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…..