Reading for the Week

The readings for this week deal with the most important part of a college journalism education - ethics. The first part of the reading, the sidebar, gives an elementary look at components of ethics - responsibility, freedom of the press, independence, sincerity, truthfulness, accuracy, impartiality, fair play and decency. Among these, I find sincerity and good faith to be the most fundamental to journalism. This is because I see stories on a situational basis. Some cases require different amounts and types of attention. As long as there is good intention, I think that is the most important thing. On the other hand, I find impartiality to be the most difficult because as humans, people form opinions and emotions based on surroundings.
The rest of the chapter discusses principles. The first is the Potter Box, which examines the steps to making a moral decision, which include selecting loyalties and values. This looks good on paper, but it is much more difficult to apply in real life situations. Next, it deals with common ethical problems such as deceit, conflict of interest, (surprisingly) friendship, payola and freebies. Again, I think that it is very difficult to decipher ethical boundaries because it should be situational. It is an individual prerogative to balance friendships and work, etc. On the other hand, journalists MUST in all situations, avoid plagiarism and invasion of privacy.
The first website given in the reading I found to be highly offensive. I do not think that it is fair to call newspaper's online videos superior to TV journalism. The author found one example about Anna Nicole Smith, on one channel, by one journalist. Generalizing to say that TV is salacious but that online represents something more sophisticated is just plain unfair. I support newspapers "giving [online video] it a whirl" but media should work together with this to strive for quality, and not work against one another.
The second website provided useful canons for reporting. I liked what the blogger wrote about developing a style. As painful as it is to admit, she did address the problems that many people have with broadcast news, including the mechanical voice used by reporters.
"People ranging from Mother Teresa (“If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will”) to, reportedly, Stalin (“A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic”)." This excerpt is a fascinating concept, especially to journalists, because it poses a major threat. It means that by showing wide perspective, it may be contributing to societal distancing and numbing. I agree with the author's assertion that journalists should still show the "statistics" and the wide view, but should also include features that will stir the viewers/listeners/reader's emotions and may spur them to act, or at the very least, feel.
The final website talks about the interactive quality of modern journalism - from slideshows to quizzes to live streams. The article is important because with the evolution of the field comes the evolution of individual journalists. It is important for us to be well-rounded and understand the different aspects, because modern jobs will require it. As the reading states, "Combine the best of each world."

Reading for the Week

The reading for this week deals with writing for broadcast versus print (finally!). I have been waiting to read and learn more about this because it is what I am most interested in. Most of what I have learned about writing for Television has come from fellow students at Newswatch 16, so it is nice to have a professional text give advice. It was nice to see that the concepts that I have taught to assistant producers and freshman this semester is accurate. For example, television writing is much more conversational than print. The stories should be shorther (20-30 seconds to read), and should explain the concepts succintly and avoid using superfluous or complex language. Television is much more visual than print, so when writing a story, TV producers must keep this in mind. A similarity, however, is the emphasis on flow of reading. Writers for television, radio, or print should write so that the sentences transition well into one another and do not impede the reader's progress in deciphering the information. This tight phrasing is something that I have always emphasized with the news crew of Newswatch 16.

08

Next week I promise to go back to the issues and talk about important nationwide concepts of things like health care and the war. I'll do this as soon as I find an article that discusses them. What I did find, this week, on a number of databases, including the New York Times (for shame!) is information about how late Barack Obama was to a rally at a college in Iowa. Apparently his plane landed in Des Moines instead of Cedar Rapids. Now, I don' t know about the readers of these articles, but I think that I'll change my voting pattern because the poor guy made a timing mistake. Come on!
What's funny to me is the opening line of the New York Times article. It said that Obama is "generally one of the more punctual politicians." Who is keeping track of this? We should get him or her a new job.
Even further, the New York Times interviewed one of the attendees of the rally who waited for Obama to get there. When asked if the incident would affect her voting, she said, "Oh no. I think he's one of the few people who can turn this country around." Thank you, Kay Lammers. Furthermore, Obama apologized and handled the situation gracefully, grinning and joking about the directional mistake. If he had handled this poorly, then maybe (maybe!) there would be a story here. Otherwise, there is not. If this leaked to one paper, that's fine, but Google News had a list of four!

Reading for the Week

The IRE website is an excellent resource for finding investigative journalism. I have complained in entries before that in-depth coverage just isn't as present as it used to be. Well, not if you know where to look. More people should know about IRE.org. My favorite topic on the site was about gas prices. Gas prices are a subject that is so prevalent in the news- stories are delivered to consumers the fact that gas prices are going up, down, etc. But they never call into question any other aspects of this. One article on the IRE site discusses the accuracy of gas pumps, saying that in FLA, 2500 are dispensing more gas than people are paying for, and 477 are giving less. I am fascinated by the creativity of this journalist - I would never have come up with a topic like this, and I am impressed with the depth of research that would have to be done to produce such a piece. I would also like to express my appreciation for the IRE's attention to multimedia - video is utilized on the site, as well as print and photographs, which is a tall task for such in-depth stories. Finally, when the visitor clicks on the gas story, there is a sidebar with tips on how to make sure you are getting the amount of gas that is appropriate for your money. This is bringing the story to the reader's level, making it more relate-able, a key, but often forgotten part of journalism as a trade.

Also on this site, there is an index of topics which are widely covered, where top, breaking and investigative pieces are compiled. The database is extensive, and it contains everything from aviation to consumer safety, from terrorism to immigration. It is a great resource to have this index at a journalist's fingertips. But not only are stories compiled under each individual heading, but so are potential story topics for your area, and tip and fact sheets. This information is extremely valuable, especially for journalists who are interested in pursuing this type of work.

The final and perhaps most useful facet of the IRE's website is its search database. Visitors can look up specific beats that they are interested in covering. You can even search tip-sheets specifically to filter your search. And there are beat-specific searches to search within a beat database. Again, I must reiterate that it disappointing that this site is not extremely well known, because it could be responsible for enhancing the quality of journalism, something that is vital in the current world.

Chapter 18 in News Reporting and Writing deals with investigative reporting as well, but deals more with the mechanics and style of it. The earlier part of this entry deals with the "sniff" or the stage in which "you nose around in search of a trail worth following." The IRE is a great resource for this. In carrying out the investigation, be sure to look into a variety of sources, both human and written, and evaluate their usefulness to ensure accuracy, which is the most important part of reporting. The issue of writing is addressed in a simple matter in this chapter. "How do you write the results of a complicated investigation? The general rule is, as simply as you can." This means that since journalism is geared for the public, it should be synthesized so that the public can get a firm grasp on the subject matter. The other important thing is to bring people into the story by telling them exactly what it means and how it can apply to their everyday life. Another important and little known tip for investigative journalism is to understand laws in your state/area in reference to the Freedom of Information Act. The act was designed to improve access to government records, although the open access that journalists desire is still not entirely fulfilled. I smiled when I read, "Objectivity doesn't mean neutrality," because I have said this before and I find it to be a very very important aspect of journalism. Of course journalists should always look at both sides and give ample notice to both, but this doesn't mean that in exposing injustice or unfairness, that emotional involvement cannot possibly exist. It is simply human nature. To be an investigative journalist means to connect with the American public, which should be done at all times. It may mean overcoming money and staffing issues, or even fear and anxiety, but, as the text states, "more reporters than ever are finding support to do it...you can, too."

08

I recently read an article about youth participation in the 2008 election. According to the article, which I found on the BBC website, "With a year to go before the 2008 US presidential elections, young Americans are poised to mark their growing engagement in politics with an ambitious online news site." The site will cover important issues for young people, in hopes of getting them involved. I am proud to see this story - a little disappointed that it's nowhere to be found on MSNBC or CNN - but proud nonetheless. One of the main points of the story is that students are frustrated with the lack of grassroots journalism about politics, and they are looking for another source for coverage. I've been to both sides of this argument. I've had jaded politics professors tell me that the likelihood of raised youth participation is very low, and that votes really don't count for much of anything at all. But overall, if young people start to vote, even if the mobilization is slow, it still makes a difference. I can state for a fact that I would visit Scoop08, a website which guarantees unbiased, honest coverage (of things that are not concerned with celebrity, sexuality, or money). Such issues to be covered, according to the article, are mostly the Iraq war, and economic concerns such as the cost of education and health care. These are the subjects at the core of this nation. It goes to show that frustration is setting in - more 18-29 year olds are voting than were their older siblings at this age. This is a step in the right direction. Thanks to media campaigns like Rock the Vote on MTV, and websites like Scoop08, young people like Ithaca College students may soon be able to make a stand in national politics.