Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Make the News Comprehensive and Proportional

The news must be representative of all types of people.  It must be comprehensive on a certain level and proportionally.  In the 1980’s newspapers began to write to only the higher educated part of society, because they believed if they didn’t, they would lose advertisers and thus, money.  This strategy however didn’t make much investment in the youth of America. Stories were long and sophisticated, “some even required college degrees to follow” (Elements p.211).  This resulted in a very small demographic of people reading the newspaper, and so they were getting way too much information, it turned into a snowball effect.  Here is an article explaining how the newspapers began to be this way in the 1980’s:

http://www.early-sarah-brightman.com/1980s_newspaper_articles.htm

There was a survey done that was referred to in the book that showed that viewers preferred a wider variety of topics.  Here is another study that further verifies this statement:

http://www.une.edu.au/Drawing/pdf%20files/Hypermedia.pdf

Another aspect of journalism that this chapter explains is “the naked body” effect.  How often do businesses do something dramatic and extreme in order to draw attention to themselves and gather a crowd and thus, increase income.  The book says the following “ A news organization has to operate, to some extent, according to a faith or philosophy, since empirical models of the past may not work in the future.” Here is an article that explains how Hurricane Irene was hyped much more than it actually turned out to be:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/28/hurricane-irene-hype-how-the-media-went-overboard.html

We as journalists should shy away from the “naked” effect, and tell the truth without hyping up a story too much.  

Chapter 8

Chapter 8 Engagement and Relevance

            “Journalists must make the significant interesting and relevant.”

This chapter tells a very interesting story of a reporter named Diana Sugg, who went into great depth to follow the story of a dying boy by the name of R.J. Voigt in order to show how hard it is for a sick child to die in America.  She said, “Too often we tell the tale of a person just because it’s a great tale.  We need to not just go seize on following a kid with cancer just to see how it goes, but because there are larger issues.” This story reminded me of a movie that I have seen before, called “My Sister’s Keeper” which is both a novel and a major motion picture that depicted just how hard it is for a sick child to die in America.  Here is a link to the trailer:

http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/my-sisters-keeper/trailer

It becomes a balancing act between what is engaging and what is relevant, what is fun and fascinating and what is straight-forward news, what people want and what people need to hear.  “Storytelling and information are not contradictory.  They are better understood as two points on a continuum of communicating.”(Elements p 188).  It should be storytelling with a definite purpose.  I decided to research what other people believed regarding this topic, I found an article by Shelly Crutz which verified what the author of “Elements” was saying.  Here is a link to her thoughts:

http://shelleycrutz.com/a-brief-history-of-journalism

On the other hand, I found a blog called the Buttry Diary stating why storytelling should be less part of the news.  Here is a link to his blog:

http://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/why-should-storytelling-stop-evolving-now/

Overall, I believe there should be a balance in all things.  There is nothing wrong with telling stories in the news, because no matter what that is what news is.  However, it should not be so embellished or dramatized that it seems like a soap opera of some sort.  The trick is to find the balance to engage your audience in the relevant topics.  

Do you get religion?

Group 10 addressed the ultimate question: How do you treat religion as a journalist?  How do you completely displace your religion so that it does not affect your reporting or position as a journalist? As group 10 taught, it is impossible to ignore religion completely.  They reminded all of us that although we cannot ignore religion, we need to keep three key things in mind to be as we report: be fair and balanced, make ethical decisions, and continually search for truth. 

            A cool thing that Group 10 showed our class was the website created by Terry Mattingly, getreligion.org.  On this website, Mattingly, along with other editors, search for “ghosts” in articles previously published.  These “ghosts” could be bias, or a truth that is not stated, or any underlying religious context that is not brought forth truthfully.  I think Terry Mattingly has to be an interesting person for creating a website such as this, so I decided to research him a little bit and find his story.  Here is an article that I found: http://www.tmatt.net/

            I liked how group 10 used the video clip of the down syndrome testing to find underlying religious themes in the story that were or were not necessarily transparent or completely fair and balanced.  I found another video clip that has underlying religious issues:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPzz95BYztc

The Great Ethical Debate.... Over and Over Again

I found this past weeks’ presentations more interesting than usual.  I liked the topic, because there are not necessarily black and white rules for everything when it comes to ethics.  This caused a debate, even in our class of students with similar morals and religious beliefs. I found an interesting book addressing something that we briefly touched on, and that was sensitivity during war.  In this article, it talks about how journalists had to become more careful in their reporting as the Rwandan genocide became more and more disastrous. They had to take a step back and ask themselves if they were treating the people as human beings, or just as another story to print. http://www.i-m-s.dk/files/publications/CSJ%20Background%20Paper%20(24%20january%202011).pdf Group B also did a nice job of helping the class to understand just how difficult ethics can be.  Instead of having a PowerPoint, they created a small-group activity that helped us to learn about ethics in journalism by giving us different cases to discuss and present.  In order to do this we used these 10 questions linked here:   

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/everyday-ethics/talk-about-ethics/1750/ask-these-10-questions-to-make-good-ethical-decisions/

Group A used Linda Greenhouse, a journalist who made actions that were debatably unethical as an example of a journalist that is not acting independently.  They said that, “journalists can’t be isolated, but can’t be completely involved either.” I found an article telling both sides of the Linda Greenhouse story, and her involvement in both an abortion rally and her speech on Guantanamo Bay.  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6146693

Overall, I thought both presentations were both informative and thought-provoking, everything a presentation should be! 

Journalism as Watchdog

Group 8 probably had the most entertaining presentation so far in class.  They were all funny and charismatic and added life to their presentation, rather than just making it bland and boring. 

Their presentation was on Journalism as a watchdog.  In an ideal society, this would not be necessary, but the world we live in is anything but idea.  With corruption in every corner, especially in the government and conglomerate corporations, it is necessary that we have people who bring the truth to the public.  This is where the journalists come in. The story of Deep throat and President Nixon is perfect example of this need.  Below is a YouTube clip from a movie made about deep throat and the Nixon scandal.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjZ_D1j8cis

The group also talked about how the role of journalists can be weakened if it turns into a form of amusement, rather than a source of information and truth.  This means therefore, that we must stay objective and straightforward in our reporting while being actively curious.  The group mentioned a study done by Andrew Kohut and since I could not remember who that was exactly, I looked him up.  Here is a link to the short biography I found on Kohut:

http://www.people-press.org/about/andrew-kohut/ I found that he is the President of Pew Research Center, duh!

            I was really curious about the statistics given on Political affiliation in journalism, I found this article that disproved it, stating that 32% were Democrats, and about 31% were Republicans. http://www.journalism.org/node/2304

This was just a single survey disproving what the book was saying, but besides that point, it still makes me wonder if journalists should align with a certain party, because it would make it hard to be objective. Just something to think about…