Jeff Cohen Visits

After our visit from guest speaker Jeff Cohen I am finding myself very confused about my thoughts on his lecture and the world of independent media. I thought Jeff was a very interesting speaker with a lot of experience working with mainstream media. His focus on independent media really fascinates me along with his dedication to its importance in our future. With more and more people becoming reporters and starting their own media trends I think that independent media could not be more vast and expansive than it is now. I was however really troubled with what Jeff had to say about objectivity. His viewpoint about the fact that independent media are not object but rather highly subjective and politically driven to the point of bias as being okay really bothered me. I keep trying to think about objectivity and reporting to an audience that needs the facts and not my personal opinion. To hear Jeff applaud independent media producers for using this bias way of reporting really bothered me. As someone who is so intelligent and steeped in media and its effects on a nation I was hoping to hear more from him about the need for objectivity. He was so bothered by the way in which many media markets handled left wing ideas right before the War in Iraq began that I was really disappointed he wasn't more for objectivity. All in all he had a lot of really good things to say and I think he is definitely an instrumental player in the switch towards independent media.

Bias in the News

I think that Linn Jr. Washington made some very valid points in his article entitled "Facts, Fallacies, and Fears of Tabloidization." I feel that as a journalist I am constantly caught in the struggle between reporting unbiased and objective stories of events and telling the fun and exciting sensationalized story. Especially as someone who wants to work in television news - television lives on sensationalism. How does the news manage to combat this idea and try to report as objectively and nonbiased as possible? "Today," says Washington, "the wall between the so-called fact-based standards of mainstream journalism and the 'never-let-facts-stand-in-the-way-of-a-good-story' standards associated with tabloid journalism is porous." (Washington, p.1). I think this is a very valid and relevant point. Why are journalists blending the line between good solid hard news reporting and soft news tabloid-like reporting? As I mentioned earlier, perhaps it has to do with television's sensational aspect. We as a nation are becoming more and more desensitized to violence and gore. But is this because of journalistic practices of sensationalizing the War in Iraq by showing horribly gruesome footage night after night on network television? I think that bias is something that is very hard to fight from a journalistic perspective - especially in an age where sensationalism sells. People like excitement and entertainment, what better way is there to sell news than making it exciting and entertaining? Form a business perspective it's genuis, but from a journalistic standpoint something needs to be done to change these practices in the mainstream media.

Agenda Setting

I think that McCombs quotes are very true and very telling. I strongly believe that the way in which the media presents the news strongly influences the way in which I and other people who consume news perceive the importance and prevalence of stories and issues.  For example, my parents have a subscription to the Boston Globe and my father "reads" the paper everday. However, he reads the front page (and I highly doubt he flips to the continuation of the stories inside the front cover) and the sports pages. My mother however will read the paper almost from front to back without skipping anything. I think that I am very lucky to be able to grow up in a household where my parents read newspapers and we discuss current events and important issues of the day, however, my mother always seems to take much more expansive and well thought out view points on current issues. My mother uses different sources of news (radio, television, online, and print) that come from a variety of different vendors. My father however has much narrower view points that usually consist of what the Globe has told him about an issue or event. Now, I don't think that is wrong in any way I just think that it makes a big difference in how our world perceives the world around us. In my personal opinion I would rather have people with narrower view points from only one source that has its stake in what goes on page one vs page two then people who are not involved with what is going on in the world around them at all. I guess any exposure is good exposure in my mind.

A Year in the News

I found the Year in the News article to be really fascinating. I found the study in depth and very extensive. There were some points I found particularly interesting. One of those was that there is a real disconnect between what the public wants to see reported in the news and what we are actually receiving. I found that really interesting because most of the time I am used to thinking that we are getting what most people want. I guess I was a bit happy and relieved to hear this as well. While I am a bit of a celebrity fan I was so sick last year of the Anna Nicole Smith coverage and the nonstop Paris HIlton watch. I guess I am just a little curious as to why we aren't getting more of what we want (i.e. gas prices or the toy recalls according to the graph on page 9). I was also really interested by the article and the class discussion about the majority of our international stories surround U.S. interests abroad. While I do wish I knew more about international news and happenings I think it only makes sense that we would report about our interests abroad. For people to care about the information being presented to them it has to be somehow relevant. Our presence and interests abroad are very relevant to how we live our everyday lives and I think it makes sense that these are the kinds of stories we hear. And to be honest, I don't think that we are the only country who thinks this way. We may be very American-centric but you can't tell me that people in other countries care at all about irrelevant foreign politics. For example, I was in Beijing this summer working with an Australian girl. She mentioned how she was concerned about the war in Iraq and its international consequences but she knew nothing of the VA tech massacres. For her and her Australian classmmates she said that gun control and safety on campus were not relevant threats to her and that she knew nothing about the whole thing. And while it shocked me I guess I can understand her logic.

Test

Hey,

This is  my Issues and the News Test blog post

Jules