A decision put into place 18 years ago has recently come back onto the fore front of conversation as President Obama makes another change in his first one hundred days.
Along with massive bailouts, giving the war in Iraq a new direction, and changing the rules for which foreign countries we give aide to, the Obama administration has lifted the ban on taking pictures of our fallen soldiers' caskets returning home. This decision has been met with much debate; and though there are two sides to every story, this decision seems long over due.
On February 26, 2009, Defense Secretary Robert Gates lifted the near 20-year ban put in place by Dick Cheney during George Bush Sr.'s Presidency. The ban took away the right to take pictures of the flag-draped caskets returning home from war.
Before the various issues involving this subject are even discussed, it is important to know the history of this ban. This ban was not put into place to protect privacy. It was not put into place because family members of fallen soliers had asked for it. The ban was put into place by George Bush Sr. after he was seen on a news station's split-screen laughing about something as caskets of our dead soldiers were being unloaded at an air force base on the second screen.
This moment made Bush Sr. seem insensitive and out of touch with the reality of war, so in an attempt to manage his public relations, a ban was placed on photographing the caskets of soldiers.
It is incredible that such a bold move to manipulate reality and the news was successful for so long. The issue was turned away from an issue of censorship and was made into a matter of "privacy". The arguements we hear now about the family's right to privacy and stopping left-wing anti-war propaganda were never really an arguement until the pictures made Bush Sr. look bad.
Though they weren't the real reasons this ban was put into place, it would be good to address some of these excuses for censorship now. Privacy versus the public's right to know is a main factor in the present-day debate over war time pictures and what the media can and should publish.
Privacy is important to everyone. It is important to protect the soldiers' family's privacy as well as the privacy of our soldiers. However, pictures taken of caskets are just that... caskets. This ban does not give reporters the right to follow the families home, go to the soldier's funerals, open up the caskets and snap a shot, etc.
Our nation's war-time coverage is PG-rated, to put it nicely. We are not exposed to the carnage of war, the vivid images of death, homelessness, and starvation war often causes. We do not witness the injured women and children, the demolished homes and schools, or the missing limbs of the elderly.
We don't witness these horrific images because CNN, FOX, and NBC don't feel like they pass the "breakfast test", where you could see the images while eating your morning meal without regurgitating your cereal all over your kitchen table.
We are censored from seeing these images and are given a rediculous arguement to chew over instead, on whether or not photographing a casket is appropriate or not. Maybe if we get all worked up over casket photos we will forget about the real issue of censorship, death, and needless wars... at least that's what the government is hoping for.
Naturally it worries the government that if the American people see the number of American soldiers dying, they will lose support for war. This idea brings me back to my childhood. One of the many lessons my parents tried to teach me was that if you're doing something you think you need to sugar-coat, lie about, or cover-up, you probably shouldn't be doing it.
This idea seems to be fitting in a lot of different areas, including the government and media censorship. If the government feels the need to hide pictures from the people in order to keep public opinion up, then something is probably wrong with what the governement is trying to do.
Aside from government accountability, the way the media handles its reporting of war doesn't fit with reporting standards for other news. The media is constantly reporting an unproportional amount of violence in the news. Murder, robberies, and kidnappings are eaten up my the big news stations. The more dramatic a story is the better, even if it is not a real representation of current crime trends.
The news will talk for days about the mutilation a chimp causes to its neighbor, but start to get into coverage of a war where more than 4,000 troops have died, and the media is suddenly put under a silencer.
Sure the news outlets will give a nice watered-down update of the war's status, casualties, and new changes, but until we are able to see the images war produces, the caskets of our soldiers being brought home, we will not grasp the reality that people are dying. Our brothers, husbands, and fathers are dying.
A child has to be accountable to his parents, a husband to his wife, and a government to its people. And our country cannot live in a false reality where we don't see the true cost of our actions. By lifting this ban, President Obama is finally bringing back a measure of accountability and reality that is owed to the American people.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
No Loyalty to Potter
Loyalty, 'eh? Oh, loyalty... what a pain in the ass. You see, loyalty is nothing but one big problem... it hinders us from just being able to do whatever the hell we want to do without feeling bad about it. It's always a struggle in life to find the middle ground; to decifer between what is right and wrong, what's ethical or immoral, and where our boundaries and loyalties lie.
One of the hardest parts of being loyal is that your loyalties change based on the situation you're in. I think this was a main point the book was trying to hit on, especially in the area where it discussed the problems with having loyalty as a single ethical guide. You can have your loyalties, but that loyalty can and often will be taken advantage of, and at that point in time it is your ethics, standards, and morals that matter... not your loyalty. Loyalty is just the fog that makes ethical decisions so tricky.
"A spirit of democratic cooperation is needed for Royce's view of loyalty to result in ethical action." In order for loyalty to help in making the right decision, by Royce's standards, we must be sheep. Sheep. Blind, majority-following sheep. As annoying as this is, it is even more annoying that Royce gives "no way to balance among conflicting loyalties." So, Royce has layed out a map of loyalty... be a sheep, and if you have a problem, well, I'm not really sure about what to do then... Thanks Royce, that's just what we rebel college kids wanted to hear. Screw a revolution, let's float around with the majority! Who cares if "the majority" wants to bring back seperate-but-equal for homosexuals, our loyalty is to the community and therefore the majority; so if the majority hates the gays and gives a shit less about real civil rights, that's what the majority wants, then so be it! ...
WHAT?!?!?!?! Sorry Royce, I disagree. Loyalty is not always to the majority, or to who you think it should be to, or to who you would have thought you'd be loyal to. Loyalty plays a role up and until ethics have to take over. So I guess the real issue is that hopefully people are only loyal to trying to make an ethical decision based on the given situation.
I think the Potter Box tries to make this ethical-decision-making-based-on-loyalties stuff a little easier, but it may be making a simple process a bit too complicated. Instead of a near "12-step program" for journalists needing to make decisions, why not just weigh over the pros and cons? What happened to the good 'ol two column list of good vs. bad? Maybe that was a simpler day in age, back before loyalties were taken advantage of and manipulated. There is always a gray zone though, I will give the Potter Box credit for taking that into account, but I don't think I will think to go through the Potter Box next time I'm stuck trying to figure out who's side I'm really on or where my loyalty really lies...
One of the hardest parts of being loyal is that your loyalties change based on the situation you're in. I think this was a main point the book was trying to hit on, especially in the area where it discussed the problems with having loyalty as a single ethical guide. You can have your loyalties, but that loyalty can and often will be taken advantage of, and at that point in time it is your ethics, standards, and morals that matter... not your loyalty. Loyalty is just the fog that makes ethical decisions so tricky.
"A spirit of democratic cooperation is needed for Royce's view of loyalty to result in ethical action." In order for loyalty to help in making the right decision, by Royce's standards, we must be sheep. Sheep. Blind, majority-following sheep. As annoying as this is, it is even more annoying that Royce gives "no way to balance among conflicting loyalties." So, Royce has layed out a map of loyalty... be a sheep, and if you have a problem, well, I'm not really sure about what to do then... Thanks Royce, that's just what we rebel college kids wanted to hear. Screw a revolution, let's float around with the majority! Who cares if "the majority" wants to bring back seperate-but-equal for homosexuals, our loyalty is to the community and therefore the majority; so if the majority hates the gays and gives a shit less about real civil rights, that's what the majority wants, then so be it! ...
WHAT?!?!?!?! Sorry Royce, I disagree. Loyalty is not always to the majority, or to who you think it should be to, or to who you would have thought you'd be loyal to. Loyalty plays a role up and until ethics have to take over. So I guess the real issue is that hopefully people are only loyal to trying to make an ethical decision based on the given situation.
I think the Potter Box tries to make this ethical-decision-making-based-on-loyalties stuff a little easier, but it may be making a simple process a bit too complicated. Instead of a near "12-step program" for journalists needing to make decisions, why not just weigh over the pros and cons? What happened to the good 'ol two column list of good vs. bad? Maybe that was a simpler day in age, back before loyalties were taken advantage of and manipulated. There is always a gray zone though, I will give the Potter Box credit for taking that into account, but I don't think I will think to go through the Potter Box next time I'm stuck trying to figure out who's side I'm really on or where my loyalty really lies...
Thursday, February 19, 2009
New Semester, New Class, ANOTHER Blog...
This Blog post is going to be an incredible work of deep "independant" insight from me... After reviewing Chapters 1 and 2 from the only book Amazon decided to send me I came up with the following conclusions...
I though that Bok (a girl... who I thought was a boy... oops!) was interesting with her focus on alternatives. I think it is a great idea to look at what the options are when deciding ethical issues (obvious don'tcha think? Okay, I'm sorry about that improper grammar... Sarah Palin is still tormenting me) and I was glad that right off the bat the book made it clear that ethical decision making is not cut and dry with a right or wrong answer. There is always grey area, and a lot of it.
I felt like Aristotle's evaluation of ethics made the most sense. His focus on practicality and middle ground seemed the most "practical" and helpful when it comes to ethical decision making. I liked when the book said, "Seeking the golden mean implies that individual acts are not disconnected from one another, but rather that they form a whole that a person of good character should aspire to." By seeking this "golden mean" one can make a good decision while keeping focus on the two possible extremes.
Though I like Aristotle's model, I align mostly with Kant in the way I make decisions. I've always tried to live by the golden rule. Acting in a way you would want others to act is a good way to keep a sort of system of checks and balances; unless, of course, a given bowl has more ice cream than the next, and in that case I can't say that the golden rule applies. There is the problem, however, of people having very differing ideals of what is right and wrong and what is okay to do to others and oneself.
Should we be suprised though that I think Mill is kind of a &#@$ head? I think this ethics model is an easy way to devalue individual rights and basic ethics. When you start trying to decide if the end justifies the means you get atomic bombs dropped on foreign cities killing thousands and spreading radiation for years. Though the end result has to be considered it can be a slippery slope in enabling people to dismiss certain ethical standards.
I thought Ross has a good point that coincides with what I said about grey area with Aristotle where there is "more than one ethical value simultaneously competing for preeminece in our ethical decision making." There's never a right or wrong when it comes to ethics. Usually just a kind of good-slash-kind of crappy vs. another kind of good-slash-kind of crappy outcome.
THREE CHEERS FOR COMMUNITARIANISM!!!!! Another shocker, right? "Communitarianism focuses on the outcome of individual ethical decisions, understood not as disconnected choices but analyzed as the impact of the sum of the choices on society." And I sure think that's a great thing to consider! This also goes along nicely with what Kant talked about. Do unto others as you would want them to do to you and realize it's impact on society... this should be the golden rule and ethical plumbline of the 21st century.
And now onto chapter 2... I loved the paragraph that explained what a contradiction journalists face these days in having to try to be "neutral, yet investigative". I believe pretty strongly (though this opinion could probably be swayed) that objectivity is dangerous to truth in journalism. I think that when an opion is put into a piece of work it gives people something to think about. People don't hold their beliefs in the "middle of the road". We make opinions and we argue our points, research our topics, and look at what the other side is saying. The differing of opinions is what is valuable truth in journalism. Not the faking of objectivity to allow people to "make up their own minds."
Another part of this chapter that stood out to me was the section titled "Packaging the story: News as Manufactured Product". While I was reading the part about T.V. news being based on the best video clip I pondered what that meant for politics, laws, and the role the media plays in keeping people uninformed. The making of laws, and what's in such laws isn't very glittery or fun. And it's definitely not a great video clip. And therefore is not really reported on very thoroughly and in turn keeps the public uninformed, which is a very sad outcome. So then is T.V. reporting a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not really sure.
***In the same section there was a sentence that read, "reporting an election as a contest fails to focus on the policy issues, which is what democratic elections are supposed to be about." This single sentence made me think entirely differently about the way we follow elections. It is kind of bogus to report the polls as often as is done.***
And finally on page 33 (4th paragraph) the book talks about a study done to see how different journalists feel about different ethical situations. The data seemed to line up with Aristotle's idea of ethical decision making. The journalists, for the most part, seemed to have a sense of looking for practicality and middle ground.
Now as much as I love to passionately blog, my kitty wants to play fetch and I have an ethical decision to make... Quit blogging and sadden my readers but spare the wrath of a little feline OR go play fetch with the cute fur ball and suffer the audiences backlash... FETCH IT IS!!!
I though that Bok (a girl... who I thought was a boy... oops!) was interesting with her focus on alternatives. I think it is a great idea to look at what the options are when deciding ethical issues (obvious don'tcha think? Okay, I'm sorry about that improper grammar... Sarah Palin is still tormenting me) and I was glad that right off the bat the book made it clear that ethical decision making is not cut and dry with a right or wrong answer. There is always grey area, and a lot of it.
I felt like Aristotle's evaluation of ethics made the most sense. His focus on practicality and middle ground seemed the most "practical" and helpful when it comes to ethical decision making. I liked when the book said, "Seeking the golden mean implies that individual acts are not disconnected from one another, but rather that they form a whole that a person of good character should aspire to." By seeking this "golden mean" one can make a good decision while keeping focus on the two possible extremes.
Though I like Aristotle's model, I align mostly with Kant in the way I make decisions. I've always tried to live by the golden rule. Acting in a way you would want others to act is a good way to keep a sort of system of checks and balances; unless, of course, a given bowl has more ice cream than the next, and in that case I can't say that the golden rule applies. There is the problem, however, of people having very differing ideals of what is right and wrong and what is okay to do to others and oneself.
Should we be suprised though that I think Mill is kind of a &#@$ head? I think this ethics model is an easy way to devalue individual rights and basic ethics. When you start trying to decide if the end justifies the means you get atomic bombs dropped on foreign cities killing thousands and spreading radiation for years. Though the end result has to be considered it can be a slippery slope in enabling people to dismiss certain ethical standards.
I thought Ross has a good point that coincides with what I said about grey area with Aristotle where there is "more than one ethical value simultaneously competing for preeminece in our ethical decision making." There's never a right or wrong when it comes to ethics. Usually just a kind of good-slash-kind of crappy vs. another kind of good-slash-kind of crappy outcome.
THREE CHEERS FOR COMMUNITARIANISM!!!!! Another shocker, right? "Communitarianism focuses on the outcome of individual ethical decisions, understood not as disconnected choices but analyzed as the impact of the sum of the choices on society." And I sure think that's a great thing to consider! This also goes along nicely with what Kant talked about. Do unto others as you would want them to do to you and realize it's impact on society... this should be the golden rule and ethical plumbline of the 21st century.
And now onto chapter 2... I loved the paragraph that explained what a contradiction journalists face these days in having to try to be "neutral, yet investigative". I believe pretty strongly (though this opinion could probably be swayed) that objectivity is dangerous to truth in journalism. I think that when an opion is put into a piece of work it gives people something to think about. People don't hold their beliefs in the "middle of the road". We make opinions and we argue our points, research our topics, and look at what the other side is saying. The differing of opinions is what is valuable truth in journalism. Not the faking of objectivity to allow people to "make up their own minds."
Another part of this chapter that stood out to me was the section titled "Packaging the story: News as Manufactured Product". While I was reading the part about T.V. news being based on the best video clip I pondered what that meant for politics, laws, and the role the media plays in keeping people uninformed. The making of laws, and what's in such laws isn't very glittery or fun. And it's definitely not a great video clip. And therefore is not really reported on very thoroughly and in turn keeps the public uninformed, which is a very sad outcome. So then is T.V. reporting a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not really sure.
***In the same section there was a sentence that read, "reporting an election as a contest fails to focus on the policy issues, which is what democratic elections are supposed to be about." This single sentence made me think entirely differently about the way we follow elections. It is kind of bogus to report the polls as often as is done.***
And finally on page 33 (4th paragraph) the book talks about a study done to see how different journalists feel about different ethical situations. The data seemed to line up with Aristotle's idea of ethical decision making. The journalists, for the most part, seemed to have a sense of looking for practicality and middle ground.
Now as much as I love to passionately blog, my kitty wants to play fetch and I have an ethical decision to make... Quit blogging and sadden my readers but spare the wrath of a little feline OR go play fetch with the cute fur ball and suffer the audiences backlash... FETCH IT IS!!!
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Media & Govt. Term Paper
Amuse News
Alduous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984 are two of the greatest novels of the last century. When these novels were written the authors shed light on what the future could hold. These futures were dark and bleak. In one, we’re controlled by our dictators, in a state of mental and physical slavery we are forced into believing and doing whatever it is we are told. In the other, we don’t need to be controlled by a higher office; we give up on all that matters in search of what’s fun and entertaining. It has long since been debated which of the two novels was more accurate, and when 1985 rolled around, author Neil Postman weighed in. In Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death, he explains why Orwell missed the mark and Huxley was spot on.
We live in a society where we are bombarded by the newest technologies, our televisions are filled with “reality” TV, and alcohol is used in constant excess. We are controlled not by our dictator, but by ourselves and the clutter we’ve allowed to engulf our lives. The clutter is not forced, it is something we accept, we love, we crave. Postman relates this self-indulgence and mindlessness to what we’re seeing in today’s news coverage; and what he sees is a grim picture. Now Postman, like Orwell and Huxley, wrote his book with fear of the future and this fear shines through with every word. Like Postman was able to be in the future looking back on Huxley and Orwell’s works, we are able to do the same with Postman’s. Amusing Ourselves to Death was published in 1985. A lot has changed since then, and like the two novels before, the actual outcome seems to not be quite as harsh as the prediction. Though these authors were slightly off in their predictions, Postman is accurate in his beliefs that some forms of news have been watered-down, turned into entertainment, and do not hold the basic journalistic elements they should; but however dangerous this may be, there are ways, seen in this election, to fix the problem by using technology and entertainment to educate, inform, and act.
In Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel’s book, The Elements of Journalism, ten fundamentals are laid out that make up the essentials of excellent journalism. This book was also written because of the concern several journalists had about the direction journalism and news is going.
According to Kovach and Rosenstiel’s list, “Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth.” We’ve seen a wealth of coverage of this year’s presidential election. Some of it was undoubtedly false, but most of it was probably true. The problem is that news stations, cable news in particular, often seem more concerned with competing with each other, their ideals, and their rival anchors than providing basic facts, truth, and straightforward journalism. MSNBC and Fox News are perfect examples of this competition. Fox News has long been regarded as the conservative channel, pushing their own agenda, spinning their stories, and taking on those dirty liberals. Just in the last couple of years, however, has MSNBC begun to fill its new role as the liberal counter to Fox News. This competition and bickering is entertaining and exciting of course, but is this real journalism? Bias is fun if it’s slanted to your side, but it doesn’t offer up real, objectionable reporting that allows the viewer to decide for him or herself what they believe. We saw this contrast between these two news channels constantly in this election when it came to the matter of William Ayers. Fox News screams for us to learn more of Obama’s terrorist friends while MSNBC wishes they could hire Ayers on as a full-time staffer. These slants and spins are a form of entertainment that clouds the reality of what is really going on in the world, diminishing the role truth and objectivity plays in journalism.
Journalism’s first obligation may be to the truth, but “its first loyalty”, as Kovach and Rosenstiel say, “is to citizens.” Journalism is the connection between the government and the rest of the nation. It is the gatekeeper, muckraker, and informer of all that is important. This role is huge, but more and more we can see that this loyalty is changing from the people to money. “The bonuses of newsroom executives today are based in large part on how much profit their companies make.” And because of this, we see our news coverage driven by ratings and company profits. The news coverage provided is not about the details of the latest tax bill being passed or the way healthcare may effect long-term and short-term infant mortality rates; the coverage hovers around who called who a pig, what Sarah Palin’s teenagers are doing, and what shot of liquor Hillary Clinton is taking with the locals. Crown Royal? Good, that’s what I like. With journalism being controlled by these profit driven motives, we lose sight of the importance of this freedom we have. News becomes petty and un-important. We lose our sense of duty; the duty to inform, the duty to provide substance, and the duty to keep the people active and aware.
The third plumb line of excellent journalism is that its “essence is a discipline of verification.” Verification is a necessity of journalism, without it, journalists literally may as well be making things up. Until recently, journalists just had to worry about verifying their leads and sources and doing some policy run-downs and fact-checking of the latest gory attack ad, which Postman reports former New York Mayor John Lindsay wisely proposed be prohibited. Then came the internet. Hello, world-wide web. Hello, blogs. Hello, personal web-pages. And all of a sudden, everyone is a journalist. Countless stories were shot all over the web this election. Obama went to a Muslim terrorist school, Palin’s youngest son wasn’t hers, and John Edwards was a cheater. Like most stories on the internet, few of these held any ground. This web participation, however, caused journalists a great deal of extra work. Story after story was being uncovered via liberal and conservative blogs, and while some were sheer lunacy, others were incredibly alarming when it surfaced that they were true. The internet added a mass amount of verification work and also took out some of the credibility of certain forms of journalism.
The internet also created a gray area in another sense. The “practitioners [of journalism] must maintain an independence from those they cover.” The internet clouded up this fundamental by clouding up the lines that differentiated a journalist from the consuming public. In the news day in age we are in, every one is a journalist and every one is a commentator. You see this on cable news networks as well. On MSNBC, show hosts Rachel Maddow and Keith Olberman regularly fill positions on each other’s shows as guest commentators. Mike Huckabee, at one time in this election round a presidential candidate, now holds his own show on Fox News. Campaign employees are also used as commentators and regulars on the entertainment news venue. Granted these campaign advisors are great sources, but is it really “maintaining an independence” when you can see them on the same one or two shows three times a week?
Along the lines of maintaining independence is the fifth essential element of journalism, “It must serve as an independent monitor of power.” Though blogs have caused journalists a great deal of headaches when it comes to verifying, they have served a valuable purpose as well. Much like our government, blogs and the internet help set up a system of checks and balances. The press monitors the government and the internet bloggers monitor the press. However, as explained by Kovach and Rosenstiel, this “watchdog principle is being threatened in contemporary journalism by overuse and by a faux watchdogism aimed more at pandering to audiences than doing public service.” And furthermore, “the watchdog role is threatened by a new kind of corporate conglomeration, which effectively may destroy the independence required of the press to perform their monitoring role.” When driven by money, profits become the monitor of what is covered in the newsroom.
When it comes to some of the more helpful areas of journalism, we are at great risk of seeing them slip away. Journalism is to “provide a forum for public criticism and compromise.” Journalism is open to criticism and this facet of the media has been greatly helped along by the internet. Blogs, websites, and mass networking has enabled the criticism of the media in a more conversational and apparent way. TV, in the past, has been a medium difficult to publicly criticize in a timely manner because, after all, it’s hard to converse with your TV; however, with new technologies such as twitter and text messaging, television has taken on a much more conversational tone. This was seen extensively in this election on CNN. CNN had various shows incorporating technology which promoted a dialogue. On “The Situation Room”, viewers were able to e-mail responses, thoughts, and criticism to a segment called “The Cafferty File”, which comes on several times periodically throughout the two-hour program. During the show, viewer responses are selected to be aired. Also on CNN, viewers could text, Facebook message, MySpace comment, and post to the Twitter board during Rick Sanchez’ news hour. This technology helped promote and nourish one of the very important parts of journalism, however, when it comes to being a forum for compromise the media seems to be taking a step backwards. As discussed earlier, cable news often takes on a rivalry tone, promoting division and partisan thinking rather than compromise and understanding.
Journalism must also “make the significant interesting and relevant.” We can see the effort to make news exciting in today’s journalism anytime one of the major cable news channels is flipped on. Flashy graphics and dramatic headlines grace every story. Beautiful women conduct interviews at rapid speed. Catchy titles, constantly changing, are a must for every show. Just recently we’ve seen “Road to the White House” change to “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue”. It’s catchy, of course, but it is this sort of shallow entertainment that Postman writes so fearfully about. It changes journalism and news into something that is entertaining. Somewhat interesting and somewhat relevant, but most of all, it is pure entertainment.
This is also an area of journalism in which satire is given an important and vital role. Satire, though very entertaining, serves a much higher purpose, as we’ve seen recently, that gives a voice to a certain kind of taboo journalism. Journalists have an integrity to uphold, and that integrity involves being politically correct. When Sarah Palin first burst onto the scene this election, many were dumb-founded by her rhetoric, divisive policies, and “peculiar” background. Any good journalist knew better than to comment on her ridiculous “don’t-chya-know” joe-six-pack attitude and her self-absorption, however, the satirical world could do more than comment, and they took up that opportunity right away.
With the first appearance of Tina Fey as Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live” the Sarah Palin frenzy took a dramatic turn. Up until that point journalists were trying to take Palin seriously. It was at that point that satire was allowed to take over and “report” to the world the real absurdity of Sarah Palin’s Vice-Presidential bid. As Tina Fey strutted around SNL’s “Oval Office” set, interviewed with “Katie Couric” and out-performed “Joe Biden” in the talent portion of the “Vice-Presidential Debate” SNL managed to express what was on everyone’s mind, something that the news couldn’t do. It is this form of entertainment news that has healthy outcomes. Satire, though an entertainment, is a strong tool when it comes to analyzing the political world.
There was another form of entertainment news we saw this election that helped more than hindered in making the work of journalism and news interesting and relevant. Shows like “The Colbert Report” and “The Daily Show with John Stewart” parodied the ridiculousness of the everyday campaign bickering, poked fun at the many faces of the media, and along the way gained the attention of countless young Americans who, otherwise, would have had zero involvement in this year’s election. Some forms of entertainment, such as these two shows, are necessary to educate those who have engulfed themselves in the entertainment world.
As well as making significant news interesting and relevant, journalism “must keep the news comprehensive and in proportion.” This is one of the hardest parts of journalism. It can be incredibly difficult to make political topics comprehensive. Most stories are very involved, detailed, and layered; but with our fast-paced, self-indulged, entertainment-is-everything society, there is little time to squeeze in all of the elements of a real story into a two-minute interview, news package, or CNN “political ticker” article. Three articles published in The New Yorker magazine, “Battle Plans”, “The New Liberalism”, and “The Joshua Generation”, were excellent works of written journalism focusing on the ins and outs of Obama’s history, his rise to power, and his campaign. The shortest of these three articles ran about eight pages. Journalists for mainstream news outlets are not given the opportunity that writers for The New Yorker are given. They are forced to eliminate important details, glitter-up tragic events, and skip from one unrelated story to the next. The world of entertainment is drowning out the type of journalism that truly gives an understanding of issues to its readers.
Journalists are to be objective, but being objective does not mean disregarding one’s convictions. Journalism’s “practitioners have an obligation to exercise their personal conscience.” After the run-up to the war in Iraq, the media found a new sense of the importance of reporting what they knew was true and ethical. They developed a conscience. This is one way to argue that Fox News’ Sean Hannity and MSNBC’s Keith Olberman are getting it right. They are both clearly opinionate on what they each “feel” is the right thing in any given situation, however, their “conscience” seems to pull in a large amount of ratings, money, and entertainment; and therefore, is not a necessary element of journalism, but rather just another faction of the entertainment market.
And finally, Kovach and Rosenstiel bring up the often forgotten key element in journalism, “citizens, too, have right and responsibilities when it comes to the news.” As Postman’s title reads, “Amusing Ourselves to Death”, he makes the point that we are doing this to ourselves. There is no “Big Brother” is forcing us to fill our minds with useless content. We are not made to delve into the world of entertainment twenty-four hours a day. And we are certainly not required to shell out our precious ratings to the most superficial news sources. We are, in fact, amusing ourselves. We have the power to decide to stop consuming whatever entertainment is shoveled out to us and start demanding a standard in journalism, the standard that recently has been increasingly cast by the way-side. Audiences are being held captive because we have disregarded our role as active listeners. We need to demand the truth. We need to demand loyalty. We need to demand accuracy, consciousness, relevance, verification, and independence. Without the involvement of the people, the audience, journalists and their work are only accountable to their ratings and profits, which are easily gained with a few wordy headlines.
With that said, there is a solution to the decline in quality of the necessary elements of journalism and part of it is the audience’s involvement. By using the internet and new technology a whole new forum for discussion can be opened up. We have seen the beginning of what these new mediums can do these past two years, especially when it came to election coverage. Another area in which an excellent example was set was by Obama’s own campaign. Obama’s campaign took the things that have brought journalism’s standards down, changed them around, and got people involved. Through text messaging, websites, e-mails, networking sites, television shows, literature, etc. Obama was able to rally a coalition of people who were not just entertained, but were involved. Entertainment does not have to be the demise of journalism. Entertainment, when harnessed, can be an effective tool in educating and reaching those who would not usually be interested in what journalism and the news has to offer. Like “The Colbert Report” and “The Daily Show” have mastered entertainment news segments, and SNL has given a voice to political incorrectness, Obama’s campaign used various forms of entertainment, added substance, and made a new generation of voters aware of the political world around them. As Postman explains, he “must appear on television to promote a book that warns people against television.” To try to eliminate entertainment is irrational, impossible, and quite idiotic to even attempt. Therefore, entertainment must be transformed to reach its full potential as a helpful, necessary tool for communication.
Looking back at Postman, Orwell, and Huxley’s predictions, it is easy to see that they were slightly extreme in their apocalyptic outlooks. And after seeing the coverage of this year’s election it is clear that there are many issues in the way journalism is being conducted, however, there was also a hope given that there is a way to work with our entertaining world. After all, there will always be advances in technology and it is the job of journalists to maintain the basic standards of their work; and it is also the job of the masses to be involved and to stop amusing ourselves to death.
Alduous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984 are two of the greatest novels of the last century. When these novels were written the authors shed light on what the future could hold. These futures were dark and bleak. In one, we’re controlled by our dictators, in a state of mental and physical slavery we are forced into believing and doing whatever it is we are told. In the other, we don’t need to be controlled by a higher office; we give up on all that matters in search of what’s fun and entertaining. It has long since been debated which of the two novels was more accurate, and when 1985 rolled around, author Neil Postman weighed in. In Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death, he explains why Orwell missed the mark and Huxley was spot on.
We live in a society where we are bombarded by the newest technologies, our televisions are filled with “reality” TV, and alcohol is used in constant excess. We are controlled not by our dictator, but by ourselves and the clutter we’ve allowed to engulf our lives. The clutter is not forced, it is something we accept, we love, we crave. Postman relates this self-indulgence and mindlessness to what we’re seeing in today’s news coverage; and what he sees is a grim picture. Now Postman, like Orwell and Huxley, wrote his book with fear of the future and this fear shines through with every word. Like Postman was able to be in the future looking back on Huxley and Orwell’s works, we are able to do the same with Postman’s. Amusing Ourselves to Death was published in 1985. A lot has changed since then, and like the two novels before, the actual outcome seems to not be quite as harsh as the prediction. Though these authors were slightly off in their predictions, Postman is accurate in his beliefs that some forms of news have been watered-down, turned into entertainment, and do not hold the basic journalistic elements they should; but however dangerous this may be, there are ways, seen in this election, to fix the problem by using technology and entertainment to educate, inform, and act.
In Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel’s book, The Elements of Journalism, ten fundamentals are laid out that make up the essentials of excellent journalism. This book was also written because of the concern several journalists had about the direction journalism and news is going.
According to Kovach and Rosenstiel’s list, “Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth.” We’ve seen a wealth of coverage of this year’s presidential election. Some of it was undoubtedly false, but most of it was probably true. The problem is that news stations, cable news in particular, often seem more concerned with competing with each other, their ideals, and their rival anchors than providing basic facts, truth, and straightforward journalism. MSNBC and Fox News are perfect examples of this competition. Fox News has long been regarded as the conservative channel, pushing their own agenda, spinning their stories, and taking on those dirty liberals. Just in the last couple of years, however, has MSNBC begun to fill its new role as the liberal counter to Fox News. This competition and bickering is entertaining and exciting of course, but is this real journalism? Bias is fun if it’s slanted to your side, but it doesn’t offer up real, objectionable reporting that allows the viewer to decide for him or herself what they believe. We saw this contrast between these two news channels constantly in this election when it came to the matter of William Ayers. Fox News screams for us to learn more of Obama’s terrorist friends while MSNBC wishes they could hire Ayers on as a full-time staffer. These slants and spins are a form of entertainment that clouds the reality of what is really going on in the world, diminishing the role truth and objectivity plays in journalism.
Journalism’s first obligation may be to the truth, but “its first loyalty”, as Kovach and Rosenstiel say, “is to citizens.” Journalism is the connection between the government and the rest of the nation. It is the gatekeeper, muckraker, and informer of all that is important. This role is huge, but more and more we can see that this loyalty is changing from the people to money. “The bonuses of newsroom executives today are based in large part on how much profit their companies make.” And because of this, we see our news coverage driven by ratings and company profits. The news coverage provided is not about the details of the latest tax bill being passed or the way healthcare may effect long-term and short-term infant mortality rates; the coverage hovers around who called who a pig, what Sarah Palin’s teenagers are doing, and what shot of liquor Hillary Clinton is taking with the locals. Crown Royal? Good, that’s what I like. With journalism being controlled by these profit driven motives, we lose sight of the importance of this freedom we have. News becomes petty and un-important. We lose our sense of duty; the duty to inform, the duty to provide substance, and the duty to keep the people active and aware.
The third plumb line of excellent journalism is that its “essence is a discipline of verification.” Verification is a necessity of journalism, without it, journalists literally may as well be making things up. Until recently, journalists just had to worry about verifying their leads and sources and doing some policy run-downs and fact-checking of the latest gory attack ad, which Postman reports former New York Mayor John Lindsay wisely proposed be prohibited. Then came the internet. Hello, world-wide web. Hello, blogs. Hello, personal web-pages. And all of a sudden, everyone is a journalist. Countless stories were shot all over the web this election. Obama went to a Muslim terrorist school, Palin’s youngest son wasn’t hers, and John Edwards was a cheater. Like most stories on the internet, few of these held any ground. This web participation, however, caused journalists a great deal of extra work. Story after story was being uncovered via liberal and conservative blogs, and while some were sheer lunacy, others were incredibly alarming when it surfaced that they were true. The internet added a mass amount of verification work and also took out some of the credibility of certain forms of journalism.
The internet also created a gray area in another sense. The “practitioners [of journalism] must maintain an independence from those they cover.” The internet clouded up this fundamental by clouding up the lines that differentiated a journalist from the consuming public. In the news day in age we are in, every one is a journalist and every one is a commentator. You see this on cable news networks as well. On MSNBC, show hosts Rachel Maddow and Keith Olberman regularly fill positions on each other’s shows as guest commentators. Mike Huckabee, at one time in this election round a presidential candidate, now holds his own show on Fox News. Campaign employees are also used as commentators and regulars on the entertainment news venue. Granted these campaign advisors are great sources, but is it really “maintaining an independence” when you can see them on the same one or two shows three times a week?
Along the lines of maintaining independence is the fifth essential element of journalism, “It must serve as an independent monitor of power.” Though blogs have caused journalists a great deal of headaches when it comes to verifying, they have served a valuable purpose as well. Much like our government, blogs and the internet help set up a system of checks and balances. The press monitors the government and the internet bloggers monitor the press. However, as explained by Kovach and Rosenstiel, this “watchdog principle is being threatened in contemporary journalism by overuse and by a faux watchdogism aimed more at pandering to audiences than doing public service.” And furthermore, “the watchdog role is threatened by a new kind of corporate conglomeration, which effectively may destroy the independence required of the press to perform their monitoring role.” When driven by money, profits become the monitor of what is covered in the newsroom.
When it comes to some of the more helpful areas of journalism, we are at great risk of seeing them slip away. Journalism is to “provide a forum for public criticism and compromise.” Journalism is open to criticism and this facet of the media has been greatly helped along by the internet. Blogs, websites, and mass networking has enabled the criticism of the media in a more conversational and apparent way. TV, in the past, has been a medium difficult to publicly criticize in a timely manner because, after all, it’s hard to converse with your TV; however, with new technologies such as twitter and text messaging, television has taken on a much more conversational tone. This was seen extensively in this election on CNN. CNN had various shows incorporating technology which promoted a dialogue. On “The Situation Room”, viewers were able to e-mail responses, thoughts, and criticism to a segment called “The Cafferty File”, which comes on several times periodically throughout the two-hour program. During the show, viewer responses are selected to be aired. Also on CNN, viewers could text, Facebook message, MySpace comment, and post to the Twitter board during Rick Sanchez’ news hour. This technology helped promote and nourish one of the very important parts of journalism, however, when it comes to being a forum for compromise the media seems to be taking a step backwards. As discussed earlier, cable news often takes on a rivalry tone, promoting division and partisan thinking rather than compromise and understanding.
Journalism must also “make the significant interesting and relevant.” We can see the effort to make news exciting in today’s journalism anytime one of the major cable news channels is flipped on. Flashy graphics and dramatic headlines grace every story. Beautiful women conduct interviews at rapid speed. Catchy titles, constantly changing, are a must for every show. Just recently we’ve seen “Road to the White House” change to “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue”. It’s catchy, of course, but it is this sort of shallow entertainment that Postman writes so fearfully about. It changes journalism and news into something that is entertaining. Somewhat interesting and somewhat relevant, but most of all, it is pure entertainment.
This is also an area of journalism in which satire is given an important and vital role. Satire, though very entertaining, serves a much higher purpose, as we’ve seen recently, that gives a voice to a certain kind of taboo journalism. Journalists have an integrity to uphold, and that integrity involves being politically correct. When Sarah Palin first burst onto the scene this election, many were dumb-founded by her rhetoric, divisive policies, and “peculiar” background. Any good journalist knew better than to comment on her ridiculous “don’t-chya-know” joe-six-pack attitude and her self-absorption, however, the satirical world could do more than comment, and they took up that opportunity right away.
With the first appearance of Tina Fey as Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live” the Sarah Palin frenzy took a dramatic turn. Up until that point journalists were trying to take Palin seriously. It was at that point that satire was allowed to take over and “report” to the world the real absurdity of Sarah Palin’s Vice-Presidential bid. As Tina Fey strutted around SNL’s “Oval Office” set, interviewed with “Katie Couric” and out-performed “Joe Biden” in the talent portion of the “Vice-Presidential Debate” SNL managed to express what was on everyone’s mind, something that the news couldn’t do. It is this form of entertainment news that has healthy outcomes. Satire, though an entertainment, is a strong tool when it comes to analyzing the political world.
There was another form of entertainment news we saw this election that helped more than hindered in making the work of journalism and news interesting and relevant. Shows like “The Colbert Report” and “The Daily Show with John Stewart” parodied the ridiculousness of the everyday campaign bickering, poked fun at the many faces of the media, and along the way gained the attention of countless young Americans who, otherwise, would have had zero involvement in this year’s election. Some forms of entertainment, such as these two shows, are necessary to educate those who have engulfed themselves in the entertainment world.
As well as making significant news interesting and relevant, journalism “must keep the news comprehensive and in proportion.” This is one of the hardest parts of journalism. It can be incredibly difficult to make political topics comprehensive. Most stories are very involved, detailed, and layered; but with our fast-paced, self-indulged, entertainment-is-everything society, there is little time to squeeze in all of the elements of a real story into a two-minute interview, news package, or CNN “political ticker” article. Three articles published in The New Yorker magazine, “Battle Plans”, “The New Liberalism”, and “The Joshua Generation”, were excellent works of written journalism focusing on the ins and outs of Obama’s history, his rise to power, and his campaign. The shortest of these three articles ran about eight pages. Journalists for mainstream news outlets are not given the opportunity that writers for The New Yorker are given. They are forced to eliminate important details, glitter-up tragic events, and skip from one unrelated story to the next. The world of entertainment is drowning out the type of journalism that truly gives an understanding of issues to its readers.
Journalists are to be objective, but being objective does not mean disregarding one’s convictions. Journalism’s “practitioners have an obligation to exercise their personal conscience.” After the run-up to the war in Iraq, the media found a new sense of the importance of reporting what they knew was true and ethical. They developed a conscience. This is one way to argue that Fox News’ Sean Hannity and MSNBC’s Keith Olberman are getting it right. They are both clearly opinionate on what they each “feel” is the right thing in any given situation, however, their “conscience” seems to pull in a large amount of ratings, money, and entertainment; and therefore, is not a necessary element of journalism, but rather just another faction of the entertainment market.
And finally, Kovach and Rosenstiel bring up the often forgotten key element in journalism, “citizens, too, have right and responsibilities when it comes to the news.” As Postman’s title reads, “Amusing Ourselves to Death”, he makes the point that we are doing this to ourselves. There is no “Big Brother” is forcing us to fill our minds with useless content. We are not made to delve into the world of entertainment twenty-four hours a day. And we are certainly not required to shell out our precious ratings to the most superficial news sources. We are, in fact, amusing ourselves. We have the power to decide to stop consuming whatever entertainment is shoveled out to us and start demanding a standard in journalism, the standard that recently has been increasingly cast by the way-side. Audiences are being held captive because we have disregarded our role as active listeners. We need to demand the truth. We need to demand loyalty. We need to demand accuracy, consciousness, relevance, verification, and independence. Without the involvement of the people, the audience, journalists and their work are only accountable to their ratings and profits, which are easily gained with a few wordy headlines.
With that said, there is a solution to the decline in quality of the necessary elements of journalism and part of it is the audience’s involvement. By using the internet and new technology a whole new forum for discussion can be opened up. We have seen the beginning of what these new mediums can do these past two years, especially when it came to election coverage. Another area in which an excellent example was set was by Obama’s own campaign. Obama’s campaign took the things that have brought journalism’s standards down, changed them around, and got people involved. Through text messaging, websites, e-mails, networking sites, television shows, literature, etc. Obama was able to rally a coalition of people who were not just entertained, but were involved. Entertainment does not have to be the demise of journalism. Entertainment, when harnessed, can be an effective tool in educating and reaching those who would not usually be interested in what journalism and the news has to offer. Like “The Colbert Report” and “The Daily Show” have mastered entertainment news segments, and SNL has given a voice to political incorrectness, Obama’s campaign used various forms of entertainment, added substance, and made a new generation of voters aware of the political world around them. As Postman explains, he “must appear on television to promote a book that warns people against television.” To try to eliminate entertainment is irrational, impossible, and quite idiotic to even attempt. Therefore, entertainment must be transformed to reach its full potential as a helpful, necessary tool for communication.
Looking back at Postman, Orwell, and Huxley’s predictions, it is easy to see that they were slightly extreme in their apocalyptic outlooks. And after seeing the coverage of this year’s election it is clear that there are many issues in the way journalism is being conducted, however, there was also a hope given that there is a way to work with our entertaining world. After all, there will always be advances in technology and it is the job of journalists to maintain the basic standards of their work; and it is also the job of the masses to be involved and to stop amusing ourselves to death.
Media & Govt. Final
Governing Ourselves: The Election, The Media, The Lack-of-Bias
This year’s election has been a dramatic election in every way. History was made, reputations were shattered, lies were spread, and heroes emerged. The media was scrutinized while Sarah Palin shopped and Barack Obama probably sold more T-shirts than Macy’s. Now that all the back-and-forth has ended; the election can be reflected on, analyzed, and seen with 20/20 vision. Howard Kurtz’ article for the Washington Post, “The Pulse of the Pol”, though written in October, is much like a scrapbook of this year’s election. He pulls together clips of various interviews, polls, articles, and analyses which paint a picture of the way the media has handled this year’s Presidential race. Kurtz’ article along with an article by Elizabeth Drew, “The Truth about the Election”, also give way to explaining one subject constantly brought up in this election, media bias. Neil Postman’s book “Amusing Ourselves to Death”, argues that news has become solely a means of entertainment and Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel raise a similar concern in their book, “The Elements of Journalism”. Kurtz’ and Drew’s articles, however, show that the media, though focused primarily on entertainment, did a fine job of providing American’s the information needed to make an informed decision on election day, which is a vital key to the participation in American democracy.
From the very beginning of the race, even in the primaries, Obama set the tone for how his campaign would be run. As Drew shows, Obama understood the concept of thinking long-term when running for the Presidency. He knew that people wanted to see a leader, someone who could govern. “The best way to judge presidential candidates - aside from whether one basically agrees with their values - are to try to envision them governing. Will they inspire people to follow them? What kind of people do they have around them? How do they run their campaign?” She goes on, “In Obama’s case, from what we have been able to observe… there will be a straight line from his campaigning to his governing.” This “straight line” was seen by millions of voters and picked up on by the media and bloggers alike. It was this conceptual understanding that differentiated Obama’s run from all the others.
Kurtz also hits on this concept in his piece. Kurtz cites Matt Bai from the NYT magazine when discussing Obama’s calm demeanor. Bai explains how Obama lets people come to him, he doesn’t chase the voter. This kind of confidence mixed with his understanding of the long-term stood out in stark contrast to McCain’s erratic, whatever-needs-to-be-done-for-now tactics. As Drew put it, “Obama seemed unshakeable throughout the campaign. He quite evidently unnerved both Clinton and McCain, because they couldn’t rattle him.”
Kurtz’ article does a good job of showing the media’s reception and understanding of Obama’s calm throughout the election. He reports that Paul Waldman, in American Prospect, says “While McCain’s campaign is showing who he is and what he’ll stoop to, voters are discovering that whatever else you think about Barack Obama, the man is calm.”
Obama played to the idea that people want what they can’t have, and in doing so, David Brooks makes clear, “at Obama rallies, the candidate is the wooed not the wooer.”
After Kurtz scrapbooks the media’s response to Obama’s collected manner, he paints a very accurate portrayal of the Sarah Palin dilemma. Citing a then-recent poll, Kurtz explains America’s security in Palin is very low, but aside from that, voters became disheartened and confused when reports came out regarding Palin’s stump-speech hypocrisies. First, she’s just your average “hockey mom” who can relate to all the “Joe-six-packs” then she’s spending $150,000 on clothes. She touts her reputation as a reformer and maverick, then the Associate Press reports that she’s charging the state to fly her children around.
Then, with obvious irony, the McCain campaign began attacking the amount of money Obama’s campaign was collecting. The campaign failed to realize that Obama’s money was donated by small amounts given by every-day, average-income citizens, not the monstrous corporate donors that are typical of the Republican Party. The race had gotten petty, and Kurtz showed that with his ensuing collage of reports by Rich Lowry, Joe Klein, and Rick Moran.
Klein is essentially kicked off the McCain campaign’s planes for his criticisms of the Maverick while Moran tries to reason with the ludicrous accusations being flung at Obama by the Republican Party, “Obama will not turn America into a Marxist state… Obama will not cancel future elections… place his smiling visage on 10 story high office buildings… ‘take away’ your guns, close churches… shut down Fox News… or any other actions that would smack of dictatorship…”
Drew makes a similar case, “He won’t do many of the things that Democrats usually call for: the reform of health care will be less sweeping than what’s been proposed in the past… and there won’t be dramatic cuts in defense spending.”
Kurtz’ article also does well in showing the two sides of the media seen in the election. He cites Tina Brown’s defense of Sarah Palin, a large task that was commonly being undertaken. “They treated her as a retard and wouldn’t let her talk to a reporter. The Couric debacle was just about those idiots giving her the wrong lines…” Kurtz then contrasts Brown’s defense with the scrutiny of Christopher Hitchens. “The problem with Gov. Palin is not that she lacks experience. It’s that she quite plainly lacks intellectual curiosity.”
Along with giving a great overview of the election, Kurtz’ piece offered up a lot of evidence on the subject of media bias, or lack thereof.
Fox News and MSNBC will shine through as the champions for their chosen candidates, despite how “Fair & Balanced” either “tried” to be. However, aside from the obviously biased media outlets, the McCain campaign was complaining at just about every chance he got this election that the media as a whole was out to get him, or rather to praise Obama’s every move. Never mind that, as Tom Ferrick reported, the Inquirer’s endorsement of Obama had “a dissenting opinion that ran below the main editorial that stated the case for John McCain.” And “Insiders at the paper told [Ferrick] that was added at the insistence of Brian Tierney, a life-long Republican who also happens to be the newspaper’s publisher.”
Various reports have shown that it was not a matter of the media favoring Obama as it was Obama doing more newsworthy things in order to gain positive airtime. Obama draws in crowds of 200,000 in Berlin, masters the internet, changes the electoral map, and sets record after record in raising money, voter turn-out, etc. Meanwhile, McCain kicks journalists off his plane, sequesters Palin from the media, and fake-suspends his campaign while claiming the economy’s fundamentals were strong.
This was not a matter of media bias as much as it was a study of whose campaign was more newsworthy and whose was a train wreck. Drew’s article explained this issue in detail. “The fundamentals of the race favored Obama all along. The objective facts were that he had a far superior campaign organization, with more people on the ground and more money to spend on campaign workers and ads.”
With the media reporting on what was actually happening in both camps, the American people were enabled to see the stark differences between the two candidates. It was not a bias showing through, nor was it an exaggeration of events. Journalists reported what they saw. And what they saw was a calm, collected leader on one side, who was making dramatic changes in this election in areas such as raising money; and they also saw another candidate striving to find some way to get voters, whether it be campaign suspension, pandering to the “Joe-six-packs” of America, or shunning the media. The people were given the information, the information that Kurtz gave us a sampling of, and the people were then left to decide their candidate of choice. Some voted for McCain, some voted for third parties, but most voted for Barack Obama, and it wasn’t because the “liberal” media was in his corner. It was because American’s are not stupid. We learned our lesson last time.
This year’s election has been a dramatic election in every way. History was made, reputations were shattered, lies were spread, and heroes emerged. The media was scrutinized while Sarah Palin shopped and Barack Obama probably sold more T-shirts than Macy’s. Now that all the back-and-forth has ended; the election can be reflected on, analyzed, and seen with 20/20 vision. Howard Kurtz’ article for the Washington Post, “The Pulse of the Pol”, though written in October, is much like a scrapbook of this year’s election. He pulls together clips of various interviews, polls, articles, and analyses which paint a picture of the way the media has handled this year’s Presidential race. Kurtz’ article along with an article by Elizabeth Drew, “The Truth about the Election”, also give way to explaining one subject constantly brought up in this election, media bias. Neil Postman’s book “Amusing Ourselves to Death”, argues that news has become solely a means of entertainment and Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel raise a similar concern in their book, “The Elements of Journalism”. Kurtz’ and Drew’s articles, however, show that the media, though focused primarily on entertainment, did a fine job of providing American’s the information needed to make an informed decision on election day, which is a vital key to the participation in American democracy.
From the very beginning of the race, even in the primaries, Obama set the tone for how his campaign would be run. As Drew shows, Obama understood the concept of thinking long-term when running for the Presidency. He knew that people wanted to see a leader, someone who could govern. “The best way to judge presidential candidates - aside from whether one basically agrees with their values - are to try to envision them governing. Will they inspire people to follow them? What kind of people do they have around them? How do they run their campaign?” She goes on, “In Obama’s case, from what we have been able to observe… there will be a straight line from his campaigning to his governing.” This “straight line” was seen by millions of voters and picked up on by the media and bloggers alike. It was this conceptual understanding that differentiated Obama’s run from all the others.
Kurtz also hits on this concept in his piece. Kurtz cites Matt Bai from the NYT magazine when discussing Obama’s calm demeanor. Bai explains how Obama lets people come to him, he doesn’t chase the voter. This kind of confidence mixed with his understanding of the long-term stood out in stark contrast to McCain’s erratic, whatever-needs-to-be-done-for-now tactics. As Drew put it, “Obama seemed unshakeable throughout the campaign. He quite evidently unnerved both Clinton and McCain, because they couldn’t rattle him.”
Kurtz’ article does a good job of showing the media’s reception and understanding of Obama’s calm throughout the election. He reports that Paul Waldman, in American Prospect, says “While McCain’s campaign is showing who he is and what he’ll stoop to, voters are discovering that whatever else you think about Barack Obama, the man is calm.”
Obama played to the idea that people want what they can’t have, and in doing so, David Brooks makes clear, “at Obama rallies, the candidate is the wooed not the wooer.”
After Kurtz scrapbooks the media’s response to Obama’s collected manner, he paints a very accurate portrayal of the Sarah Palin dilemma. Citing a then-recent poll, Kurtz explains America’s security in Palin is very low, but aside from that, voters became disheartened and confused when reports came out regarding Palin’s stump-speech hypocrisies. First, she’s just your average “hockey mom” who can relate to all the “Joe-six-packs” then she’s spending $150,000 on clothes. She touts her reputation as a reformer and maverick, then the Associate Press reports that she’s charging the state to fly her children around.
Then, with obvious irony, the McCain campaign began attacking the amount of money Obama’s campaign was collecting. The campaign failed to realize that Obama’s money was donated by small amounts given by every-day, average-income citizens, not the monstrous corporate donors that are typical of the Republican Party. The race had gotten petty, and Kurtz showed that with his ensuing collage of reports by Rich Lowry, Joe Klein, and Rick Moran.
Klein is essentially kicked off the McCain campaign’s planes for his criticisms of the Maverick while Moran tries to reason with the ludicrous accusations being flung at Obama by the Republican Party, “Obama will not turn America into a Marxist state… Obama will not cancel future elections… place his smiling visage on 10 story high office buildings… ‘take away’ your guns, close churches… shut down Fox News… or any other actions that would smack of dictatorship…”
Drew makes a similar case, “He won’t do many of the things that Democrats usually call for: the reform of health care will be less sweeping than what’s been proposed in the past… and there won’t be dramatic cuts in defense spending.”
Kurtz’ article also does well in showing the two sides of the media seen in the election. He cites Tina Brown’s defense of Sarah Palin, a large task that was commonly being undertaken. “They treated her as a retard and wouldn’t let her talk to a reporter. The Couric debacle was just about those idiots giving her the wrong lines…” Kurtz then contrasts Brown’s defense with the scrutiny of Christopher Hitchens. “The problem with Gov. Palin is not that she lacks experience. It’s that she quite plainly lacks intellectual curiosity.”
Along with giving a great overview of the election, Kurtz’ piece offered up a lot of evidence on the subject of media bias, or lack thereof.
Fox News and MSNBC will shine through as the champions for their chosen candidates, despite how “Fair & Balanced” either “tried” to be. However, aside from the obviously biased media outlets, the McCain campaign was complaining at just about every chance he got this election that the media as a whole was out to get him, or rather to praise Obama’s every move. Never mind that, as Tom Ferrick reported, the Inquirer’s endorsement of Obama had “a dissenting opinion that ran below the main editorial that stated the case for John McCain.” And “Insiders at the paper told [Ferrick] that was added at the insistence of Brian Tierney, a life-long Republican who also happens to be the newspaper’s publisher.”
Various reports have shown that it was not a matter of the media favoring Obama as it was Obama doing more newsworthy things in order to gain positive airtime. Obama draws in crowds of 200,000 in Berlin, masters the internet, changes the electoral map, and sets record after record in raising money, voter turn-out, etc. Meanwhile, McCain kicks journalists off his plane, sequesters Palin from the media, and fake-suspends his campaign while claiming the economy’s fundamentals were strong.
This was not a matter of media bias as much as it was a study of whose campaign was more newsworthy and whose was a train wreck. Drew’s article explained this issue in detail. “The fundamentals of the race favored Obama all along. The objective facts were that he had a far superior campaign organization, with more people on the ground and more money to spend on campaign workers and ads.”
With the media reporting on what was actually happening in both camps, the American people were enabled to see the stark differences between the two candidates. It was not a bias showing through, nor was it an exaggeration of events. Journalists reported what they saw. And what they saw was a calm, collected leader on one side, who was making dramatic changes in this election in areas such as raising money; and they also saw another candidate striving to find some way to get voters, whether it be campaign suspension, pandering to the “Joe-six-packs” of America, or shunning the media. The people were given the information, the information that Kurtz gave us a sampling of, and the people were then left to decide their candidate of choice. Some voted for McCain, some voted for third parties, but most voted for Barack Obama, and it wasn’t because the “liberal” media was in his corner. It was because American’s are not stupid. We learned our lesson last time.
Extra Credit Obama/McCain Write-Up (From WAAYYY back in the day, when McCain still thought he had a chance!)
McCain/Obama Reps Grace Resource Center
I requested off of work, anticipated the big day, and forced my boyfriend to come with me to see Obama and McCain representatives speak in the Resource Center as part of SCI’s Yappa Week. I was mildly disappointed to see the representatives were not much older than myself, for some reason I seem to count out my own generation, but it was nothing that wasn’t taken forgotten at the sight of the buttons and posters I realized I was going to get to take home.
Right off the bat I noticed the stark contrast between the two men. One, dressed up, matching his button with his pants, typed notes, solid leather folder, laid back dress, calm, excited, happy; the other, dressed for business, hand-scribbled notes on a single sheet of paper, no button, nervous, and as we would later find, not too knowledgeable about his material. These two people, hardly associated with the actual Obama and McCain campaigns, stood in our little resource center, perfectly depicting the characteristics of each of the campaigns in their entirety.
This debate, if that’s what it was, was so telling of what we have seen over the last several months. Obama’s campaign has shown a historical organization. The organization, enthusiasm, and calm collectiveness of his campaign is something that will be the envy of politicians for decades to come. McCain’s, on the other hand, and probably a big factor in his losing the presidency, was quite opposite from Obama’s. The McCain campaign, like this young representative, often seemed nervous, unsure, wobbly, if you will.
We constantly see the two campaigns under the media’s microscope, and I often wonder if the depiction of the steady versus the erratic is fair. I realized in this back-and-forth how accurate that depiction really was. Granted these two people were volunteering to help speak at SCI without actually being campaign spokespeople, but to see the characteristics of the larger campaigns translate over to the small scale was something incredible.
I requested off of work, anticipated the big day, and forced my boyfriend to come with me to see Obama and McCain representatives speak in the Resource Center as part of SCI’s Yappa Week. I was mildly disappointed to see the representatives were not much older than myself, for some reason I seem to count out my own generation, but it was nothing that wasn’t taken forgotten at the sight of the buttons and posters I realized I was going to get to take home.
Right off the bat I noticed the stark contrast between the two men. One, dressed up, matching his button with his pants, typed notes, solid leather folder, laid back dress, calm, excited, happy; the other, dressed for business, hand-scribbled notes on a single sheet of paper, no button, nervous, and as we would later find, not too knowledgeable about his material. These two people, hardly associated with the actual Obama and McCain campaigns, stood in our little resource center, perfectly depicting the characteristics of each of the campaigns in their entirety.
This debate, if that’s what it was, was so telling of what we have seen over the last several months. Obama’s campaign has shown a historical organization. The organization, enthusiasm, and calm collectiveness of his campaign is something that will be the envy of politicians for decades to come. McCain’s, on the other hand, and probably a big factor in his losing the presidency, was quite opposite from Obama’s. The McCain campaign, like this young representative, often seemed nervous, unsure, wobbly, if you will.
We constantly see the two campaigns under the media’s microscope, and I often wonder if the depiction of the steady versus the erratic is fair. I realized in this back-and-forth how accurate that depiction really was. Granted these two people were volunteering to help speak at SCI without actually being campaign spokespeople, but to see the characteristics of the larger campaigns translate over to the small scale was something incredible.
Journalism Final
Before taking Advanced Journalism, I had felt like I was a pretty good writer. In high school and college I had had papers, poems, and essays nominated for various awards, and on special occasions, sometimes I would win. I am a stickler on grammar, and I have a tendency to create long sentences with the help of my favorite writing tool, the comma. Writing had become second nature to me and rarely was I intimidated by a written assignment, that is, until I took my first journalism class.
I was introduced to AP style, which, I must admit, I completely despise. An entire book chuck full of new rules I had never heard of? AP style was definitely not my style. I struggled through my first AP style experience with frustration, grammar errors, and a colorful bruise to my ego.
Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to see “Advanced Journalism” on my class line-up for this semester. However, once in the class, I found a new appreciation for journalism, my knowledge of the AP style began to expand, I started to find my tone and style when it comes to writing for journalism.
Throughout my experience in Advanced Journalism, Google helped me extensively. With the help of this tool I was able to find an answer to nearly all of my AP style questions with lighting speed. Well, I guess I’m still not clear on ordinal numbers. Aside from needing to conquer AP style, I also needed help in understanding the formatting of articles. I had long since mastered the inverted pyramid of my original Journalism classes, and I had a feeling there had to be a little variety somewhere. I found this format variety in Donald Murray’s book, “Writing to Deadline: The Journalist as Work”.
About a fourth of the way into his book I landed on a few simply illustrated pages that opened my eyes to the world beyond the inverted paragraph. Murray explained the structure of articles as looking like everything from linear boxes to mountains to crosses. It was finding this part of Murray’s book that helped me realize, there is no wrong way to structure a story. The story, more often than not, will have a set-up all its own without any of your input or guidance.
I am a person who works well with rules, structure, guidelines, etc. Journalistic writing works much to the contrary of my personal preferences. This was another hurdle I had to overcome in my thinking when it came to writing articles. The idea that there’s no wrong way to write an article was something that became apparent to me over the course of the semester. Some articles, such as Bill Turque’s account of the election painted vivid pictures starting with the lead, “When history landed, it was with car horns, tears, gunfire, and echoes from historic corners of the city.” Other’s, like Paul Krugman, took a bit less “fluffy” tone in their writing/blogging. After reading and reviewing more stories than I can count, the picture became more and more clear. I could write however I wanted.
For weeks, Doc had been beating his brains out trying to get us students to realize the importance of finding a “new angle on a story”. Stephanie McCrummen’s account of the election stood out to me as a landmark article for helping me understand the value of finding a different point of view. Though it was far into the semester when it was posted to the class blog, its topic was something that grabbed me. “KOGELO, Kenya, Nov. 5—The news arrived in this rural village as the sun rose Wednesday…” While reporters were in a frenzy covering the election and its implications and meaning to Americans, McCrummen was not writing about the election, but rather, the feelings the day after the election. And not only that, but she was writing about Kenyan’s the day after the election. She was on a deadline, and she came up with a piece that stood out among the other election accounts. It was this article that showed me small changes to the norm keeps a journalistic piece exciting and fresh.
One of the biggest things I learned not to do from this class was found when searching for ways to get my free-lance work published. I found on a small how-to publishing website something I had never heard before, “Don’t write anything that has been covered by the publication in the last three years.” This was baffling to me. THREE YEARS? But the more I thought about it, like most things in life, the more it made sense. Publications are looking for something new, original and exciting, not something that has been done before.
This piece of information was, I thought, eye-opening. However, along with that being eye-opening, so was everything else I heard about free-lance writing. Free-lance writing was one of those things that I guess I knew existed, but I had never actually put any thought what-so-ever as to people actually doing it, how it worked, or the fact that I could do it myself. As we learned more and more about free-lance writing the more I realized what good basic knowledge it was to have, even if never to be put into practice. It was especially interesting and incredibly relevant to read Peter Ellertsen’s article, who also just happens to be our teacher, “Minding the Store as New Salem”, published in the Illinois Times. This experience put free-lance writing into a real setting. It really could be done. Publications really would except “outsiders” work. This idea had been so foreign to me up until this point.
Towards the end of the semester it came time to put all of my hard earned knowledge to the test. All of the AP style exposure, story structure struggles (I still love to alliterate.), and my new-found understanding of free-lance was about to be put to the test. I had a feature story to write. I contemplated for weeks on how to write my story, what to write about, who the main subject would be, etc. All through the semester I had been writing analysis of major feature articles such as an article in the Rolling Stone by Matt Taibbi, “The Death of a Red State”; or Francis Fukuyama’s article, “The Fall of America, Inc.” But my favorite, by far, and the inspiration for my own feature story, was an article on Salon.com, “Obama When No One is Watching”. The article told the story of Obama’s daughter’s soccer game; a simple story, but very telling. Lines like, “we of the city are just a million small town kid’s soccer game scenes all strung together.” stood out to me as great metaphors, poetic writing, and a different edge on such a simple scenario.
Now here I am, at the end of the semester, and I have been shocked to find that I actually really enjoyed myself. AP style was not the end of me after all, the extensive amount of writing didn’t get the best of me, and I’ve met my deadlines. I still need help in mastering the world of AP writing and I doubt you’ll be seeing any of my work published anytime soon; but I have found my voice in journalism. I have discovered my tone.
Conversation is what moves my writing. I want my readers to feel like I am speaking directly to and with them. I like accuracy, fluid story lines, and structure. But most of all, I like writing about things that are important to me, things that other people may not have seen. Aside from the basics of writing for publication, finding my journalistic voice was, this semester, my greatest accomplishment.
I was introduced to AP style, which, I must admit, I completely despise. An entire book chuck full of new rules I had never heard of? AP style was definitely not my style. I struggled through my first AP style experience with frustration, grammar errors, and a colorful bruise to my ego.
Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to see “Advanced Journalism” on my class line-up for this semester. However, once in the class, I found a new appreciation for journalism, my knowledge of the AP style began to expand, I started to find my tone and style when it comes to writing for journalism.
Throughout my experience in Advanced Journalism, Google helped me extensively. With the help of this tool I was able to find an answer to nearly all of my AP style questions with lighting speed. Well, I guess I’m still not clear on ordinal numbers. Aside from needing to conquer AP style, I also needed help in understanding the formatting of articles. I had long since mastered the inverted pyramid of my original Journalism classes, and I had a feeling there had to be a little variety somewhere. I found this format variety in Donald Murray’s book, “Writing to Deadline: The Journalist as Work”.
About a fourth of the way into his book I landed on a few simply illustrated pages that opened my eyes to the world beyond the inverted paragraph. Murray explained the structure of articles as looking like everything from linear boxes to mountains to crosses. It was finding this part of Murray’s book that helped me realize, there is no wrong way to structure a story. The story, more often than not, will have a set-up all its own without any of your input or guidance.
I am a person who works well with rules, structure, guidelines, etc. Journalistic writing works much to the contrary of my personal preferences. This was another hurdle I had to overcome in my thinking when it came to writing articles. The idea that there’s no wrong way to write an article was something that became apparent to me over the course of the semester. Some articles, such as Bill Turque’s account of the election painted vivid pictures starting with the lead, “When history landed, it was with car horns, tears, gunfire, and echoes from historic corners of the city.” Other’s, like Paul Krugman, took a bit less “fluffy” tone in their writing/blogging. After reading and reviewing more stories than I can count, the picture became more and more clear. I could write however I wanted.
For weeks, Doc had been beating his brains out trying to get us students to realize the importance of finding a “new angle on a story”. Stephanie McCrummen’s account of the election stood out to me as a landmark article for helping me understand the value of finding a different point of view. Though it was far into the semester when it was posted to the class blog, its topic was something that grabbed me. “KOGELO, Kenya, Nov. 5—The news arrived in this rural village as the sun rose Wednesday…” While reporters were in a frenzy covering the election and its implications and meaning to Americans, McCrummen was not writing about the election, but rather, the feelings the day after the election. And not only that, but she was writing about Kenyan’s the day after the election. She was on a deadline, and she came up with a piece that stood out among the other election accounts. It was this article that showed me small changes to the norm keeps a journalistic piece exciting and fresh.
One of the biggest things I learned not to do from this class was found when searching for ways to get my free-lance work published. I found on a small how-to publishing website something I had never heard before, “Don’t write anything that has been covered by the publication in the last three years.” This was baffling to me. THREE YEARS? But the more I thought about it, like most things in life, the more it made sense. Publications are looking for something new, original and exciting, not something that has been done before.
This piece of information was, I thought, eye-opening. However, along with that being eye-opening, so was everything else I heard about free-lance writing. Free-lance writing was one of those things that I guess I knew existed, but I had never actually put any thought what-so-ever as to people actually doing it, how it worked, or the fact that I could do it myself. As we learned more and more about free-lance writing the more I realized what good basic knowledge it was to have, even if never to be put into practice. It was especially interesting and incredibly relevant to read Peter Ellertsen’s article, who also just happens to be our teacher, “Minding the Store as New Salem”, published in the Illinois Times. This experience put free-lance writing into a real setting. It really could be done. Publications really would except “outsiders” work. This idea had been so foreign to me up until this point.
Towards the end of the semester it came time to put all of my hard earned knowledge to the test. All of the AP style exposure, story structure struggles (I still love to alliterate.), and my new-found understanding of free-lance was about to be put to the test. I had a feature story to write. I contemplated for weeks on how to write my story, what to write about, who the main subject would be, etc. All through the semester I had been writing analysis of major feature articles such as an article in the Rolling Stone by Matt Taibbi, “The Death of a Red State”; or Francis Fukuyama’s article, “The Fall of America, Inc.” But my favorite, by far, and the inspiration for my own feature story, was an article on Salon.com, “Obama When No One is Watching”. The article told the story of Obama’s daughter’s soccer game; a simple story, but very telling. Lines like, “we of the city are just a million small town kid’s soccer game scenes all strung together.” stood out to me as great metaphors, poetic writing, and a different edge on such a simple scenario.
Now here I am, at the end of the semester, and I have been shocked to find that I actually really enjoyed myself. AP style was not the end of me after all, the extensive amount of writing didn’t get the best of me, and I’ve met my deadlines. I still need help in mastering the world of AP writing and I doubt you’ll be seeing any of my work published anytime soon; but I have found my voice in journalism. I have discovered my tone.
Conversation is what moves my writing. I want my readers to feel like I am speaking directly to and with them. I like accuracy, fluid story lines, and structure. But most of all, I like writing about things that are important to me, things that other people may not have seen. Aside from the basics of writing for publication, finding my journalistic voice was, this semester, my greatest accomplishment.
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