Ask Dr. Ted!

‘Go, unlearn the lies we taught you’

2011-04-29T06:29:00.000-07:00

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Professors have got to be nuts

By Ted Pease
© 1998
Updated 4/29/11

As has been my custom ever since I started teaching, every year about this time, as my students froth and gambol their way through final exams toward summer break, as seniors suddenly start smiling again (some for the first time in my experience), I am drawn to revisit an old theologian.

Confronted by the end-of-year angst of both students and faculty, Jake sometimes sounds like one seriously burned-out, cantankerous old crank.

Back in the 1980s, when he was a professor of religious studies at Brown University, Neusner sent an article to the student newspaper. It was a commencement address he knew would never be delivered, but which he believed needed saying anyway. I reread it every Spring as a way to reflect on the school year just completed, and on what I have chosen to do with my life.

Neusner, a noted scholar and the kind of no-nonsense professor that most students avoid like the plague, lamented the erosion of standards in higher education, not only among students but in the ranks of faculty, who he said could restore academic excellence, but won’t. Or anyway don’t. It is the kind of complaint that simultaneously offends and resonates with professors.

“We the faculty take no pride in our educational achievements with you,” Neusner told his phantom graduating class. “We have prepared you for a world that does not exist, indeed, that cannot exist. You have spent four years supposing that failure leaves no record. You have learned at Brown that when your work goes poorly, the painless solution is to drop out.

“But starting now, in the world in which you go, failure marks you,” he said. “Outside Brown, quitters are no heroes.”

I think a bit sheepishly of crusty old Professor Jake every year at commencement time, when we the faculty bless our students, help them shift their tassels from the left to the right (or is it the other way around?), and send them on their way from their cloistered academic careers into the real world. I wonder if I’ve really prepared them for the “Outside,” or if I’ve just helped them get by. Some will set the real world on fire, but others (we know) will crash and burn.

One of the reasons I dug through my files to find Jacob Neusner this year is that I have received messages from several students that call him forth. One came from a senior, who gave the university a C after her four years here — perhaps a more honest grade than we professors are willing to give. “I can’t believe the poor writing I saw from students in my group!” she wrote. “These were seniors. There should be more writing courses.”

Amen to that.

I don’t know where Neusner is these days, or if he’s still living [Note: Professor Neusner was alive and well, apparently, at Bard College, blogging in March 2011] but he would have loved the letter I got last week from a student who had been forced to read one of my columns, and took exception to it. I wrote back, commending him for getting mad enough to send what was at least a well written letter, even if he missed the point.

The piece was called “The Dumbing of America” when it came out in September 1996, and it seems that embattled English 200 students are required to read the thing as an example of persuasive writing. It makes some of them mad, I am pleased to report.

The column was about a UCLA study that found that U.S. students are “increasingly disengaged from the academic experience,” “frequently bored” in their classes and “considerably less willing to work hard” at learning than they were a decade ago. My point, coming at the topic from the perspective of someone who tries to teach, was that while this was hardly news to us in the trenches of academe, it may be for parents, employers and the larger society. Certainly, if true, it bodes ill for all of us.

My letter-writer thought I was making fun of students; he found the column “degrading,” he said, and pointed out that there are many factors involved in making unmotivated students, including poor teachers, bad facilities, early class times and the fact that some students shouldn’t be here anyway, but came only for social life or to find a spouse. He actually said that.

I’m thinking that he got my point — and Neusner’s — quite well, even though I really wasn’t criticizing students as much as myself and my colleagues. Whose fault is it, after all, if salesmen can’t sell, if welders can’t weld, if teachers can’t teach — the buyer’s, the metal’s, the student’s? No, as grumpy old Father Jake put it: we teachers have been pulling a fast one on students for a long time.

“For four years we created an altogether forgiving world, in which whatever slight effort you gave was all that was demanded,” Neusner told the Brown University students who never got to hear him. “When you did not keep appointments, we made new ones. When your work came in beyond the deadline, we pretended not to care.

“Worse still, when you were boring, we acted as if you were saying something important. When you were garrulous and talked to hear yourself talk, we listened as if it mattered. When you tossed on our desks writing upon which you had not labored, we read it and even responded, as though you had earned a response.

“When you were dull, we pretended you were smart. When you were predictable, unimaginative and routine, we listened as if to new and wonderful things. When you demanded free lunch, we served it.”

The reason we professors let students get by, Father Jake said, was that we get worn down. “Despite your fantasies,” Neusner wrote, “it was not even that we wanted to be liked by you. It was that we did not want to be bothered, and the easy way out was pretense: smiles and easy B’s.”

Well, as the 1997-98 academic year concludes, I have to acknowledge that there is some truth to Professor Jake’s unhappy harangue. Despite what lawmakers think about the cushy life of academe, having scores or hundreds of 20-something-year-old bosses who can’t pay attention in class because they were out late “studying,” whose homework was eaten by the dog, who can’t make the exam because of a surprise family reunion in Cancun . . . well, it’s wearing. And many of us feel more than a little wrung out at the end of the school year.

But then come the farewell messages from other students, like this e-mail I received yesterday from one departing senior, who has come through: “I have nothing to gain any more by sucking up, so this is for real: thank you. (And I’m sorry I gave you such s**t about the ethics class.) Thanks.”

As I pointed out to my English 200 critic, we don’t disrespect or even dislike you, and keep in mind that we keep coming back. Some of us, like Jacob Neusner, finally burn out and probably need a sanitarium and about a decade of sabbaticals. But most of us were right there for our students when classes started last Fall, and we were there yesterday at commencement, cheering and teary right along with the Class of 1998 and their parents. You students may drive us nuts sometimes — and I know we make you crazy, too — but we’ll be back for more when classes start again. It’s a little warped, maybe, but it’s what we do.

—Ted Pease (ted.pease@usu.edu) is head of the Department of Journalism & Communication at Utah State University. This column originally appeared in the Logan (Utah) Herald Journal (6/7/98).

The Ostrich Syndrome

2011-04-26T07:57:00.000-07:00

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Don’t Sanitize Our News. We Did It, We Should Own It

Letter to the Editor
The Logan (Utah) Herald-Journal, 4/26/11

To the Editor:

I was glad to read HJ managing editor Charlie McCollum’s discussion of graphic photos in the Sunday’s newspaper [“Sensationalism played no part in publication of photo,” Sunday, 4/24/11]. Specifically, the question was about running the image of a bloody Syrian boy shot in the head by troops during a protest.

Like many HJ readers, I caught my breath when I saw the photo. I’d seen it the night before on NBC’s evening news, but the broadcasters had fuzzed out the gore. And there it was on my kitchen counter, in all its bloody detail.

But Charlie’s right in supporting the decision to run it. And if the photo made HJ readers mad, then all the more so.

Much of the problem with the way this country makes policy is that it happens in a safe, sanitized vacuum. We aren’t permitted to see the coffins coming home in the middle of the night from our foreign wars. We don’t want to see the outcomes of policies conducted in our name—and in our ignorance—that end in deaths and despair.

Out of sight and out of mind has become our national attitude toward unpleasant realities. Too many news organizations recognize this, and sanitize the news to “protect” us from unpleasantness. For years, international versions of U.S. news media—CNNi, Newsweek international and more—have offered global audiences much more complete, and graphic, reports on war and violence than appear in U.S. editions. We Americans apparently don’t have the stomach to confront the world—and our role in it.

In either the news media or ourselves, this ostrich mentality is dishonest. People—like that child murdered in Syria while demonstrating for the kind of freedom we say we support as a universal right—are fighting and dying, or living in horrible conditions and dying slowly all over the world. Often, these struggles have something to do with policies of our own government. They are far from our clean and safe kitchen counters, and too far from our consciousness.

Americans need more, nor less, awareness of the struggles and conflicts that are central to the lives of so many people worldwide. Seeing and hearing about those people is the responsibility of the press, and it's our responsibility not to turn away. We need and deserve more reality in the news media, please, not less, and must learn to take responsibility for our own role in it.

—Ted Pease
Petersboro

Short CV—Edward C. Pease (2011)

2011-02-21T13:42:00.000-08:00

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Edward C. Pease, Ph.D.
Professor & Department Head
Department of Journalism & Communication
Utah State University
Logan, Utah 84322-4605 • 435/797-3293; 3973 FAX • ted.pease@usu.edu

EDUCATION
• Ph.D., Mass Communication, E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, Ohio University. June 1991.
Dissertation: “Still the Invisible People: Job Satisfaction of Minority Journalists at U.S. Daily Newspapers.” Major Professor: Ralph Izard.
• MA, Mass Communication, School of Journalism & Mass Communication, Minnesota. 1981.
• BA, English/journalism, University of New Hampshire. 1978.

EMPLOYMENT
• Professor, Department of Journalism and Communication, Utah State University, Logan, Utah. 1994-present; Department Head, 1994-2005, 2009-present.
• Book Review Editor, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 2008-present.
• Associate Vice President/Media Relations and Marketing, Utah State University. 1998-1999.
• Associate Director for Publications, and Editor, Media Studies Journal, The Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, Columbia University, New York City. 1992-1994.
• Associate Professor/Chair, Journalism, St. Michael’s College, Colchester, Vermont. 1991-1992.
• Director, Midwest Newspaper Workshop for Minorities, Ohio University, 1987-1991.
• Associate Editor, Newspaper Research Journal, Ohio University, 1988-1992.
• Assistant Professor/Journalism, University of Dayton, Ohio. 1983-1987.
• Journalist, The Arkansas Gazette; The Associated Press; Home Energy Digest; The Holyoke (Mass.) Transcript Telegram; The Gloucester (Mass.) Daily Times, 1976-1983.

RESEARCH/TEACHING
Research: Primary teaching and research areas in media performance re. race and gender; social responsibility and media & society; Teaching: Primary teaching responsibilities—journalistic skills; media criticism, media & society, media & politics.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
• Books: The News in Black and White (1997); Publishing Books (1997); Children and the Media (1996); Radio—The Forgotten Medium (1995); How to Teach Diversity Handbook (1992).
• Chapters: “Free Expression in Hollywood: First Amendment and Censorship,” More Than a Movie: Ethics in Entertainment (2000); “Why Should We Care? The Philosophical and Economic Arguments for Media Diversity,” Pluralizing Journalism Education: A Multicultural Handbook (1993); “Race, Gender and Job Satisfaction in Newspaper Newsrooms,” Readings in Media Management (1992); “E.W. Scripps’ Thoughts on Journalism in His Final Years,” A Celebration of the Legacies of E.W. Scripps: His Life, Works and Heritage (1993).
• Refereed Articles: “The Mormons versus the ‘Armies of Satan’: Competing Frames of Morality in the Brokeback Mountain Controversy in Utah Newspapers” Western Journal of Communication (2009); “Framing Brokeback Mountain: How the Popular Press Corralled the ‘Gay Cowboy Movie,’” Critical Studies in Media Communication (2008); “‘Don’t Want No Short People ’Round Here’: Confronting Heterosexism’s Intolerance Through Comic and Disruptive Narratives in Ally McBeal.” Western Journal of Communication (2002); “Defining Communication’s Role and Identity in the 1990s,” Insights: Journal of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication (1994); “The Newsroom Barometer: Job Satisfaction and the Impact of Racial Diversity on U.S. Daily Newspapers,” Ohio Journalism Monographs (1991) (And 10 others since 1986.)

Other Publications: More than 60 other juried research papers, book reviews, reports, white papers and articles; 100+ newspaper columns; nine dedicated blogs.
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HNC—Weekly Digest (Jan. 24-30, 2011)

2011-01-30T14:36:00.000-08:00

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The Hard News Café—Week in Review
Jan. 24-30, 2011

News about Cache Valley and USU by students of the Department of Journalism & Communication
Utah State University
Logan, Utah

“Dedicated to free expression and
mutual understanding in the information age.”

CACHE VALLEY COMMUNITY NEWS
Cache Valley’s air quality? Noddaproblum; just move along now
January 28th, 2011 Posted in Opinion
By Bryan Dixon Guest commentary I’ve been struggling for words to describe Tuesday’s presentation from the Bear River Health Department to the Cache County Council on air quality in Cache County, and the council´s response. I’ve settled on “embarrassing.” Admittedly, the first words that came to mind were somewhat less charitable. Full Commentary

N. Logan planning commission working on RV parking permits
January 28th, 2011 Posted in News
By Emily Pannell Johnson
NORTH LOGAN—The Planning Commission is currently developing an ordinance that will allow recreational vehicle parks to be opened in North Logan with a conditional use permit. Full Story

Poo-Gloos make Wellsville’s sewage lagoons sweeter-smelling
January 28th, 2011 Posted in News
By Noelle Johansen
WELLSVILLE–Poo-Gloos are taking the stink out of sewage in the lagoons north of Wellsville. Full Story

Hyde Park youth city council looking for new members
January 28th, 2011 Posted in News
By Jamee Dyches
HYDE PARK–City leaders are trying to get young people more involved in local issues. “I want to provide the youth an opportunity to have a voice in the city. I don’t want to limit what they can come up with, the sky is the limit,” said youth council adviser Stephanie Allred. Full Story

Quick thinking limits fire at Hyrum pallet manufacturer
January 28th, 2011 Posted in News
By Melissa Pearl Youngberg
Aggie TV News
HYRUM—Sparks ignited a sawdust fire at the pallet manufacturing warehouse in Hyrum Wednesday afternoon. Hyrum Fire Chief Cardell Nielsen said the fire at Timberland Pallets, at 369 W. Main St., broke out in the steel hopper that contains sawdust expelled from the pallet shop. Full Story & Photos

Slide Ridge: A honey of a business for Mendon family
January 28th, 2011 Posted in Business
By Teresa Nield
MENDON—If anyone could ever be described as busy as a bee, then the James family comes as close as it gets. The Slide Ridge Honey business, based in Mendon and run by the seven members of the James family, bottles honey and vinegar made from the honey produced by their self-raised bees in a certified clean kitchen. Full Story

Two new city parks planned for Hyrum this year, mayor says
January 28th, 2011 Posted in News
By Rhett Wilkinson
HYRUM–Plans for two new parks and a fire station, a dog pound, solar panels for the library and a national award for a sewer manager were the highlights of the second-ever State of the City address by Mayor Dean Howard Thursday. Full Story

Crazy or dedicated? Scores leap into freezing reservoir for 6th Polar Plunge
January 26th, 2011 Posted in Arts and Life, News
By Jess Allen
HYRUM—The crowd huddled behind a fence on the shore of the Hyrum Reservoir, watching shivering polar bears walk the long, wooden walkway and onto the ice to jump into the freezing water. It was the 6th annual “Freezin’ for a Reason” Polar Plunge Saturday, to raise money for Utah’s Special Olympics. Full Story

Nibley P&Z discusses solutions for field drain maintenance
January 27th, 2011 Posted in News
By Stephanie Zollinger
NIBLEY–The Planning and Zoning Commission met Wednesday night, reviewing a concern over maintenance of field drains. Full Story

Millville’s tasks include replacing pear trees that were goats’ dinner
January 30th, 2011 Posted in News
By Mariah Noble
MILLVILLE–The City Council met Thursday to go over a water budget and quarterly financial report. They also discussed renting out a trailer on city grounds, replacing damaged trees in parks and putting up a city sign. Full Story

River Heights hums ‘Ham Radio Blues,’ seeks volunteer operators
January 29th, 2011 Posted in News
By Lis Stewart
RIVER HEIGHTS—Disaster strikes at its leisure, and River Heights may find itself short-handed if telephones and electricity are down. Councilwoman Kathryn Hadfield said River Heights needs more licensed amateur radio operators who can volunteer, should an emergency arise. Full Story

USU NEWS
Pulitzer changed America and the role of the press, biographer says
January 29th, 2011 Posted in News
By David Bowman
LOGAN—When Joseph Pulitzer arrived in the United States in 1864 as a 17-year-old Hungarian mercenary soldier imported to fight for the North in the American Civil War, it is safe to assume that no one could have had any idea of his enduring impact on his new country. “Yet,” says biographer James McGrath Morris, “Pulitzer ushered in the modern mass media.” Full Story

• Listen to Utah Public Radio interview with James McGrath Morris on Pulitzer’s impact on American journalism

Feminist scholar examines marginalization of women in the Bible
January 27th, 2011 Posted in Arts and Life, News
Story & Photos by Heidi Hansen
LOGAN—Read the Bible suspiciously and ask hard questions—that was a the advice from a feminist religious scholar Wednesday afternoon as she discussed “What the Bible Doesn’t Teach You” at USU’s Merrill-Cazier Library. Full Story

Media stereotypes drive international misperceptions of America
January 24th, 2011 Posted in Arts and Life
By Cassidee J. Cline
HNC European Correspondent
FRANKFURT-ODER, Germany—As you walk through narrow streets lined with small shops and restaurants, you look up at the old apartment buildings with flowerpots lining the balconies. Then a group of teenagers speaking German walks by and a few words reach your ears: “Homer Simpson.” Full Story

Tireless USU ‘retirees’ play Johnny Appleseed for Lebanese growers
January 30th, 2011 Posted in Arts and Life
By Courtney Rhodes
LOGAN—Traditionally, most people slow down when they retire, but not Paul and Lorna Larsen. Since retiring in 1992 as USU vice president of extension and continuing education, Paul Larsen, now 83, has yet to acquire the slow, relaxing retiree lifestyle. Full Story

SUNDANCE 2011
Sundancing through opening weekend
January 27th, 2011 Posted in Arts and Life
By Ben Hansen
Special to Hard News Café
PARK CITY–The Sundance Film Festival is upon us, and opening weekend was far improved over last year. Here are some of the highlights. Full Story

Sundance review: Guster, Low Anthem, Secret Sisters highlight concert
January 28th, 2011 Posted in Arts and Life, Review
By Max Parker Dahl
PARK CITY–The Sundance ASCAP Music Café’s musical line-up played a rousing show Tuesday, with a variety of genres, culminating with a set by acoustic-pop artist Guster. Full Story

Sundance review: Carole King is radiant
January 26th, 2011 Posted in Arts and Life, Review
Story and photo by Ben Hansen
Special to Hard News Café
PARK CITY–Many of you may not be old enough to remember a time when Carole King was one of the driving forces in the music industry. The 1970 pop music icon was at Sundance this week. Full Review

Sundance: Music in ‘Troubadours’ is a time machine to the ’70s
January 26th, 2011 Posted in Arts and Life, Review
By Max Parker Dahl
PARK CITY–Troubadours is a woven but liquid documentary that draws from the first-hand experiences of the singer/songwriters involved with the Los Angeles music scene at the dawning of the 1970s. The documentary explores the spirit and humanity behind the relationship of James Taylor and Carole King, and is entirely driven by the music created by those who played at the Troubadour night club during that time. Full Story

Sundance review: ‘Knuckle’ opens a window on Irish fighting clans
January 27th, 2011 Posted in Arts and Life, Review
By Max Parker Dahl
PARK CITY–Knuckle: the delving exploration inside the Irish Travelers way of settling clan disputes; bare-knuckle fights. Full Review

Sundance report: Music stars changing the movie scenery
January 28th, 2011 Posted in Arts and Life
Story and photo by Ben Hansen
Special to Hard News Café
PARK CITY–The music industry has always played a pivotal role in Hollywood. A good musical score goes hand in hand with strong acting, a good script, and special effects to create a masterpiece. At the 2011 Sundance Film Festival however, two major players in the music industry have decided to take Hollywood into their own hands. Full story

Sundance review: ‘Hobo with a Shotgun’ and ‘Legend of Beaver Dam’ grotesquely violent, disturbingly funny
January 27th, 2011 Posted in Arts and Life, Review
By Max Parker Dahl
PARK CITY–The long-awaited Hobo with a Shotgun trailer-turned-movie, featured in 2007’s Grindhouse, premiered at Sundance Film Festival this season. This exploitation/slasher film was proceeded by the short film The Legend of Beaver Dam. Full Story

MOVIES
Rogen delivers a sting with new version of ‘The Green Hornet’
January 26th, 2011 Posted in Arts and Life, Review
By Cathy Morgan
LOGAN—Many were skeptical when viewing previews for the new version of the comic book classic, The Green Hornet. Hollywood and Seth Rogen manage to turn us around, however, with their production. Full Review

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The Hard News Café
© 2011
Department of Journalism & Communication
Utah State University
Logan, Utah 84322-4605
435-797-3292 • jcom@aggiemail.usu.edu • ted.pease@usu.edu

You are receiving this weekly digest of news about USU and the Cache Valley, reported and written by USU students, as a service of The Hard News Café, the JCOM Department and the College of Humanities & Social Sciences. To unsubscribe, email ted.pease@usu.edu.
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Resource: Photo Ethics/Framing

2011-01-16T13:10:00.000-08:00

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Errol Morris, filmmaker/columnist

This is a fascinating and important conversation by filmmaker/director Errol Morris (Fog of War, about Robert McNamara’s decision to bomb Cambodia in the 1970s, The Thin Blue Line and others, including upcoming Tabloid, about a Miss Wyoming who fell in love and kidnapped her Salt Lake City Mormon boyfriend from his mission in England so they could have sex (!)) as part of The New York Times’ Opinionator blog.

Morris deals with photo ethics and image manipulation over some real cases of photos of children’s toys amid rubble in Iraq and other Middle East war zones.

Good for all journalists in considering how to present information effectively yet ethically, and for media consumer as a reminder to take all information with skepticism.

• Part 1: “It Was All Started by a Mouse” (1/3/2010)
• Part 2: “It Was All Started by a Mouse” (1/4/2010)
• Postscript: “Thought Experiment #2” (1/12/2010)

Teachable Moments

2010-10-30T12:26:00.000-07:00

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Learning Begins with the Tough Questions

By Edward C. Pease
© 1996

“Judge a man not by his answers, but by his questions.” Gender bias aside, that’s one of the mantras of the classroom—for the professor, anyway. Or it should be. And in the context of “values” and learning, it represents a crucial tenet of education: curiosity and critical thinking.

At USU, as at any good university, the quality of the end-product—education—is measured not so much by what the professor tells the student, as by what the student is motivated to ask. And the worth of the outcome is not necessarily just in getting the answer right, but in students having the freedom and the will to ask the question in the first place. In that freedom to ask questions resides an element of risk for both the student and the professor, because asking tough questions is an inherently subversive activity that, when done right, both implies a challenge to what is accepted as “conventional wisdom,” and reflects a desire to seek new answers.

When I moved to USU from New York City two years ago, some of my friends and colleagues thought I was nuts. Aside from the East’s regional chauvinism (stronger on the East Coast, which considers anyplace west of the Hudson or Potomac rivers “the hinterlands,” than in any other part of the country), I got the usual battery of Mormon jokes, and concerns from well-meaning people about how an avowed liberal Democrat would survive in the arid conservative climate of the land of Orrin Hatch. Was I doing “missionary work”? they joked.

In a way, that’s what any teacher does. But more than that, I have learned to appreciate more fully than before the text of a poster I got from a mail-order place in Minnesota: “Minds are like parachutes: they function only when open.” As a teacher, I am in the mind-opening business; and, over the past two years at USU, my students have served the same mind-opening service for me.

Take Amy. When she and I met, she was a sophomore political science major from Idaho who, after an internship in Republican U.S. Sen. Dirk Kempthorne’s Washington, D.C., office, decided she wanted to become a lobbyist for conservative causes. Despite her misgivings about left-leaning journalists, she wanted a second major in communication to pursue her career goals.

Amy knew within the first five minutes we met that she disagreed with me on just about everything from politics to primetime. Over the past two years, I don’t think I ever changed her mind about anything, but we like each other, enjoy butting heads, and both have learned something in the process.

Amy lives to bait me: “Rush Limbaugh said...,” she’d say.

“Pompous windbag,” I snort.

“Where is he wrong?” she challenges.

“Where not, Ditto-Head?” I retort.

“Oh, you liberals....” She waves me away.

And we’re off to the races.

The reason Amy and I like to torment each other is the process, the exchange, the joy of disagreement, and, as the 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill said, the value of defending what each we each know as “truth,” which makes learning happen.

This process of questioning, of disagreement, of examining one’s beliefs, and, finally, either reaffirming or altering them—that’s the joy of teaching and learning. It’s not that we professors necessarily know “the truth”; the best we can do (on a good day) is to force our students—kicking and screaming, if that’s what it takes—to learn facts (which are different from beliefs), and make them decide for themselves what they believe.

Amy is not the only student at USU whose worldview conflicts with my own, and she also is not the only one willing to debate me. In the process, both my students and I find our minds opening like parachutes, and discover a willingness to reexamine what we thought we “knew” in the context of each other’s new ideas.

For me, a child of the activist, anti-establishment 1960s and ’70s, this process recalls the counterculture mantra of my youth, “Question authority,” now reborn as my favorite teaching tool in the 1990s. In some ways, it is an alien concept in Utah, where so many young people are raised to do just the opposite. But for students like Amy, a willingness to distinguish between facts and beliefs, and a growing enjoyment in questioning everything (including whatever the professor says in class), healthy skepticism becomes a valuable tool for learning, and for life.

I despair when I see students relentlessly scribbling down everything I say, because I know they think they’re getting the answers without ever having had to figure out the questions. So when I sit in my office or classroom and have a student bristle at me, get in my face, disagreeing, pushing back, questioning what she’s been taught as “common knowledge,” starting statements with, “BUT...!” and trying to change my mind. Well, that’s a good day for teaching and learning.

This willingness to question and examine and then reexamine is particularly critical in my teaching area—the mass media. Because the journalist who simply writes down what the mayor or the police chief tells him is a scribe, not a watchdog on society. And the TV viewer to moviegoer or voter in a presidential campaign year who simply absorbs and unquestioningly accepts what he or she hears in the information age isn’t a citizen, but a sheep. For me, teaching about the mass media is the same as teaching about life. It is a playground for the curious and socially conscious. And, if done correctly, it is prime territory for teaching students to question what they think they know.

For example, if “more Americans get their news from ABC than from any other source,” as the network claims, what then? What about this new study that finds kids learn about sex from TV, not from their parents or schools or even the older kid next door? Will the Internet cause intellectual birth defects? If children spend more time with “Barney” than with Dad, will the next generation talk and walk like purple dinosaurs? Does the “v-chip” defend kids against TV violence, or against parental neglect, or both? Should women look like Barbie or Elle McPherson or Rosie O’Donnell? Can you believe anything politicians say on television? What about Martha Stewart? Do movies really make people go nuts and kill their parents? Why does TV portray African Americans as criminals or buffoons, and women as sex objects or Donna Reed? And so on.

Questioning what we’re told—whether in the classroom or on TV—is what learning and good citizenship is all about. And it is an especially crucial life-skill in an age when most of what we learn or think we know about the world comes to us second-hand, in soundbites and images transmitted to us from far from our own lives, by people we don’t know. For students like Amy, whose generation has been raised by the mass media, honing a healthy skepticism is new and exciting, and a critical survival skill in the electronic age.

And for teachers like me, who are lucky enough to have such students in their classrooms, this is the joy of the profession—watching students challenge what they’ve always accepted as the way things are, and seeing them come up with their own answers, arrived at not because that’s what they’ve always been told, but because they’ve done their own thinking about the questions, and not just memorized the answers of others. Provoking questions is a noble and enduring profession, and students, if they are engaged, ask better questions than professors do.

So when Amy wants to fight about politics, when Ken declares that he “gets it,” when Evan gets angry at the evening news, when my students ask tough questions for which I have no good answers...that’s a good day on University Hill.

• Edward C. Pease is professor and head of the Department of Communication at USU. This appeared in the USU Magazine, Fall 1996.

Column: Halloweinies

2010-10-30T12:03:00.000-07:00

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I’ll take Martians over media illiteracy
By Ted Pease ©1996

For students of mass communication, Halloween is a time of year to stop and ponder anew the public’s astonishing gullibility, and to reaffirm the media’s responsibility not to mislead.

The reason that the holiday is so revered has nothing to do with its attractions for most Americans (who now spend more money on Halloween than on any other holiday but Christmas). Journalists and media scholars love Halloween because it is the anniversary of one of the all-time greatest media hoaxes—the day that Martians invaded New Jersey.

You remember the story: On the night before Halloween 1938, radio director Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre actors reenacted H.G. Wells’ 1898 novel “The War of the Worlds” over 151 CBS radio stations nationwide. Unidentified flying objects had taken off from Mars and were “moving toward the Earth with enormous velocity,” landing near the farming community of Grovers Mill, N.J., according to breathless “newscasts” created by the Mercury Theatre cast in New York City.

Martian heat rays incinerated the innocent and destroyed Trenton, N.J. Giant Martian machines “as tall as skyscrapers” and emitting poisonous black smoke, marched on New York, wading across the Hudson River into Manhattan. The National Guard was called out, but the troops were helpless against the horrible Martian weapons. Other Martian spacecraft were reported near Buffalo, St. Louis and Chicago. By the time the Mercury broadcast ended, 40 minutes later, the aliens had taken over the country.

Big practical joke, right?

An estimated 6 million radio listeners heard the broadcast, and social scientists later said about 1 million of them believed it. In New York City, families rushed together to await their death. New Jersey farmers armed with shotguns crouched behind barricades of hay bales and grain sacks to repel the aliens. Police and National Guards troops mobilized all over the country. The New York Times received 875 phone calls from frightened citizens. The Memphis, Tenn., Press-Scimitar published a nighttime “extra” edition about the invasion of Chicago and St. Louis. Meanwhile, New York City police officers who rushed to the CBS studio were stunned to see the actors, “stoically before the microphones, reading their scripts, ignorant of the havoc they were creating throughout the land.”

Afterward, Orson Welles innocently expressed surprise that anyone had taken his broadcast seriously: “How could they?” he said. “They were told several times it wasn’t real.” The show was just the actors way “of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying ‘Boo!’” he said.

Today, 58 years later, I’m thinking that for all our sophistication in the “information age,” Americans actually may be less savvy about what we hear, see, read and experience in the media than we were in 1938, simply because media have become such an accepted part of our daily lives.

Sure, we probably wouldn’t buy into Orson Welles’ radio gag today (even though promotions for the movie “Independence Day,” about aliens attacking Washington, D.C., prompted similar hysteria in some markets), but in many ways we are even more malleable now than we were in the 1930s.

The reason is that so much of what we take as “reality” and common knowledge—whether political ads and spin-doctoring during election campaigns, or the importance of Barbie and the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in our kids’ lives, or our insatiable need for new cars, clothes, appliances or other gadgets—comes to us through the mass media. Like the radio listeners that night in 1938, our daily lives are formed by the environment created for us by mass media messages, and our impressions of the world around us derive from the media’s version of “reality.”

Radio listeners of the 1930s generally knew to use the medium as entertainment, or as an “electronic hearth” around which families, friends and strangers gathered to form an extended national community. Radio helped hold a nation together during the Depression and World War II, and it became a part of the family.

Ironically, in 1996, for all our electronic sophistication, we are in some ways less critical consumers of mass media messages than we used to be. That’s because so much of what we do every day is based on knowledge we get from the mass media, which is no longer an activity we select but has become ubiquitous electronic wallpaper. There are nearly six radios in every American home, and more TVs than toilets. Aside from sleeping, we spend more time with television and radio than doing anything else. We eat, breathe, talk, think, swim in a biosphere of mass media messages, so much so that most of us think about our media diet about as much as we think about the air we breathe.

We might not fall for Martians in 1996, but ultimately we fall for much more. Item: 80 percent of fourth-grade girls say they are on diets, and the same percentage of American women think they are overweight. Item: More than half of white conservatives and 45 percent of white liberals think “blacks are aggressive or violent.” Where do you suppose those perceptions come from?

Most of what we think we “know” comes from the mass media. Here’s a true or false quiz:

T/F 1.) Rapists and welfare recipients are more likely to be black than white.
T/F 2.) Handguns are used more often for self-defense than for suicide.
T/F 3.) Violent crime in the United States is on the rise.
T/F 4.) Teen-age pregnancy rates are higher today than they were in the 1940s and ’50s.
T/F 5.) Most drug users in the United States are minorities.
T/F 6.) Most divorced fathers are “dead-beat dads” who don’t pay child support.
(See answers below.)

In 1996, much more than in 1938, we Americans learn about the world and about each other and about what matters most to us not from real people, but from the images and impressions we absorb from our mass media diets. This is not to condemn the media or technology, but it is a fact of life in the information age. Far from being savvier and more discerning in our use of information that comes to us from television and the Internet and newspapers and radio, we are increasingly likely to take such “knowledge” at face value. And—like oxygen from the air or vitamins from our diets—this “knowledge” is absorbed into our lives, and may warp our attitudes and skew how we see the world without our knowing it.

When Orson Welles and his radio actors dressed up in sheets and yelled “Boo!” for Halloween in 1938, the impact was much greater than anyone expected. In many ways, 1996 audiences aren’t much better informed than they were then, but the larger social consequences of such blind acceptance today may be much greater than the mere invasion of bloodthirsty Martians.

PS: (Quiz answers: All items are false.)

• Ted Pease is head of the Department of Communication at Utah State University. His column appears on the Opinion Page every other Sunday. This appeared in the Logan (Utah) Herald-Journal on Nov. 10, 1996.
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Column: TV & the ‘Virtual Childhood’

2010-10-30T11:50:00.000-07:00

Hope for kids on a TV diet

By Ted Pease
©1996

There’s more to life in the information age than a TV diet of Twinkies and Nutrasweet. So says Hope Green, vice-chairman of the national board of directors of the Public Broadcasting Service.

When she appeared at Utah State University last week to talk about “The ‘Virtual Childhood’—Growing Kids on a Television Diet,” Green could have lambasted TV as the symbol of the end of civilization. Or, as president of the PBS system in Vermont and a national leader of public broadcasting, she could have stalwartly defended TV as a misunderstood and maligned educational tool.

Instead, she did neither, and both. Her reasonable moderation may have sent away unfulfilled both those who wanted the demon tube soundly whipped, and others seeking reassurance that there’s hope for their kids who watch TV six hours a day. Because parents and educators who want to blame social woes on television, as well as those who would like to grasp at educational TV as the answer to their kids’ problems all are bound for disappointment.

Anyone who watches even a little bit of television knows that at least a portion—perhaps entire continents—of the TV world is a “vast wasteland,” as former FCC chief Newton Minow put it in 1961. Just five years ago, Minow revisited the “wasteland,” and said TV—and the rest of us, too—still fails in at least four areas.

“We have failed 1.) to use television for education; 2.) to use television for children; 3.) to finance public television properly; and 4.) to use television properly in political campaigns,” he said.

And it is such a waste of potential, because television could be “the most important educational institution in America,” Minow said. “More people learn more each day, each year, each lifetime from television than from any other source. All of television is education; the question is, what are we teaching and what are we learning?”

Hope Green’s answer to that might be that the responsibility lies with how we use TV, and how we let our kids use it, whether kids watch 10 hours a week or 40, and whether TV is an activity that parents and children share. The Vermont broadcast executive, who has only one TV set in her house (and it’s on the third floor), preaches and practices moderation.

There is another, perhaps more comforting answer to the dilemma of how to grow kids on a television diet and in a mass media world, and it comes from two teams of researchers at the universities of Massachusetts and Kansas.

In the early 1980s, the researchers studied kids aged 2 to 7 in Springfield, Mass., and Topeka, Kan. The concern was (and still is) that a lot of TV watching, even of educational programs like “Sesame Street,” would impair children’s learning ability in at least two ways: 1.) because it is a visual medium, TV would slow down kids’ language development and reading/writing skills; and 2.) because TV is so active and busy, it might reduce kids’ ability to concentrate and pay attention in school.

In 1994, the researchers—led by Daniel Anderson at UMass and Aletha Huston and John Wright at Kansas—hunted down 570 of the kids from the earlier study, who were by then in high school, to see how they turned out. The question was whether those who had been heavy TV viewers as kids had become vegetables in the classroom.

Parents of kids who watch a lot of shows like “Sesame Street” will like the results. Instead of contributing to a generation of poor learners and uninterested readers, the study found exactly the opposite among the high school students who had watched “Sesame Street” and other educational shows as kids.

“Viewing educational television in preschool appears to contribute to children’s academic performance many years later,” the researchers found after interviewing the students and examining their high school transcripts. They also talked to parents and teachers, and evaluated the students’ “academic self-concept” and how much they valued learning.

“It is obvious that the content learned at age 5 cannot influence high school performance directly,” they said. “Instead, a rich diet of educational television may help children to enter school with the academic skills required for the tasks they encounter, increasing the likelihood of early success.”

“This early positive experience in school may set a child on a trajectory of success, self-confidence, and positive reputation among teachers that has long-term consequences for later academic achievement.”

It turns out that kids who watched “Sesame Street” or other educational programs five hours a week (once a day) when they were 5, performed an average of a one-quarter grade better in high school than kids who didn’t grow up on “Sesame Street.”

Of course, none of this gives parents a license to plunk their kids down in front of the tube and use it as a baby-sitter—kids who watch five or six hours a day, which is one reported national average, probably aren’t doing much or anything else, and most of that is probably not “Sesame Street,” “Nova” or the Discovery Channel anyway.

That’s where Hope Green’s moderation message comes in: Twinkies won’t kill you, unless that’s all you eat. Neither will TV ruin our kids’ lives and turn their little brains into mush, unless that’s all they do with their childhoods.

• Ted Pease is head of the Department of Communication at Utah State University and co-editor of the 1996 book Children and the Media. This column ran in the Logan (Utah) Herald-Journal on Nov. 24, 1996.

Smarts—Project2

2010-10-30T06:53:00.000-07:00

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Cartoons, Movies or Kids—Your Choice

For your second Smarts project, you may choose . . .
1) how editorial cartoons frame a controversial news topic of your choice; OR
2) how movies reinvent historical events; OR
3) an examination of children and media.

Project Proposal Due: Monday, Nov. 8, 2010.
Proposal must include:
a) Topic/Subject Title: For example, Muslims in editorial cartoons; The press role in “All the President’s Men”; or Consumerism and children’s Saturday morning cartoons. (Note: Do NOT select the same topic as your Truthiness project.)
b) Executive Summary: No more than 200 words explaining the rational (the “Why?” question) and focus (What?) of your project. Why is it worth examining? What media (specifically) will you examine? Why those? In the case of the movie-history project, with what sources will you compare your movie?
c) Proposed Format: You may do this project as a video (deliver a DVD or URL), a blog or Powerpoint presentation, or as a standard 5-page paper (plus bibliography). Note: The script or accompanying written documentation must accompany the multimedia options, including bibliography, which would be roughly equivalent to a 5 pp. paper when added to your visuals.)
You may post your proposed topic in the dialog on the Week 10 blog if you’re interested in feedback from others in the class.

Project Due: Monday, Dec. 6, 2010.

I. Option #1: The Editorial Cartoon Project

Goal: To apply media effects theories and media literacy concepts to an analysis of editorial cartoons depicting an issue related to race and/or gender. To identify and to analyze the “stories” being told by editorial cartoonists about racial or gender minorities—how do editorial cartoonists frame minorities (could mean racial minorities, gender or gender minorities (gays), or ethnic peoples)? (Past Smarts examples: Racism cartoons, gays in the military, women in politics...)

Possible Topics
1. Race & Ethnicity
• Immigration & Undocumented Workers
• President Obama—The First Black President (or, more broadly, black politicians in general, including, for example, New York Gov. David Paterson)
• Israelis & Palestinians—What we “know” about the “Palestine Problem”
• Others?

2. Gender
• Gays in America
• Gays in the Military—“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
• Gender & Politics—Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Sarah Palin, Christine O’Donnell, etc.
• California’s Proposition 8; Same-sex marriage (See past Smarts cartoon project on Prop 8: Part I. Part II.)
• Gay rights issues in Utah

Resources: Editorial Cartoons
• David Wallis, SFGate.com: “Killed cartoons: Censorship is a threat not only to speech but to satirical images that sting targets or offend”
• Characteristics of effective editorial cartoons
• Mike Luckovich, 2-time Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist: “Drawing Attention: Cartooning with Mike Luckovich” (video)

Resources: Media, Race & Ethnicity
• What is racism? Definitions of racism, prejudice, etc.
• Ten things everyone should know about race
• Tom Huang, Poynter Institute: “Framing Stories: How we see stories and how we tell them”
• Hutchins Commission (social responsibility) & Kerner Commission (race & media)
• More Kerner Commission
• “Myth: Affirmative action is an African American entitlement program”
• Racism Defined: “What is Racism, Prejudice, Discrimination, Bias, and Xenophobia?”
• Robert Krulwich, NPR: “Your family may once have been a different color”
• Public Radio International: “Skin whitening big business in Asia”
• Even Conant, Newsweek (2009): “Rebranding hate in the age of Obama”
• San Francisco Chronicle, Media Report: Accuracy in Israel/Palestine Reporting

II. Option #2: Hollywood & History

Goal: To identify how historical events, people, issues, and/or media ethics are depicted in Hollywood films. Film research demonstrates that when history is translated to the silver screen, the events and people depicted are often diluted, distorted, or fabricated, often privileging stories of Whites over people of color, or men over women, etc.—privileging the dominant power structures in American society. Filmmakers choose what to include and exclude from history, thus films work to reshape and reinterpret social reality and historical memory, thus altering our received or perceived understanding of history and “truth.” Many Americans “learn” history from the movies, which is a little scary if you think about it (John Wayne in WWII movies? Oliver Stone’s version of the JFK assassination? Affleck and Damon in “Pearl Harbor”?).

Assignment:
1. If you select this project option, pick a historically based film, analyze how the movies depicted and framed historical events and people by comparing the film version to historical accounts and news stories in The New York Times & other dependable historical sources.
2. Select a film from the list below. Analyze the movie and identify the movie’s major themes/ frames, and compare them to historical facts. How do the movie “facts” privilege or distort the historical record? Do the film narratives work to privilege or challenge the dominant ideologies underlying American society? If you select a press-related movie, what issues related to media ethics can you relate to the film’s construction of reality? (You can propose other movies than those listed here, but no sports movies.)
3. How was the event and/or person framed in The New York Times? What issues related to media ethics can you relate to the Times’ construction of reality?
NOTE: Because this is a journalism class, I urge you to select a film that has to do with journalism, but that is not a requirement. The film must, however, be based on historical events so that you can examine it for truth. Remember, historians, like journalists or filmmakers, are both gatekeepers who decide what to include and exclude in their accounts, and framers of reality whose accounts of what happened becomes the public's version of the “truth.”

Essay or multimedia “report”: You may either write a 5-pp. paper on your movie, or construct a blog or multimedia presentation that others can view (see above). You must include complete bibliographic sources used to confirm the historical record. For multimedia presentations, you also need to hand in a detailed outline. Here’s an example of a past Smarts movie project on Shattered Glass. Part 1. Part 2.

Reminder: Wikipedia is NOT an acceptable nor a reliable source.

Some Tips:
1. Just because the clip is available on YouTube does not mean it’s the best option to support your arguments/theme. Trailers for movies are rarely useful. Select your movie clips carefully.
2. Using online sources is fine, providing the sources are reliable. (Like Wikipedia, blogs are not always reliable sources of factual information—check your sources!) Preferred sources: newspapers, news magazines, academic articles or books, film reviews from reliable news sources (e.g., New York Times). FYI: The New York Times Historical Database is available online through the library and includes all articles published by the Times. Also, every Time magazine article and cover since its first publication in 1927 are available.
3. Katie’s research tips.

Fair Warning: Many Hollywood films may use language, violence, depictions, etc., that some may find offensive; about 70 percent of Hollywood films are R-rated. From the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA): “A motion picture’s single use of one of the harsher sexually-derived words [e.g. the “F” word], though only as an expletive, initially requires at least a PG-13 rating. More than one such expletive requires an R rating, if even one of those words is used in a sexual context.” Click here for additional information on the MPAA rating system.

Films: Below is a list of films that fit the criteria for this assignment, which is that the movie . . .
1) . . . is based on an actual event or person;
2) . . . deals with an important social issue (e.g., racism, genocide); or
3) . . . focuses on issues related to journalism/journalism ethics. (Plot summaries below adapted from: The Internet Movie Database (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic.
4) Many of these selections are related to journalism. Because this is a journalism class, Dr. Ted urges you to consider films about journalism that you haven’t seen as a way to enhance the learning experience of this project. Dr. Ted can offer recommendations. If you find other fact-based films that appeal to you, propose them to Dr. Ted ASAP.

FILM LIST Some films are available in USU Merrill-Cazier Library, Media Collections.
• All the King’s Men (2006). Based on the Robert Penn Warren novel. The life of populist Southerner Willie Stark, a political creature loosely based on Governor Huey Long of Louisiana. PG-13
• All the President’s Men (1976). Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein uncover the details of the Watergate scandal that leads to President Nixon’s resignation. PG
• Born on the Fourth of July (1989). The biography of Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise), who was paralyzed in the Vietnam war, and becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist. For this option, examine coverage of the Vietnam war in The New York Times and compare to the narrative story in Born on the Fourth of July and the actual events of the conflict. R for war violence, language.
• Capote (2006) Based on writer Truman Capote during research for his (excellent) book In Cold Blood, an account of the murder of a Kansas family. Capote develops a close relationship with Perry Smith, one of the killers, and struggles with the conflict of balancing getting his story and journalistic ethics. R for some violent images, brief strong language. Others: Infamous (2006)
• Cry Freedom (1987). South African journalist Donald Woods (Kevin Kline) is forced to flee the country after attempting to investigate the death in custody of his friend the black activist Steve Biko (Denzel Washington). NR, British
• Flags of Our Fathers (2006) Life stories of the six men who raised the flag at the Battle of Iwo Jima during WWII, directed by Clint Eastwood. R for graphic war violence & language. Also, parallel story from the Japanese perspective, Letters from Iwo Jima (2006).
• Frost-Nixon (2008) A dramatic retelling of the post-Watergate television interviews between British talk-show host David Frost and former president Richard Nixon. G
• George Wallace (1997) Biographical drama of the political career of the Alabama governor who fought against the 1960s civil rights movement, promising “segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever” in his inaugural speech. Wallace ran for president in 1968. For this option, examine coverage of Wallace and the civil rights campaign and compare the to film version. Unrated—TV
• Ghosts of Mississippi (1996) Based on the story of the Myrlie Evers, widow of murdered civil rights leader Medger Evers, and a district attorney who struggle to bring the murderer to justice. PG-13
• Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) Edward R. Murrow and CBS decide to take a stand against Sen. Joe McCarthy’s unethical tactics during the 1950s Red Scare. PG
• The Great Debaters (2008) Drama based on the true story of Melvin B. Tolson, a professor at Wiley College Texas. In 1935, he inspired students to form the school's first debate team, which went on to participate in the first national debate between African American and Caucasian college students. PG-13
• Hotel Rwanda (2004) Story of Paul Rusesabagina, the hotel manager who protected Tutsi refugees from the Hutu militia and genocide in Rwanda. PG-13 for violence; language
• The Insider (1999) Research chemist decides to blow the whistle on Big Tobacco and appear in a “60 Minutes” segment. R for language
• In the Valley of Elah (2007) A career military officer tries to learn the truth of his son’s death after his return from a tour of duty in Iraq. Based on true story of Specialist Richard R. Davis. R for violence, language, some sexual content
• Inherit the Wind (1960) An account of a real-life 1925 case in which two great lawyers argue the case for and against a science teacher accused of the crime of teaching evolution. G
• Iron Jawed Angels (2004) Story of Alice Paul (Hilary Swank) and the fight for women’s suffrage. HBO
• The Killing Fields (1984) Based on the experiences of New York Times reporter, Sydney Schanberg, and his coverage the 1970s civil war in Cambodia. R for graphic war violence & language
• Laramie Project (2002) Based on the story of gay college student Matthew Shepard who was murdered in 1998 in Laramie, WY. Originally a play, HBO made the film version and dialogue is based on transcripts from the murderers’ trials, and interviews with individuals involved in the case and Shepard’s friends and family. HBO: language
• Malcolm X (1992) Spike Lee’s story of the controversial and influential Black Nationalist leader. PG-13 for violence, some language
• Milk (2008) “The story of California’s first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), a San Francisco supervisor who was assassinated along with Mayor George Moscone by San Francisco Supervisor Dan White” (Josh Brolin). R for language, some sexual content, brief violence
• Mississippi Burning (1988). Based on the FBI investigation (Gene Hackman) of the 1964 disappearance and murder of civil rights workers in Mississippi. R for racial violence; language
• Munich (2005) After 11 Israeli athletes are taken hostage and murdered by a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, the Israeli government recruits a group of Mossad agents to track down and execute those responsible. R for graphic violence; language
• Nixon (1995) Biographical story of former U.S. President Richard Nixon, from his days as a young boy to his eventual presidency, the Watergate scandal, and his resignation. R for language
• Philadelphia (1993) A man with AIDS (Tom Hanks) is fired by a conservative law firm because of his disease and hires homophobic small time lawyer (Denzel Washington) for a wrongful dismissal suit. Inspired in part by the real-life story of Geoffrey Bowers’ AIDS discrimination lawsuit. PG-13
• The Road to Guantanamo (2006) Based on the experiences of the Tipton Three, a trio of British Muslims who were held in Guantanamo Bay for two years until they were released without charges. R for violence; language
• The Rosa Parks Story (2001) Based on Rosa Parks and her role in the civil rights movement. Made-for TV
• Rosewood (1997) “Story of a shameful event in American history, the race riot by whites against blacks in 1922 in the small Florida town of Rosewood, which left the town in smoking ruin while dozens of its residents were shot, burned to death or lynched” (Ebert, 1997, February 21, ¶ 7). R for racial violence
• Salt of the Earth (1954) Based on an actual strike against the Empire Zinc Mine in New Mexico, the film confronts the prejudice against Mexican-American workers, who struck to attain wage parity with Anglo workers in other mines and the pivotal role of the wives of striking workers. Not rated.
• Saving Jessica Lynch (2003) Based on the story of the Army “rescue” of Private Jessica Lynch, in Iraq. Made for TV
• Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (1995) The story of a decorated officer’s legal challenge to her involuntary discharge when she admitted she was a lesbian (Glenn Close). Made for TV.
• Shattered Glass (2003) The true story of a young journalist who fell from grace when it was found he had fabricated over half of his articles. PG-13 for language.
• Sometimes in April (2005) Fictionalized drama based on the Rwandan genocide. HBO.
• Veronica Guerin (2003) Based on the story of the Irish journalist who is assassinated by the drug dealers she wrote about in her news stories. R for violence & language

Tips for doing a critical film analysis: Your goal is to analyze the film in terms of how the historical events, issues and people are represented, not simply to do a plot summary. Here are some questions to help you identify the major ideological perspectives operating in the film narratives.
1. Search for historical information about the events and people depicted in the movies. Identify the differences between the historical and film versions. You may also include current events and issues related to the issues addressed in the movie (e.g., immigration, racism, homophobia, ethnocentrism; sexism; class; etc.)
2. How does the director present issues related to diversity (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity) in the film?
3. Could the director have portrayed the events and people in a more responsible way? (Be sure to explain how you are defining responsible film making).
4. What themes, characters, elements of the film provided new insight? What themes, arguments, elements of the story challenged your current way of looking at the issues raised by the film?
5. What does the film teach us about racial and ethnic diversity? Gender? International issues? Politics? War?
6. Use specific examples from the film to illustrate your major arguments and conclusions.
7. How does the film represent challenges made to dominant cultural ideologies?
8. How can you relate the principles of media literacy and media effects theories to the film narratives?

Some Dominant Ideologies & Concepts to Consider: Click here for issues of media and ideology.
• Capitalism: Economic system of private and corporate ownership; distribution of wealth and goods determined by free market enterprise and competition.
• Christianity: Religion based on the Bible and teachings of Jesus Christ. (FYI: Approximately 33% of the world’s population practices Christianity).
• Democracy: Government of the citizens of a country, determined by majority rule, based on elected representatives, as opposed to totalitarianism, communism, fascism, tribalism...
• Ethnocentrism: “Our people are better than your people.” In other words, belief that one’s own culture, nation, or ethnicity is superior to all others. Because of our national, social, cultural, etc., upbringing, we see the world in certain ways. Indeed, we are myopic and grievously ill-informed about the rest of the planet and its people. A good reminder of this is a brief video called Miniature Earth.
• Heteroideology: Privileges heterosexuality and discriminates against sexual minorities. Asserts that sexuality is natally ascribed, immutable and natural, and that heterosexuality is an integral aspect of human intelligence and nature (Scheman, 1997).
• Patriarchy: “[A]ny kind of group organization in which males hold dominant power and determine what part females shall and shall not play, and in which capabilities assigned to women are relegated” to domestic realms and excluded from political realms (Dow, 1996).
• White Privilege: The “everyday, invisible, subtle cultural and social practices, ideas and codes that discursively secure the power and privilege of white people” the “discursive processes through which whiteness secures its normalized cultural dominance.” (Gorham, 1999; Shome, 1996).

III. Children & Media

Goal: Identify a focused issue regarding children and the mass media. Analyze the arguments surrounding the issue in the context of mass communication theories. It’s a HUGE topic, and also full of partisans (so watch out for truthiness). Remember that the American Pediatric Assn. recommends NO television for kids younger than 2, and only for 1-2 hours a day for small kids. They have statements on violence, limiting TV time, TV advertising, babies & TV , etc. In 2010, however, the mass media are EVERYWHERE, and kids are much more susceptible to all kinds of influences than us old people—they’re little sponges. Think about Marshall McLuhan’s fish analogy and then think about baby fish—those little guppies are really getting steeped in media content.

Don’t like fish? Think frogs: “Since the 1950s, children have been exposed to ever-increasing amounts of television, and because the increase has been gradual, it has avoided intense scrutiny by the scientific community for potential adverse effects,” says William Hayes, president of the New Jersey Council of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. “It is similar to the situation in which a frog, when thrown into hot water, jumps out immediately because he knows it is toxic to him,” Hayes said. “But if you take the same frog and place it on the stove and heat it slowly, he will stay in the pot until he is turned into soup.”

Hope Green, the president of Vermont Educational TV and a member of the national board of directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, came to USU a few years ago to talk about kids and TV. Would you let your children depend on a diet heavy on Twinkies? she asked. (See “TV & the ‘Virtual Childhood’”) PBS tries to get to kids through its educational programming, but what’s reasonable and prudent for kids?

This was news in 2006: “Sesame Street” launches programming for 6-month-olds...

But not everyone thought even Bird Bird and Oscar the Grouch was good for baby diets. “Essentially it is a betrayal of babies and families. There is no evidence that media is beneficial for babies, and they are starting to find evidence that it may be harmful. Until we know for sure, we shouldn't risk putting them in front of television.” —Harvard psychologist Susan Linn, founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, 2006

(The American Academy of Pediatrics recommended no TV for kids under age 2; a 2006 Kaiser Family Foundation survey found 68% of children under 2 watched at least two hours of TV daily.)

George Gerbner, the media scholar who brought us cultivation theory, warned about the kinds of attitudes and perspectives on the world that early TV might cultivate in children. “My only advice is, if you value the culture of your children, if you value the notion of your own sovereignty, if you value any sense of independence in the future, you [must] make a serious investment in your own televised programs and motion pictures to compete with the American products and, if necessary, place limits on American products.” —George Gerbner, media scholar, on “cultural imperialism” in the information age, 2002 (Ramesh Closeput and Lai-Si Tsui, “An Interview with Professor George Gerbner, in Morgan, M., Ed., Against the Mainstream: The Selected Works of George Gerbner. NY: Peter Lang, 2002)

Many others have weighed in, in jest and seriously, on the question of what FCC Chairman Newton Minow called “a vast wasteland” in addressing TV network executives back in 1960. Thirty years later, in 1990, Minow was a professor in Michigan and he revisited his condemnation of television. TV still failed in at least four areas, he said:

“We have failed 1.) to use television for education; 2.) to use television for children; 3.) to finance public television properly; and 4.) to use television properly in political campaigns,” Minow said.

And that’s such a waste of potential, he said, because television could be “the most important educational institution in America. More people learn more each day, each year, each lifetime from television than from any other source. All of television is education; the question is, what are we teaching and what are we learning?”

Other perspectives on TV:
• Editorial cartoonist Doug Marlette: “Peer pressure can lead us astray at any age, but with TV the nation’s designated baby-sitter, our children’s peers are Beavis and Butthead leering at Cindy Crawford in a Pepsi commercial. They get the lingo down before they’ve got the hormones to back it up.”
• An anonymous Illinois mother of three, complaining to TV executives: “You can’t even watch cartoons anymore! Why have you let TV go so far?”
• Bruce Springsteen, “da Boss,” “57 channels and nuthin’s on” (video)
• Author Leslie Savan, in her 1994 book The Sponsored Life: “Television-watching Americans — that is, just about all Americans — see approximately 100 TV commercials a day. . . . Advertising now infects just about every organ of society, and wherever advertising gains a foothold it tends to slowly take over, like a vampire or a virus.” • Lois Salisbury, president of Children Now, May 2001: “As America’s primary cultural storyteller, television creates a common picture of who’s important and who’s not. Prime-time programmers appear to have forgotten that America’s children—in all of their diversity—are a big part of the evening viewing audience.”
• Author and scholar Milton Chen, in The Smart Parent’s Guide to Kids’ TV: “A curious mythology has grown up around television and its effects on children. Together these myths would have us believe that TV is single-handedly turning children into couch potatoes, frying their brains, shortening their attention spans and lowering their academic abilities. Supposedly, TV is a dark and foreboding menace in our children's lives. . . . Since teachers, parents and the media themselves constantly propagate these myths, it is important to examine them.” (in Dennis & Pease, Children & the Media. Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1994)

So. Do a little investigation and decide where you want to focus.

Some sources: There are loads more. Get Googlin’.
• Annenberg School for Communication Children’s Media Lab
• Center for Children & Media
• Children Now: Media’s Impact—Understanding Media’s Role in Childhood Development
• Children’s Media Project
• Everette E. Dennis & Edward C. Pease, Eds. Children & the Media (1991) (I can loan this you’re interested.)
• Lisa Witnek, ChicagoNow.com, “I know...my kids watch too much TV”
• Media Education Foundation: Beyond Good & Evil: Children, Media & Violent Times
• PBS: Children & Media
• Squidoo: Influence of Media on Children
• University of Michigan Children & TV

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JCOM 2010 Quiz4 FIXT!

2010-10-10T06:47:00.000-07:00

FIXT! Quiz4

WEEK4 • Media Smarts Quiz • 9/29/10 FIXT
Name: Dr. Ted

1. Explain the following mass communication concepts/theories and how they help explain how mass media work in society. Provide a specific example to illustrate your understanding of each. (Revisit the synopsis of these theories on the blog.)

Example: The Red Sox won/lost yesterday; my father, who is a Dodgers fan, didn’t notice and couldn’t care less. This illustrates xxxx* theory and how? (explain). (2 pts ea. = 10 pts)
(*Selective Perception)

• Selective perception
Dr. Ted sez: A three-part concept describing how individual’s differing backgrounds (culture, gender, race, socio-economic status) help form her/his way of seeing the world. These perceptions are selective to individuals, based on differing exposure to the world—including media messages and concepts; and these selective perceptions of the world tend both to “color” how we view the world and people and events, and also to affect what kinds of things we pay attention to—selective retention of certain messages, concepts, ideas, etc., that correspond to how we see and understand the world.

• Gate-keeping
Dr. Ted sez: This theory helps explain what information gets into the mass media and what doesn’t, based on decisions by media producers about what passes through the “gate” into the media. Gatekeeping operates at many levels, from the decisions reporters (or writers or photographers) make about what stories to cover, to what sources to talk to, to what questions to ask and quotes to use; to the decisions editors make about what stories to run, at what length and where in the newspaper product (page 1 or P14B).
• Agenda-setting
Dr. Ted sez: The mass media can help set the agenda for discussion of events in the public sphere—what items are part of the public consciousness and what are not. Note the important distinction that the mass media cannot tell us what or how to think, but they can be stunningly effective in telling us what to think about, what’s important.
• Framing
Dr. Ted sez: The way the message creator—whether an advertising executive or TV producer or blogger—decides to tell her/his story will frame the information in particular ways, including or playing up some information and playing down other material. Framing is not only what images or information appears in the physical story “frame” (whether text or image), but also how the information is portrayed—people, ideas, events. NOTE: These theories are interrelated, and deal variously with the sender of a message (reporter, blogger, storyteller, advertising executive) as well as with the receiver of the message—readers/viewers/consumers—and with the content of the message itself. In the context of framing, for example, gatekeeping obviously has a role to play in the selection of what goes into the frame, and so does the reporter/writer’s own perceptions of the world—what’s important and what’s not. But those theories address the sender of the message, while framing examines the message itself and, by implication, what version of the “truth” reaches the message consumer. Ex: An Iraqi insurgent may be a terrorist to U.S. eyes, but to Iraqis he may be a hero and patriot. How do we frame such people, and who is more accurate (see selective perception, above)?
• Cultivation
Dr. Ted sez: Cultivation is the most complex of these theories, which get progressively more sophisticated. It refers to the way a constant diet of consistent media messages, repeated and received over time, may tend to change the way individuals see the world, changing perceptions of people/events/ideas. How can the media “cultivate” new ideas? It takes many repetitions over time to change individual perceptions about, for example, Black people or women or Arabs. As an illustration, we talk about “mean world syndrome,” which describes how people who consume a lot of mass media (especially news) that includes stories about violence (war, accidents, crime, etc.) tend to start seeing the world as a more dangerous and scary place than people who consume less. McLuhan’s fish is an analogy.

Understanding the Interrelationships
Dr. Ted sez: Note that theories don’t DO anything, so it is incorrect to say that, “the media use agenda-setting,” or that, “the media give us selective perception.” That’s wrong. These theories may serve to describe observed phenomena, but they don’t DO anything.

Example: How come Joe thinks Jon Stewart is funny and rejects Sean Hannity, while Judy loves Glenn Beck and thinks Stephen Colbert is a buffoon? Why does Judy love the autumn, Chevrolets and cats, while Joe likes winter, Hondas and tiny dogs? How are bigots created? These aren’t things that have been actively done to people, but the result of the cumulative impact of their different life experiences, some they’re aware of and some they aren’t—including exposure to mass media messages—over years.

All of these mass comm theories link with one another in various different and subtle ways: The media gatekeeper (whether blogger or short story writer or photographer) decides to include some topics and details and excludes others, based on what s/he thinks is important (selective perception). A possible result of that message reaching the audience is that certain topics (and how they are framed) may become more or less important on the public agenda—what we as a society discuss as important (off-show oil drilling) and what we don’t (child trafficking in Canada). That’s agenda-setting. How a story is told (framing) is based on gatekeeping (what goes into it), which is affected by the individual perceptions of the storytellers (selective perception). Agenda-setting is also affected by what the audience pays attention to, which is affected by a number of factors, including what media you consume (Fox vs. PBS) and how you interpret those messages—selective perception. Over time, if you see, consume and adopt certain kinds of messages (i.e., Democrats are irresponsible socialistic spendthrifts), your original perceptions may start to change, and you’ll see the world in a different way. Cultivation is a theory that describes these possible effects and outcomes on receivers of messages. It has nothing to do with the senders/creators of messages, except insofar that gatekeeping can influence what messages get to us, and framing can influence how that information is portrayed.

These processes also can be cyclical, right? because what information we see (gatekeeping) and consume may rise to the top of the public agenda, and, depending on how it is and framed how we then individually perceive it (selective perception), may tend to cultivate changes in our perceptions of the world (cultivation). Tricky, hunh?

2. The reading from FAIR describes elements of media bias. One of these is reliance on official sources. Why is this “biased”? Don’t official sources like political leaders have the best information?
Dr. Ted sez: Official sources tend to be white men, according research by FAIR and others. Why? Because white men tend to how most of the power positions in society (remember the Media Myths quiz?). They also are representatives of organizations (like the White House), which have particular interests in framing the news in ways that promote their interests and objectives. These individuals also have their own selective perceptions, or biases, and if these kins of sources predominate in the public conversation, other perspectives are naturally excluded. It’s not only the Bush Administration, of course, but that White House was so disciplined that three or six different administration officials might appear on three or six or nine different TV shows each weekend, and use exactly the same words—sound bites and talking points—which echoed over and over in the public media psyche, becoming “truth.”
3. What mass communication theory(ies) might help explain how limiting sources to officials might result in bias?
Dr. Ted sez: These sources are gatekeeping the conversation, aren’t they? letting only certain messages through into the public domain. They also are trying to set the agenda of public debate, And they are trying to frame the debate in certain ways….but we don’t know whether they are successful until the public (and the pundits) actually adopt their perspectives.

4. Explain “truthiness.”
Dr. Ted sez: “Truthiness” refers to the phenomenon of stating as fact what we want to be true, not necessarily what objective facts show to be true. (Ex: Is Barack Obama a foreign-born Muslim?) 5. All presidential administrations seek to control the public debate, steering journalists in directions they want covered. The Bush Administration was known for its discipline in spreading “talking points” that support administration positions—from Bush people on morning talk shows to Fox commentators repeating (sometimes word-for-word) the administration talking points. What mass communication theory might best explain and evaluate how that worked in society, and why?
Dr. Ted sez: As in No. 2 above, this is gatekeeping—constant exposure to the same talking points from a range of sources. Controlling the debate=setting the public agenda by excluding other distracting topics. They are framing also content in certain ways that benefit their political position.

6. On the evening news last night, there were stories about Topic A, B & R. I don’t remember A&R, but B was really important! What mass communication theory explains this phenomenon?
a. Gate-keeping
b. Cultivation
-->c. Selective perception
d. Agenda-setting
e. Framing

Why? explain: Dr. Ted sez: Because of my own perceptions of the world, I tend to pay more attention to topics of interest (relevance) to me, and ignore others.

7. Explain “mean-world syndrome.”
Dr. Ted sez: Research finds that a heavy consumption of news can make people see the world as a meaner and more dangerous place than people who spend less time with mass media. Heavy coverage of a series of brutal car-hijackings in Miami/Dade County in the 1980s resulted in European tourists (who had been some of the victims) and others cancelling trips to Florida, even though the actual crime rate was going down—heavy coverage of these crimes made Miami seem more dangerous than it was. (Note that this also relates to truthiness…)
8. Advertisers (and political campaigns) spend a lot of time and money getting messages in front of us. What mass communication theory might help explain why these are or are not effective?
Dr. Ted sez: Selective perception—are these issues/products important to me?

9. Revisit this WORD, which talks about how we know about historical “truth.” History, it is said, is written by the winners. If this is true, what mass communication theories does this illustrate? How?
Dr. Ted sez: Gatekeeping? Framing? We report events and frame them in ways that are positive to our interests…

10. General knowledge: Google Jon Stewart’s March to Restore Sanity and Stephen Colbert’s March to Keep Fear Alive.

19 points possible

JCOM 2010 Quiz3 FIXT!

2010-10-09T16:50:00.001-07:00

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FIXT!
WEEK3 Media Smarts Quiz • 9/22/10

Name: Dr. Ted

1. In his “Some Principles of Media Literacy,” David Considine says the old saying, “The camera never lies” isn’t necessarily so. Why?

Dr. Ted sez: As we are learning, there are a number of reasons why the camera does lie. And that’s not just an artifact of the special-effects era of PhotoShop, multimedia manipulation and the rest. During the Civil War, photography was a technology in its infancy, but even then, famed Civil War photo-documentarian Mathew Brady repositioned dead bodies for “artistic” and storytelling reasons. He may have said, “My greatest aim has been to advance the art of photography and to make it what I think I have, a great and truthful medium of history," but how “truthful” is it? We also have learned that the way information—text, images or whatever—is framed can alter its meaning, just by including and excluding different elements. In “Forest Gump,” Tom Hanks’ character is seen mooning LBJ, and in “Saving Private Ryan,” Hanks is fighting on Utah Beach in Normandy. Does the camera lie? Of course. But in any media image, how a story is framed—whether in text or photo or video…—affects its message and, potentially, its truth. (See framing in mass comm. theories, and this URL. And Principles of Media Literacy.)

2. In the media literacy readings, the authors suggest that production techniques like superimposing a reporter onto a green screen of the White House can have what effect?

a. Makes the news more exciting.
b. Misleads viewers.
c. Increases journalistic credibility.
d. Enhances viewer comprehension.
-->e. All of the above.

Dr. Ted sez: I can argue that all of these is potentially true. If you watch The Daily Show, you will often see Jon Stewart talking to his reporters in the field—but John Oliver and Jason Jones and Co. are actually just standing there in the studio in front of a green screen and footage from Iraq or the White House or wherever. The studio audience laughs, but the TV viewer could be fooled…. Still, it’s better and more effective storytelling. Or is it?

3. Why do media literacy proponents argue that citizens need both to understand and be able to analyze/evaluate media messages, but also to create media messages themselves?

Dr. Ted sez: Literacy in the 21st century means not only reading, but visual literacy (see No. 1) and capabilities to communicate with multimedia. The pencil has become a much more sophisticated instrument! Effective communication is a tool for everyday life in 2010. Understanding how that “pencil” is used and the techniques it can employ helps message receivers understand how they may be manipulated…or not.

4. Explain each of the following principles of media literacy and provide a brief example to illustrate your understanding (1 pt each):

a. Media are constructions: All media messages—words to special effects—are products that someone constructs. This is not the same as advertising—any time I write a sentence phrase I use employ certain words and reject don’t use others. That’s not necessarily evil, but it is the definition of “construction,” which then expands from word choice to idea selection and ideology.

b. Media representations create reality (how and to what effect?): Because of what the message creator selects and how s/he arranges the message’s components, the media product may represent reality to varying degrees. When you see Bigfoot in a business meeting, that may not be complete reality (!) Misrepresentations of fact can mislead readers/viewers. We call that “lying.”

c. Audiences negotiate their own meaning: Audiences (or individual audience members) are not passive recipients of media messages who just soak in the sender’s intended meaning. All of us see the world and interpret is differently. For us Red Sox fans, Derek Jeter is no hero….

d. Media constructions have commercial purposes: Sure, money—filthy lucre!—is king. But take a broad view of “commercial”—we who communicate want our target audiences to “buy” something: a philosophy, a perception of the world, an idea, a political position, a bottle of shampoo. More crassly, the more eyeballs a media message attracts, the more valuable it is to people who can sell it….

e. Media messages contain values and ideologies: The worldview of the message producer governs the message tone and focus and emphasis. Even if we try to be absolutely “straight” in our reporting of events, we can’t help but have our own ideas of what’s important, why it matters….

f. Media messages have social and political consequences: Media messages can’t tell us what to think, as we know from agenda-setting theory, but they can tell us what to think about. As the public starts to focus on some issues (and ignore others), pressure may grow to “do something.” People who see the world as a dangerous place may pressure lawmakers to create stronger laws and stiffer penalties and to build more prisons. Policy decisions grow from public sentiment.

g. Each medium has its own unique aesthetic form/impact: Communication is an art form, and like all art forms, some media lend themselves to telling certain kinds of stories better than others. A radio report on a tornado has a different impact than video footage of the damage (or did you see the recent floods in Europe?) Some years ago, CBS News anchor John Chancellor reported the unexplained crash of a jetliner coming from Europe to New York. All they had was a map of the North Atlantic with a little arrow from England ending in a big, jagged orange star south of Nova Scotia. They didn’t know what happened, who did it, and the story, er, died....

5. Explain (briefly) the relationship between the rise of mass communication and the industrial age.

Dr. Ted sez: As people moved from the countryside to cities in pursuit of work or marketplaces or whatever, it became easier to communicate to large groups of people—town criers, pamphlets and posters on walls, newspapers that communicated between a single individual editor/printer to many people at once. Gesellschaft.

6. Explain what the heck Marshall McLuhan was talking about with his fish analogy.

Dr. Ted sez: One more time: The fish in the pond is unaware of subtle changes in its environment, and may happily swim around, “breathing” in and out an increasingly toxic environment even until it became so toxic it kills him. We are generally as unaware of our daily media “diets”—stuff we absorb from mass media without even thinking about it, until our perceptions of the world may be altered. See this link.

7. On Teddy TV, Professor Pease talked about how the advent of TV might have changed Fiji. What happened and what might have been the cause? (The same thing was at work with Dr. Ted’s teenage crush on a French woman…)

Dr. Ted sez: Fijian perceptions of the “norm” of the world—what bodies should look like, how people should act—was influenced as this Polynesian culture started seeing American values on TV. Similarly, ma petite amie française had seen too many Al Capone and Bonny & Clyde movies: Chicago was a dark, dangerous place.

8. Critical thinking about media, according to the reading on Key Concepts of Critical Thinking, is NOT …

a. finding fault with media performance
b. learning what to think
c. eliminating incorrect media messages and content
d. protecting children from violent images and ideas
--> e. none of the above

Dr. Ted sez: That’s confusing: critical thinking is none of those things…. So what is it????

9. Discuss your responses to the Billy Joel video in the context of the concepts of media literacy and the central question of this class—how do we know what we think we know?

Dr. Ted sez: Your responses to this (and any media message) are your own, of course (which illustrates the mass comm. theory of selective perception, right?), but this video goes beyond our own individual perceptions of Gandhi and The Bomb and the Beatles, etc., because the images the video producer uses are framed by other media producers—the press—in the context of the events themselves. This is actually quite cool when you think about it. You’ll remember (I hope) that sociologist and media scholar Marshall McLuhan said, “The media is the message.” Part of what that means is that how a thing is framed and presented and frilled up (like for a party: Paris Hilton) or frilled down (like a war: Afghanistan or Vietnam) helps define that thing, whatever its actual reality (Remember Erma Bombeck’s kids, who wouldn’t eat anything they hadn’t seen dance on TV?). For us and for your parents and grandparents, the images that accompany Billy Joel’s song about history and culture framed events both the same—an image can’t lie, can it?—and completely differently, based on the individual viewer’s background and training and sociology and selective perception of those events. Today, images of Marilyn Monroe and Farah Fawcett are pretty pictures, dated and amusing. For people who “consumed” Marilyn in movies and then as JFK’s girlfriend, that image takes on much more meaning and power. So historical/social/cultural context, plus our own individual (selective) perceptions of a thing—from a Campbell’s soup can to a Jeep to a pretty girl (or boy) pin-up—can completely change and enhance that image’s power and meaning. This is a powerful and tricky tool for the professional communicator and her audience. Because for me as a creator of an advertisement about red grapes, for example, it’s just about grapes. But for Erma Bombeck’s kids, it may be about Fruit of the Loom underpants. I think you’ll agree that’s very different. For someone who lived through WWII or Vietnam or the Rolling Stones (or Lady Gaga), images from those times means something very different than they do for people who “know” war from history lessons, or Mick Jagger’s songs from commercials for floor cleaners. For producers of messages, this is very tricky, and we must remember in creating an image or a message that everyone sees and remembers (or doesn’t remember) historical icons differently, and that the meanings of these icons have been changed by previous interpretations of them by historians and writers and the popular media—movies, news, advertising, books, etc. Was Ulysses S. Grant a heroic general or a drunk? Was Marilyn Monroe a sexy icon or an abused girl? Was Private Ryan a national icon or a poor kid who got slaughtered in a senseless war. And is “senseless war” an editorial comment, or just redundant?

10. Over recent weeks, the pastor of a small Florida church with a congregation of fewer than 50 became one of the most important people on the planet with a threat to burn the Qur’an. Talk about the role of the media in this.

Dr. Ted sez: Librarian and historian Daniel Boorstin came up with a term, “pseudo event,” that was really a throw-away line to express his contempt for public relations and the media culture that will accept anything as equally newsworthy and important if it’s hyped correctly. But “pseudo event” lives on in scholarship and our understanding of media because it is so true: The importance of a thing relates directly to the amount of attention it receives in the media. So even if your “event” is putting on new socks on a Wednesday morning, if you can get enough media attention and “film at 11” and Tweets and viral video on the Web, then your socks (or Lindsay Lohan’s DUI) takes on lives of their own in the popular psyche. In Florida, Terry Jones came up with something that appealed to journalistic news values, as well as to people who buy into the simplistic equation of Muslim = terrorist. Here’s a “good Christian preacher” (all three of those terms are in question in his case) who was striking a blow for “Christian values,” for American “patriotism” and for the media icon that the 9/11 events have become. It was a brilliant pseudo event, and was hyped to the nth degree, first my Jones himself and then by the best and the brightest in American media and politics. Was this a legitimate news story? Yes and no. Elements that make news include timeliness (in this case, selecting the 9/11 anniversary) and human interest (playing off the 9/11 victims, general ill-informed hatred for “Muslims,” and ignorance about what the Qur’an is). But where’s the journalistic (or human) judgment? Once this carnival got going, it was impossible to stop. Because it was impossible to stop, it was newsworthy, so the press had to cover it, even as journalists were puking off-camera, and hating themselves for promoting a “story” that helped prompt violence in the Middle East, with people dying because of the story—which became news, of course, and escalated the story. So whose responsibility is this? His? He has First Amendment rights. The press—do they have the right to decide that we don’t need to see this (or an accident or a war or Lindsay Lohan)? Us, who loved the story? The people who want to know what’s going on, or the people who tell them?

Joy Brisighella in our class wrote this: “I was amazed and frustrated by the number of news sources that glommed onto this story and gave it legs. In 2008 a similar event in Topeka Kansas was purposefully ignored by the media. Yes, a Koran was burned. End of story, move along folks, nothing to see here. That could have been the case with Rev. Jones’ planned event too, but instead it was escalated into an international issue and a widely covered conflict. The difference was apparently the connection with the ongoing protest over a “Ground Zero Mosque,” which is neither a mosque or at Ground Zero. I like the quote from Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, who in criticism of the media said that there were “more people at his (Jones’) press conferences than listen to his sermons.” Pastor Jones had a congregation fewer than 50, but due to the media attention, he had an audience of millions. I also like this quote from Chris Cuomo, an ABC News anchor, who tweeted, “I am in the media, but think media gave life to this Florida burning ... and that was reckless.”

x/16 = %

2010 Quiz2

2010-09-13T04:15:00.000-07:00

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FIXT!

Media Smarts Online (JCOM 2010) • Fall 2010
Your Name: Dr. Ted Answers
9/6/10 Quiz1—The Syllabus

1. There are quotes from real people throughout the Smarts syllabus, including the four that lead it. Pick one of the quotes from anywhere in the syllabus that you particularly like, and that you can relate to your idea of why being “media smart” is important. (two pithy sentences +/-).

Dr. Ted writes: I like so many of them (obviously), from “Question Authority” to the Tom Stoppard quote about “nudging the world a little” that I use on my email signature. E.B. White, however, is one of my particular heroes. His quote about television, the first time he saw it demonstrated in New York in 1938, was prescient, I think. Can you imagine worrying in such circumstances about how “messages, distant and concocted” would affect how people interacted with each other, and wondering if TV would be a “saving radiance” or a “disturbance of the general peace.” Smart man. Here’s another quote I like, but it’s not on the syllabus: “Don’t take life too serious, Son. It ain’t nohow permanent.” … from an old Pogo comic strip.

Each of these quotes has an important back-story. For example, “Question Authority” is a protest button and bumpersticker from the 1960s. Today, an engaged and alert citizen always should question authority and take everything with a large grain of salt (like when Glenn Beck or Keith Olbermann or Joe Biden starts spouting!). So if I’m feeling rebellious or ticked off, I’ll pick “Question Authority.” But Tom Stoppard does a lot with his statement about words and their power: care must be taken with words and language; as a writer and reader I appreciate this. And the thought that mere words can nudge the world—make a difference—is a powerful concept. I like so many quotes from Stoppard’s to Ginzberg controlling the culture, to the thousands of others I’ve collected over 15 years of Today’s WORD on Journalism. I also like Sir William Berkleley, because he ridiculously condemns both education and free thinking in one swoop. But E.B. White is one of my particular heroes. His quote about television, from the first time he saw it demonstrated in New York in 1938, was prescient, I think. Can you imagine worrying in such circumstances about how “messages, distant and concocted” would affect how people interacted with each other, and wondering if TV would be a “saving radiance” or a “disturbance of the general peace.” Smart man. And that’s exactly the kind of issues we examine in this class—how technological changes in media changed and affected the larger society.

2. Professor Pease claims that, “We’re being lied to, boys and girls” in the mass media. That’s (usually) not literally true. So what is Pease saying? Do you agree/disagree? Why?
Dr. Ted writes: Perhaps “misled” is a better term than “lied to,” but I think the point needs consideration. As you will read in the media literacy materials, ALL media messages are constructions that are purposive and intentional on the part of their creators: ad people want viewers to buy soap; political consultants want voters to buy candidates or issues, photographers retouch women to make them seamless and breastier and thinner. We all see the world differently, based on our own experiences and background (as we’ll discuss in the context of mass communication theories). So all media messages are created with the particular perspective of their author embedded in them, intentionally or not. Is that lying? Not really. Could it be? It’s at least potentially misleading to the unaware.
3. Explain Marshall McLuhan’s concept of the “fish,” and how those of us who now live in the mass media age are like his fish. Does that analogy make sense to you?

Dr. Ted writes: Some of you gave up on this, but I think you just didn’t think about the metaphor very carefully. Just as a fish is immersed in its environment, and is generally unaware of it (unless it gets too bad), we live in a mass-mediated age in which messages on TV and radio and billboards and magazines and the Internet, etc. etc., are EVERYWHERE. Most of us, like the fish, are generally unaware of how the media content we breathe in and out may change our perspectives on the world, create assumptions about people and things and issues. Our mass media diet is to a large degree unintentional, just the stuff that surround us in the media environment, and most of us—like McLuhan’s fish—don’t think much about how toxic that stuff that we breathe in and out might be. Becoming aware of that environment—that’s being a smart fish!

4. Columnist Erma Bombeck is quoted as saying that, “My children refuse to eat anything that hasn’t danced on television.” What is she saying, and how does it relate to what we’re studying in this course? Dr. Ted writes: Among the most vulnerable of the “fish” in this mass media pond where we all live in the 21st Century are children, who have their preferences and perspectives formed for them by TV more than any other single source. So Bombeck’s kids preferred the stuff that had been sold to them in entertaining ways on TV. They believed what they saw on TV more than they believed stuff they actually experienced. Any of you who have small siblings or cousins know about how important the right (fill in the blank)…clothes, toys, video games, pickup trucks (older kids…) are. Where do they get that? A study released yesterday (1/20) found that kids spend as much as 12 hours a day with some form of gadget—cell phones, TV, computers, games. Talk about a generation of couch potatoes!
5. What’s your impression of John McManus’s website? (And have you bought “Detecting Bull” yet? If you have, what do you think of it so far?)
You’d better have it by now!
6. McManus, on his website, says, “[M]ainstream news is becoming shallower and more commercially biased—more written for advertisers and by publicity agents. Online, new providers are arising. But most don't follow professional principles.” Why might that be a problem? Dr. Ted writes: As per some of the previous items, even as our society becomes more cyber-connected, the actual content of what’s in the pipeline (or electronic IV tube) that fills out days and lives is increasingly trivial. The mass media should be an amazing tool for public education and knowledge. Instead…American Idol, beer ads, Anna Nicole Smith…. The head of the Federal Communications Commission called TV a “vast wasteland” nearly 40 years ago. Has that assessment changed? Further, in an online world, anyone can be a “journalist,” an authority, regardless of his or her credentials, knowledge, facts, biases. Bad information is resulting in an even greater lessening of journalists’ credibility, and without credibility journalism is nothing but noise. So where and how can we get information—factual and balanced—that we need to make decisions?
7. How confident are you that you know the real story behind the kinds of historical events discussed briefly in the syllabus? Can you identify a specific piece of history you may have “learned” about through a movie or TV show, and that, you now realize, may not be completely accurate? Pease writes: Be smart fish. Consume media critically, with a large grain of salt. It’s a little scary that so many people—including, maybe, some you the people in this class—“see” and “know” the world and history based on entertainment media.
8. Speaking of “smart fish,” from his bio, what fish do you think may be one of Professor Pease’s favorites? Dr. Ted writes: If you checked my website(s), you’d see a lot of salmon (yes, that silver thing is a Chinook, or King, salmon) and halibut. 9. Where did Professor Pease earn his PhD? Dr. Ted writes: Ohio University, 1991 (Doctor of Philosophy...or, Piled Higher & Deeper)

10. You should have watched (and maybe shared with your friends and other lumps of clay) the Stephen Colbert video on the Week1 list. So who is funnier—Professor Pease or Stephen Colbert? Why? Dr. Ted writes: You’re right—a trick question. Clearly, me, because I hold your academic fate in my cyberhands. … and if you believe that we need to talk.

Return to Smarts blog.

Larry King Speaks

2010-04-10T15:40:00.000-07:00

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The Father of ‘Talk Show Democracy’
On the Line with Larry King

By Edward C. Pease

Note: Edward C. Pease was editor of Media Studies Journal when he swapped roles with Larry King, then the undisputed king of the on-air interview, to get King’s thoughts on what in 1994 was the “new” mass media’s role in politics and governance. Despite some dated references, King’s predictions about live TV debates between political candidates, two-way real-time video (Skype) and the impact of media in self-governance stand up as fresh and prescient. TP

In the aftermath of what surely was the most extraordinary presidential campaign ever for the American news media [1992], the Larry King story—like the man himself—has taken on almost mythic proportions: Horatio Alger Makes Good. Real good.

Today, the mantle of media greatness rests easy on the self-described “Jewish kid from Brooklyn” in the wake of events that defined the “top banana of talk show hosts” as the undisputed kingmaker of the 1990s. Consider: During the presidential race, Ross Perot announced his candidacy (twice) on “Larry King Live”; after belittling the idea, an uncomfortable (and, finally, desperate) George Bush came on the show late in a losing campaign; and Bill Clinton, mindful of King’s role in his victory, promised to be back every six months if he won.

Though self-effacing (“I’m just the interlocutor”), Larry King doesn’t reject the label of Father of America’s new “electronic democracy,” a revolution that came of age, he acknowledges, with Perot’s coy, on-air concession on Feb. 20, 1992, that he’d run for president if drafted. With that show, Larry King became an instant oracle, ranking second (after venerable sense-maker David Brinkley), Media Studies Center research found, among most frequently cited political pundits, while catching both grief from the traditional news media and loyalty of audiences and candidates.

“I don’t get carried away with it,” King told Journal Editor Edward Pease in an interview in King’s CNN office in March. “I mean, it’s wonderful to be a part of it—I’d be kidding you if I said I don’t love the attention and the pay and the wonderful things it brings you. And it’s wonderful to be in the middle of the hunt. . . . But you got to watch that it doesn’t go to your head.”

In 1994, with the role of interactive shows like King’s well established, Larry King reflects that what now is revered as “talk show democracy” is just an idea whose time took a while to come—34 years, to be precise, which was how long ago King developed the format he still uses. His 1960 radio show, broadcast live from Pumpernik’s Restaurant in Miami Beach, consisted of conversation with both stars and “regular people.” That basic format became the “Larry King Live” show that 400 million people listen to or watch daily in 1994.

“I’m not doing anything different than I did 30-something years ago,” King says. “Nothing. Before the Gore-Perot debate—someone said, ‘Boy, you must be edgy.’ Why? I did two guys running for Miami Beach mayor. I have had two guys punch each other. It’s nothing new—there are just different characters. I’ve always been inquiring. I’m doing the same thing I’ve always done except that now the avenues are so much wider, direct communication is so much more powerful than it was when I was in Miami Beach.”

In a 1989 interview with Media Studies Journal, King said of talk radio: “Probably we’re a better barometer [of public opinion] in that The New York Times will print only the letters that it chooses to print.” Shows like his, King said, were “a national, electronic town meeting, a chance for the public to get together and speak out.”

Talk shows in general and Larry King’s in particular have not been without their critics in the 1990s; it isn’t difficult to make connections between public resentment of the traditional news media and the growing popularity of “alternatives.” In his 1993 book On the Line, responding to the sometimes whining criticism from the press that shows like his make it easy for public figures to circumvent the press and avoid the tough questions, King concedes that, “‘Talk show democracy’ is certainly not without risks or flaws. Our callers ask better, more serious questions than some in the press have given them credit for. But some candidates and their handlers still think of talk shows as a way to avoid tough press grillings. Talk shows should supplement the campaign press, not replace it. There’s room enough for everyone.”

It is King’s view that direct-access exchange between citizens and public figures—even presidents—is good for society and press alike. That vision of the American people speaking to one another over the air has become the electronic and political reality of the 1990s. And political leaders are joining in, as the Father of the Talk Show Democracy discussed in this interview evaluating the presidency in the new media age and his own part in it.

Media Studies Journal: You have had a major influence in developing the promise of the “electronic town meeting.” Would you talk about how you see this new form having affected the ways that Bill Clinton governs?

Larry King: Bill Clinton’s great strength is his ability to communicate via television, one on one. Reagan had that strength, but his was perceived completely differently: Reagan was your really nice uncle who was a good guy and made you feel good. Clinton is your really bright cousin who listens to you, cares about the family, relates very well, calls, keeps in touch, is accessible. He’s a nice guy. Got faults . . . we all have faults—for example, even the Whitewater thing. But he’s extraordinarily likable. Even what we see as a little bit of a cad in him is kind of fun.

So, he will use to his advantage programs like “Larry King Live” and others. The more he communicates in an informal setting, the better.

I have no doubt that if this were the 1930s, Roosevelt would have been on our show a lot—fireside chats with Larry King. He would have taken it further and talked to the public. Clinton’s willing to talk to the public. He is the most accessible president ever.

MSJ: Do you think the president gets away with more on shows like yours because he’s so good on the air and can appear and sell his position pretty much without being challenged?

Larry King: You have to be good at that. But that same plus that allows him to go on and focus on himself also allows Whitewater to be the focus of the show this week. You got to pay the price of it.

MSJ: How is this immediate access of the public with news and newsmakers changing how the traditional news media deal with the president?

Larry King: There’s no “traditional” anymore. In fact, in a couple of years, we’re going to be called traditional, and something new will have come along.

Communications is so informal today and so one-to-one: When I was a kid, the last thing I’d have dreamed of would have been talking to a president. I mean, forget it. But that’s a distinct possibility today, that a Joe Citizen in Des Moines can talk to Bill Clinton. In fact, if his kid wanted to really work at it, he could make it happen, because Bill Clinton will be on phone-in shows and will continue to communicate that way.

We’ll continue to have these kinds of forums. Now, Whitewater aside, it wouldn’t shock me to see Hillary debate Robert Dole on the eve of the health care vote on “ Larry King Live.” Gore and Perot proved that the new rules are that there are no rules anymore.

MSJ: Where does that leave the Washington Post, the New York Times, ABC, NBC?

Larry King: Someone said—and I don’t know if this is true—that today we have more input of information in a week than someone in 1930 had in a lifetime. The more the merrier. We’ve never been better informed. The more channels open to us—the more C-SPANs, the more CNNs—the better. There will still be a Washington Post. There will be op-ed pages. There will be critics. But today, the newspaper has a different role.

MSJ: What’s that?

Larry King: The difference today is that Clinton could make three key TV appearances. Let’s say he appears on “ Larry King Live,” “Nightline” and the morning shows. Then there’s William Safire, two days later, on the op-ed page of The New York Times, telling you that he looked erratic. It’s meaningless to you, if he didn’t look erratic to you.

When I was a kid, all I had to go on was print: Time magazine told me what to think of Harry Truman—print was like the Bible to me. But now, all this competition forces the printed press to be better and smarter—the Los Angeles Times is 100 percent better than it was; the New York Times, infinitely more readable, a better paper, affected by television—the New York Times is doing graphics! The Washington Post is a better paper. So is the Chicago Tribune.

MSJ: So the “new media” are pushing newspapers to do a better and different job?

Larry King: Sure. I’m a crazy sports fan, but I don’t read game stories anymore. I saw the game. I saw the highlights on ESPN. So, the Washington Post tomorrow, in their story of the Bullets game, has got to give me something different. I saw the Clinton speech. How many times will you read the New York Times front-page piece on it?

MSJ: One feature of the “new media” is that these things will be available in full text, on the Internet, for instance.

Larry King: That’s what I’m saying—it keeps growing and growing and growing. We’re going to vote by phone. They say the newspaper will be delivered from the television in your house and, I’m told, you’ll get only the parts you want, what you want to see.

MSJ: So we’ll be able to pick and choose which “Larry King” interviews to see, or which question Larry King asks.

Larry King: Or it will be in a box and you can hit a button and say, “The last time Clinton was on, what did he say?” And you’ll punch that up. You’ll direct your own sports because you’ll have at home what the control room has.

MSJ: Are there other ways that you already see the “new media” changing the way public figures—especially the president—are perceived?

Larry King: There’s something about this medium that can change you. Perot has not been the same since that night [Feb. 20, 1992, when he said he would run for president on King’s show].

And Gore—I had a guy say to me today, “Wouldn’t it be a great break for the Democratic Party if Clinton could resign? Because Gore’s unbeatable.”

Who would beat Gore? What Republican? Nobody. I don’t think there’s a Republican who can touch him. He’s a loyal guy, he’s bright, he’s smart, he’s easily the best vice president we’ve ever had. And a lot had to do with that night.

MSJ: You mean when he debated Perot about NAFTA on your show?

Larry King: He took on a giant. The odds were against him. They were 30 votes behind [in the Senate on NAFTA]. And he won. Things can change overnight.

You know, I’m 60. I wish I were 30 because, God, I’m right at the cutting edge of this. It’s still strange to me, just to be a part of it, to have access to it and to be able to bring it forward. Especially since I’m not doing anything different than I did 30 years ago. I’m doing the same things I did in Miami Beach, except now the avenues are so much more open.

MSJ: To get back to the White House and to this President—he communicates well, he won the election with his electronic town meeting approach.

Larry King: He’s skilled at people-to-people.

MSJ: Now that he’s in office, now that he’s governing the nation, how is that different from how he used the media during the campaign?

Larry King: Well, he views it as always running. He loves it too: He likes campaigning. For Clinton, bad days are good days—that’s what makes him a tough opponent. Anything can bring a president down, but he’s not tormented by Whitewater, for example. He’s not sitting up going, “Oh, Jesus.” He’s going to get up tomorrow morning and take them on. And his instincts are uncanny.

Gore told me he had the idea to debate Perot [on NAFTA] and called Clinton and said, “I’ve got an idea. You know, we’re 30 votes down, Perot is obviously running with the ball. What if I challenge him? What if I went on ‘Larry King’ with him?” And Clinton said, “Go!”

They didn’t send it to staff. They get bogged when they get into staff. He’d run a better show if he ran it himself. He’s got very good instincts. He’s extraordinarily likable. He’s the opposite side of the [Rush] Limbaughs, the attackers every day, the [Sen. Al] D’Amatos. They’re appealing to a minority that just can’t stand the fact that they’re up against a guy who takes all the pounding.

Whitewater could change all that, but what’s never going to change is the way Gore will be if Gore were president, if Dole were president. I don’t think you could run for office today and not go on the “Larry King Lives” and the “Nightlines.” You couldn’t avoid that anymore.

MSJ: Perot talked about voting from your home.

Larry King: Probably soon you will vote from your home. There will be national referendums, there will be polling techniques, they will have computers where you’re able to get public opinion immediately.

And you cannot diminish the overnight factor. Suppose there’s a governor—who’s the governor of North Dakota? I don’t even know if he’s a Republican, but let’s assume that he’s a Republican. Nobody knows him. I can give you a scenario in which he’s going to be the presidential candidate of the Republican Party in ’96.

Here’s what happens: There’s a prison riot in Fargo and the prisoners take over the prison. They want to meet with the governor. CNN’s cameras go there, followed by CBS and NBC.

The governor lands in a helicopter and goes in alone. He’s a handsome, good-looking guy, in his 40s—Gov. Dumont—and he walks into their prison. Four hours later he comes out. Interrupt all programming—he comes out with the prisoners. They surrender, and no one’s hurt. The governor steps forward. He says, “They will be punished, but they’ve had some logical demands. And I’ve looked at crime inside there now, and I’ve got some things to say . . . .” And he’s very forceful.

That’s a Thursday. On Friday, he’s on “Larry King Live” and “Nightline.” Sunday, he’s on “ Meet the Press.” The following Friday, he’s leading in the polls. He’s on the front cover of Time, the unknown favorite. Why? Because of television. Thirty years ago, if the New York Times had told me, “You know about this governor who landed in North Dakota . . . .” Now I’m going to see him land. And I’m going to see him go into the prison. And there might even be a camera in the prison—we’ll watch him talk to the prisoners. Let’s put it on. He’s president.

MSJ: It couldn’t have happened with print?

Larry King: It couldn’t have happened with print. It couldn’t have happened with radio. It needs the dynamism of this—TV—in every home.

There’s no illiteracy with television—everybody’s hooked in. It still throws the people involved: We sit down with Clinton, and I get a call and say, “Auckland, New Zealand. Go ahead.” And Clinton goes, “Wow!”

I run into more people who watch it—in Frankfurt, they watch it in the airport. Here’s a true story I tell. It’s funny, but it’s true: I’m in Israel at the Wailing Wall, never been to Israel before. My mother never got to go. I’m Jewish, it was very emotional—me there with my brother. And there’s the Wailing Wall, and they’re praying and there’s a rabbi davening, down on his knees, davening. I’m standing there and he looks up at me and says, “What’s with Perot?”

Just one little moment showed me the whole world’s watching. “What’s with Perot?”

MSJ: In a lot of ways, you invented this. You did it 30 years ago in Miami . . . .

Larry King: Others invented the use of telephones on television. But we made it a part of the program. Donahue took calls for 20 years, but some days he wouldn’t take calls. For us, calls are always a part of this mix.

MSJ: And, almost by accident, you proved how powerful it was with the Perot interview. Imitation may be the most sincere form of flattery, and you’ve got imitators all over the place, but do you ever look at them and say to yourself, “What hath I wrought?” How does that make you feel?

Larry King: That’s fine. I like the business. I like to see more people in it. I see youngsters coming along, doing it. I’ll be leaving radio in October, I think, pretty sure. And I’d love to see some really young energetic guy come along and be “the next Larry King.” That’s always nice to hear.

I like the impact we made in talk radio—we began the first national talk radio show, and now everybody’s got a talk radio show. I’m very proud of it.

MSJ: Interviewing a politician is different from an interview with an entertainer. When you’re dealing with a political figure . . . .

Larry King: Although there’s a sameness to it. For example, Michael Keaton comes on my show to talk about his movie. It’s the same as Bill Clinton talking about his health plan: “Vote for me, this health plan is good for you.” Or, “This movie you will like.”

You vote for Keaton by putting down seven bucks. You vote for Clinton by calling your congressman. They’re both selling. I’m asking questions. There’s not that much of a difference.

MSJ: Do you have any reservations about being the bully pulpit, being the soapbox for any of the people—entertainers or politicians—who come on your show?

Larry King: No. We ask good questions, we’re not there to kill them, we’re not there to softball them. I ask the best questions I can. I always saw myself as the style section.

MSJ: You’ve said, “I don’t consider myself a journalist, but journalism results from what I do.”

Larry King: Right. I never was the front page. I’m not a journalist per se. I don’t go cover the fire, but I like to ask questions of the firemen. To report on the fire does not whet my appetite. But to get that fireman to talk about how he feels . . . .

MSJ: What about the critics, though, who . . .

Larry King: Talk about softballing . . .

MSJ: Right.

Larry King: You know, I’ve never understood that. What is a softball question? I just am me and I’m doing the same thing I’ve done all these years, which is being intensely curious. . . . For example, the postmaster general is on tonight—I don’t care who he slept with last night. If there’s a scandal about him in the paper today, I’ll ask about it. But I’m going to learn a lot more by getting his perception of it than by talking about my perception of it. What whets my appetite is not, what paper did Bill Clinton sign 10 years ago to put a down payment on Whitewater. What really fascinates me is, how does he feel tonight? That fascinates me more.

We need the guys who ask, “What did you sign 10 years ago?” But from my point of view, that’s one way not to get an answer. The best question is, “What’s going on?” If Clinton sat down with me tonight, I’d ask, “What’s going on?” Then I get his perspective, not mine. His.

MSJ: How do you view the traditional media’s response to that approach, and to the “new media” generally, which includes Larry King?

Larry King: Well, I don’t know why, but some seem to be jealous—some aren’t at all. One of the problems with the old media is, for example, the press conference. If you’re used to good one-on-ones, a press conference is boring. They’re too all over the place. They [reporters] don’t follow up each other; each one has his own agenda. But here, you’re just dealing with my question, you know, there’s no group agenda. They may feel that we ran an end run around them, but we didn’t do anything they wouldn’t do.

MSJ: Eleanor Clift of Newsweek has written a piece for this Journal in which she talks about Bill Clinton going to alternative media, and the White House press corps retaliating with what she called “unrelievedly negative coverage” of the president. What about that?

Larry King: Well, Eleanor probably believes that they feel left out, so they’re going to get even by attacking. But the whole White House press corps could hate Clinton, and if he goes on somewhere tonight and he’s effective, he’s bypassed them.

I don’t have that sense of my own personal importance. “Larry King Live” is an important show, but I want to be here tomorrow night. I’m not important tonight—[my guest] is important tonight. What he says is important.

MSJ: So, if Clinton can go around the White House press corps and get his message out effectively . . .

Larry King: I don’t know if it’s going around. I mean, what made them—or anyone—the be-all and end-all? What if I started getting angry and saying, “Hey, Clinton, you called a press conference today, why didn’t you come to me?”

MSJ: Are they irrelevant?

Larry King: No, no one’s irrelevant. We’re all part of the mix. But there’s no Walter Winchell anymore, there’s no make-or-break guy. David Broder can’t make, he can’t break. Larry King can’t make, he can’t break. Sure, there are more Larry Kings now than there were, so the David Broders have to take a little bit of a step back—the pie is more cut up. There are so many more viewers, more channels. You know, when Jackie Gleason went off the air, he had a 29 [share]. Bill Cosby never reached 29. The world changed.

So nobody is irrelevant. On the other hand, nobody’s the ultimate authority, either, anymore.

MSJ: Former GOP Chairman Rich Bond once told you that people are paying attention to the media differently now. He said, “They are so alienated from the national establishments of conventional media and conventional politics that they would believe more what was said on a ‘Larry King’ show than they would believe what George Will said on ‘David Brinkley.’” And you wrote in your book that many in the press feel that way, that the press feels you are “treading on their turf.” Can you talk more about that?

Larry King: CNN has a great image with the audience. While Brinkley’s wonderful, he also has [George] Will and [Sam] Donaldson, both of whom have images—their negatives are as high as their positives. They’re both outstanding personalities, but they have negatives, baggage with the public.

I don’t think we skew much negative. We have a good show—it’s lively, it moves right along, people call in. It also is a very good visual show. . . . Something’s happening and I love doing it, and that comes though. I love David, but there are some Sundays he looks like he couldn’t care less.

MSJ: There’s a cartoon by Don Wright in your book of two Colonial-era guys in frock coats standing on a cloud and looking down. One of them says, “That’s just the way it happened, Mr. Jefferson. From the Federalist Papers to ‘Larry King Live.’” Do you see yourself as inheriting the mantle of the Founding Fathers?

Larry King: What we don’t know is, what fascinates me is how Lincoln would have done? If Lincoln were on the show tonight, how would he have handled the call from the Southern state that seceded—“Let’s go to calls. Nashville? . . .”

MSJ: And what would he have said?

Larry King: He could have been too witty for his own good. He had a high sing-song voice. . . . Imagine the media at Gettysburg: “OK, we’re all there, we’re going live. There’s a crowd—dolly in.” He speaks for a minute and eight seconds—and that’s it.

Imagine what happens: “Call Schneider! We need analysis!”

Then we have some analysis. The first guy would say, “What is this ‘Four score . . .’? What does that mean? ‘Four score’? Why didn’t he say 87? He should just talk to the regular guy, because that’s the trouble with Abe—he talks above the heads of people. . . .”

And definitely there would have been a critic who would have said, “Boy, was he right when he said, ‘People will little note nor long remember what was said here. . . .’ Abe, you hit it on the head.”

They would have had a field day.

MSJ: And what about the Founding Fathers?

Larry King: Jefferson, who was shy, kind of introverted: “Who is this woman, Tom? Black woman,” they’d want to know. “Who is this woman?”

Imagine Ben Franklin, with “Hard Copy” following him to Paris? All over. Film of Ben Franklin in Paris? “Exclusive, tonight at 5:00, Mrs. Franklin speaks out on ‘Inside Edition’. . . .” I mean, they were just as raucous—it’s just that they didn’t have television.

Today, if we had a July 4th Declaration of Independence, it still would have been signed, let’s say, in Philadelphia. But all the signers would have been on all of the shows the next three nights, putting a spin on it: “Hancock, how come your name’s so big? Are you plugging the insurance company? What do you mean by ‘When, in the course of human events,’ . . .”?

And try to picture the wacko right-wing talk show host on the Declaration of Independence—he’d have gone berserk: “Who are these people? Revolutionaries, mercenaries, violating the king? ‘When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary . . .’—it’s a promotion of violence. They’re saying the same thing that Farrakhan is saying. Dress up as Indians and throw tea—they’re Harbor cowards! . . .”

MSJ: One last question: Look ahead for us. If the 1992 campaign represents the first coming of age of the electronic democracy and the ascendancy of the “new media,” then where do you see it going next? Is this really going to be an electronic democracy? Will it be a push-button democracy?

Larry King: My bet is that we’re going more toward that. With satellites, you don’t have to be in this room—you can talk to any guest anywhere. The truest thing Perot said was early on, when he asked, “What do we have ambassadors for?” We’ve got fax machines, phones. What does an ambassador do? Relays a message. I can get the message much faster now, and there will be more speed, quicker information.

Now, I can’t predict what will follow the fax—something even faster . . . .

MSJ: Interactive communications, Max Headroom—two-way video?

Larry King: That’s right around the corner. I hope I’m around to see it. I think it’s going to be exciting, but part of it is not forecastable. I couldn’t have forecast what we’re doing now 10 years ago.

MSJ: Will the American public be as well served?

Larry King: Absolutely. There may be a lot of speed, there may be too much information too quickly. But we’re always better served—the more you know, the better. Always. I think we’ll be very well served.

MSJ: Thank you.

Larry King: Hey, great working with you.

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Edward C. Pease. “The Father of ‘Talk Show Democracy’—On the Line with Larry King.” In “The Presidency in the New Media Age.” Media Studies Journal. Vol. 8, No. 2. (Spring 1994). pp. 123-37.

JCOM 1500 Quizzes

2010-02-08T08:06:00.000-08:00

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JCOM 1500 Quiz Archive • (online)

WEEK1Intro2MassCommQuiz • FIXT
Quiz1—The Syllabus
Here are my responses to these items. It wasn’t a real quiz, of course—just a way for me to see if you found and read all that opening stuff. Here are my thoughts on these issues, subject to your responses, too, if you feel so moved.

1. There are quotes from real people throughout the Smarts syllabus, including the four that lead it. Pick one of the quotes from anywhere in the syllabus that you particularly like, and that you can relate to your idea of why being “media smart” is important. (two pithy sentences +/-).
Pease writes: I like so many quotes from Stoppard’s “nudging the world a little” to Ginzberg controlling the culture, to the thousands of others I’ve collected over 14 years of Today’s WORD on Journalism. I also like Sir William Berkleley, because he ridiculously condemns both education and free thinking in one swoop. But E.B. White is one of my particular heroes. His quote about television, from the first time he saw it demonstrated in New York in 1938, was prescient, I think. Can you imagine worrying in such circumstances about how “messages, distant and concocted” would affect how people interacted with each other, and wondering if TV would be a “saving radiance” or a “disturbance of the general peace.” Smart man. And that’s exactly the kind of issue we examine in this class—how technological changes in media changed and affected the larger society. And how about Pease’s horoscope in the Wednesday (1/20) WORD?

2. What is a pictograph? And why might we think of Dr. Ted’s “Ooog the caveman” as the first journalist? What did he do that was revolutionary and different from other cavepeople sitting around the mastodon BBQ, grunting?
Pease writes: Some of you didn’t really think through this little fiction about Ooog and Furd and the pictographs. (These images are actually petroglyphs. There’s a difference, but both are rock drawings.) The invention of cave drawings was a major deal, because instead of grunting to other cavemen face to face, stories now could be told to multiple people over long periods of time—the first form of “mass communication,” maybe. That’s why I say that Ooog and other cavemen who recorded their stories on cave walls were different from other oral storytellers. Their stories lived on and many more people read them. In fact, down south of Moab there’s a wall of pictographs about 50 feet square called “Newspaper Rock,” so-called because it records the stories of Anasazi life and death.

More specifically, here’s Ooogs’s first critic....

3. Before we even start, how do you think of your own mass media use? Do you use mass media a lot? What kind? What do you use it for, mostly?
Pease writes: There’s obviously no “correct” answer to this question. But here’s something to think about: The “Information Age” is a time when there is more knowledge available to us than has ever been true. But are we (are you?) better informed than our parents were? The question of how we use mass media is important, because are we using the information available to us for something useful‹to be better informed about our participatory democracy, for example—or are we “amusing ourselves to death” (the title of a book about media by Neil Postman)? A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that young people (through high school) use electronic gadgets—cell phones, computers, TV, video games—7-1/2 hours a day!!!? So are those kids getting information? news you can use?

4. Some of you already have commented on the opening column (Under “Dear Students—Listen Up!” in the blog index), “Advice for a New Semester.” What’s your response to this advice? Be specific.
Pease writes: A number of you wrote that you wished you’d had this advice when you started college, which is a good reaction, I think.

5. While we’re at it, what do you think of Dr. Ted’s column about students, “The Dumbing of America”? Were you insulted? If students are “disengaged,” how can we professors re-engage them?
Pease writes: I really do want to know how to engage you better. It’s harder (for me, anyway) to do online than in person, but this is a continuing question for me, so don’t be shy.

6. Have you ordered the Folkerts/Lacy/Larabee text online? Every have either a hard copy book or the online one? What do you think about it so far?

7. This week you were plunged into Today’s WORD on Journalism, and received five of the daily emails. You can see them all here. Do you like any of these? Which and why?

8. Speaking of fascinating humans, anything interesting in Dr. Ted’s bio?

9. Where did Dr. Ted earn his bachelor’s degree? In what?
Pease writes: I’m a recovering English major from UNew Hampshire (1978)

10. You should have watched (and maybe shared with your friends and other lumps of clay) the Stephen Colbert video on the Week1 list. So who is funnier—Professor Pease or Stephen Colbert? Why?
Pease writes: You’re right—a trick question. Clearly, me, because I hold your academic fate in my cyberhands. And if you believe that we need to talk...
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§ § §

WEEK2Intro2MassCommQuiz • FIXT

Select the one BEST answer in multiple-choice questions; for the short-answer questions, write BRIEF, FOCUSED responses using key terms that demonstrate you know what you’re talking about.

1. From Folkert/Lacy Ch 1: The first printing was done by Egyptians and others at least 2000 BC by pressing images soaked in dye onto papyrus. But the first movable type was used by whom to create books in AD 1041?

d. Pi Sheng. (Text pp. 4-5)

2. Why was telegraph a breakthrough for communication?

Dr. Ted sez: Information could travel from the event to the newsroom instantaneously (well, a lot faster than by boat or horseback), which meant a more promptly informed citizenry. Because telegraph is sent over wires, “wire news services” like United Press and others (Associated Press today) developed. Telegraph also affected how news reporters wrote their stories: Because early telegraph service was notoriously undependable—wires were cut by enemies in wartime or by storms, ending messages in mid-transmission—reporters started writing in what eventually became the “inverted pyramid” structure, placing the most important new bulletins at the top, so that they would get through fastest before the wire could go down. News writers use the same structure for “hard news” stories today, to get the most important news out fast before the reader can lose interest. Question: So is Twitter this approach taken to a ridiculous extreme? (Text pp. 6-7)

3. The advent of printing resulted in what major social upheaval?
a. Wide increase in literacy.
b. Spread of new ideas.
c. An end of church and royal control.
d. Rise of individual freedom
--> e. All of the above. (Text pp. 5-6)

4. Even after the advent of printing, it took centuries until truly mass-audience publications were available. What was the major factor in increasing the spread of information to people?

--> b. Improved transports networks and printing technology. (Text pp. 5-6)

5. Define media convergence. Why is it important?

Dr. Ted sez: Media convergence refers to the merging of a variety of communication devices or hardware, linking (for example) video to phone to text to voice to Internet, etc. The advent of digital technologies made this possible, permitting text/photo/audio/video/graphics and MORE! to “converge” into a single message. Thus, computers (and devices that are like computers, including cell phones) are now becoming more popular with young people than television, so “couch potatoes” now can be found everywhere. (Text pp. 8-10)

6. Media consolidation refers to large corporations owning vast arrays of different kinds of media—from book publishers to movie companies to Internet delivery systems. This is more than efficiency and business, the authors suggest: What is the threat of corporate consolidation of media?

-->b. Less diversity in the media marketplace. (Text p. 9)

Dr. Ted sez: NOTE: The problem with concentration of ownership of mass media is that huge multinational companies—Disney, ComCast (which just bought NBC from General Electric), Viacom, etc.—own huge segments of what most media users consume in a given day. Ownership of all kinds of stuff—from the creators of content (newspapers/TV news stations, book publishers, magazines, etc.) to the producers of content (movie studios, TV networks, etc.) to the syndicators of content (ESPN, NBC, CNN, etc.) to the delivery systems for that content means that a single corporate entity can control everything in the pipeline from the first line of a writer’s novel to its syndication as a TV movie with international distribution rights to subscriptions for online viewers (or NetFlix, for example). The concern is over what voices are not heard when such huge corporations own the entire system. What happens to the “marketplace of ideas”—less product to choose from? And are we less fully informed—how would we even know?....

7. The key concept embedded in the term “the marketplace of ideas” is:

-->d. Ideas can freely compete for public acceptance. (Text pp. 11-16)

8. There are multiple factors affecting what kind of content fills the media system. What do you think is the most important factor? Why?

Dr. Ted sez: I would like to think that media producers, starting with news organizations, create content to help people live their lives better, to create a more informed citizenry that is better equipped to participate and contribute on issues of public concern and importance (like elections). But is that really what drives media content in a capitalism system? Of course not. Content producers create content that sells—“It’s what people want,” is how they justify it, although media content producers also invent markets and create demand for their products (stuff that we didn’t even know we wanted!) through advertising (ex: women are beautiful if they look like this, and they need to buy this to get there… Or what about Hummers? Does any normal human really need a car that big to go to the grocery?), through attitudes/values/items showcased in entertainment programming, through every media image we see that frames women/men/Arabs/minorities/whatever in particular ways that we come to accept as “normal” or desirable or ideologically correct. For example: A survey released this month (1/23) finds that a majority of Americans actually support health care reforms when they are told what reforms are actually being considered!!! So who is (mis)telling us the story on that, or any other controversial issue? (Sorry. That was starting to be a rant.) (Text pp. 12-17)

9. Social scientist Harold Lasswell described three fundamental functions of mass communication in society. What are they, and (briefly) explain what each means.

Dr. Ted sez: Actually, there are five, but the central three are: 1) Surveillance of the environment: We use mass communication to help us know what’s going on in the world. This is why free and open reporting (unlike in Logan!) is important, so that journalists can be there to ask the questions and record the answers when citizens can’t be themselves. 2) Correlation of elements of the society: To assist citizens in gathering enough information to make decisions about events, about trends in society, about different segments of society. And 3) Transmission of culture: Information that reveals and defines and explains cultural and social norms and standards, group identity, traditions and social/cultural history/identity. To these, scholars add functions of 4) Diversion, meaning entertainment and leisure activity; and 5) Self-understanding: Use of media content to gain understanding of themselves or others, to keep you company (coach potatoes!), to learn about one’s own behavior/attitudes. (Text pp. 18-21)

10. Not to belabor the points made in Professor Pease’s pair of columns on Martin Luther King Jr., now 11 years old, but his decision to publish the full text of the racist critic’s letter drew some complaints for repeating such unsavory sentiments. But Professor Pease would argue that putting the letter out there for everyone to see and decide about reflects on the key concepts discussed in the text’s Chapter 1 about what critical function of a free communication system?

Dr. Ted sez: There are many ways to answer that. I would (and did) argue that the racist rant elicited by the first column deserved to be expressed openly and fully so that “consumers” in the marketplace of ideas could make decisions for themselves and for the larger community as to whether these attitudes were worth “buying” or not. Another basic of free and open journalism is that you can kill a lot of malfeasance and mildew by shining a bright, hot light on it!

BONUS: What major international mass media event takes place in Utah this week? The SundanceTWENTYTEN Film Festival! See this link and this link, for example, or Google Sundance.

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WEEK3Intro2MassCommQuiz • FIXT

Select the one BEST answer in multiple-choice questions; for the short-answer questions, write BRIEF, FOCUSED responses using key terms that demonstrate you know what you’re talking about.

This week’s reading in Folkert/Lacy Ch 10 provides a very important (and condensed) overview of the philosophical and structural evolution of journalism in America over three centuries. We will return to many of the topics outlined in this chapter, so remember where you first heard about these issues for future conversation.

1. What is the major difference between journalism as practiced in the American colonies, and “public journalism” as described in the text?
Dr. Ted sez: There are many ways to discuss this. Colonial “journalists” were printers who made their living printing books and pamphlets and tax stamps for the British government. Many of these printers were not political and did not report “news” or challenge English authority (do you remember the quote on the syllabus by Sir William Berkeley, the royal governor of the Virginia colony? What’s his attitude toward printers—or education, for that matter?). Those colonial printers who did dabble in politics often got into trouble, so most basically did what they were told and otherwise kept their heads down. (pp. 253-255) “Public journalism” (pp. 270-271) is quite different, in that it values two-way (or more directions!) engagement among journalists and citizens. In this model, readers/viewers work with news organizations to make news decisions, journalists can become more active participants in events, instead of mere observers and recorders, and many more voices and perspectives are including in the news. That’s pretty different from the hierarchal, top-down flow of information in the much more authoritarian colonial system.

2. Define “credibility” as it refers to journalism, and explain why it is important in a free, participatory and self-governing society.
Dr. Ted sez: Credibility is perhaps the most essential element of any kind of communication. If we don’t believe the sender of the information—whether a politician or a newspaper or your little brother—we will filter it out, discount it, reject it. Remember Chicken Little, who ran around yelling that the sky was falling until she became a joke, so when the sky really did fall, no one believed her. For news organization, credibility—trust—is essential; without it, newspapers are good only for making fires and wrapping fish, and TV news is just noise. If we agree that citizens need to be well-informed in order to made decisions (like voting) in a participatory society, then they need credible sources of information. Without credible news and information, citizens can’t make good decisions (and might be misled, as in the period of press history when the partisan press—newspapers allied with particular political parties—simply told readers what they wanted them to think and how they wanted them to act/vote, etc.). Today we would call such “journalism” biased. How credible are news organizations today? And how well informed about important information do you think citizens are, so they can made informed and intelligent judgments?

3. There are five BIG rights granted in the First Amendment. What are they? And which do you think is most important?
Dr. Ted sez: I like to say that the First Amendment (p. 255) is the most powerful sentence since “Let there be light.” In just 43 words, the First Amendment lays out five HUGE and interrelated ideas:
1) that a free people have the RIGHT to believe what they want to believe—the freedom not just of religion, but of conscience (“Congress shall make no law representing an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”);
2) and that a free people has an absolute right to say what they believe (“…or abridging the freedom of speech,…”), and to
3) write down and publish and disseminate what they believe (“…or of the press;…”); and
4) that a free people can gather together with others to talk about those beliefs (“…or the right of the public peaceably to assemble, …”); and, finally,
5) the right to complain to their elected representatives in the government if they don’t like the way things are going (“…and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”).
Whew.
These rights won’t feed you, but they will guarantee you the freedom to live. Which one is most important? Trick question—they are all part of a whole, the freedom to think what you want to think (beliefs), to talk freely about them, to express them in writing, to meet with others to discuss them, and to tell the government what’s right, not the other way around.

4. What was the significance of the John Peter Zenger trial?
Dr. Ted sez: During colonial times (and before), criticism of the government or people in power (like good old Sir William Berkeley of the Virginia colony, a real sweetheart) was punishable by all manner of awful penalties. This had been a long tradition, ever since the European kings and church leaders were considered to be the representatives of God, and so criticism of authority was equal to criticizing God. Off with his head!!! In fact, it was this kind of heavy-handed rule that led to the First Amendment: A writer in England in the 1600s, John Milton, got thrown in a deep, dark prison with rats for complaining about unfair laws, which was criticism of the people in power. When he got out, he wrote a long treatise called Areopagitica, complaining that truth should not be punished, because truth comes from God and free expression of truth will always beat the evil lies of Falsehood. He wrote, “Let Her (Truth) and Falsehood Grapple; Who Ever Heard of Truth Put to the Worse in a Free and Open Encounter?” (They were big on Capital Letters back then.) This argument eventually drove the resolution of the John Peter Zenger trial, which was a hugely significant decision that created a legal precedent of truth as an absolute defense. At the time, “seditious libel” (that is, criticism of people in power) was a criminal offense, as in England where criticism of the king or the Pope or the nobility could land people like John Milton in a deep, dark hole. Zenger was not thrown into a deep, dark hole or beheaded, because he and his lawyer (Andrew Hamilton) successfully made the argument that truth is a defense. Can you see how that connects to the First Amendment, and to the marketplace of ideas, and to John Milton’s Areopagitica? (pp. 253-254)

5. The Hutchins Commission of 1947 established five guidelines for the press that form the basis for what theory of the press?
a. the partisan press system
b. the “enlightenment” press
c. the authoritarian press system
d. the social responsibility press (pp. 256-258)
e. the “new journalism”

6. Why was the “penny press” a significant development?
a. It meant that literacy was widespread in society
b. Editors stopped writing political news and reporters covered more day-to-day stuff
c. “Journalism of exposure” created hoaxes
d. Reporting was more entertainment than true
e. Newspapers stopped supporting political parties.

Dr. Ted sez: NOTE: “B” is the best answer here, but you could also argue that all five answers were true. The “penny press” was so-called because newspapers lowered their prices to reach more people in growing mass (urban) societies, which meant that the press published less opinion and argument based on political parties (the partisan press), and offered more popular fare—cops and courts, scientific information, hoaxes and entertainment, etc. This content for the first time was produced by hired reporters, not by the newspaper’s editor/publisher/printer/political party, which had previously been the case. More people were gathered in one place, more people had learned how to read and had the time to read, and more people started being interested in what was going on in their communities. (pp. 260-261)

7. Is objectivity possible? Why?/Why not?
Dr. Ted sez: You can argue this in whatever way works for you. Here’s my take: “Objective fact” is an artifact of the hard sciences: we know that water boils at 212 degrees F, for example, and a rock contains these minerals, etc. Objectivity in journalism refers to the goal of presenting only confirmed facts without opinion, shading, etc. Thus, an “objective” report should be “truth.” But as we’ll discuss elsewhere, no one can report only truth (whatever that is), because each of us approaches events and issues with our own preconceptions, our own perceptions, our own biases that are formed by who we are as individuals and how we each see the world. Beyond that, how can any report include everything there is to say about a subject? Reporters have to select certain facts and exclude others, if only because there’s not enough space for everything. Who decides what to include and exclude? The reporter. The source who is interviewed. The editor who decides how long the story is and where it appears in the newspaper. All these things change the “objective truth” to something that is variable, depending on who is doing the reporting, and who is doing the reading. There’s much more to say on this, but try this experiment: Watch both Fox News and the BBC or CNN or Al Jazeera, or listen to National Public Radio on any given day. Focus on one breaking news story. Who’s telling the truth? How do you know? What and who is “objective”? Tricky, hunh? (pp. 266-267).

8. News Values: Explain each of the following and give your own example to demonstrate your understanding of what they mean and why each is newsworthy. (1 pt each)(pp. 267-268)
a. Timeliness: News is NEW.
b. Impact: What is the consequence of the event, who is affected and how?
c. Proximity: How close is the news event? A tanker truck crash in Toledo isn’t news in Logan, Utah.
d. Prominence: Important people/groups make news if they just sneeze. If Bill Clinton came to your town and had a Big Mac and left, that’d still make news (well, in Logan, but maybe not LA).
e. Conflict: Disagreement, tensions, he said/she said often makes news, whether it’s the Tea Party protesters or a couple of neighbors fighting over potholes.
f. Human interest: feature stories about the strange, the news of the weird, the unusual, cute puppies, a guy who has a 12-foot moustache… these are news because they are unusual or heartwarming.

Dr. Ted sez: These are some standard elements of what makes news, plus relevance to people and some other stuff. There are a number of useful definitions of what makes news. For example, NY editor John Bogart once said, “When a dog bites a man, that’s not news. But when a man bites a dog, that’s news.” Another editor defined news as anything that makes you say, “Gee whiz, Martha!”

9. Why is the concept of a “marketplace of ideas” important for a free society?
a. All information and ideas are available for public scrutiny.
b. Citizens can select the ideas they like the best, like at the grocery store.
c. Truth and falsehood compete freely.
d. There is no limit on individual opinions
e. All of the above.

10. There’s a chart on p. 253 that asks you about your perspectives on different kinds of media. I reproduce it here. Check the chart for instructions and rate each of these information sources for Trustworthiness (rate 1(low)-5(high)), How often you use them (Daily, Several times/wk, Weekly) and what kind of information they are best at providing (B=breaking news; A=analysis or opinion; E=entertainment).

BONUS: What did you think of the Billy Joel video? How many of the images meant something to you, gave you associations with things you know about historical or cultural events?

15 pts possible

• • •

WEEK4Intro2MassCommQuiz • FIXT

Name: Dr. Ted

Write BRIEF, FOCUSED responses using key terms that demonstrate you know what you’re talking about.

This week’s reading in Folkert/Lacy and the blog-post on mass communication theories provide an important overview of some key theories that help us understand the interaction of individuals and mass communication content, news and the building of society. We will remember these concepts as we consider different slices of the mass media and society, so remember where you first heard about these issues for future conversation.

1. At the beginning of Ch. 15 in Folkerts et al. (p. 395), you are asked to think about how you think you make decisions about how the mass media affect you. Please fill out for yourself the “Research in Your Life” table. For this quiz, answer this: Can you think of something you saw/heard in the media that affected your opinion about a product, a pair of jeans, a political candidate, or a public issue (like global warming or gays in the military)? Briefly, what was it, and describe the media message that influenced you, and how?

Dr. Ted sez: There are no wrong answers to this—the mass media affect (not “affects”! “Media” is a plural noun.) everyone differently (selective perception?), and it’s a rare individual (or media-smart fish) who is impervious to the constant bombardment of images and arguments and “truth” in news, advertising, billboards, TV sitcoms, etc. This week, we’ve been watching some of the coverage of the Vancouver Olympics. As usual, I find myself annoyed by NBC’s preoccupation with U.S. athletes and the constant “U-S-A! U-S-A!!” focus. Not that I don’t wish the American athletes well, but there are 80 nations competing, and it’s sometimes hard during the nationalistic Olympic coverage of these and other Games to see anything but our peeps (Gatekeeping? Agenda-setting? Framing?). In 2002, I had the HUGE honor of running the Olympic Torch before the Salt Lake Games. During that experience, I met a guy from LA who was born in Korea. He was so proud to have been picked to run the torch for America, and he was so excited about the Korean figure skating team (I forget). Never did hear/see any coverage of his heroes during those games.

2. One of the ways to understand the role of the mass media in society is to employ a social science approach to research media issues. Describe key elements of social science research.

Dr. Ted sez: The key differences between the “social science” and “critical-cultural” start with the use of “hard-science” quantitative techniques of empiricism used in the social science approach, and qualitative approaches in critical-cultural studies. Empirical methods involve numbers—surveys of large numbers of individuals, or counting news stories in content-analysis studies, for example—in an effort to arrive at conclusions that can be generalized across populations. Critical-cultural methods are more interpretive, seeking to make connections between mass communication systems and culture, society and political behavior. Critical scholars look at cases, at examples of connections, at textual meanings (in news or entertainment content, for example), using techniques such as textual analysis, participant observation/ethnography, and interviews. Social science approaches are quantitative, using statistical analyses of large groups of items (people in polls or news content, for example) to arrive at generalizable conclusions. Critical studies are typically qualitative, looking at individual meanings and perceptions to evaluate how messages are interpreted by individual audience members.

3. Same question for the critical-cultural approach to social science.

Dr. Ted sez: See No. 2 above.

4. From the reading on mass communication theories, explain how issues of selective perception influence how news consumers interpret information. Provide a specific example.

Dr. Ted sez: Depending on the forces that have shaped our individual backgrounds and lives and worldviews, we each interpret—perceive—issues and people and topics differently. It appears that exposure to mass media messages can be at least as influential in shaping our perceptions of the world as other formative influences, including family and training and socio-economic status. One obvious way that mass media shape all our perceptions is in issues of gender and sex. Women are typically portrayed in mass media messages as objects, as victims, as things with unattainable standards of “beauty” that includes breasts, butts and legs (but rarely brains!). These kinds of images, constantly repeated and reinforced in mass media messages from advertisements to movies to TV shows, may gradually shape our view of what women are “supposed” to be like, for both women and men (and kids!)

5. Thinking back to the table in the Folkerts text (p. 395) referred to in Q1 above, please discuss how selective perception may influence individual answers to any of the questions posed in the table.

Dr. Ted sez: See No. 4 above. Also: Item 1 (advertising/products): Which cell company is better? “Can you hear me now???” Item 2 (politics): Sarah Palin. Item 3 (issues): A recent survey (social science approach) found that people were more supportive of health care reforms when they knew what actually is proposed. Item 4 (TV behavior modeling): Kids & Harry Potter.

6. What is the difference between qualitative research and quantitative research? What are the strengths/weaknesses of each?

Dr. Ted sez: See No. 2 above. Quantitative research is number-based. Qualitative research is case-based and interpretive. Numbers yield information that is generalizable to a large population (i.e., People who voted for Obama like Dove soap). Qualitative research can interpret information and provide insight into the Why? question of human behavior.

7. The Folkerts text discusses issues of race and TV (p. 401). Discuss this topic (briefly) in the context of at least one of the mass communication theories—which theory/theories help explain the kinds of issues about coverage of race discussed in this short article?

Dr. Ted sez: A variety of studies have found that TV viewers (for example) begin to cultivate certain attitudes—assumptions—about people based on their race (and gender…see No. 4). One study, for example, asked kids—like 4th graders—what roles in TV shows certain people in photos would play. Black men would be the bad guy, they said. White men would be the Boss or the businessman. White women would be mommies, teachers or nurses. Etc. Both quantitative (surveys) and qualitative (focus groups) studies find that Blacks are typically framed and perceived as violent and criminals; content studies of news find that Blacks (and to a slightly lesser degree Latinos) are pictured in the news more often than Whites as crime suspects in mugshots, being handcuffed, in connection with gang and drug stories…

8. Early mass communication research assumed a “magic bullet” effect of mass media messages. What is that? What are the problems with this concept?

Dr. Ted sez: Early social scientists thought that mass media messages acted as a “magic bullet,” shooting concepts and political positions and ideas/ideals into the brains of passive audience members. This is the basis for propaganda during wartime. Also known as the “hypodermic needle” theory, this assumes that message receivers are uniform, brainless, insentient, that our own circumstances and personal experiences and knowledge would play now role in how we individually interpret such messages.

9. Explain gatekeeping theory, and why it has important implications for a free society.

Dr. Ted sez: Gatekeeping describes the selective process of what kinds of messages/ideas/foci are included in mass media content. What gets through the “gate” between events and audiences depends on decisionmakers along the line as media messages (stories/news/sitcoms/movies/ads) are constructed. This makes a difference in a participatory society because what we “know” from media messages is controlled by gatekeepers. So how informed are we (see the comment above about public perceptions of health care reform, No. 5)? NOTE: Gatekeeping is not generally governed by editor “bias” except in the most neutral form—that is, what the gatekeeper lets through the news “gate” tends to be based on what s/he thinks is most important, not necessarily out of ideological motives of what s/he personally believes.

10. What is agenda-setting? Give a current example in your life.

Dr. Ted sez: Agenda-setting is a theory describing the role of the mass media in the public conversation about issues and policies. The mass media can’t tell us what to think, according to this theory, but they can be stunningly effective in telling us what items to think about—setting an “agenda” for our daily awareness of what’s happening in the world. A lot of stories run about “ObamaCare,” so people tend to talk about health care more. NOTE that agenda-setting also describes what’s not in the news and so what doesn’t get covered. In other words, if a tree falls in the desert in, say, Darfur, but no reporters are there to hear it and tell it, did those 600,000 people really die?

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§

Smarts Quizzes (Sp2010)

2010-02-08T07:53:00.000-08:00

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Quiz Archive•Spring 2010

WEEK1MediaSmartsQuiz • 1/15/10 FIXT
1/15/10 Quiz1—The Syllabus

Here are my responses to these questions. Future quizzes will be different, but in this case, the goal of this quiz was to see if you had looked at all the intro material I gave you to read last week. Everyone who did the quiz gets credit. Feel free to comment on any of my comments.

1. There are quotes from real people throughout the Smarts syllabus, including the four that lead it. Pick one of the quotes from anywhere in the syllabus that you particularly like, and that you can relate to your idea of why being “media smart” is important. (two pithy sentences +/-).
Pease writes: I like so many of them (obviously), from “Question Authority” to the Tom Stoppard quote about “nudging the world a little” that I use on my email signature. E.B. White, however, is one of my particular heroes. His quote about television, the first time he saw it demonstrated in New York in 1938, was prescient, I think. Can you imagine worrying in such circumstances about how “messages, distant and concocted” would affect how people interacted with each other, and wondering if TV would be a “saving radiance” or a “disturbance of the general peace.” Smart man. Here’s another quote I like, but it’s not on the syllabus: “Don’t take life too serious, Son. It ain’t nohow permanent.” … from an old Pogo comic strip. And how about Pease’s horoscope in the Wednesday (1/20) WORD?

2. Professor Pease claims that, ”We’re being lied to, boys and girls” in (or by) the mass media. That’s (usually) not literally true. So what is Pease saying? Do you agree/disagree? Why?
Pease writes: Perhaps “misled” is a better term than “lied to,” but I think the point needs consideration. As you will read in the media literacy materials, ALL media messages are constructions that are purposive and intentional on the part of their creators: advertising people want viewers to buy soap; political consultants want voters to buy candidates or issues, photographers retouch women to make them seamless and breastier and thinner.... We all see the world differently, based on our own experiences and background (as we’ll discuss in the context of mass communication theories). So all media messages are created with the particular perspective of their author embedded in them, intentionally or not. Is that lying? Not really. Could it be? It’s at least potentially misleading to the unaware and unwary. That’s why we need to become media-smart—a basic literacy of the 21st century.

3. Explain Marshall McLuhan’s concept of the “fish,” and how those of us who now live in the mass media age are like his fish. Does that analogy make sense to you?
Pease writes: Some of you gave up on this, but I think you just didn’t read the syllabus closely, or think about the metaphor very carefully. Just as a fish is immersed in its environment and is generally unaware of it (unless the pond water gets too bad), we humans live in a mass-mediated age in which messages on TV and radio and billboards and magazines and the Internet, etc. etc., are EVERYWHERE. Most of us, like the fish, are generally unaware of how the media content we breathe in and out may change our perspectives on the world, create assumptions about people and things and issues. Our mass media diet is to a large degree unintentional—in that we often suck in stuff that we didn't specially go looking for—just the stuff that surrounds us in the media environment. Most of us—like McLuhan’s fish—don’t think much about how toxic that stuff that we breathe in and out might be. Becoming aware of that environment—that’s being a smart fish!

4. Columnist Erma Bombeck is quoted as saying that, “My children refuse to eat anything that hasn’t danced on television.” What is she saying, and how does it relate to what we’re studying in this course?
Pease writes: Among the most vulnerable of the “fish” in this mass media pond where we all live in the 21st century are children, who have their preferences and perspectives formed for them by TV more than any other single source. So Bombeck’s kids preferred the stuff that had been sold to them in entertaining ways on TV. They believed what they saw on TV more than they believed stuff they actually experienced. Any of you who have small siblings or cousins or kids of your own know about how important the right (fill in the blank)…clothes, toys, video games, pickup trucks (older kids…) are. Where do they get that? A study released yesterday (1/20) found that kids spend as much as 12 hours a day! with some form of gadget—cell phones, TV, computers, games. Talk about a generation of couch potatoes!

5. What’s your impression of John McManus’s website? (And have you bought “Detecting Bull” yet? If you have, what do you think of it so far?)

6. McManus, on his website, says, “[M]ainstream news is becoming shallower and more commercially biased—more written for advertisers and by publicity agents. Online, new providers are arising. But most don't follow professional principles.” Why might that be a problem?
Pease writes: As per some of the previous items, even as our society becomes more cyber-connected, the actual content of what’s in the pipeline (or electronic IV tube) that fills out days and lives is increasingly trivial. The mass media should be an amazing tool for public education and knowledge. Instead…American Idol, beer ads, Anna Nicole Smith…. The head of the Federal Communications Commission called TV a “vast wasteland” nearly 40 years ago. Has that assessment changed?

7. How confident are you that you know the real story behind the kinds of historical events discussed briefly in the syllabus? Can you identify a specific piece of history you may have “learned” about through a movie or TV show, and that, you now realize, may not be completely accurate?
Pease writes: Be smart fish. Consume media critically, with a large grain of salt. It’s a little scary that so many people—including, maybe, some you the people in this class—“see” and “know” the world and history based on entertainment media. A reader poll in the Logan Herald-Journal some years ago asked readers who killed John F. Kennedy. The majority responded that it was a government conspiracy—the theme of Oliver Stone’s movie, JFK.

8. Speaking of “smart fish,” from his bio, what fish do you think may be one of Professor Pease’s favorites?
Pease writes: If you checked my website(s), you’d see a lot of salmon (yes, that silver thing is a Chinook, or King, salmon).

9. Where did Professor Pease earn his master’s degree?
Pease writes: UMinnesota, 1981

10. You should have watched (and maybe shared with your friends and other lumps of clay) the Stephen Colbert video on the Week1 list. So who is funnier—Professor Pease or Stephen Colbert? Why?
Pease writes: You’re right—a trick question. Clearly, it’s me, because I hold your academic fate in my cyberhands.… and if you believe that we need to talk.

§ § §

WEEK2MediaSmartsQuiz • 1/26/10 FIXT

1. In Detecting Bull, John McManus argues that the Web has had a democratizing effect because…
a. Democrats made effective use of the Web during the 2008 presidential campaign.
b. The reliability of news is declining.
c. Now anyone can report news to anyone.
d. Newspapers are dying, anyway.
e. The old news models didn’t work.

2. Why does McManus say the reliability of news is declining?
Because the forms that news takes, who produces it, for what purposes, and the technologies used to deliver it are rapidly changing, it is becoming more difficult to identify reliable news and to separate it from rumor, junk journalism and propaganda.

3. Why does Geneva Overholser, former editor and Washington Post ombudsman, say media literacy is needed?
Media literacy is needed to counter the impact of these trends. “Citizens of a democracy have a responsibility to be informed. Media literacy courses, stronger civic education and other tools can create the environment of vigorous debate in which the press can thrive.”—Geneva Overholser.

4. McManus talks about “neural entanglers” who muddy public debate. Who are they?
The neural entanglers—spinmeisters and propagandists—are becoming more skillful. Pundits and talkmeisters and partisan commentators…. From Amy Goodman (Democracy Now) on the left to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck on the right.

5. In the Pease&Cooper chapter, “Making Sense of the Information Age,” which of the following characterized the change from an Agrarian Society to the Information Age?
a. People no longer grew their own potatoes and other food.
b. A social shift from small community and family units to mass culture.
c. A shift from an individual economy to a mechanized economy.
d. A change from the importance of products to the importance of knowledge.
e. All of the above.

6. FALSE In discussing the impact of TV, E.B. White coined the term “the global village.” It was Canadian sociologist Marshall McLuhan

7. How does instantaneous mass communication create a “global village”? What does that term mean?
We are all more and more interconnected—potentially closer to one another, with more understanding and interaction (ha!).

8. Among the negative consequences that some people fear about the “information age” . . .
a. people know too much
b. people shop at home
c. people have less contact with others
d. people don’t vote
e. none of the above

9. According to Pease&Cooper, how has the information age diminished a sense of community? Various commentators cited in the chapter worry about isolation (electronic shut-ins—Gans), a loss of national identity and the national conversation (Brown), loss of time spent with famility/humans in favor of TV and electronic distractions….etc.

10. In the news: What major media event takes place in Utah, starting this past week? Sundance Film Festival TWENTYTEN!

BTW: Question: What do you think of the controversy over the Sundance release of USU JCOM alumni Reed Cowan’s documentary, 8: The Mormon Proposition?

§ § §

WEEK3MediaSmartsQuiz • 2/5/10 FIXT

1. In his “Some Principles of Media Literacy,” David Considine says the old saying, “The camera never lies” isn’t necessarily so. Why?

Dr. Ted sez: As we are learning, there are a number of reasons why the camera does lie. And that’s not just an artifact of the special-effects era of PhotoShop, multimedia manipulation and the rest. During the Civil War, photography was a technology in its infancy, but even then, famed Civil War photo-documentarian Mathew Brady repositioned dead bodies for “artistic” and storytelling reasons. He may have said, “"My greatest aim has been to advance the art of photography and to make it what I think I have, a great and truthful medium of history," but how “truthful” is it? We also have learned that the way information—text, images or whatever—is framed can alter its meaning, just by including and excluding different elements. In “Forest Gump,” Tom Hanks’ character is seen mooning LBJ, and in “Saving Private Ryan,” Hanks is fighting on Utah Beach in Normandy. Does the camera lie? Of course. (See these links: Media Lit. and More Media Lit.)

2. In the media literacy readings, the authors suggest that production techniques like superimposing a reporter onto a green screen of the White House can have what effect?
a. Makes the news more exciting.
b. Misleads viewers.
c. Increases journalistic credibility.
d. Enhances viewer comprehension.
e. All of the above.
Dr. Ted sez: I can argue that all of these is potentially true. If you watch The Daily Show, you will often see Jon Stewart talking to his reporters in the field—but John Oliver and Jason Jones and Co. are actually just standing there in the studio in from of a green screen and footage from Iraq or the White House or wherever. The studio audience laughs, but the TV viewer could be fooled…. Still, it’s better and more effective storytelling, isn’t it?

3. Why do media literacy proponents argue that citizens need both to understand and be able to analyze/evaluate media messages, but also to create media messages themselves?
Dr. Ted sez: Literacy in the 21st century means not only reading, but visual literacy (see No. 1) and capabilities to communicate with multimedia. The pencil has become a much more sophisticated instrument! Effective communication is a tool for everyday life in 2010.
4. Explain each of the following principles of media literacy and provide a brief example to illustrate your understanding. (1 pt each)

a. Media are constructions: All media messages—words to special effects—are products that someone constructs.
b. Media representations create reality (how and to what effect?): Because of what the message creator selects and how s/he arranges the message’s components, the media product may represent reality to varying degrees. When you see Bigfoot in a business meeting, that may not be complete reality (!) Misrepresentations of fact can mislead readers/viewers. We call that “lying.”
c. Audiences negotiate their own meaning: Audiences are not passive recipients of media messages who just soak in the sender’s intended meaning. All of us see the world and interpret is differently. For us Red Sox fans, Derek Jeter is no hero….
d. Media constructions have commercial purposes: Take a broad view of “commercial”—we who communicate want our target audiences to “buy” something: a philosophy, a perception of the world, an idea, a political position, a bottle of shampoo. More crassly, the more eyeballs a media message attracts, the more valuable it is to people who can sell it….
e. Media messages contain values and ideologies: The worldview of the message producer governs the message tone and focus and emphasis. Even if we try to be absolutely “straight” in our reporting of events, we can’t help but have our own ideas of what’s important, why it matters….
f. Media messages have social and political consequences: Media messages can’t tell us what to think, as we know from agenda-setting theory, but they can tell us what to think about. As the public starts to focus on some issues (and ignore others), pressure may grow to “do something.” People who see the world as a dangerous place may pressure lawmakers to create stronger laws and stiffer penalties and to build more prisons. Policy decisions grow from public sentiment.
g. Each medium has its own unique aesthetic form/impact: Communication is an art form, and like all art forms, some media lend themselves to telling certain kinds of stories better than others. A radio report on a tornado has a different impact than video footage of the damage (or did you see the LA mudslides last weekend?)

5. Explain (briefly) the relationship between the rise of mass communication and the industrial age.

Dr. Ted sez: As people moved from the countryside to cities in pursuit of work or marketplaces or whatever, it became easier to communicate to large groups of people—town criers, pamphlets and posters on walls, newspapers that communicated between a single individual editor/printer to many people at once. Gesellschaft

6. Explain what the heck Marshall McLuhan was talking about with his fish analogy.
Dr. Ted sez: One more time: The fish in the pond is unaware of subtle changes in its environment, and may happily swim around, “breathing” in and out an increasingly toxic environment even until it became so toxic it kills him. We are generally as unaware of our daily media “diets”—stuff we absorb from mass media without even thinking about it, until our perceptions of the world may be altered. See Pease’s column.

7. On Teddy TV, Professor Pease talked about how the advent of TV might have changed Fiji. What happened and what might have been the cause? (The same thing was at work with Dr. Ted’s teenage crush on a French woman…)

Dr. Ted sez: Fijian perceptions of the “norm” of the world—what bodies should look like, how people should act—was influenced as this Polynesian culture started seeing American values on TV. Similarly, ma petite amie française had seen too many Al Capone and Bonny & Clyde movies: Chicago was a dark, dangerous place.

8. Critical thinking about media, according to the reading on Key Concepts of Critical Thinking, is NOT … a. finding fault with media performance
b. learning what to think
c. eliminating incorrect media messages and content
d. protecting children from violent images and ideas
e. none of the above Dr. Ted sez: That’s confusing: critical thinking is none of those things…. So what is it????

9. Discuss your responses to the Billy Joel video in the context of the concepts of media literacy and the central question of this class—how do we know what we think we know?
Dr. Ted sez: A picture is worth at least 100 words—maybe 10,000. Images can be linked to popular culture, iconic images that carry with them much more meaning than just the tones and forms of the photograph. JFK’s shooting, Ghandi, Marilyn Monroe.... These images are shorthand for events that changed the world, the culture, people’s lives and perceptions of life and society. Powerful stuff.

10. General knowledge: Who is Samuel Alito and why is he in the news this week?
Dr. Ted sez: Samuel Alito is a Supreme Court associate justice who was seem reacting negatively to President Obama’s State of the Union speech, when Obama criticized the Court for its decision to permit unlimited political contributions by corporations.
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Examples of Truthiness at Work

2010-02-08T07:46:00.000-08:00

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(Posted on JCOM 2010 blogsite 2/7/2010)

Dear Smarties:

I have noted a couple of examples of the ramifications of the “truthiness” syndrome in the press this weekend.

Yesterday (2/6), the Herald-Journal ran this wonderful letter from a guy in Smithfield named Russ Larsen, titled “Gore & Co. distorting facts,” about what he calls “all the recent ‘hoopla’ about global warming.” Click here for the full letter (or see it pasted below). Note the “facts” Mr. Larsen is citing. Wherever you stand on the question of global warming and environmental change, this guy’s understand of reality is a little skewed. I’m not saying he doesn’t believe what he’s saying, but why does he believe it?

Another example is yesterday’s appearance at the Tea Party convention in Nashville by Sarah Palin. Without asserting any facts, Palin pumps up the crowd with her anti-Obama rhetoric, which then can be reported as news on outlets including Fox, which employs her as a commentator. Again, wherever you stand on Obama, reality is being created by the echo chamber of the event, the coverage and the creation of news from the event and the coverage. This morning, Chris Wallace was interviewing Palin (again, a Fox employee) on the Fox Sunday talkshow.... If you repeat something often enough, it becomes important, and maybe even “true.” (See Christian Science Monitor coverage here.)

One more example: In today’s (Sunday 2/7) Salt Lake Tribune, columnist Peg McEntee addresses climate change as a “conspiracy theory”—NOT! (And cartoonist Pat Bagley, right, also focuses on this.) This is targeted at Utah state Rep. Mike Noel of Kanab, who thinks scientists, government officials and liberals are conspiring to force global cooling on us. Last year, Noel asked USU President Stan Albrecht to discipline some USU climate researchers because they had testified before state legislative panels about climate change (they believe it). Noel said these guys are on the state payroll, and shouldn’t be allowed to promote lies. (Noel later backed down). As McEntee reports in her column, Noel and others who see global warming as a fake left-wing conspiracy (like Mr. Larsen from Smithfield, above; Gov. Gary Herbert also thinks humans have nothing to do with climate change) think this is an effort at world population control. Bills are pending before the Utah Legislature to shut down the federal Environmental Protection Agency until “a full and independent investigation of the climate data conspiracy and global warming science can be substantiated.”

So this “truthiness” stuff is complicated. How do we “know” what we think we know? We see letters like Mr. Larsen’s or columns like McEntee’s, or cartoons like Pat Bagley’s, or coverage of rhetorical entertainment like Sarah Palin’s or Glenn Beck’s or Rachel Maddow’s (or Jon Stewart’s!). Yikes! How to decide what to believe? See how important it is to be critically thinking media smarties???

Keep thinking, Smarties.

Dr. Ted

§ § §

Gore & Co. distorting facts

Logan Herald-Journal

Saturday, February 6, 2010 2:55 AM CST

With all the recent “hoopla” about global warming, recent factual reports show that the EPA accepted only two so-called analysis reports (one from some ice glacier climber and one from a student on his own opinions) that global warming exists. Other reports, from left-wing radicals (Al Gore), really have distorted the facts.

Remember Mother Nature will do her thing regardless of what others believe. On Dec. 23, 2009, an advertisement on CBS radio, as well as NPR radio, reported that Santa’s elves told Santa that global warming was so real that Santa and the North Pole will no longer exist due to global warming. Imagine Santa’s surprise — this crushing childhood fantasies.

Al Gore and his self-appointed group should be ashamed of themselves. I submit that Al Gore had a troubled childhood.

This is purely unadulterated “horse puckey.” These clowns are in it for the money at yours and my tax money expense.

Yes, Christmas is way too commercialized and the real meaning of Christmas is gone. But, to victimize Santa at the expense of “kooks” like Al Gore and his cronies is absurd to say the least.

With the recent revealing reports of false documents of global warming, Al Gore and his pals should be “cut off” from our taxpayers’ funding. Al Gore should be required to spend two winters in Cache Valley and then be exiled to the coldest part of the world forever with no modern conveniences. End of story. What a savings to us taxpayers.

Think back to TV ads. Butter vs. margarine. “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” She will do as she pleases.

Climate change is a scam at our expense. Believe it. You far-out loons are crazy.

Russ Larsen
Smithfield

Book Review: Dubya and the Media

2010-02-01T09:38:00.000-08:00

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Book Review
A Dubya in the Headlights: President George W. Bush and the Media. Joseph R. Hayden. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. 275 pp. $75 hbk.

Note: This book review appears in the Winter 2009 issue of Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. I post it because the book illustrates and documents news media manipulation by the White House, and how the resulting “truthiness” served to distort public understanding of events on many levels. —TP

A Dubya in the Headlights is an indictment of the George W. Bush presidency driven by compelling evidence that in no way spares the media.

Joseph Hayden, a former TV producer who teaches journalism at the University of Memphis, begins with research questions that are answered via multiple quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The author enhances statistical data on media coverage by examining individual stories for specific phrasing and imagery. Because the line separating conventional news from entertainment is blurry, he considers the impact of talk shows, movies and even Saturday Night Live, noting how Bush benefited from television’s “inattention to substance.”

Hayden challenges assertions that the Dubya White House masterfully manipulated the media. If the press “doesn’t respect you, and thinks you’re an idiot,” Hayden concludes, “you are no master of press relations.” It was not a matter of clever manipulation of the media, Hayden argues, but a matter of the media allowing (and sometimes enabling) the manipulation.

Bush’s greatest faults, Hayden thinks, was his indifference to his own ignorance and his seeming determination that everyone remain uninformed, too. John Dean said Bush and Cheney “created the most secretive presidency of my lifetime,” which is quite a statement coming from the innermost corridors of the Nixon White House. And Helen Thomas agreed: “[T]his administration’s secrecy is beyond belief, more than any previous administration.”

Beyond concealing relevant information, the Bush White House distributed what Hayden characterized as “chronically misleading information.” It didn’t even have to be an important issue. “A much-cited article in National Review about Bush’s alleged love of reading turns out to be a hoax planted by Karl Rove,” Hayden explains, because the books were simply ones Rove had given to the president. And sometimes it was a matter of absurdly fallacious logic: The U.S. uses waterboarding; the U.S. does not torture. Therefore, waterboarding is not torture.

But the blame is not just the administration’s. Hayden points to the deceptions on the road to Iraq as the most egregious example of the “failure of American news organizations to do their duty as vigilant watchdogs of the public trust.” Bush associated Hussein with WMD, the 9/11 attacks and even mushroom clouds. In a 90-minute presentation before the United Nations, Colin Powell “delivered the knock-out punch,” according to Hayden, “. . . and many Americans, including many journalists, trusted him.”

The New York Times’s Judith Miller was “one of the great enablers and dupes of the Bush White House,” quoting “senior officials” when she distributed false propaganda, Hayden notes; Bush press secretary Scott McClellan later wrote that Miller was “a valued stooge.”

Former TV journalist Karen Ryan, was one of the Bush Administration’s faux reporters. When her VNRs aired, the administration recycled them on their Websites and in promotional materials, which led to a Congressional investigation of VNRs because, as Hayden explains, spending tax dollars on “phony news reports” is illegal. Even conservative commentators squawked, one asking, “How many more of these bozos did Bush buy?”

In the post-9/11 adrenalin flow, Dubya warned, “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” Hayden questions the false choice that ignores neutrality and stifles dissent, and the penalty for dissent was indeed high—witness the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame “for her husband’s untimely criticism . . . endangering both her and the nation in order to settle political scores.” Ironically, Rove had been fired by Bush’s father more than a decade earlier for leaking a story to the same conservative columnist Robert Novak who named Plame.

Some of the most surprising criticism of Bush’s handling of the Hurricane Katrina aftermath came from Fox News commentators Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera. “The administration’s campaign of misinformation was eventually discredited” even by White House “insiders,” Hayden writes. In his 2008 memoir, McClellan charged that the amoral argument of “the ends always justify the means” legitimized all manner of untruths. Hayden acknowledges McClellan’s “regret for the wrongs he committed,” but notes that the Bush insider raised no objections “at the critical time when his reservations might have made a difference,” when he was “publicly defending” the misdeeds.

In his final chapter, Hayden considers Dubya’s legacy. In a 2004 poll of 400 historians, 338 assessed Dubya’s presidency as a failure. In a 2008 follow-up poll, the failure assessment rose from 81 percent to 98 percent, and 61 percent of the historians ranked it as the worst presidency ever. Even the conservative Weekly Standard declared it “a failed presidency” in a cover story.

But, as this work records, the press shares blame for that failure. Hayden has delivered a fascinating, well-documented narrative that demands critical introspection by so many in the media who bear guilt in the Dubya story.

—SUSAN GONDERS
Southeast Missouri State University

Essay Instructions

2010-01-31T15:08:00.000-08:00

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General Instructions on Smarts Essays

Three pages (1,200-1,500 words), 12-point Times (or equivalent), double-spaced, one-inch margins, emailed to Dr. Ted as a Word attachment. Dr. Ted will post essays on the class blog so everyone can see what you’ve come up with.

Writing Guidelines
1. Intro: Summarize, but not everything! What’s the most startling, most interesting “news” from your study? What are your key findings? (In news-talk, what’s the “lead” of your story. See The Fred Rule)
2. The Central Message: What is the overall message conveyed in the Fox news stories about your topic? How is the issue framed by Stewart and/or Colbert? In other words, how are audiences encouraged to think about the issue?
3. What are the facts? Based on our research on the online fact-checking sources, is the way the issue is framed by Fox and Stewart/Colbert true or truthy? Compare the facts from your research to the specific examples of coverage of the topic you examined.
4. News Media Performance: How’s they do? How well were the Fox and Comedy Central fact-claims supported by evidence? Were any fact-claims erroneous? Was important information omitted, distorted, or taken out of context? Specific examples needed.
5. Bias? Was the coverage partisan, biased, or incomplete/inacccurate?
6. Examples: What terms are used to describe frame the issues? Are the terms “;oaded” in any way? How?
7. Assess: Based on what you know from reading coses of journalistic ethics and the Hutchins standards for a socially responsible press, how fair and balanced or “truthy” was the coverage? Be specific.
8. Apply Mass Comm Theories in evaluating the media performance. What agendas were being set, what info got through the news “gate” and what didn’t? How was your issue framed? What kinds of attitudes might audiences cultivate from the coverage?
9. Conclusions: How are audiences encouraged to “think” about this topic/issue?
10. References: Include a reference page listing all sources and URLs (MLA or APA style).

Notes:
• All web sources are NOT created equal. That means no Wikipedia. Click here for info on how to determine the reliability of online sources. The sources teams use for this assignment need to be from reliable news sources, academic articles or books and nonpartisan “fact-check” online sources listed on project directions.
• This is NOT an opinion essay. This is a critical analysis using documented sources.
• Writing counts. One usage issue: “Media” is a plural noun and requires a plural verb. Correct: “The media are completely screwed up.” Incorrect: “The media is completely unbiased.”
• Grading: Essays will be graded on the basis of the instructor’s assessment of a) the quality of your argument(s); b) how well and how completely you address the central questions; c) the content of your essay; d) writing and mechanics (e.g., spelling, grammar, syntax, organization, etc.); and e) whether your conclusions are supported by your data.
• Help? Let me know if you have questions regarding the goals/focus/content/direction of the project.
• Have fun.
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Press Freedom and Responsibility

2010-01-31T14:22:00.000-08:00

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PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF FREE EXPRESSION IN SOCIETY

By Edward C. Pease
©1991

[Excerpted from Pease, E.C., STILL THE INVISIBLE PEOPLE: Job Satisfaction of Minority Journalists at U.S. Daily Newspapers (Athens, Ohio: E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, 1991)]

In a society based on individual rights and participation, democracy may be defined as a process of dialogue among all constituent groups. The philosophy on which this nation was founded holds as central to its basic democratic structure the importance of the individual vis a vis society. This includes a presumption of the individual’s power of rational thought and concepts of individual natural rights – including religion, speech and press.[1] These concepts were the prevailing notions of Locke, Milton, Mill, Paine and other 17th- and 18th-century thinkers whose writings combined eventually into marketplace-of-ideas theory, from which the First Amendment developed.

Central to the theory is the entirely free and unfettered exchange of ideas, including a free press operating within a social system in which all opinions had equal chance to be heard, the assumption being that truth would emerge from a robust and wide-open debate on issues of public importance. As Milton put it in his Areopagitica, “Let Her and Falsehood grapple; who ever heard of Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?”[2] From Milton’s perspective, and that of other libertarians, it was preferable to permit false opinion in the marketplace of ideas than to limit open exchange of ideas, any one of which might contain or lead to truth; free discussion was a self-righting process from which truth eventually would emerge. As social philosopher Carl Becker explained it:

The democratic doctrine of freedom of speech and of the press ... rests upon certain assumptions. One of these is that men desire to know the truth and will be disposed to be guided by it. Another is that the sole method of arriving at the truth in the long run is by the free competition of opinion in the open market. Another is that, since men will invariably differ in their opinions, each man must be permitted to urge, freely and even strenuously, his own opinion, provided he accords others the same right. And the final assumption is that from this mutual toleration and comparison of diverse opinions the one that seems the most rational will emerge and be generally accepted.[3]

Drawing on the work of his father, James Mill, and that of Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill’s brand of 17th-century libertarianism was pragmatic and utilitarian: To achieve the greatest good for the greatest number in society, he said, society must insure that all its members have the right to think and act for themselves. Limiting expression, Mill suggested, would limit society members’ ability to think for themselves. Mill made a four-part argument: First, suppressing opinions – however disagreeable they might be to others – might result in suppressing the truth, he said. Second, even an erroneous opinion might contain a kernel of truth, leading to the larger truth. Third, even if the generally held opinion is truth, the public may cling to it irrationally, solely because of rote and tradition, unless forced to defend it. Finally, Mill said, unless the commonly held opinion is challenged occasionally and those holding it are forced to reaffirm it, even truth loses its strength and positive effects on individuals and society.[4]

As Mill wrote in his essay, On Liberty:

If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. ... If the opinion is right, [people] are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.[5]

By the beginning of the 20th century, however, pure libertarianism was on the wane as newspapers and other media grew in size and influence, and the concept of the wide-open debate among individuals was supplanted by the reality of mass communication driven by technological advances. Public resentment of the size, scope, influence and excesses of the press gave rise to efforts to legislate limits on them; the media’s occasionally irresponsible exercise of their First Amendment freedom thus threatened all rights of individual free expression. Media scholar Theodore Peterson argues in his seminal Four Theories of the Press that, just as libertarian theory was founded on the principle of a “negative freedom” – that is, freedom from external restraint – new thinking in the 20th century saw a need for a press both free from restraints but also responsible to larger society.[6] What became known after publication of the Hutchins Commission report as social responsibility theory rests equally on a negative freedom from restraints, as well as on a positive freedom of the press to be proactive – freedom for social good, freedom to help society attain its goals.[7] J. Edward Gerald agreed: “Mass communications media are social institutions, the product of social demand,” which include predictable expectations of performance.[8]

The new social responsibility perspective of the press added to libertarianism the concept of the public’s right to know, at the same time placing moral responsibilities on publishers, who themselves had begun to link responsibility to overall public good with their constitutionally mandated freedom. Because liberty carries with it obligations, the greater freedom accorded the press in a democratic system carries with it responsibilities to fulfill certain functions in society.[9]

Leading newspaper publishers already had come to similar conclusions on their own regarding the role of the press in the new, industrial age. Joseph Pulitzer, legendary publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, told his staff in 1907 that his paper should be

an institution that should always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice and corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty.[10]

In the inaugural issue of his Detroit Evening News in 1873, James Scripps enunciated a similar vision of the role of the crusading press that was reminiscent of Milton:

Nineteenth Century Americans need not have their opinions molded for them by the newspaper press. Give the public the facts and arguments on both sides, and they will quickly determine the right or wrong in each case as it occurs. The vox populi, in the long run, will pretty certainly be found to be the vox Dei.[11]

His younger brother, E.W. Scripps, in his first issue of the Cleveland Penny Press in 1878, addressed these same issues of independence from special interest pressures and voiced libertarian confidence in the rational abilities of the reading public. He wrote: “The newspapers should simply present all the facts the editor is capable of obtaining, concerning men and measures before the bar of the public, and then, after having discharged its duty as a witness, be satisfied to leave the jury in the case – the public –to find the verdict.”[12]

Adolph S. Ochs, upon assuming control of The New York Times in 1860, had a similar vision for his paper: “. . . to give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect or interest involved; to make the columns of the New York Times a forum for the consideration of all public questions of importance and, to that end, to invite intelligent discussion for all shades of opinion.”[13]

But despite the sensibilities of publishers such as Pulitzer, Scripps and Ochs, as the press grew in size and influence, it came under increasing criticism. By 1900, the criticisms had fallen into seven basic themes:

1) The press and its press barons had wielded power to their own ends, at the expense of opposing views and discussion.

2) The press had become subservient to big business and advertisers.

3) The press resisted social change.

4) The press stressed the superficial and sensational over the significant.

5) Press content endangered public morals.

6) The press invaded individuals’ privacy.

7) And the press was controlled by a single socioeconomic class, further endangering any chance for robust and wide-open debate in the free and open marketplaces of ideas.[14]

Following World War II, the American public was frightened by the images of thought manipulation through mass communication, brought on by the Nazi propaganda machine. Those fears, coupled with the growth of the mass communications industry and the social and technological changes that followed the industrial revolution, led Henry R. Luce, founder and publisher of Time, to commission a group of scholars in 1947 to examine the prospects for a free press in America.

The Hutchins Commission

Echoing Mill, the chairman of the Commission on Freedom of the Press, Robert M. Hutchins of the University of Chicago, described concerns about the role of the mass media in the 20th century this way: “The tremendous influence of the modern press makes it imperative that the great agencies of mass communication show hospitality to ideas which their owners do not share. Otherwise, these ideas will not have a fair chance.”[15]

The commission said freedom of the press in 1946 was in danger for three reasons. First, the press’s importance to society had increased with its capacity to communicate to mass audiences; at the same time, however, the proportion of people able to communicate their opinions and ideas through the press had decreased. Second, those with access to the press “have not provided a service adequate to the needs of society,” the commission said. Third, press performance had so outraged some segments of society in the 1940s that threats of regulation had surfaced.[16] The commission said:

When an instrument of prime importance to all the people is available to a small minority of the people only, and when it is employed by that small minority in such a way as not to supply the people with the service they require, the freedom of the minority in employment of that instrument is in danger.[17]

More precisely, Gerald wrote, as the press evolved into big business, its priorities also shifted, from dissemination of diverse ideas to bottom-line economic issues. The Hutchins Commission concluded that such emphasis on profits threatened the media’s likelihood of providing “the variety of information and debate that the people need for self-government,” he said. Further, he said,

[i]n such media, entertainment takes precedence over matters of importance to social understanding and self-government. The urgencies of conciliation between nations and between racial and religious groups at home are minimized or overlooked by media with such a distributive goal. Salestalk through advertising and propaganda in the news constitutes a hazard to clear description and understanding of human problems.[18]

Press barons for years had recognized that shift themselves. E.W. Scripps, for instance, who never was shy about making a buck, wrote a year before his death in 1926:

There was a time in this country when newspapers were run for the purpose of moulding public opinion and their owners were deemed lucky if they gained an incidental profit. Now newspapers are run for profit and only incidentally are moulders of public opinion, leaders of the people in politics, and teachers.[19]

The Hutchins Commission considered free expression the central freedom of American democracy, but feared that a press seen by public and government as both unfettered and irresponsible risked losing its First Amendment franchise. To preserve its freedom, the report concluded, the press must serve the society that has accorded it that freedom. “The freedom of the press can remain a right of those who publish only if it incorporates into itself the right of the citizen and the public interest,” the commission wrote.[20] After four years of hearings, the Hutchins Commission released a five-point guideline for press performance that represented a new view of the relationship between the mass media and society. The American press should provide

1) a truthful, comprehensive and intelligent account of the day’s events in a context which gives them meaning;

2) a forum for the exchange of comment and criticism;

3) a representative picture of the constituent groups in the society;

4) presentation and clarification of the goals and values of the society; and

5) full access to the day’s intelligence.[21]

Consistent with the thinking of some newspaper leaders, as indicated by the statements of Ochs, Scripps and Pulitzer, the recommendations outlining changes in the way journalists should look at their jobs and at the media’s role in society. The five points also provide the first of two frameworks here for evaluating press practices and performance.

The Hutchins Commission Charge to the Press

The Hutchins Commission’s guidelines were, on the one hand, direct, straight-forward and commonsensical. At the same time, they enunciated a press function from which the media had sometimes strayed: “The first requirement is that the media should be truthful. They should not lie,” the commission report said.[22] The commission also cautioned the press to separate fact from opinion, while acknowledging that that requirement cannot be absolute: “There is no fact without context and no factual report which is uncolored by the opinions of the reporter.”[23]

The second recommendation, that the press provide “a forum for the exchange of comment and criticism,” underscored the commission’s view of the media’s responsibility as “common carriers of public discussion.”[24] These public discussions should include even – perhaps especially – ideas with which the media owners might not agree. “Their control over the various ways of reaching the ear of America is such that, of they do not publish ideas which differ from their own, those ideas will never reach the ear of America,” the report said.[25]

The third recommendation, particularly relevant to the issue of minorities and the media, underlined the media’s responsibility to present “a representative picture of the constituent groups in the society.”[26] “People make decisions in large part in terms of favorable or unfavorable images,” the report said. “They relate fact and opinion to stereotypes. [The media] are principal agents in creating and perpetuating these conventional conceptions. When the images they portray fail to present the social group truly, they tend to pervert judgment.”[27] Such representations of all segments of the American society was seen as a means toward greater understanding and harmony: “The Commission holds to the faith that if people are exposed to the inner truth of the life of a particular group, they will gradually build up respect for and understanding of it.”[28]

The fourth press function, as the Hutchins Commission saw it, was one of education, “the presentation and clarification of the goals and values of the society.”[29] The press had both an opportunity and a responsibility to help maintain community standards and preserve the society’s values. Finally, the commission said, the press must provide the public with “full access to the day’s intelligence,” something with which no journalist would disagree. “We do not assume that all citizens at all times will actually use all the material they receive. ... But [that] does not alter the need for wide distribution of news and opinion,” the report said. The press must provide the public with enough complete and truthful information that citizens can, “by the exercise of reason and of conscience,” make the decisions necessary to maintain an orderly society, the commission concluded.[30]

After 1947, the press reassessed its role and responsibilities, increasingly operating from the Hutchins Commission’s vision of a two-way relationship between the press and society, encompassing both the rights of free expression ascribed to Milton and marketplace-of-ideas theory, as well as a new expectation of the media’s responsibility to the social system that had accorded such rights. In one way, however, little had changed, the commission report said: “We need a market place for the exchange of comment and criticism regarding public affairs. We need to reproduce on a gigantic scale the open argument which characterized the village gathering two centuries ago.”[31]

In the Hutchins Commission’s view, press freedom was balanced by the press’s responsibility as a public servant. “We suggest that the press look upon itself as performing a public service of a professional kind. ... that the press must take on the community’s objectives as its own objectives.” [emphasis original][32]

It was with this image of the media-as-public servant that America entered the 1960s and their growing clamor for racial equity. In very many ways, the events of that decade represented the first test of the Hutchins Commission vision of press performance. It was a test the media failed.

• • • • •

NOTES

1. Fred S. Siebert, Theodore Peterson & Wilbur Schramm, Four Theories of the Press. (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1956).
2. John Milton, Aeropagitica, 1644.
3. Carl L. Becker, Progress and Power. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949), p. 33, as cited in Siebert, op. cit., p. 44.
4. Siebert, op. cit., p. 46.
5. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, edited by Alburey Castell (New York: F.S. Crofts and Co., 1947), p. 16.
6. Theodore Peterson, Four Theories of the Press, op. cit., p. 93-4.
7. Ibid.
8. J. Edward Gerald, The Social Responsibility of the Press. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1963), p. 7.
9. Peterson, op. cit., p. 74.
10. Joseph Pulitzer, message to his staff, April 10, 1907, cited in Edward L. Bernays, Public Relations Problems of the American Press. (New York: National Newspaper Promotion Association, 1952).
11. James Scripps, Detroit Evening News, Aug. 23, 1873. Cited in draft of Vance Trimble, The Astonishing Mr. Scripps. (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press), in press.
12. E.W. Scripps, The Cleveland Penny Press, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 2, 1878, p. 1.
13. Adolph S. Ochs, The New York Times, August 18, 1896, cited in Bernays, op. cit.
14. See Peterson, op. cit., p. 78.
15. Robert M. Hutchins, Foreword, in The Commission on Freedom of the Press, A Free and Responsible Press: A General Report on Mass Communication: Newspapers, Radio, Motion Pictures, Magazines and Books. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947), p. viii.
16. Ibid., p. 1.
17. Ibid., pp.1-2.
18. Gerald, op. cit., p. 104.
19. E.W. Scripps, “The Wisdom of an Old Penman,” June 1, 1925, p. 6. (The Scripps Archive, Alden Library, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio)
20. A Free and Responsible Press, op. cit., p. 18.
21. Ibid., pp. 20-29.
22. Ibid., p. 21.
23. Ibid., p. 22.
24. Ibid., p. 23.
25. Ibid., p. 24.
26. Ibid., p. 26.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid., pp. 26-27.
29. Ibid., p. 27.
30. Ibid., p. 29. Peterson suggests that this recommendation assisted in the evolution of the principle of freedom of information and the public’s right to know; if the press has a mandate to provide the fullest possible access to the day’s intelligence, it must also possess a right of access to such information. It is the logical underpinning of press demands for free flow of information from the public sector. See Peterson, op. cit., p. 91.
31. A Free and Responsible Press, op. cit., pp. 67-68.
32. Ibid., pp. 92, 126.

Purchasing Detecting Bull

2010-01-25T06:01:00.000-08:00

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JCOM 2010 Text

The required “text” for JCOM 2010—Media Smarts is a DVD “book” called Detecting Bull—How to Identify Bias and Junk Journalism in Print, Broadcast and on the Wild Web (2009) by John McManus, who also operates the website GradetheNews.org.

Detecting Bull is a great example of one of the concepts we’ll discuss in Smarts—technological convergence, which means the phenomenon of difference media technologies coming together into single packages incorporating text, video, audio and web resources.

You may purchase Bull either as a download directly to your computer, or as a physical DVD from the Detecting Bull website.

NOTE: The universal player for the online download version of the “book” doesn’t work well on Macintosh, so you’ll have to order a physical DVD.

Got to the Detecting Bull website and then click on “Buy” in the lefthand column. That page will give you information on either downloading the Haihaisoft universal player, required to read the “book” on PC’s with Windows, or for ordering the physical version for Macs.

Because McManus is a longtime educator, he offers his book in this electronic format to keep the prices down, and so he can update the material in the fast-changing world of mass media.

If you have problems obtaining your desired version of Bull, contact either your instructor or John McManus directly (by clicking “Contact” in the lefthand column of the Bull website).

Get Bull, and start getting Media Smart!
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JCOM Courses Go Online

2009-12-27T11:15:00.000-08:00

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JCOM Launches for Online Minor

The USU journalism department has opened cyberspace to a new era of online journalism instruction with several JCOM courses offered online as part of the department’s new online minor in journalism and public relations.

Beginning in Spring 2010, the full pre-major core for all JCOM majors—Newswriting (JCOM 1130), Intro to Mass Communication (JCOM 1500), and Media Smarts (JCOM 2010)—will be online, as will the PR core for an online minor.

The first online class, offered in Spring 2009, was beginning newswriting class. JCOM 2010—Media Smarts launched in Fall 2009, along with JCOM 2300—Introduction to Public Relations, and JCOM 2310—Writing for Public Relations.

Professor Ted “Pixelhead” Pease “test-drove” the basic newswriting and Media Smarts classes; PR faculty Preston Parker and Troy Oldham designed the online PR offerings.

“This is the future of the communication field—using new technologies to teach and apply both traditional and new journalism and PR skills,” said Pease, a veteran newspaper journalist and JCOM interim department head, who has taught at USU since 1994. “We’s excited to be expanding our reach in this way, exploring how students can learn their craft online and interactively, since that’s how so many of them will be making their livings after graduation.”

The online editions of the regular face-to-face classes reach students both on-campus and at a distance who work independently, through blogs and the university’s statewide interactive distance education network.

For more information about the JCOM Department at USU, and its new online PR minor, visit the department website, and JCOM’s award-winning student online news“paper,” the Hard News Café.

—30—

Shorts4

2009-10-19T16:14:00.000-07:00

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Shorts #4

Here are (mixed up) reporter notes from actual news stories (well, plausible news stories…). Identify the WWWWWH and then use the key info to write leads for the story. Conform to AP style.

Slug: Speech
There was a speech at USU . It was sponsored by the political science department. It was about how history repeats itself, titled, “Déjà Vu All Over Again: Rise of the New Russia.” It was at the Eccles Conference Center on campus at 7 p.m. About 200 people attended. The speaker was from the University of Virginia—Professor Igor Dullard, an expert in Russian and Soviet history and author of a new bestseller, “The Bear Is Back: Russian Adventurism in the 21st Century.”

Slug: Crash
From Logan Police Department reports: Traffic stop, 11:43 p.m. . 1400 block of North Main Street. Blue Datsun sedan, 1998 (UTlic: HGI 901), failed to stop at stoplight at 1400N, northbound, hit left front bumper/fender of white Chevy van, 2004 (IDlic. IDSPUD). Datsun attempted to leave the scene but damage to right front wheel made vehicle undriveable. Officers apprehended driver and passenger near Deseret bank. Driver, Jerald Doolittle, d.o.b. 6/13/88, 438 East 500 North, Apt. 2B, Logan, UT, declined BreathAlyzer field test and was arrested on suspicion of DUI. Driver of Chevy, Howard Russet, d.o.b. 3/21/57, 14500 East 2500 North, Pocatello, ID, uninjured.

Slug: Thai protest
Thousands of protesters are camped in front of the prime minister’s compound in Bangkok, Thailand, protesting alleged government corruption. The prime minister is Samak Sundaravej. He has denied charges of corruption. He’s been in office for seven months. He refuses to step down. Protest leaders are calling for 1 million people to join in a nationwide protest, disrupting government functions and rail and air service.

Slug: La-Z-Boy
John Frontman said today that the 57-year-old La-Z-Boy Co. in Tremonton, Utah, will close its doors next month. The company, which makes recliners and other furniture, employs more than 500 people at its Box Elder County plant. The jobs will move to Mexico, where labor costs are lower, Frontman said. He said current La-Z-Boy workers will be welcome to relocate. Union officials called the announcement “a disaster.”
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Shorts5

2009-10-19T16:12:00.000-07:00

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Shorts5

The lead, as you know, is the roadsign for the story: It summarizes the most important elements and tells the reader where the story (and reader) are going. The following provides you with the 5Ws and H, plus additional info. Your task is to take this information and organize it into the first, second and, if necessary, third paragraphs of a news story.

Slug: plane crash

WHO? 218 people (212 passengers, six crew)
WHAT? Delta Air Lines flight 1021 between Denver and San Francisco crashed on emergency approach
WHERE? two miles north of the Salt Lake City International Airport
WHEN?
WHY? pilot radioed the tower, said there was smoke in the cockpit and cabin and he was losing power, asked emergency landing
HOW? plane lost power; pilot tried to guide in but nosed into marshes near Great Salt Lake at nearly 200 mph; plane cartwheeled, breaking into pieces and exploding.
Other info: only three survivors, undentified, all in extremely critical condition at SLC hospitals. Last transmission from pilot, still unidentified pending notification of family: “I can’t make it. We’re going down. Tell Candy and the girls I love them.” Info from National Transportation Safety Board spokeswoman Dana Perino.

Slug: Tuition increase

WHO? USU President Stan Albrecht
WHAT? Raising tuition by $12 per credit hour
WHERE? affects all students at USU main and satellite/regional campuses
WHEN? Beginning with Summer 2009 semester
WHY? global economic downturn and state budget cuts to higher education have resulted in a loss of $6.5 million in state funding and potentially larger losses in revenues from USU’s investment portfolios.
HOW? not applicable
Other info: Info provided by USU spokesman John DeVilbiss. Provided this quote from Albrecht: “We tried everything conceivable to avoid having to raise tuition, but have very reluctantly concluded that USU will not be able to weather this economic storm without a combination of deep cuts to programs and projects, along with this unfortunate but essential additional cost to our students. I wish there were another way, but there isn’t.” Statement from ASUSU President Bob Flathery: “This is totally bogus. There is no freakin’ way students should have to pay for the university’s poor planning, or for the Bush administration’s idiotic mismanagement. Hundreds of students will have to drop out.”
USU enrolls approximately 27,000 fulltime (FTE) students at its main and branch campuses. The increase of $12 per credit hour means that a fulltime student enrolled in 15 credits will pay $180 more per semester, and at current enrollment levels, USU will bring in an additional $3,960,000 per semester.

Slug: radioactive waste

WHO? Cache County Sheriff’s Office
WHAT? Released statement to the press about train traveling through Cache Valley and Logan carrying 20,000 gallons of low-level radioactive waste from the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory near Pocatello to a containment unit near Yucca Mountain, Nevada
WHERE? over RR tracks from Cache Junction in NW corner of the county, through Newton, Petersboro, Mendon, Wellsville, exiting the southern part of the valley west of Providence and Avon
WHEN? Train is expected to reach Cache Junction at 10 p.m. ; will travel slow to minimize risk and transit the valley, north to south, in about 2 hours.
WHY? first use of transportation links between Idaho and Yucca Mountain with actual high-risk cargo; first tested last summer.
HOW? the waste is shipped in specially constructed barrels made of an experimental alloy or lead, titanium and arsenic, designed to resist leakage for 120,000 years. Robots load the cargo on and off the train.
Other info: Sheriff’s spokesman Hugo Nutjob: “We will be monitoring the train closely as it passes through the valley, and will provide security as needed.” Local authorities work with federal DOE officials, who are overseeing the transfer. DOE statement: “The protective casks are virtually unbreakable, and pose no danger whatsoever to public health and safety, short of a catastrophic event that caused the barrels to be breached.”

1130 Shorts6

2009-10-19T16:11:00.000-07:00

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Shorts6

Use the information below to write a news story. Use all the most important information, discarding the rest, in an inverted pyramid/ summary lead format.
Write for tomorrow’s paper.

Slug: master plan

The Logan City Council has finally received a final version of a master plan to govern growth and development in Logan. The plan has been on the drawing board for nearly three years. It is intended to impose “a comprehensive, consistent and rational approach to help the city plan for growth.” That’s what City Zoning and Planning Board Chairman Herbert Jones said when he met with reporters before Monday’s meeting of the city council. Council member Louise Brown applauded the master plan document. “Growth in Logan has been like a runaway freight train,” she said. “At last we will be able to respond intelligently to development in the valley.” The plan includes a dedicated downtown business district to attract new business with tax incentives, green-belt areas that restrict development, and planned residential areas along transportation corridors. The council will now begin several weeks of review and deliberation on the details of the master plan. Several public hearings are planned to solicit citizen input and reaction.

Slug: Accident

According to reports, there was an accident yesterday afternoon on Highway 89/91 in Wellsville. Apparently, black ice on the road was the cause, the report said. At about 4:20 p.m., a dark blue Dodge van was slowing to turn left from the northbound lanes of route 89/91. The driver, Chereese Grummund, d.o.b 1/14/75, of 1209 N. 400 W., Hyrum, was turning into the Trailside convenience store to buy gas. The driver of a recreational vehicle behind Grummund apparently didn’t see her van until tragedy could not be averted. The RV driver was Nelson Haverford, d.o.b. 11/23/31, of 12 Saddleback Cir., Preston, Id. The camper ran into the rear of the van, which flipped over. It slid into the southbound lanes of Hwy 89/91, but an oncoming Chevy Geo driven by Robert Murphy, d.o.b. 7/25/85, of 1720 E. 1800 S., Orem, Ut, managed to avoid hitting it. Murphy jumped out of his car and helped other people from the convenience store get Grummund out of the van. She had contusions on her face and head and complained of neck pains. She was transported to Logan Regional Hospital by ambulance. Haverford and his wife, Gertrude, d.o.b. 6/19/43, and their granddaughter, Bertrice Haverford, d.o.b. 10/20/83, of Preston, were uninjured. Their camper was totaled, though. Grummund was cited for operating a vehicle without working brakelights or taillights. Haverford was cited for following too close. Haverford told officers that his camper skidded on ice. (Source: Cache County sheriff’s reports)

WAIT! When you’ve written that story, rewrite it with this new information (below), which you just got from a last-minute call to the Sheriff’s office. File BOTH complete versions.

Slug: Fatal Accident
Grummund’s daughter, Candace, d.o.b. 1/4/06, apparently was riding in the rear of the van but not in a car seat or seatbelt. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

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Speeches

2009-10-19T14:32:00.000-07:00

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Covering Speeches; Getting the ‘Nut’

Covering speeches is something that all journalists do all the time. In some ways, it is the easiest possible assignment—all you have to do is sit and listen and take notes; the speaker does the work and hands you quotes and quips and facts and opinions.

The difficult part is transforming a speech, which has a particular structure and form, into the kind of inverted pyramid news story that we’ve been working on. The inverted pyramid is useful for the reader, as you know, because it provides a selective, quasi-telegraphic account of news in decreasing order of importance—first things, first.

For the reporter, translating events and even a speech into that kind of user-friendly structure requires judgment and discipline. First, the reporter must decide what the most important fact(s) or theme is—in the short story about the car accident from a couple of weeks ago, which of the facts was the most important? Sure, the accident itself, but was it Floyd Finger’s arrest for DUI, or was it Marcie Mommish’s injury, which sent her to the hospital? Or both?

This judgment of what’s most important, and then the skill to write it in a way that focuses the reader and story on that element—that’s the trick we’re trying to learn.

A speech, however, is not structured so conveniently. Most speakers start with a couple of jokes, ease into their topic, build to a couple of crescendos (the main points), and then taper off at the end. So instead of an upside-down triangle (pyramid), a speech might look like a diamond shape, or a figure eight.

So the challenge in covering a speech is to figure out a major theme on which to focus your news story. Can you describe it in one word, or a few works? (Remember the Fred story—the city council meeting boiled down to this: “Those jerks are going to raise taxes again.” Or even one word: “Taxes!”)

This boiling down process is important. It requires thought and imagination. As Michael Gartner said, the reporter has to be fair as well, so the story must reflect accurately and fairly what the speaker was trying to say. You have to find what we refer to as a “hook” on which you can hang the whole story. If you don’t find a good focal point, the rest of your story either won’t hold together logically, or you’ll run out of stuff and report only a small portion of the whole story.

Here is a structure for inverted pyramid news stories that I think is very useful, and can work for you (nearly) every time.

• 1st¶ Summarize the most important/central news in one sentence. Sometimes, you can identify this in your head in one word—“Taxes!”—and then add the other required lead stuff (who, when, where?) to make a summary sentence.
• 2nd¶ Support the lead paragraph with other critical info. For example, a person’s name often would NOT go in the first ¶, because most people aren’t household names. Sure, you can lead with, “President Obama said today...,” but you can’t say, “Floyd Finger was arrested....,” because no one knows who the heck he is. So the first reference to the person might refer to her/him as a label—a Logan city councilman, a USU professor, a Salt Lake City man, etc., and then name the person in the second graf.
• 3rd¶ If you can, find a good quote that supports your lead.
• 4th¶ The “nut graf.” I’ll give you some readings on nut grafs, but basically, this is a paragraph that answers the “So what?” or the “What is this about?” question.

These top paragraphs represent the story’s roadsign, telling the reader what the story is about and where it’s going. If you can boil your notes down to this, the rest of the story can proceed logically, filling out the major points of the story and taking the reader along an easy trail that was marked by the lead “roadsign.”

(For more on nut grafs and how to focus a story, see new posts on NewsHounds on Nut Grafs and on “Michelangelo’s David.”)

Here is my version of the Michael Gartner speech story. Let me acknowledge that this is kind of a hard story to write, because it’s more a lecture than a speech with good news “hooks” on which to hang the story. But it is still possible to come up with a central theme that can help hold the whole thing together, without simply listing Gartner’s 12 points—which then reads like a transcript, not a news story.

Compare my version below to your own, and a feel free to kibbitz. I include a few notes highlighted in the text, FYI.

TP

~~~

Gartner Speech
Pease (Note: This is how you should slug ALL stories!)

One of America’s preeminent journalists told USU students Tuesday that although modern journalism has never been more challenging, reporting is also “enormous fun.” (This is what I came up with as a summary “hook” that includes his main theme and permits me the flexibility to cover as much of his tralk as I want. Note that I don’t name Gartner in the lead—does everyone know who he is? but I refer to him as an important journalist.)

“Who else in the world is paid just to ask questions, to think and to write?” said Michael Gartner, a former TV and newspaper editor and Pulitzer Prize-winner. “There simply is nothing more satisfying, nothing more fun.” (This second graf does two things—specific ID of Gartner, and a quote that gives the reader the “sound” of the speaker.)

Gartner, who was president of NBC News, editor at The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and The Des Moines Register, and co-owner and editor of the Ames (Iowa) Tribune, offered a crowd of nearly 200 students and faculty at the Memorial Union his “12-Step Program to Good Writing.”

Gartner was on campus as part of the university’s William Henry Fox First Amendment Lecture Series, sponsored by the Journalism and Communication Department. (These 2 grafs serve as the “nut,” which tells the reader what this story is about and whys/he should care.)

“Gartner is a national treasure,” said journalism Dean Eaton X. Benedict.

But writing isn’t always fun, said the retired editor, whose editorials for the Ames Tribune won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1997. “Sometimes, it’s painful. Sometimes, it’s frustrating. Sometimes, it’s embarrassing,” Gartner said. (This graf takes the reader back to the lead angle, or “hook,” and continues the conversation into his 12 points. Not the “But,” which is a quick and easy and effective was to make a transition into new material or a different direction.)

And it is a craft that never stops developing, he said, offering a 12-point list of what it takes to be a good writer.

Among Gartner’s 12 suggestions was advice for young writers at every stage of their careers, including life lessons such as the need to have passion, curiosity and care for other human beings. (This is a synthesis of the entire speech—my own interpretation. Rather than just list his 12 points in chronological order, which is Boooorrrrring, I try to find ways to lump stuff together logically.)

Because of changing expectations of journalism and society, the challenge is some ways greater for journalists today than when he was starting, Gartner said. “Today, for you to get into the brains of my children—and of me and my father,” he said, “you must report more thoroughly than ever and write more gracefully than ever.” (Note: A speech story is all about a person talking, so try to select as many good, tight, pithy quotes as possible so the reader can “hear” the speaker’s voice.)

His advice? “You must report. Read. Listen. Simplify. Collaborate. Trust. Experiment. Talk. Pounce. Care. And balance.” (This quote lists his points, but it’s confusing to the reader. So I go quickly into an explanation in the next graf.)

All writing depends on reporting, Gartner said. “Words alone aren’t enough. Good writing needs fact. You cannot be a good writer if you are not a good reporter.” So the first challenge of good writing is collecting good facts.

Equally important, he said, is the ability to listen—both to sources and coworkers, and to the written word. “You cannot be a good writer if you don’t read,” he said. And, “You cannot be a good writer if you don’t listen.” (Note that in many of these paragraphs, I try to make a smooth, logical transition from one topic to the next, and paraphrase material to set up a quote.)

Listening goes both ways, Gartner said. Good writers also have to listen to their writing, and simplify complex ideas, concepts and sentences. “The easiest thing for the reader to do is quit reading,” one of Gartner’s first editors told him.

“What wonderful advice to a newspaperman,” he said. “You have to keep the reader interested.” (This quote follows on the previous graf—completing the thought.)

One way that Gartner suggests for keeping the reader connected is to use editors and co-workers as trusted collaborators. Talking to co-workers and bouncing ideas and stories off each other is an essential way both to improve stories and writing, he said, and can also serve as a reality check.

“Trust means honesty and respect, openness and courtesy” with editors and other reporters to fine-tune stories and find the “music” that makes the difference between facts and good writing.

In addition, Gartner said, the journalist must listen both to his or her own writing “voice,” as well as to sources for great quotes. “The good writer knows how to use quotes,” he said—as punctuation, transition or reinforcement. “It takes a good ear to get a good quote” and to use it effectively.

Finally, Gartner said the best writers and reporters must care deeply about their craft, and about other people.

“You cannot be a good writer if you do not love writing and love reporting. It’s simply impossible,” he said. “And you cannot be a good writer if you do not care what you are writing about.”

Part of that is to care enough to be fair, he said. (That is a transition from the previous graf to this one.) “Fairness is vital for every story and every newspaper, because an unfair story hurts the credibility of the reporter and the editor and the newspaper.”

Gartner’s audience, mostly journalism students, responded often with laughter and applause to the veteran editor’s advice. “This is the kind of stuff you never read in textbooks,” said junior journalism major Forrest Ranger.

As part of the event, Gartner was awarded the journalism school’s annual William Henry Fox Prize for distinguished journalism. The next speaker in the series, former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, will be on campus next month.

–30–

Principled Journalism

2009-10-04T14:41:00.000-07:00

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Principles of Journalism
From the Pew Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism

NOTE: Read this in the context of the SPJ Code of Ethics and other professional journalists ethics codes.

In 1997, an organization then administered by PEJ, the Committee of Concerned Journalists, began a national conversation among citizens and news people to identify and clarify the principles that underlie journalism. After four years of research, including 20 public forums around the country, a reading of journalism history, a national survey of journalists, and more, the group released a Statement of Shared Purpose that identified nine principles. These became the basis for The Elements of Journalism, the book by PEJ Director Tom Rosenstiel and CCJ Chairman and PEJ Senior Counselor Bill Kovach. Here are those principles, as outlined in the original Statement of Shared Purpose.

A Statement of Purpose

After extended examination by journalists themselves of the character of journalism at the end of the twentieth century, we offer this common understanding of what defines our work. The central purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with accurate and reliable information they need to function in a free society.

This encompasses myriad roles—helping define community, creating common language and common knowledge, identifying a community’s goals, heroes and villains, and pushing people beyond complacency. This purpose also involves other requirements, such as being entertaining, serving as watchdog and offering voice to the voiceless.

Over time journalists have developed nine core principles to meet the task. They comprise what might be described as the theory of journalism:

1. Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth
Democracy depends on citizens having reliable, accurate facts put in a meaningful context. Journalism does not pursue truth in an absolute or philosophical sense, but it can—and must—pursue it in a practical sense. This “journalistic truth” is a process that begins with the professional discipline of assembling and verifying facts. Then journalists try to convey a fair and reliable account of their meaning, valid for now, subject to further investigation. Journalists should be as transparent as possible about sources and methods so audiences can make their own assessment of the information. Even in a world of expanding voices, accuracy is the foundation upon which everything else is built—context, interpretation, comment, criticism, analysis and debate. The truth, over time, emerges from this forum. As citizens encounter an ever greater flow of data, they have more need—not less—for identifiable sources dedicated to verifying that information and putting it in context.

2. Its first loyalty is to citizens
While news organizations answer to many constituencies, including advertisers and shareholders, the journalists in those organizations must maintain allegiance to citizens and the larger public interest above any other if they are to provide the news without fear or favor. This commitment to citizens first is the basis of a news organization’s credibility, the implied covenant that tells the audience the coverage is not slanted for friends or advertisers. Commitment to citizens also means journalism should present a representative picture of all constituent groups in society. Ignoring certain citizens has the effect of disenfranchising them. The theory underlying the modern news industry has been the belief that credibility builds a broad and loyal audience, and that economic success follows in turn. In that regard, the business people in a news organization also must nurture—not exploit—their allegiance to the audience ahead of other considerations.

3. Its essence is a discipline of verification
Journalists rely on a professional discipline for verifying information. When the concept of objectivity originally evolved, it did not imply that journalists are free of bias. It called, rather, for a consistent method of testing information—a transparent approach to evidence—precisely so that personal and cultural biases would not undermine the accuracy of their work. The method is objective, not the journalist. Seeking out multiple witnesses, disclosing as much as possible about sources, or asking various sides for comment, all signal such standards. This discipline of verification is what separates journalism from other modes of communication, such as propaganda, fiction or entertainment. But the need for professional method is not always fully recognized or refined. While journalism has developed various techniques for determining facts, for instance, it has done less to develop a system for testing the reliability of journalistic interpretation.

4. Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover
Independence is an underlying requirement of journalism, a cornerstone of its reliability. Independence of spirit and mind, rather than neutrality, is the principle journalists must keep in focus. While editorialists and commentators are not neutral, the source of their credibility is still their accuracy, intellectual fairness and ability to inform--not their devotion to a certain group or outcome. In our independence, however, we must avoid any tendency to stray into arrogance, elitism, isolation or nihilism.

5. It must serve as an independent monitor of power
Journalism has an unusual capacity to serve as watchdog over those whose power and position most affect citizens. The Founders recognized this to be a rampart against despotism when they ensured an independent press; courts have affirmed it; citizens rely on it. As journalists, we have an obligation to protect this watchdog freedom by not demeaning it in frivolous use or exploiting it for commercial gain.

6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise
The news media are the common carriers of public discussion, and this responsibility forms a basis for our special privileges. This discussion serves society best when it is informed by facts rather than prejudice and supposition. It also should strive to fairly represent the varied viewpoints and interests in society, and to place them in context rather than highlight only the conflicting fringes of debate. Accuracy and truthfulness require that as framers of the public discussion we not neglect the points of common ground where problem solving occurs.

7. It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant
Journalism is storytelling with a purpose. It should do more than gather an audience or catalogue the important. For its own survival, it must balance what readers know they want with what they cannot anticipate but need. In short, it must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant. The effectiveness of a piece of journalism is measured both by how much a work engages its audience and enlightens it. This means journalists must continually ask what information has most value to citizens and in what form. While journalism should reach beyond such topics as government and public safety, a journalism overwhelmed by trivia and false significance ultimately engenders a trivial society.

8. It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional
Keeping news in proportion and not leaving important things out are also cornerstones of truthfulness. Journalism is a form of cartography: it creates a map for citizens to navigate society. Inflating events for sensation, neglecting others, stereotyping or being disproportionately negative all make a less reliable map. The map also should include news of all our communities, not just those with attractive demographics. This is best achieved by newsrooms with a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives. The map is only an analogy; proportion and comprehensiveness are subjective, yet their elusiveness does not lessen their significance.

9. Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience
Every journalist must have a personal sense of ethics and responsibility—a moral compass. Each of us must be willing, if fairness and accuracy require, to voice differences with our colleagues, whether in the newsroom or the executive suite. News organizations do well to nurture this independence by encouraging individuals to speak their minds. This stimulates the intellectual diversity necessary to understand and accurately cover an increasingly diverse society. It is this diversity of minds and voices, not just numbers, that matters.

See also: Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics; the Hutchins Commission Report on a Free & Responsible Press

The Inverted Pyramid

2009-09-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

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First Things First

Why do we write news stories the way we do, beating the reader over the head and yelling, and then explaining what all the fuss is about?

There are a few good practical reasons for the “inverted pyramid” structure of hard (e.g., new) news stories. For one thing, the most interesting thing about news is the stuff that’s, well, new and now. So people naturally start with now, not three weeks of background.

Historically, “news” came in the form of long essays, with lots of opinions and background and back-filling and positioning to create a foundation that would justify (or debunk) whatever the latest developments might be. For example, “In the beginning...” is a lead that suggests a lot of backstory, so you’d best get a comfortable chair and a drink. “Let there be light,” on the other hand, is a great lead that really gets to the point.

Back in the days before print and widespread literacy, “news” was in fact told in parable form, long stories with riveting details that could stick easily in the listeners’ memories, because all these stories were oral—fables and chants and songs and minstrel acts. Memories were better then. Patience, too, I’m guessing.

When the printed word and literacy came along, after Johann Gutenberg changed the world in the mid-1400s, more and more people learned how to read and trusted their important memories to books and paper.

But even with this new technology, “news” could be a longish enterprise, with a lot of preamble and scene-setting and so forth.

But the long-form tale started to fray a bit at the edges when time was short, like when nations were at war. As it became increasingly important for people to know things fast—the Saxons are on the beach, for example—the stories got pared down to the more basic stuff. Sure, we care that it was Fenric, son of Bodric, son of Phobric, son of .... But mostly, the important part was that Fenric and his 2,000 bloodthirsty hordes were at the gate, and who cares about his lineage at the moment anyway?

It wasn’t just war. Economic interests made the news-tellers shorten up their stories as well. After the settlers from Europe arrives to colonize the “New World,” fast sailing boats would regularly shoot out from the East Coast of the colonies to meet slower European square-riggers to get their news and then scoot back to Boston and Jamestown and Manhattan with the news:
politics at court, sure, that might unseat Virginia’s colonial governor, but also about incoming products for sale that merchants could buy up and sell at a profit. So “news” became pretty simple: New shipments of linen. The tea shipment aboard the “Betty” was spoiled with rats. The slaves aboard the “Amistad” were said to have mutinied....

So although gossip has ever been gossip, paring it down to the basics had become increasingly important.

By the mid-1800s, there was yet another reason for storytellers to get to the point, and fast. Northern newspapermen (and yes, they were pretty much all male) attached to the Union troops during the Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression, depending on where you were standing) used a new technology called the telegraph to shoot news flashes about the war back to New York and Philadelphia and Washington. The problem was that telegraph technology was unreliable—signals would be cut off, poles would fall down, reporters would be hit by cannonballs...the usual thing...and the big news from the front would be cut off before we could hear it:

“Thursday previous, in the aftermath of a torrential downpour so heavy and dense that even the valiant troops of the Connecticut Fourth, 12th Battalion, Ninth Infantry were forced, against their truly courageous natures and inclinations in the face of Confederate Rebels of the foulest ilk, despite the ever-present Inspiration of their most valiant General, ....”

. . . and then the telegraph failed.

So their editors told them to cut to the chase, and just send the facts, ma’am, just the facts: Who WON, fergawdsakes?!?

Thus, writing may have gotten a lot less interesting, but it was a lot more informative: The inverted pyramid placed the most important facts at the start of the story. Sentences were more focused, shorter and more active. WHO and WHAT were essential. WHEN and WHERE? The why’s and the how’s and the additional details...well, fill ’em in if and when you can, and we’ll run that stuff if there’s space.

Because that was another physical impediment on storytelling. Getting the basic facts through before the wires fell down was one thing. But then, how much room was there in the newspaper for the story? Up through today, one of the greatest limitations on news is physical spacce—how much will fit? Routinely, the people who put the final newspaper (or website or newscast) together simply paste the copy in, and then either cut from the bottom to make it fit, or just let the story meander on in cyberspace.

So it’s pretty important not to leave the most important stuff until last. Instead of building suspense, the writer who hopes to develop the theme and to create artistic tensions is more likely to find the whodunit climax cut away onto the floor, or lost at the unread/unseen/unregistered end.

So: The Inverted Pyramid was born. A pyramid, of course, starts at the bottom with the heaviest and most essential foundation, and builds in diminishing size and weight to a pinnacle, which disappears into nothing.

Invert that structure, and you start at the top with the MOST IMPORTANT stuff: WHO? Did WHAT? to WHOM? WHEN? and WHERE? So if the telegraph poles go down, you will have delivered your headlines, at least. It looks like this:

THE SUMMARY OF THE BIGBIG NEWS

A PARAGRAPH ADDING MORE KEY DETAILS
THE NEXT MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION

MAYBE A QUOTE OR SOME BACKGROUND
OTHER SUPPORTING DETAILS & STUFF
SOMEWHAT LESS IMPORTANT INFO
MORE, EXPANDING ON THE PREVIOUS
MORE DETAILS AND STUFF
MORE INFORMATION
AND MORE STUFF
AND MORE
AND
peter
out

This structure has its problems. For one thing, there’s no heart or soul or art or suspense, no character development or evocative descriptive detail. It assumes that people will shut you down after three sentences (if you’re lucky!).

All that is true—this is not great literature. But the inverted pyramid structure, starting with a summary lead to focus the reader’s attention and then feeding that interest one logical step at a time, is a powerful and valuable tool, not just in news writing, but in any kind of communication. Readers are busy, and especially when it comes to scanning the day’s news. If you can hook the reader in the first sentence, you can play him like a trout in the second and third grafs, and then keep reeling her into the rest of the story. This is a mechnism that not only can capture readers, but which can help you organize your own thoughts and your writing, whatever your topic and field. While your history classmates are struggling with the politics of the 14th Century, who will have framed your paper with, “For want of a horse, a kingdom died,” which in your mind is the central fact from which all other events unfolded.

If you can organize your own thoughts to focus on the most central points, your reader will thank you.

More stuff on inverted pyramid newswriting structure: From the mighty Chip Scanlan at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies... and this, too.... and from some blogs.... and you can find other stuff. But you get the idea.
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Stories 1-4

2009-09-13T14:34:00.000-07:00

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Short News Stories

The lead, as you know, is the roadsign for the story: It summarizes the most important elements and tells the reader where the story (and the reader) are going. Technically, the “lead” (or “lede”) is just the first summary paragraph (or “graf”), but for our purposes, let’s make it the first few grafs, which get the story started.

The following provides you with four stories’ 5Ws and H, plus additional info. Your task is to take this information and organize it into the first, second and, if necessary, third paragraphs of a news story. Put all four stories in one document. At the top of each, start with the slug and your last name. Like this:

Nuke test
Pease

Then write your story with a short (one sentence, no more than 35 words) summary lead, followed by other info in logical order. Remember the inverted pyramid structure. REMEMBER THE FRED RULE! One (short) sentence per paragraph. Stop when you run out of info. If you wish you’d had other crucial info, note at the bottom in a memo to your editor (me).

Save your completed stories in a single Word.doc named

YOURLASTNAMEStories1.doc

and attach it to a Blackboard email to me by Thursday midnight. Questions, let me know.

—TedEd (Ted, your Editor)

~ ~ ~

1. Slug: Nuke test

WHO? A nuclear weapon with a yield equivalent to 150,000 tons of TNT
WHAT? detonated
WHERE? In the Nevada desert, 2,000 feet underground, beneath the surface of Pahute Mesa; 40 miles away, pacifists were holding a protest rally
WHEN?
WHY? to test the weapon
HOW? Not applicable
Other info: The test was conducted by the Department of Energy. DOE officials are the source; the protest was by more than 450 physicians, scientists and peace activists, protesting continued nuclear weapons testing by the United States.

2. Slug: Boy found

WHO? 7-year-old boy missing for three years
WHAT? found
WHERE? in Brick Township, NJ
WHEN?
WHY? not applicable
HOW? A neighbor recognized the kid’s picture when it was shown after the movie Adam: The Song Continues, about a kidnapping; she called the cops
Other info: New Jersey police arrested the boy’s mother, Ellen Lynn Conner, 27, on kidnapping charges from Alabama. She will be arraigned and extradited to Alabama later in the week; the boy is in foster care until his relatives are contacted.

3. Slug: NW Airlines jet

WHO? 40 passengers
WHAT? Evacuated from a Northwest Airlines jet (flight 428)
WHERE? at the LaCrosse, Wis., Municipal Airport
WHEN?
WHY? an airport employee in the landing tower spotted smoke coming from the wheels
HOW? not applicable
Other info: the flight from Minneapolis had just landed. There was no flame, and no injuries, as emergency chutes deployed and the passengers and five crew slid to the tarmac. Smoke apparently caused by hydraulic fluid leaking onto the hot brakes upon landing. Info from NW spokesman Bob Gibbons.

4. Slug: Car crash
NOTE: I’m tired of identifying the WWWWWH for you, so do it yourself, and then write the story.

From your notes: car crash, intersection of Main Street and Biscayne Drive in north (YourTown—you choose) at 4:27 p.m. (yesterday). A sedan turned left at the traffic light into the path of a northbound cattletruck hauling 8 steers. Sedan was rear-ended and shoved onto the sidewalk. Truck jackknifed into opposite lanes; no other collisions, but traffic stopped for an hour. Sedan driver: McKinney, Janice T., d.o.b 7/18/68*, 7500 Northpark Ridge Drive, Apt. #6, (Yourtown); had two kids in the car: Celeste McKinney, d.o.b. 9/22/05; and Anthony McKinney, d.o.b. 2/09/03. Driver injured and taken to (Yourtown) Memorial Hospital; kids in seatbelts and uninjured. Truck driver Cowbuddy, Joe, d.o.b. 11/19/48, of Pocatello, Idaho, was uninjured. No charges so far; investigation pending. (All info from (Yourtown) Police Department spokesman.)

* d.o.b.= date of birth

WHO?
WHAT?
WHERE?
WHEN?
WHY?
HOW?

QUIZ: NewsHounds Wk3

2009-09-13T11:54:00.000-07:00

NewsHounds Week3 Quiz

Your Name:

From Harrower, Ch. 2: Terminology

• What do you call the area/subject that a reporter covers?

• What’s the function of the headline?

• What is a cutline?

• Publisher William Randolph Hearst said this is whatever makes you say, “Gee whiz!”

• What is the first sentence or paragraph of a news story called?

• What’s a jumpline?

• What’s the reporter’s name at the top of a news story called?

• What is “attribution”?

• What is a newspaper’s “flag”?

More stuff:

• Harrower lists five things that every reporter should remember about readers. Which do you think is most important and why?

• 1 ordinary man + 1 ordinary life = 0 news, says Bastion and Case in “News Arithmetic.” Why? What would make and “ordinary person” newsworthy?

• Harrower lists seven elements that make news interesting. What are they? Which do you think is most important and why?

• Harrower quotes many journalists on their jobs. Is there one comment—good or bad—about being a journalist that particularly struck you? Why?

• Do the Test Yourself exercise No. 1 on p. 32 and type your answers below.

From Pease’s Newswriting “Primer”:

• Explain what is meant by the “inverted pyramid.” How does it work?

• What should appear in a news story’s lead?

• Explain the “Fred Rule.” Why does it work for newswriting?

• What’s wrong with writing a news story chronologically?

• Pease says writing is an aural art. What does he mean? Do you agree?

Some Associated Press Style stuff. Correct these so they conform to AP style:

• The boy is five. He ate twenty-seven chocolates. He lives at Four Main Street.

• The new Governor of Utah is Gary Herbert. He is friends with Senator Orrin Hatch.

• The President of USU will speak at five PM in the afternoon. It ends at 6:00 pm.

• The hat cost 5 dollars. It is Brown. He lived in Paris, France, for 7 years.

• The conference took place over the week-end in Boston, MA.

• 200 North Central Boulevard. Fourteen Adams Road. 4 Elm Ave.

• He joined the air force and shipped out to Iraq.

• The car cost more than $24,000 thousand dollars. The cuts were $12,000,000, or more than 6% of the budget, and hurt nine percent of the staff.

• The student is nineteen years old. She drove 6 hours to get here. She drives a six year old Toyota. She had 7 suitcases and twenty-three stuffed monkeys in the trunk.
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Column: Dear Students

2009-09-12T14:29:00.000-07:00

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Advice for the New Semester

By Ted Pease
Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University

Dear Students;

At the start of this academic year, The New York Times asked some professors who know what they’re doing for advice they would offer students.

I know, I know. Everyone is FULL of advice for you. But these people are worth a listen.

The whole collection of shorts (like 200 words each) can be found at this link to The New York Times.

Let me pause here and tell you that you will be a smarter person if you were to read the Times every day. No brag, just fact.

The first snippet is from Stanley Fish, who teaches at Florida International U and also is a regular columnist for the Times. Here’s the slice of his advice:

• Fish: “I would give entering freshmen two pieces of advice. First, find out who the good teachers are. . . . Second, I would advise students to take a composition course even if they have tested out of it. I have taught many students whose SAT scores exempted them from the writing requirement, but a disheartening number of them couldn’t write and an equal number had never been asked to. They managed to get through high school without learning how to write a clean English sentence, and if you can’t do that you can’t do anything.” (Click here for full text.)

Next, Gerald Graff, an English professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago and former president of the Modern Language Association (MLA), says you need to know how to summarize—boil the argument down to its basics:

• Graff: “Freshmen are often overwhelmed by the intellectual challenge of college — so many subjects to be covered, so many facts, methods and philosophical isms to sort out, so many big words to assimilate. . . . What the most successful college students do, in my experience, is cut through the clutter of jargons, methods and ideological differences to locate the common practices of argument and analysis hidden behind it all.” (Click here for full text.)

Harold Bloom, a Yale English prof and author, advises re-reading to retain the best substance of the best:

• Bloom: “More than ever in this time of economic troubles and societal change, entering upon an undergraduate education should be a voyage away from visual overstimulation into deep, sustained reading of what is most worth absorbing and understanding: the books that survive all ideological fashions. . . . Many of these authors are difficult and demand rereading, but that doubles their value.” (Click here for full text.)

Baruch College history professor and author Carol Berkin says students need to connect with their professors to get the full pull. Don’t alienate your teachers, she says.

• Berkin: “Ask questions if you don’t understand the professor’s point. Do not, however, ask any of the following: ‘Will this be on the test?‘ ’Does grammar count?’ ‘Do we have to read the whole chapter?’ ’Can I turn in my paper late?’” (Click here for full text.)

Author and emeritus history professor at Northwestern Garry Wills has five tips for students. All require you to be proactive, which means that you need to know your goals.

• Wills: “1. Play to your strengths. . . . [C]hoose courses and write papers on topics where you already have (or think you will have) some interest, some knowledge, some enthusiasm.
2. Learn to write well. Most incoming college students, even the bright ones, do not do it and it hampers them in courses and in later life.
3. Read, read, read. Students ask me how to become a writer, and I ask them who is their favorite author. If they have none, they have no love of words.
4. Seek out the most intellectually adventurous of your fellow students.
5. Do not fear political activism. I was once at an event where a student asked Jimmy Carter how he, formerly the guardian of American law, felt years earlier when his freshman daughter was arrested at a protest against apartheid. He answered: ‘I cannot tell you how proud I was. If you young people cannot express your conscience now, when will you? Later you will have duties, jobs, families that make that harder. You will never be freer than now.’” (Click here for full text.)

Martha Nussbaum, a philosophy/law/divinity professor at the University of Chicago, says students need to stop and smell the roses while they can.

• Nussbaum: “It’s easy to think that college classes are mainly about preparing you for a job. But remember: this may be the one time in your life when you have a chance to think about the whole of your life, not just your job. Courses in the humanities, in particular, often seem impractical, but they are vital, because they stretch your imagination and challenge your mind to become more responsive, more critical, bigger. You need resources to prevent your mind from becoming narrower and more routinized in later life. This is your chance to get them.” (Click here for full text.)

James MacGregor Burns is a retired government professor at Williams College. He says students need to look beyond their immediate horizons. The world, after all, is bigger than tomorrow’s Econ paper.

• Burns: “Try to read a good newspaper every day — at bedtime or at breakfast or when you take a break in the afternoon. If you are interested in art, literature or music, widen your horizons by poring over the science section. In the mood for spicy scandals? Read the business pages. Want to impress your poli sci prof? Read columnists. . . . The newspaper will be your path to the world at large. . . . A great newspaper will help you in the classroom — and it will be your conduit to the real world outside the classroom. Become addicted.” (Click here for full text.)

Nancy Hopkins is a biology professor at MIT. She wants you to fall in love and to boldly go where no one has before.

• Hopkins: “Fall in love! Not with that attractive person sitting three rows in front of you in calculus class, but with an intellectual vision of the future you probably can’t even imagine at the moment. . . . For the next four years you will get to poke around the corridors of your college, listen to any lecture you choose, work in a lab. The field of science you fall in love with may be so new it doesn’t even have a name yet.” (Click here for full text.)

Physics professor Steven Weinberg of the University of Texas-Austin has been teaching since 1958. Life is tricky, he says, so expect to change course.

• Weinberg: “[A]t Cornell, the mathematics department offered a course on Hilbert space. Who knew that there were different kinds of space? . . . I took German, in which the main thing I learned was that I have no head for foreign languages. My courses in philosophy left me puzzled about how ideas of Plato and Descartes that seemed to me absurd could have been so influential. I did not become wise.
“But I did graduate, and took away with me memories of several inspiring professors, of walks with friends under beautiful old elms, and of hours spent reading in the music room of the student union. I discovered that I loved chamber music and history and Shakespeare. I married my college sweetheart. And I did learn about Hilbert space.” (Click here for full text.)

And finally, through some inadvertent oversight, I’m sure, the Times forgot to include my column of advice to students: Care enough to kill apathy.

• Pease: “Somewhere in there, whoever we are, lives a curiosity, a love of something—whether it’s Chaucer, or how chemistry shapes life, or what it takes to push a rocket from here to Pluto, or how this fall’s presidential race might affect the world—along with some kind of desire to ignite the same excitement in others. For people with those kinds of passions, it is intensely demoralizing to be faced with apathy, but a tremendous rush to be able to displace it, to wake up students who bring to the university experience what author Peter Sacks calls a ‘disengaged rudeness,’ and replace it with a re-engagement of a 20-year-old’s attention, a new kindling of the same passions.” (Click here for full text.)
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