowering carbon emissions is the best/only way to combat global warming; and on and on and on.
This was apparent to me in the fact that Mr. Wald didn't even acknowledge any opposition to global warming: all “mainstream” media sources report global warming as an absolute fact, so we as members of the general public are expected to accept it as fact or be ridiculed as some ignorant radical (even though the combination of the two seems contradictory). The fact that he didn’t intentionally address this—his only mention of the “fact” that “most scientists agree that global warming is caused in large part by human activity” came only as in answer to a question after his prepared remarks—automatically makes me wonder about semi-recent changes in our global media climate. Within the last five to ten years (so, a large part of my rememberable life), global warming has come from being a fringe issue contained to the scientific and earth-loving society to a central focus of many people today that motivates daily decisions. Or at least so it seems...
As I was researching this issue, I found a wealth of information that was actually quite overwhelming, making it difficult to determine the quality of any one source. Any position I could think of regarding global warming, I found. But, for the most part, each article that I found on the subject was very authoritative, leaving no ifs, ands, or buts about the author's view on global warming. As I sifted through, I found some very interesting viewpoints and information that leads me to suggest that the American public, in general, feels much like I did during my research: overwhelmed.
As Warren Anderson observes, “As the noise from [the issue] has increased, it has drowned out any debate.” He also discusses mass media's tendency to “hype” climate change, reporting that the New York Times, among others, has anxiously warned of four different climate changes, both warming and cooling, in the past two centuries.
So it’s no wonder that Americans are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information. Add to the sheer volume the number of different arguments for and against global warming that have floated around for the last ten years, and you end up with a generally confused people who are forming opinions—but aren't overly confident in the information that they have been given and the “facts” upon which they are basing their opinions. In short, average Americans, at least on the issue of global warming, are becoming media skeptics, and asking how it is they know what they (think they) know about the global warming. Several different studies and polls have shown this:
• A strong majority of Americans believe that global warming is “a real and serious problem” requiring action, but only a very slight majority believes that the scientific community is in consensus on the issue. Those who advocate action are divided on the time frame in which action is required and the cost: immediate steps with higher cost versus gradual, low-cost steps. But, when respondents were asked to presume that the scientific community is in consensus on global warming as reality, “support for taking high cost steps increases to a majority.” (Global)
• 80% of respondents in a 2006 poll believed that global warming is “probably occurring,” but over 60% were not “very sure” of it, linking their uncertainty to their belief that the scientists were in disagreement about the issue. (Langer)
The fact that I am not the only world citizen who is unsure what exactly to think regarding global warming is somewhat of a relief, both for my own uncertainty and for the knowledge that not everyone is as advocate-ready as the media personalities. However, my belief in the American public was diffused as I read a February 2008 study that contained this factoid:
“More informed respondents both feel less personally responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming. We also find that confidence in scientists has unexpected effects: respondents with high confidence in scientists feel less responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming.” (Kellstedt)
Since respondents rated their own level of informedness, it's safe to presume, as did blogger John Sides, commenting on the study, that it is this sense of perceived informedness that puts the respondents more at ease with their own level of responsibility and their concern about the climate.
This presents a conundrum of American informedness and action: those who readily admit that they are unsure don't want to advocate major changes based on the small amount of information that they are sure about, and those who feel that they are informed don't really care about or feel responsible for whatever global warming might bring. Wow. Presuming that those feelings can be extrapolated to other issues, I feel very confident in the results of the upcoming election. NOT.
I think this does speak multitudes about our current global media climate. We, as media consumers, have so many issues, big and small, facing us at every avenue—global warming, the economic downturn, the war in Iraq, to name a few—that we suffer from information paralysis, unable to act due to the large amount of information and the number of issues we have right at our fingertips every moment of every day. Because of the global village that mass communication modes have created, we as individuals must include many other things in our decisions. The more we know, and are expected to know, and are told to know (or at least think about) by the mass media's agenda-setting, the less confident we feel with making decisions.
With global warming, this means that we may not strongly believe any one particular way, but we will generally agree with what the mainstream, dominant media is pushing at the time: global warming is happening now and requires drastic action. When it comes to actually taking action about global warming, however, we don't know what action we want. In a January 2007 poll, response was as follows when asked “From what you know about global climate change or global warming, which one of the following statements comes closest to your opinion?”:
• 34% - “Global climate change has been established as a serious problem, and immediate action is necessary.”
• 30% - “There is enough evidence that climate change is taking place and some action should be taken.”
• 25% - “We don't know enough about global climate change, and more research is necessary before we take any actions.” (Environment, NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll , Jan 17-20 2007)
The response is so divided that no one action has a majority vote. Yet in a separate poll taken that same week, 70% of respondents said that “global warming is having a serious impact now.” (Environment, CBS News Poll, Jan 18-21 2007)
The influx of information available through the mass media on every topic imaginable may or may not have created a more informed citizenry, but, according to these polls, voter turnout, and general community activity, it has not served to make us a more engaged or active citizenry.
WORKS CITED
Anderson, R. Warren. “Fire and Ice.” Business and Media Institute. (17 May 2006 ) Oct 15 2006.
Boykoff, Jules and Matt Boykoff. “Journalistic Balance as Global Warming Bias: Creating Controversy Where Science Finds Consensus.” Extra!. (November/December 2004) Oct 15 2008.
“Environment.” Oct 15 2008.
“Global Warming: The Reality and Urgency of Global Warming.” Oct 15 2008.
Kellstedt, Paul M., Sammy Zahran, and Arnold Vedlitz. “Personal Efficacy, the Information Environment, and Attitudes Towards Global Warming and Climate Change in the United States.” Risk Analysis. No. 28.(Feb 25 2008) Oct 15 2008.
Langer, Gary. “Poll: Public Concern on Warming Gains Intensity.” (May 26 2006)
Sides, John. “The Paradoxes of Public Opinion.” The Monkey Cage. (Mar 1 2008) Oct 15 2008.
Thompson, A.C. “Timeline: The Science and Politics of Global Warming.” (Apr 24 2007) Oct 15 2008
Smarts students write at least two critical analysis/reaction papers each semester. These should be 3- to 6-pages in length, applying the course content (theories, lectures, readings, etc.) to a mass media issue, book, reading, film, etc., in the context of the course’s central theme about the mass media: How do we know what (we think) we know about the world?
Below are 1) general directions on the analysis papers; 2) evaluation criteria; and 3) examples of current student papers that earned A’s.
MediaSmarts • Critical Reaction/Analysis Papers
During the semester, you will write (at least) two critical analyses on topics that are part of the Media Smarts curriculum. These may include:
• Movie Night screenings
• Readings/essays
• Events
• Media coverage/analysis of events
A Media Smarts Analysis Essay is more than just your reaction (“This sucks!”), but—as outlined in the syllabus—should be your thoughtful, well-reasoned, critical examination of the media and society issues involved in the topic of your choice.
That’s correct—the topics are up to you (with instructor approval). The instructor will offer some options—films (e.g., Absence of Malice or The Front Page or Broadcast News or The Paper, etc.) that deal with the ethos and pressures and performance of journalists and how they see their role in society; or events that will occur during the semester (e.g., John Bul Dau/Lost Boys of Darfur, or Matt Wald and environmental journalism—and how the world media tell the story); or take an essay like Alana Taylor’s critique of journalism education as a starting point; or review a book on media and society that interests you (lists are available).
Your essays will address the content of your chosen subject film/essay/book in a detailed assessment of its strengths and weaknesses. Don’t just regurgitate it— explain its arguments and themes and relate them to what we’ve discussed about how mass communication and society interact. Most films, etc., have their own perspectives—what is your film trying to achieve? Are you being convinced? Why? What communication processes are in play, either in the content or in the author/director presentation? Discuss why and how, in your view, your film/whatever is or isn’t compelling/effective.
Incorporate references to readings in this class (including the key mass communication theories we’ve studied) or from other authoritative (not Wikipedia!) sources that support your arguments. That is, your paper should include your critical reactions and arguments based on additional authoritative research (articles, scholarly papers, books, news media, etc.) that you cite (include full citations at the end).
Be sure to include specific examples to illustrate and support your points, and typing them to the central theories and, ultimately, to the course’s central question. I want to see that you have engaged in your topic, evaluated it critically and in detail, and have engaged your brain to synthesize other material relevant to the study of mass communication and society in the context of your subject.
Mechanics:
Critical essays are 3- to 6 pp. (~1000-2500 words, not counting references), typed and doubled-spaced in a 12-point font. They will be evaluated on the basis of a) content, b) synthesis, c) argument, and d) mechanics (see evaluation criteria below).
Essays are due within a week of an event (Movie Nights, speeches, etc.), or may be scheduled with the instructor. One essay is due before midterm (Oct. 11) and the second before the final class meeting (Dec. 4). Additional essays are possible with the instructor’s permission.
MediaSmarts • Critical Analysis Papers Evaluation Criteria
Critical Analysis essays are evaluated on the basis of the following:
1. Content: Substantive review of the book/movie/event/subject being analyzed; use of substantive other sources in discussing the subject and constructing the critical argument.
2. Synthesis: Discussion/evaluation of subject in the context of relevant mass communication theories, external sources, in relation to the course's core theme: How do we know what we think we know about the world?
3. Strength of argument: persuasiveness of critical argument/assessment, supported by other sources; depth and insight beyond the obvious and beyond personal opinion;
4. Mechanics: Writing, grammar, spelling, etc.
Examples of “A” Essays
Reality
By Tamara Jeppson
The film “God Grew Tired of Us,” along with speeches by John Bul Dau (one of the lost boys of Sudan), raises questions about what we know or think we know and how we came to gain that knowledge. The majority of Americans will never go to Africa and out of the small number of people who make it there, an even smaller number will reach Sudan. While it is the minority that will every set foot on the continent of Africa, let alone the country of Sudan, we all seem to think that we know what it is like there. We base our knowledge on what we see on television, read on in the newspaper, or hear on the radio but sometimes the people, places, and events of the world are incorrectly portrayed in mass media or they are not shown at all.
Media representations can lead to the development of prejudices based on race, gender, size, and other physical characteristics. Television and movies often portray African American males as aggressive, menacing, or unruly (Coltrane and Messineo, 2000). While mass media cannot tell us what to think a steady diet of media messages, that are similarly framed, can influence how we perceive the world around us and promote opinions about the people and places we do not normally come into contact with (Pease, 2008). The lost boy’s neighbors in America initially feared the boys because their opinion of young black men was based on negative media messages. As result the police asked the boys not to gather in large groups because it frightened people. However, the people who got to know the lost boys realized that the media stereotypes were incorrect and the lost boys were not mean or aggressive.
On the other hand, the lost boys were told that America was violent place. They were told that American girls where crazy people who would shoot the boys if they were rude. In the movie, Dau mentions that he was told that walking the streets of New York would get him killed. However, once the boys had gotten to know American girls and walked the streets they realized it was not as dangerous as they had first been told.
In America, Africa is usually portrayed as an undeveloped, often savage country. The people who live there are shown as aboriginal. We tend to think of them as poverty stricken, lacking homes, and living in the wilderness. In “God Grew Tired of Us” a lost boy is shown talking to a group of young children at a swimming pool in America. One of the children asks the lost boy if he lived in the forest in Africa. To the lost boy this is an odd question. People cannot live in the forest; they live in homes. A home in Africa may be very different than a home in America but to the lost boys it was still a home. The home may be a mud hut and it may lack the technology the American people are use to but it does not mean that the lost boys were not happy there. Dau mentioned in both movie and speeches that he loved his home in Sudan and he was happy there; to him it did not matter that his Sudanese home lacked the technology that his American apartment contained.
I think that the purpose of the film “God Grew Tired of Us” was to educate people about the problems in Sudan but also to show how little the people of Africa and America know about each other. The mass media do not have the time or space to tell every aspect of a story; the stories are framed to emphasis certain aspects, minimize others, and leave some parts out all together. Framing can lead to a distorted view of the world, if the story’s audience blindly accepts what they are told. To gain a more accurate view of the world, consumers of media messages must think about the framing – what is the purpose of the message and what is being left out? The ideas that the lost boys of Sudan and the people of America had about each other before they met and how those ideas changed after they got to know each other helps to show how different the media’s reality can be from the actual reality.
Tamara Jeppson
Honors 1340
Oct. 2, 2008
References (APA)Honors 1340
Oct. 2, 2008
Coltrane, S. & M. Messineo. (2000). The perpetuation of subtle prejudice: race and
gender imagery in 1990s television advertising. Sex Roles, 42. Retrieved Oct. 2, 2008, from http://www.springerlink.com/content/h178421623515025/
Pease, T. (2008, Aug. 21). Media smarts – theories. Message posted to
http://askdrted.blogspot.com/2008/08/media-smartstheories.html
Matt Wald—So what?
by Lorene Nance
My response to Matt Wald’s presentation earlier this week was, “So what?” I had a hard time really pulling any useful information from his presentation because, at the end, I couldn't look back and really see any call for action, or even any particular attention drawn to one alternative source of energy or anything. Altogether, Mr. Wald was strikingly knowledgeable and—this is the key—objective. This was a surprise to me because I expected to hear him set more of an agenda and frame the issue differently (or at all, really) in his presentation.
Mr. Wald’s method of presentation showed the effects of our media environment. We have talked about the media’s inability to tell us exactly what to think regarding issues and their knack for telling us what issues to think about, but on the issue of global warming, this theory seems to be questionable. Based on Mr. Wald's remarks, global warming is an issue that, contrary to that theory of agenda-setting, the media has told us more exactly what we are to think regarding the issue. They have told us that global warming is reality, not myth; that global warming is caused by human activity, not just the natural cycle of the Earth; that lowering carbon emissions is the best/only way to combat global warming; and on and on and on.
This was apparent to me in the fact that Mr. Wald didn't even acknowledge any opposition to global warming: all “mainstream” media sources report global warming as an absolute fact, so we as members of the general public are expected to accept it as fact or be ridiculed as some ignorant radical (even though the combination of the two seems contradictory). The fact that he didn’t intentionally address this—his only mention of the “fact” that “most scientists agree that global warming is caused in large part by human activity” came only as in answer to a question after his prepared remarks—automatically makes me wonder about semi-recent changes in our global media climate. Within the last five to ten years (so, a large part of my rememberable life), global warming has come from being a fringe issue contained to the scientific and earth-loving society to a central focus of many people today that motivates daily decisions. Or at least so it seems...
As I was researching this issue, I found a wealth of information that was actually quite overwhelming, making it difficult to determine the quality of any one source. Any position I could think of regarding global warming, I found. But, for the most part, each article that I found on the subject was very authoritative, leaving no ifs, ands, or buts about the author's view on global warming. As I sifted through, I found some very interesting viewpoints and information that leads me to suggest that the American public, in general, feels much like I did during my research: overwhelmed.
As Warren Anderson observes, “As the noise from [the issue] has increased, it has drowned out any debate.” He also discusses mass media's tendency to “hype” climate change, reporting that the New York Times, among others, has anxiously warned of four different climate changes, both warming and cooling, in the past two centuries.
So it’s no wonder that Americans are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information. Add to the sheer volume the number of different arguments for and against global warming that have floated around for the last ten years, and you end up with a generally confused people who are forming opinions—but aren't overly confident in the information that they have been given and the “facts” upon which they are basing their opinions. In short, average Americans, at least on the issue of global warming, are becoming media skeptics, and asking how it is they know what they (think they) know about the global warming. Several different studies and polls have shown this:
• A strong majority of Americans believe that global warming is “a real and serious problem” requiring action, but only a very slight majority believes that the scientific community is in consensus on the issue. Those who advocate action are divided on the time frame in which action is required and the cost: immediate steps with higher cost versus gradual, low-cost steps. But, when respondents were asked to presume that the scientific community is in consensus on global warming as reality, “support for taking high cost steps increases to a majority.” (Global)
• 80% of respondents in a 2006 poll believed that global warming is “probably occurring,” but over 60% were not “very sure” of it, linking their uncertainty to their belief that the scientists were in disagreement about the issue. (Langer)
The fact that I am not the only world citizen who is unsure what exactly to think regarding global warming is somewhat of a relief, both for my own uncertainty and for the knowledge that not everyone is as advocate-ready as the media personalities. However, my belief in the American public was diffused as I read a February 2008 study that contained this factoid:
“More informed respondents both feel less personally responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming. We also find that confidence in scientists has unexpected effects: respondents with high confidence in scientists feel less responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming.” (Kellstedt)
Since respondents rated their own level of informedness, it's safe to presume, as did blogger John Sides, commenting on the study, that it is this sense of perceived informedness that puts the respondents more at ease with their own level of responsibility and their concern about the climate.
This presents a conundrum of American informedness and action: those who readily admit that they are unsure don't want to advocate major changes based on the small amount of information that they are sure about, and those who feel that they are informed don't really care about or feel responsible for whatever global warming might bring. Wow. Presuming that those feelings can be extrapolated to other issues, I feel very confident in the results of the upcoming election. NOT.
I think this does speak multitudes about our current global media climate. We, as media consumers, have so many issues, big and small, facing us at every avenue—global warming, the economic downturn, the war in Iraq, to name a few—that we suffer from information paralysis, unable to act due to the large amount of information and the number of issues we have right at our fingertips every moment of every day. Because of the global village that mass communication modes have created, we as individuals must include many other things in our decisions. The more we know, and are expected to know, and are told to know (or at least think about) by the mass media's agenda-setting, the less confident we feel with making decisions.
With global warming, this means that we may not strongly believe any one particular way, but we will generally agree with what the mainstream, dominant media is pushing at the time: global warming is happening now and requires drastic action. When it comes to actually taking action about global warming, however, we don't know what action we want. In a January 2007 poll, response was as follows when asked “From what you know about global climate change or global warming, which one of the following statements comes closest to your opinion?”:
• 34% - “Global climate change has been established as a serious problem, and immediate action is necessary.”
• 30% - “There is enough evidence that climate change is taking place and some action should be taken.”
• 25% - “We don't know enough about global climate change, and more research is necessary before we take any actions.” (Environment, NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll , Jan 17-20 2007)
The response is so divided that no one action has a majority vote. Yet in a separate poll taken that same week, 70% of respondents said that “global warming is having a serious impact now.” (Environment, CBS News Poll, Jan 18-21 2007)
The influx of information available through the mass media on every topic imaginable may or may not have created a more informed citizenry, but, according to these polls, voter turnout, and general community activity, it has not served to make us a more engaged or active citizenry.
WORKS CITED
Anderson, R. Warren. “Fire and Ice.” Business and Media Institute. (17 May 2006 ) Oct 15 2006.
Boykoff, Jules and Matt Boykoff. “Journalistic Balance as Global Warming Bias: Creating Controversy Where Science Finds Consensus.” Extra!. (November/December 2004) Oct 15 2008.
“Environment.” Oct 15 2008.
“Global Warming: The Reality and Urgency of Global Warming.” Oct 15 2008.
Kellstedt, Paul M., Sammy Zahran, and Arnold Vedlitz. “Personal Efficacy, the Information Environment, and Attitudes Towards Global Warming and Climate Change in the United States.” Risk Analysis. No. 28.(Feb 25 2008) Oct 15 2008.
Langer, Gary. “Poll: Public Concern on Warming Gains Intensity.” (May 26 2006)
Sides, John. “The Paradoxes of Public Opinion.” The Monkey Cage. (Mar 1 2008) Oct 15 2008.
Thompson, A.C. “Timeline: The Science and Politics of Global Warming.” (Apr 24 2007) Oct 15 2008
"The end of cartooning as we know it"
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That’s Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Mike Peters’s fear. Barack Obama is a lot harder for satirists like Peters and other editorial cartoonists to lampoon than John McCain. For Peters and his fellow cartoonists, Campaign 2008 has been a gift. See the story on National Public Radio (Click here for full story link.).
.
Editorial Cartoonists Review Election '08
That’s Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Mike Peters’s fear. Barack Obama is a lot harder for satirists like Peters and other editorial cartoonists to lampoon than John McCain. For Peters and his fellow cartoonists, Campaign 2008 has been a gift. See the story on National Public Radio (Click here for full story link.).
.
Editorial Cartoonists Review Election '08
Campaign CaricaturesMorning Edition, October 28, 2008 · One thing Barack Obama and John McCain have not had to worry about during the long presidential campaign is making caricatures of themselves.
Luckily for them, that’s someone else’s job: editorial cartoonists.
Mike Luckovich of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Mike Peters of The Dayton Daily News recently joined Renee Montagne to look back at some of the memorable moments of the race between Obama and McCain.
The satirists’ themes are like a history of the campaign: the candidates' early struggles to define themselves; the emergence of Sarah Palin; and America's increasingly gloomy economy.
And both are worried that a victory for Obama could mean hard times for cartoonists.
“He’s just going to be very difficult to mock,” Luckovich said.
“It’s going to be the end of cartooning as we know it,” Peters said.
<more at website>Friday, October 24, 2008
Book Review: Journalism Ethics Goes to the Movies
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The text for Honors Media Smarts (F08). Here’s a review from Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 85/2 (Summer 2008), pp. 454-456.
Journalism Ethics Goes to the Movies
Howard Good, ed. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield, 2008. 192 pp. $75 hbk. $24.95 pbk
Journalists make great protagonists, and that’s why novelists and filmmakers love them. Accountants and mechanics rarely find themselves in the sorts of professional pickles that journalists do. And the very nature of journalism gives its practitioners complex lives in the path of action. What more could a storyteller want?
Beyond mere structural convenience, however, there’s something about the fundamental nature of the business that has attracted generations of writers and directors. It’s the ethical quandaries that journalists face. Reporters are rarely portrayed as simple heroes, and they are almost always portrayed as deeply flawed people, unhappy in love and usually with one or more substances regularly abused.
The focus in Howard Good’s Journalism Ethics Goes to the Movies, which collects essays by Good and 11 other scholars, is on the complex relationship between journalists and truth. More than the rah-rah dig-us hero worship of All the President’s Men, the films dissected in this book of essays pose complex problems, perfectly suitable for discussion in journalism ethics classes.
Reaching back to pre-Second World War America, the writers mull the conniving reporter of Frank Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and the hero-worshiping/truth-denying sports scribe in Pride of the Yankees. These sorts of movies have been around since Hollywood’s Golden Age. And Citizen Kane, of course, perhaps the greatest of all American films, serves up a couple of ethical whoppers that would be at home in any class discussion.
Beyond the devastatingly negative portrayal of journalists’ personal habits, films often focus on reporters skirting the truth for some other end than the public’s right to know. In Under Fire, a photojournalist fakes a picture. In His Girl Friday, a convicted felon is hidden by a reporter in need of a scoop. In Ace in the Hole, a down-on-his-luck reporter tries to resuscitate his career by hindering the rescue of a trapped cave explorer—at least until his story plays out.
Most of the essayists in Good’s volume look at fairly recent films, always with an eye not only toward the ethical issue presented onscreen, but how these films can be used to help student journalists develop richer morals and values.
Shattered Glass, from 2003, focuses on one of the most pernicious problems in the profession today—the fabricating journalist. Based on the story of New Republic reporter Stephen Glass, the film shows his utter disconnect from the world of the journalists around him. Yet most of the magazine staff seems charmed by the self-deprecating Glass. It’s only when the unpopular young editor of the magazine, Chuck Lane, is approached by an online journalist that he begins asking questions about Glass and the sources for his stories. Glass has gone to great lengths in his subterfuge, creating Web sites for the bogus companies he mentions in his stories, and setting up phone lines with answering machines to throw fact-checkers off track. He has the rest of the staff on his side, charming and flattering them, and so the editor emerges virtually as the lone hero trying to publicly do the filthiest of media laundry. Eventually, his diligence forces the other staff members to see beyond the smiling, well-groomed charmboy to the dark heart of a serial liar, whose fabrications cut to the very heart of the New Republic’s—and journalism’s—core commodity: credibility.
At the opposite end of the ethical spectrum is 2005’s Good Night, and Good Luck (does that comma bother anyone else?), the rare film that shows a journalist modeling traditional heroic attributes. Like Shattered Glass, it comes from a true story—in this case, the oft-told tale of CBS broadcasting icon Edward R. Murrow’s lonely battle against the dangerous demagoguery of Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the red-scare 1950s. The movie, much like reality, probably doesn’t tip its hat enough to other journalists who began attacking McCarthy and his –ism earlier, suggests writer Michael Dillon, but the point is that when Murrow pulled the rug out from under the meglomaniacal McCarthy, it was on television, in front of a huge audience. Murrow is played spot-on by actor David Straithairn, and a bespectacled George Clooney tackles the supporting role of producer Fred Friendly.
Both of these films pose ethical questions that go to the heart of journalism, and Good’s contributors do a nice job of discussing this core issue. One portrays a villain, the other a hero. Films are generally limited to two hours by virtue of sitting-tolerance, and so naturally some messy accuracies and historical events are telescoped. In his essay on Shattered Glass, Matthew C. Ehrlich of the University of Illinois notes that we never get an indication of Glass’s motive: why did he deceive? The inside-the-office detective story provides the substance of the film. Yet that lapse in storytelling becomes a wonderful teachable moment. The motive is the part of the picture left blank, with room for the viewer to put in the coloring. Well, class … why did he do it?
And that’s true of most of the films covered in the book: The Paper, Wag the Dog, Absence of Malice, Die Hard, Die Hard 2, Broadcast News, Veronica Guerin, The Year of Living Dangerously and Welcome to Sarajevo. None of these films, successful and complete as works of cinematic art, wraps their ethical issues up in a simple happy ending. If there is one consistent message, it is that nothing is simple and rarely are endings truly happy.
Journalism Ethics Goes to the Movies examines mostly recent films about reporters at a crossroads. But beyond the mere declamation of what the films show, Good’s book has imminent practical value, filled as it is with questions for further discussion and other teaching suggestions.
The text for Honors Media Smarts (F08). Here’s a review from Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 85/2 (Summer 2008), pp. 454-456.
Journalism Ethics Goes to the Movies
Howard Good, ed. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield, 2008. 192 pp. $75 hbk. $24.95 pbk
Journalists make great protagonists, and that’s why novelists and filmmakers love them. Accountants and mechanics rarely find themselves in the sorts of professional pickles that journalists do. And the very nature of journalism gives its practitioners complex lives in the path of action. What more could a storyteller want?
Beyond mere structural convenience, however, there’s something about the fundamental nature of the business that has attracted generations of writers and directors. It’s the ethical quandaries that journalists face. Reporters are rarely portrayed as simple heroes, and they are almost always portrayed as deeply flawed people, unhappy in love and usually with one or more substances regularly abused.
The focus in Howard Good’s Journalism Ethics Goes to the Movies, which collects essays by Good and 11 other scholars, is on the complex relationship between journalists and truth. More than the rah-rah dig-us hero worship of All the President’s Men, the films dissected in this book of essays pose complex problems, perfectly suitable for discussion in journalism ethics classes.Reaching back to pre-Second World War America, the writers mull the conniving reporter of Frank Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and the hero-worshiping/truth-denying sports scribe in Pride of the Yankees. These sorts of movies have been around since Hollywood’s Golden Age. And Citizen Kane, of course, perhaps the greatest of all American films, serves up a couple of ethical whoppers that would be at home in any class discussion.
Beyond the devastatingly negative portrayal of journalists’ personal habits, films often focus on reporters skirting the truth for some other end than the public’s right to know. In Under Fire, a photojournalist fakes a picture. In His Girl Friday, a convicted felon is hidden by a reporter in need of a scoop. In Ace in the Hole, a down-on-his-luck reporter tries to resuscitate his career by hindering the rescue of a trapped cave explorer—at least until his story plays out.
Most of the essayists in Good’s volume look at fairly recent films, always with an eye not only toward the ethical issue presented onscreen, but how these films can be used to help student journalists develop richer morals and values.
Shattered Glass, from 2003, focuses on one of the most pernicious problems in the profession today—the fabricating journalist. Based on the story of New Republic reporter Stephen Glass, the film shows his utter disconnect from the world of the journalists around him. Yet most of the magazine staff seems charmed by the self-deprecating Glass. It’s only when the unpopular young editor of the magazine, Chuck Lane, is approached by an online journalist that he begins asking questions about Glass and the sources for his stories. Glass has gone to great lengths in his subterfuge, creating Web sites for the bogus companies he mentions in his stories, and setting up phone lines with answering machines to throw fact-checkers off track. He has the rest of the staff on his side, charming and flattering them, and so the editor emerges virtually as the lone hero trying to publicly do the filthiest of media laundry. Eventually, his diligence forces the other staff members to see beyond the smiling, well-groomed charmboy to the dark heart of a serial liar, whose fabrications cut to the very heart of the New Republic’s—and journalism’s—core commodity: credibility.
At the opposite end of the ethical spectrum is 2005’s Good Night, and Good Luck (does that comma bother anyone else?), the rare film that shows a journalist modeling traditional heroic attributes. Like Shattered Glass, it comes from a true story—in this case, the oft-told tale of CBS broadcasting icon Edward R. Murrow’s lonely battle against the dangerous demagoguery of Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the red-scare 1950s. The movie, much like reality, probably doesn’t tip its hat enough to other journalists who began attacking McCarthy and his –ism earlier, suggests writer Michael Dillon, but the point is that when Murrow pulled the rug out from under the meglomaniacal McCarthy, it was on television, in front of a huge audience. Murrow is played spot-on by actor David Straithairn, and a bespectacled George Clooney tackles the supporting role of producer Fred Friendly.
Both of these films pose ethical questions that go to the heart of journalism, and Good’s contributors do a nice job of discussing this core issue. One portrays a villain, the other a hero. Films are generally limited to two hours by virtue of sitting-tolerance, and so naturally some messy accuracies and historical events are telescoped. In his essay on Shattered Glass, Matthew C. Ehrlich of the University of Illinois notes that we never get an indication of Glass’s motive: why did he deceive? The inside-the-office detective story provides the substance of the film. Yet that lapse in storytelling becomes a wonderful teachable moment. The motive is the part of the picture left blank, with room for the viewer to put in the coloring. Well, class … why did he do it?
And that’s true of most of the films covered in the book: The Paper, Wag the Dog, Absence of Malice, Die Hard, Die Hard 2, Broadcast News, Veronica Guerin, The Year of Living Dangerously and Welcome to Sarajevo. None of these films, successful and complete as works of cinematic art, wraps their ethical issues up in a simple happy ending. If there is one consistent message, it is that nothing is simple and rarely are endings truly happy.
Journalism Ethics Goes to the Movies examines mostly recent films about reporters at a crossroads. But beyond the mere declamation of what the films show, Good’s book has imminent practical value, filled as it is with questions for further discussion and other teaching suggestions.
WILLIAM MCKEEN University of Florida
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Censoring Movies—More on the Hays Code
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As part of our examination of the role of movies in U.S. society, it is worthwhile looking at efforts to “control” Hollywood and to “protect” Americans from undesirable movie content.
In addition to the Pease chapter on Hollywood and Free Expression elsewhere on AskDrTed, I recommend this from National Public Radio for more on issues of “controlling” film. Read, listen and view this piece by Bob Mondello, and think about these issues in the context of what we’ve been discussing about the roles, impacts and relationships between mass media messages and society. The motivation behind the Hays Code was....what? And how can you relate those issues to the mass communication theories we’ve studied, and what we’ve been examining in terms of free expression and mass communication and society?
(here’s an excerpt)
Movies: Remembering Hollywood's Hays Code, 40 Years On
by Bob Mondello
All Things Considered, August 8, 2008
When people talk about the “more innocent” Hollywood of years gone by, they’re referring to an era when the movie industry policed itself. But that early Hollywood wasn’t always so innocent.
For decades, it’s true, the major film studios were governed by a production code requiring that their pictures be “wholesome” and “moral” and encourage what the studios called “correct thinking.”
But that code, which was officially abandoned 40 years ago this year, was the result of a nationwide backlash — an outraged reaction to a Hollywood that by 1922 had come to seem like a moral quagmire, even by the bathtub-gin-and-speakeasy standards of the Roaring ’20s.
click here>
As part of our examination of the role of movies in U.S. society, it is worthwhile looking at efforts to “control” Hollywood and to “protect” Americans from undesirable movie content.
In addition to the Pease chapter on Hollywood and Free Expression elsewhere on AskDrTed, I recommend this from National Public Radio for more on issues of “controlling” film. Read, listen and view this piece by Bob Mondello, and think about these issues in the context of what we’ve been discussing about the roles, impacts and relationships between mass media messages and society. The motivation behind the Hays Code was....what? And how can you relate those issues to the mass communication theories we’ve studied, and what we’ve been examining in terms of free expression and mass communication and society?
(here’s an excerpt)
Movies: Remembering Hollywood's Hays Code, 40 Years On
by Bob Mondello
All Things Considered, August 8, 2008
When people talk about the “more innocent” Hollywood of years gone by, they’re referring to an era when the movie industry policed itself. But that early Hollywood wasn’t always so innocent.For decades, it’s true, the major film studios were governed by a production code requiring that their pictures be “wholesome” and “moral” and encourage what the studios called “correct thinking.”
But that code, which was officially abandoned 40 years ago this year, was the result of a nationwide backlash — an outraged reaction to a Hollywood that by 1922 had come to seem like a moral quagmire, even by the bathtub-gin-and-speakeasy standards of the Roaring ’20s.
News IQ????
.
Guys:
This is kind of fun. Go to this website, part of the Pew Research Center, and take the News IQ test.
The Pew Center is one of the top U.S. research outfits on media issues, and conducts tons of polls and studies—some of which might be of interest for story ideas.
Guys:
This is kind of fun. Go to this website, part of the Pew Research Center, and take the News IQ test.
The Pew Center is one of the top U.S. research outfits on media issues, and conducts tons of polls and studies—some of which might be of interest for story ideas.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Writing—More on Nut Grafs
.
What is a “nut graf”? Is it an essential component of the well-constructed story?The short answer is this: The nut graf, coming high in the story (~3rd/4th graf, depending), answers the “So what?” question. After the lead—summary or narrative or whatever—it is a pause as the story gets under way that explains in a tight, focused kernel why the story is important. Does it repeat a summary lead? No. It expands the summary lead “hook” to give the reader the larger picture.
A summary lead might say:
Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama met for the third and final televised debate of their long and hard-fought campaign at Hofstra University Wednesday in an encounter that highlighted their differences on economic issues and someone called “Joe the Plumber.”
The nut graf, coming after a background and possibly a quote graf, would expand that summary to answer reader questions, highlight implications and address the “So what?” question—why does it matter?
Though tough and substantive, the debate apparently did little to change the trajectory toward election day, less than three weeks away, as the Democratic candidate maintains a substantial lead in national polls
For more on Nut Grafs, see these links through the Poynter Institute for Media Studies:
1. The Nut Graf, Part I
2. The Nut Graf and Breaking News
3. The (Sometimes) Superfluous Nut
. . . and this from “No Train, No Gain,” the site for writing coaches:
1. Nut Grafs
2. “So What?” Graphs [sic]
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Colbert on Global Warming
.
Glacial Horrors in Higher Ed!
Steven Colbert reveals that professors at one Rhode Island college force students to think! Click here for brief video.
Glacial Horrors in Higher Ed!
Steven Colbert reveals that professors at one Rhode Island college force students to think! Click here for brief video.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Columns—Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas at our Wedding
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It was an intimate affair, as they say, at a small Vermont inn on an island in the middle of Lake Champlain, 17 years ago today.
It had snowed that morning, then turned to rain, so the skies were gray. Everything else was wet and slushy. Except inside Shore Acres Inn, where Brenda finally made an honest man of me.
There were just seven of us: My sister and her boyfriend were there from Maine. The justice of the peace was the innkeeper/bartender who took off his gloves and Minnesota Twins hat, put down a squash and did the deed. The dogs wanted to come, but they were muddy. Then there was Brenda and me. And in the ether, Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill were there, too.
Hill, a law professor from Oklahoma, was accusing Thomas, a Supreme Court nominee, of sexually harassing her when he was her boss at the EEOC. They weren’t really at our wedding, of course, but they were very much present. Come to think of it, so were Nina Totenberg of National Public Radio, and the entire Senate Judiciary Committee.
I am the first to admit that I’m terrible with dates—I have been known to forget my own birthday. It’s not that finally getting Brenda to marry me isn’t the most important event in my life, but without Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill, I probably would have a hard time remembering Oct. 12, 1991.
Sexual harassment is not something most of us associate with our wedding anniversary. At least I hope not. But engraved in my memory of the day I got married are the images and sounds of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the voices of now-Justice Thomas, Senators Biden and Kennedy, Specter, Hatch and Simpson, and — most of all — that of a courageous and doomed junior law professor from Oklahoma.
The Hill-Thomas hearings reemerge every time we observe our wedding anniversary.
From Washington came a flurry of live, primetime televised hearings by the all-male, all-white members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a black man nominated by then-President George H. W. Bush to the Supreme Court. A “high-tech lynching” was what Thomas called it, invoking race while deflecting questions over both his qualifications and his conduct.
That morning (Columbus Day, a national holiday honoring a white man who “discovered” America and helped eradicate the native peoples already living here — but that’s another tale), the Thomas hearings were live on TV and radio as we ate breakfast and dressed for our wedding. Distracted by both unfolding dramas, we didn’t talk much; same for many Americans, I guess, 60 percent of whom told pollsters they watched the hearings “closely.”
The story was riveting, and continued on the car radio as we drove to the wedding. When we got there, the innkeeper/JP greeted us at the woodpile, where he’d been chopping kindling. He had headphones in his ears and the Walkman tuned to the same National Public Radio station, which also was on inside, with Sen. Arlen Specter brutally cross-examining Anita Hill as we got ready. They turned off the radio while we got married, but it came back on afterward, amid congratulations, photos, brunch. On the 60-mile drive to Montreal, we held hands, and listened more. High above downtown Montreal, in the honeymoon suite of the grand old hotel le Reine Elizabeth, we opened champagne, put on the fluffy bathrobes, and turned on CNN.
So it is that Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill will forever be part of how I remember my wedding.
A lot of important things happened that weekend, 17 years ago now, and we’re still living with most of them. For me, the most important was marrying Brenda, obviously—a glorious thing. And for all women and men in America, the events surrounding Clarence Thomas’ confirmation to serve a life term on the U.S. Supreme Court still resonate.
Anita Hill put her life—and Clarence Thomas’s—on the line. She didn’t win that fight, but she also didn’t lose: As a result of what she began, women and men across the nation began an uncomfortable but important process of reviewing issues of sexual harassment and sexual power that have been open secrets for too long. One long-term result is the current series of courts martial in the military, where 70 percent of female officers and enlisted have said they have been sexually harassed. Another was a booming commerce in gender books, new life to authors such as Naomi Wolf and Camille Paglia, Susan Faludi, Robert Bly and Deborah Tannen, all cashing in on how men and women relate with themselves and each other.
Ironically perhaps, the Hill-Thomas hearings ushered in 1992, called “The Year of the Woman.” In an interview that year, journalist-cum-TV producer Linda Ellerbe told me that she thought three women—Anita Hill, along with then-First Lady Hillary Clinton and Murphy Brown, the TV character who had a well-publicized squabble with Vice President Dan Quayle—had helped start a process that “forced people to rethink their attitudes toward women.” More importantly, Ellerbe said, they “caused women to rethink how we see ourselves.”
“Each of those women,” Ellerbe said, “has through the mass media moved us an inch here or a couple of inches there. Mainly, they did it by being women without apology.”
Today, 17 years after her part in what may have been the most important political dispute between the sexes since suffrage, Anita Hill remains a woman without anything to apologize for. In her book, as in her testimony 17 years ago this weekend, Hill calmly and directly speaks truth to those in power, a courageous example to the rest of us.
Anita, thanks again for the wedding gift. Brenda sends her best.
---
This column ran in the Logan (Utah) Herald-Journal in 1997. ©Ted Pease
Remembering a wedding
and a (continuing) national trial
and a (continuing) national trial
By Ted Pease
©1997
Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas came to our wedding.©1997
It was an intimate affair, as they say, at a small Vermont inn on an island in the middle of Lake Champlain, 17 years ago today.
It had snowed that morning, then turned to rain, so the skies were gray. Everything else was wet and slushy. Except inside Shore Acres Inn, where Brenda finally made an honest man of me.
There were just seven of us: My sister and her boyfriend were there from Maine. The justice of the peace was the innkeeper/bartender who took off his gloves and Minnesota Twins hat, put down a squash and did the deed. The dogs wanted to come, but they were muddy. Then there was Brenda and me. And in the ether, Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill were there, too.Hill, a law professor from Oklahoma, was accusing Thomas, a Supreme Court nominee, of sexually harassing her when he was her boss at the EEOC. They weren’t really at our wedding, of course, but they were very much present. Come to think of it, so were Nina Totenberg of National Public Radio, and the entire Senate Judiciary Committee.
I am the first to admit that I’m terrible with dates—I have been known to forget my own birthday. It’s not that finally getting Brenda to marry me isn’t the most important event in my life, but without Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill, I probably would have a hard time remembering Oct. 12, 1991.
Sexual harassment is not something most of us associate with our wedding anniversary. At least I hope not. But engraved in my memory of the day I got married are the images and sounds of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the voices of now-Justice Thomas, Senators Biden and Kennedy, Specter, Hatch and Simpson, and — most of all — that of a courageous and doomed junior law professor from Oklahoma.
The Hill-Thomas hearings reemerge every time we observe our wedding anniversary.
From Washington came a flurry of live, primetime televised hearings by the all-male, all-white members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a black man nominated by then-President George H. W. Bush to the Supreme Court. A “high-tech lynching” was what Thomas called it, invoking race while deflecting questions over both his qualifications and his conduct.
That morning (Columbus Day, a national holiday honoring a white man who “discovered” America and helped eradicate the native peoples already living here — but that’s another tale), the Thomas hearings were live on TV and radio as we ate breakfast and dressed for our wedding. Distracted by both unfolding dramas, we didn’t talk much; same for many Americans, I guess, 60 percent of whom told pollsters they watched the hearings “closely.”
The story was riveting, and continued on the car radio as we drove to the wedding. When we got there, the innkeeper/JP greeted us at the woodpile, where he’d been chopping kindling. He had headphones in his ears and the Walkman tuned to the same National Public Radio station, which also was on inside, with Sen. Arlen Specter brutally cross-examining Anita Hill as we got ready. They turned off the radio while we got married, but it came back on afterward, amid congratulations, photos, brunch. On the 60-mile drive to Montreal, we held hands, and listened more. High above downtown Montreal, in the honeymoon suite of the grand old hotel le Reine Elizabeth, we opened champagne, put on the fluffy bathrobes, and turned on CNN.So it is that Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill will forever be part of how I remember my wedding.
A lot of important things happened that weekend, 17 years ago now, and we’re still living with most of them. For me, the most important was marrying Brenda, obviously—a glorious thing. And for all women and men in America, the events surrounding Clarence Thomas’ confirmation to serve a life term on the U.S. Supreme Court still resonate.
Anita Hill put her life—and Clarence Thomas’s—on the line. She didn’t win that fight, but she also didn’t lose: As a result of what she began, women and men across the nation began an uncomfortable but important process of reviewing issues of sexual harassment and sexual power that have been open secrets for too long. One long-term result is the current series of courts martial in the military, where 70 percent of female officers and enlisted have said they have been sexually harassed. Another was a booming commerce in gender books, new life to authors such as Naomi Wolf and Camille Paglia, Susan Faludi, Robert Bly and Deborah Tannen, all cashing in on how men and women relate with themselves and each other.
Ironically perhaps, the Hill-Thomas hearings ushered in 1992, called “The Year of the Woman.” In an interview that year, journalist-cum-TV producer Linda Ellerbe told me that she thought three women—Anita Hill, along with then-First Lady Hillary Clinton and Murphy Brown, the TV character who had a well-publicized squabble with Vice President Dan Quayle—had helped start a process that “forced people to rethink their attitudes toward women.” More importantly, Ellerbe said, they “caused women to rethink how we see ourselves.”
“Each of those women,” Ellerbe said, “has through the mass media moved us an inch here or a couple of inches there. Mainly, they did it by being women without apology.”
Today, 17 years after her part in what may have been the most important political dispute between the sexes since suffrage, Anita Hill remains a woman without anything to apologize for. In her book, as in her testimony 17 years ago this weekend, Hill calmly and directly speaks truth to those in power, a courageous example to the rest of us.
Anita, thanks again for the wedding gift. Brenda sends her best.
---
This column ran in the Logan (Utah) Herald-Journal in 1997. ©Ted Pease
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