Week 7: Social Media and Journalism

First of all, I thought that this week’s presentation was really interesting and enjoyable, and I enjoyed the video about social media most of all.  I have seen videos like that before, and the numbers behind these websites are truly staggering.

            As usual, I read two different articles on the subject of the week.  The first article was published by the Huffington Post and can be found here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jayson-demers/how-social-media-is-suppo_b_3239076.html .  It is a really good article, and it talks about how social media is forcing journalism to shift its paradigm/view, because social media is HUGE.  The article was pretty short, but it contained some awesome information on the subject.

            The second article that I read is located here:  http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=101882 .  THIS article comes from Harvard, and it talks about journalism’s place within social media.  I like this take because I feel like it assumes social media as the larger, mother practice, and journalism needs to fit within the larger, mother practice of social media.

            Personally, I feel like journalism’s place in social media is being put in the hands of the people, and taken out of the hands of official journalists.  The industry is being hurt by social media, and unless people can find a solution to this issue, I don’t have tons of hope for journalism.  Hopefully it works out though, I want to be able to keep journalism alive!

US GOVERNMENT CAUGHT RED HANDED IN VIETNAM LIES

            First of all, I thought that the group presentation was very on point, I loved every bit of it!  The handout was very helpful, and I learned quite a bit about the constitutional premises within journalism, specifically the Pentagon Papers and Edward Snowden.  The most interesting part to me was the debate that we had about the Snowden case.

I read two articles that talked about the Snowden case, both of which are very compelling and interesting.  The first article is located here:  http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/16/mps-investigate-guardian-edward-snowden-leaks.  This article talks about how members of parliament are investing the Guardian’s role in the Snowden leaks.

The second article that I read is located here:  http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/16/mps-investigate-guardian-edward-snowden-leaks.  This article, as the title alludes, is talking about how Snowden isn’t a hero, even though he is seen that way in the eyes of most American citizens.  The main argument is that he compromised the national security of the US because terrorists could now dodge the US’s surveillance tactics.  I’m not sure whether I think of him as a hero or not, but it’s a compelling debate.

The dispersion of information is an important component of democracy, but I think that a line should be drawn when lives are absolutely compromised.  In Snowden’s case, I feel like surveillance isn’t necessarily the most effective method of security, and no large scale attacks have happened since the release, so I don’t buy that it compromised the national security just yet.  If a newspaper is about to publish something that would directly harm the life of one police officer, for instance, I think that would be unjust and shouldn’t be allowed.  It’s a tough debate, but very interesting!

Week 5: Who Pays For Journalism?

            First of all, I thought that the group did an awesome job at showing some of the positives and negatives in who funds journalism now and in the future.  I read a couple of articles in relation to this topic, both of which are awesome reads!  The first one has the following url:  http://entertainment.time.com/2009/06/08/if-the-journalism-business-fails-who-pays-for-journalism .  It deals more with the future of journalism, and what the business model is going to adapt to if/when the current business model fails.  Some basic arguments that the article makes is that non-profit will emerge (just like you guys said!), and things of that nature will start to take over the advertising world.

            The second article that I was reading is located here:  http://gawker.com/5989885/somebody-should-figure-out-how-to-pay-for-journalism-says-guy-whose-job-it-is-to-do-that .  It’s kind of an ironic article, as eluded to by the title.  It is similar to the first article that I linked, in that it talks about the future of journalism and advertising/who is going to pay for it.

            Personally, I don’t worry too much about the future of who is going to pay for journalism, because I plan on going into the tv broadcast form of journalism, and I don’t think that will be affected much by social media and the internet.  I feel this way because tweets can replace a headline, reddit can replace newspaper, but nobody is going to be able to replace ESPN and those sort of supreme experiences that those news outlets allow you to have.  People don’t watch tv news because it’s always the breaking news source, people watch tv news because it presents the news in a way to them that no other source can present them.  TV news/sports create a presentation that no other form of media can compete with.

Week 4: The Obligations of Journalists

            I thought that the group presentation was really well thought out, and it kept me interested the entire time.  I am usually against the upright bias that Fox News puts out, but this clip was actually a great one to show!  I find that trying to be the first news source to report something has caused news sources to decrease their overall level of accuracy, which is disheartening. 

I read two articles that have to dealt with journalism and dishonesty, sort of like the Bill  O’Reilly video that we watched during the presentation.  The first one is located here: http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=598 .  It talks about the dishonesty of recent journalism/news and gives some great insight on the subject!

The second article that I read has to do with the topic of Fox News, except this one is directly criticizing Fox News and their “dishonest charts”.  The url is here: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CEYQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmediamatters.org%2Fblog%2F2011%2F12%2F12%2Ftoday-in-dishonest-fox-news-charts%2F185162&ei=nq5MUt6UNaeYigKii4CQDg&usg=AFQjCNHsrs9onJLa50epo3Q8zRXLceHqwg&sig2=oVPllE98L9g42EXkUQTM4Q&bvm=bv.53537100,d.cGE .  Apparently Fox News is famous for being dishonest in their graphical representations of news.  This article illustrates how Fox changes the data on the x or y-axis in order to emphasize certain points that they are trying to push.

All news outlets to this to some point, none of them are entirely “objective”.  All news leans either left or right, and it’s impossible for news to sit perfectly in the middle.  Unfortunately bias has become the standard, and it’s something that I wish wasn’t true.  If I go on to become a journalist instead of a producer (my current plan), I hope to change some of this and provide news that is actually objective.  Like the guest speaker last week said (his name slips my mind at the moment), we can try our best to be objective, but we are human beings and our opinions will show through sometimes no matter what we try to do.