Week 3: A Worldview of Journalism

            As I was searching for articles relevant to the worldview of journalism, I found a blog, not quite an article, but it still provides great insight.  It’s titled “Feel the World” and it’s a Chinese journalist’s view on journalism in general, some of the time he talks about healthcare, other times he talks about school, it’s interesting to hear an Eastern perspective though.  The URL is http://floraxu1220.wordpress.com.  It’s quite interesting!

            I liked the group’s presentation today, they did a great job with the poll and established that even in a place like BYU, there is quite a bit of diversity.  It kind of ties in with what the British speaker (I can’t remember his name) about being objective.  It’s important sometimes to be objective, but as he said “we’re human, and you can try to hide your opinions but they will show.”  I think that it’s important to remember that we should try to write with passion, but understand when it’s important to be objective as well.

            The other website I found useful in researching this topic was journalism.org.  The article I found was http://www.journalism.org/node/8621.  It talks about journalists in Iraq and what it’s like to collect news on the frontlines of a battleground.  It’s very interesting if you’re thinking about international dangerous journalism (I’m not sure how many of you are appealed by dangerous journalism).  Journalism is different wherever you go, and obviously it’s very dangerous in Iraq.

All in all, great presentation by this week, I really liked the survey portion of it.  Good work.

Brian Stetler Report

PROVO - Utah “The fact that we can all be publishers is what powers social-media” seemed to be the theme of the conference held Wednesday, by Brian Stetler, a New York Times reporter, at the Harold B. Lee Library auditorium.

            The social-media themed discussion comprised of a 30 minute presentation by Stetler about the strengths and weaknesses of social media in the news, and an open forum at the end where students asked questions.

            Among the strengths, Stetler mentioned the fact that hearing the voice of the people in such an up-to-date fashion was extremely useful for political representatives to be able to understand what the people want.  In cases like Syria’s official twitter page, it can be used to spread propaganda fairly quickly.

            Stetler said that one of the great positives of the eruption of social media is that “When misinformation spreads, the web spreads the correct truth very quickly.”  He also said that it can be very useful to take breaks from social media, as he once asked his girlfriend to lock his twitter and not let him get back on until he was finished working on a story. 

            The biggest takeaway was that social media has changed the fundamental structure of journalism because it has put a lot of the power in the people.  Everyone has something to say now, and politicians have never been so accessible.

            The students had more questions than time allowed, and Stetler asked them to speak with him after class, suggesting his message resonated within the young communications majors at BYU.

Week 2: Big Events Shaping Journalism

           Here are some great articles about big events that shaped the history of journalism and how journalism operates.  Here is the NYT articles on the strike of 9/11  http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDkQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftopics.nytimes.com%2Ftop%2Freference%2Ftimestopics%2Fsubjects%2Fs%2Fsept_11_2001%2Findex.html&ei=zV9DUqKWJqOBiwLG24GoBQ&usg=AFQjCNFTG_OevnQosgiIqG_zL6aEy6AJDQ&sig2=axqjx9LmvW2CqDnuTKybmg&bvm=bv.53217764,d.cGE

Here is another article on a big event, this one is on the JFK assassination (as talked about in class), it's interesting to see how they reacted to such a horrid event: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/1122.html       

  I liked how the group helped us visualize being an average every citizen in the event of the news presenting the JFK assassination.  It was made clear that this was one of the first “breaking news” type broadcasts and that it changed the media landscape forever.  It was almost a live broadcast, and it set a precedent of how quickly the news would be given from here on out.  It started the being glued to the news type of attitude that American culture now experiences.  It reminds me of 9-11 and how my family and I were glued to the TV during the traumatic events.

            I also appreciated the highlighting of the fact that this event changed the guidelines for appropriate television content.  I never thought they would have actually been ok with showing the assassination of our President on live TV.  I always assumed that it was just taboo to show such violence on TV, but I guess they were ok with showing these kinds of things on air. 

            There are a couple modern events that come to mind that I would think have changed the way that journalism/broadcasting works.  One of those would have to be the Boston bombing event.  Social media really took off with that one, and a lot of criticism was directed at the news sources for trying to be first rather than be correct.  Neil Armstrong taking the first steps on the Moon was probably a big “glued to the broadcast” type of moment too, but I obviously wasn’t around for that.  I like to ponder about future events that might shift the focus of journalism…..

Week 1: Constructive Journalism

      In class we talked about the fact that one of the 6 C’s of journalism is constructive.  To me, this means that journalism is supposed to resolve conflict, as well as clear the cobwebs of misunderstood and criticized elements of society.  One great example of this is an article by Julie Rovner found on pointer.org: http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/223141/5-myths-about-the-affordable-health-care-act/ .  In this article, Julie helps brush away some myths that people have about Obama’s infamous “Affordable Health Care Act”, and by doing so she is helping to construct the bridge between those who support and those who do not support the Affordable Health Care Act.

         This article is such a great example of constructive journalism because it isn’t ripping anyone down, or shading light on the latest scandal, it is helping the common people know the facts about something that is about to affect their everyday life.  I learned quite a few new things about Obama’s infamous “Affordable Care Act” by reading this article.  It’s important to note the language that the author uses in this article, because it isn’t degrading, negative, or aggressive at all  When journalists help to “clear the cobwebs” as stated earlier, it puts the public on the same page, and can also help resolve some conflict among members of the public.  This serves as a great reminder that not all journalism rips and criticizes people; it can bring people together (in this case the article in question brought together those who don't know about Obamacare with those who do know about it).  Great article!