Civil Rights in the Media

During our unbelievably lively discussion of civil rights in the media we broached the topic of how the media used the civil rights movement to get better ratings/viewership/etc.. During this time in the united states Television was still in its infancy, but the race to get the most viewers was on. Television was such a new medium that people didn’t understand how to fully grasp it’s potential, but the ratings war was on. So, unfortunately, lots of television journalists began to act in ways that were unsavory and in some cases unethical. The ethics in the media were at a low, in an attempt to gain more viewers and have more suspenseful news. 

http://www.newseum.org/digital-classroom/video/civil-rights/default.aspx

 

However, the television news media during the civil rights era wasn’t all bad. Through the use of nationwide television broadcasts the rest of the country was able to see what was going on in the south. People that lived in the northern parts of the country and even Canada were awakened to the fact that there was rampant racism, or to put it in the words of Professor Campbell “Racism was alive and well” in the south. Now of course racism still existed and wasn’t uncommon in the rest of the United States, but the level of hatred and persecution during the civil rights era was unbelievably high in the southern states, and thanks to the magic of television people all across the country were awakened to the reality of what was happening in their own country. 

 

http://www.paleycenter.org/the-civil-rights-movement-and-television

Passionate Journalism

Passionate Journalism

When Michael White spoke in class on Wednesday, one of the things that struck a chord within me was his passion for writing about your interests.  I had always thought that journalists were given their assignments and they had to write no matter what the topic was, whether they like it or not. However, Michael White showed me that a real journalist is able to write about things he’s passionate about. And why not? I know that when I’m reading article I only read the ones that interest me, and the ones that have a relatively similar genre.

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/100675/Passion-Replaces-the-Dullness-of-an-Overused-Journalistic-Formula.aspx

An article written by Robert Niles says that passionate writing can replace the dullness of overused journalism. What that means to me, is that the writers individual passion can make a piece come alive. Which is completely true, I can always tell the difference between an article that was begrudgingly written and an article that was done by a writer who has a passion for the topic.

This brings to mind the case of Jayson Blair, the journalist for the New York Times that spent years and years faking and forging articles so that he could keep his job. He never showed up to press conferences, events, etc.., but he wrote as if he did, and his writing, quite frankly, sucked. Jayson lacked a journalistic passion, or he wasn’t willing to write about what actually interested him. Michael White’s comments really opened my eyes to be sure that whatever I’m doing for my career, it’s something I’m passionate about.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Blair

Live tweeting a murder trial

During our last class we discussed the ethics of journalism. We debated over many different scenarios, such as releasing information to the public about a person’s past history, government information, and much much more. While discussing the ins and outs of journalism, as well as the several different ethical dilemmas that one can face, we briefly touched on the question as to whether or not it’s ethical to “live tweet” a murder trial.

I personally am not a stranger to live tweeting, during the finale of AMC’s Breaking Bad my friends and I all live tweeted and then went back and compared notes about what struck out to us the most. https://dev.twitter.com/media/live-tweeting However, to do it for a murder trial, as a journalist, is nowhere near the same thing, and definitely brings up a certain moral dilemma. One argument against it is that it bring an added level of media attention to an already tender tragedy. In 2011 a mass murderer named Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in Norway, and journalists had planned to live tweet his murder trial. Murderers tend to love attention of all kinds, and by live tweeting their trial it’s giving them that attention, in a very real and interactive way. http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/live-tweeting-murder-trials_b21103

However, while there may be some ethical wrinkles still to be ironed out, live tweeting in any form is now a way to give an extreme amount of detail to any kind of major event. Twitter has become the teletype of today, and allows us to transfer information very quickly, and to be live all the time. However, as journalists we need to ensure that we steer clear of ethical dilemmas.  

http://metro.co.uk/2013/08/18/new-warning-over-legal-twitter-trap-after-landmark-murder-case-in-us-3928991/

Native Journalism, or Simply Advertisements

In our most recent comms 239 class, we discussed advertising in journalism and some of the repercussions of that. While we were discussing and listening to the presentation, I specifically recalled an article that was written by Jeffrey Maciejewski about Native Journalism, and whether or not it was just a fancier way of advertising. http://creightoninfoethics.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/is-native-advertising-deceptive-journalism/

Several articles point to this as well, that websites such as Buzzfeed, have been allowing third party companies, to write or create articles about a specific topic, but in the end it just winds up being an advertisement for their company/product/promotion. World of Warcraft, a popular online roleplaying game, had recently released a series of “listicles” on Buzzfeed under the guise of an interesting article about things you can do with your buddies, but in the end it wound up being a plug for their new World of Warcraft expansion.

The debate in question is where is the line between advertisements, and journalism?https://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/00-13029-line-between-journalism-and-ads-popular-blogger-website-editor-debate-ethics-sponsored

One of the major points presented is that native journalism isn’t a problem because there are disclaimers telling you that this particular article is from an advertiser, or that it is paid content. However, with bigger new sources falling into the trap of native journalism, such as the Atlantic allowing a scientology ad to be posted, under the guise of journalism, people are beginning to have blurred distinctions about what is an advertisement, and what is actually journalism.

 

#comms239

Edward R. Murrow’s appeal to television.

In the movie “Good Night and Good Luck” television journalist Edward R. Murrow makes an appeal to the Radio News and Television News Directors Association to not squander the full potential of television news reporting. We discussed this time period briefly in class, as well as the effects of the JFK assasination on the television news media; and I found this movie to be very interesting because this was a time when television was in its infancy. The majority of the public didn’t use television for anything more than mild entertainment, but Edward R. Murrow and Joseph McCarthy begin to use the different news mediums, television included, to publicly battle with one another.

Television is where most people turn for news information. http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/42871_Cushion.pdf Even with the invention of the internet, and with how fast people can get all their information on a smartphone, the majority of news is conveyed through television screens. Through the admonitions of Edward R. Murrow, and his experiences working for CBS, today we have news that’s fair and shows both sides of an argument.  One of my favorite parts in particular was when Edward Murrow is getting chastised for wanting to run a story that shows an unpopular opinion.  However, Murrow responds by saying that they’ve run plenty of coverage on one side of the argument and it’s about time that they showed the other.  

Edward R. Murrow did a lot for broadcast journalism, and thanks to his very bold steps forward we were eventually able to unlock the full potential of broadcast journalism. 

 

http://www.journalism.org/2011/09/26/role-local-tv-news/

http://www2.suffolk.edu/34258.html