Journalism: February 2004 Archive Page

U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige today [Feb. 23] issued the following apology for his remarks about the NEA.

"It was an inappropriate choice of words to describe the obstructionist scare tactics the NEA's Washington lobbyists have employed against No Child Left Behind's historic education reforms. I also said, as I have repeatedly, that our nation's teachers, who have dedicated their lives to service in the classroom, are the real soldiers of democracy, whereas the NEA's high-priced Washington lobbyists have made no secret that they will fight against bringing real, rock-solid improvements in the way we educate all our children regardless of skin color, accent or where they live. But, as one who grew up on the receiving end of insensitive remarks, I should have chosen my words better."

--Secretary Paige Issues Apology for Comment about NEA (US Department of Education)

A few days ago, the Drudge Report's coverage of this story (about a Bush official calling the leaders of a large teachers' union "terrorists") featured an item noting that potential Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry once called Texas Republicans "legislative terrorists." It's not hard to find examples of politicians going overboard with their metaphors, but Kerry's attack on fellow politicians was just business as usual; for the Bush appointee to pick on underpaid and overworked teachers seems downright mean. Kerry would be wise to stay out of this fray, because it's already another black eye for Bush.

I'm actually blogging this mostly because of the rhetoric involved.

While Paige finally admits he "should have chosen [his] words better," he only does so after bringing our attention to the "the obstructionist scare tactics" the NEA's leaders have brought against the "historic reforms" proposed by the Bush administration. Paige also calls attention to his own racial and cultural background -- which complicates issues for those who prefer their enemies in the White House to be uniformly white, male, privileged, and conservative. Paige's statement tries to direct the attack at the NEA leadership, not the millions of (voting) members who compose the NEA -- but I'm sure the NEA's leaders aren't going to throw up their arms and say, "The jig is up -- Paige has discovered that we don't really have the interests of students or rank-and-file NEA members in mind when we visit Washington." The road leads ever on.

Hint to Paige and anybody else who has ever had to do damage control: if you want to look sincere while apologizing, a quivering lip and wavering voice is nice, but when you're through with the emoting, don't spend even more time defending yourself and re-phrasing the very attack for which you are supposedly apologizing. I'm reminded of Bill Clinton's 1998 speech in which he admitted that he "misled people, including even my wife," which I thought was an excellent speech until he brought up the investigations into his financial affairs. (Clinton should have taken the high road, and let his supporters continue attacking Ken Starr. But that's a different story.)

I just noticed Mike Arnzen has blogged a bit on the incident over at Pedablogue.

"He had a maturity beyond his age." -- security guard Jason Armstrong --Man dies in 11-storey fall (Ottawa Sun)

The quote above is applied to a university student who accidentally hurled himself over a balcony. The student was an engineering major, who apparently wasn't clear on the concept of momentum, as he charged a balcony railing in order to spit farther than his friends. It's little surprise to learn that alcohol was involved.

The reporter is walking a fine line in writing a story that won't be offensive to grieving relatives, but still highlights the ironies that will probably make this guy a Darwin Award winner.

Two different things seem to have happened at the same place and time, according to the "spin" placed on two different reports from competing local papers.

Post-Gazette to seek wage concessions (Tribune-Review, reporting on its competition)
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is gushing red ink, prompting workers to vote today on wage and benefits concessions designed to save the newspaper from insolvency, union officials said Sunday during a special meeting.

Vote on contract adjustments by PG unions (Post-Gazette, reporting on itself)
Leaders of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 1,100 unionized employees urged the workers yesterday to approve contract adjustments that would help the company avoid a projected loss of $6.5 million in 2004.A Tale of Two LeadsTrib-Review/Post-Gazette)

Thanks for the links, Jess T.

Interesting comparison of stories... the Post-Gazette competes with the Trib-Review, so according to the Trib it is "gushing red ink". The Post-Gazette, reporting on itself, emphasizes the sacrifices its union employees are willing to make.

Competition is good for the public, because it keeps journalists on their toes and makes them accountable for their little mistakes (I presume that the Post-Gazette, which calls its owners "Block Communications Inc" is probably right, and the Trib, which calls the company "Blade Communications Co." is probably wrong) and biases (such as the Post-Gazette's privileging of the union leaders' plea to the rank-and-file union members).

When I was an undergrad at U.Va., there were two competing daily student papers, the Cavalier Daily (or rather the "Cavalier Five-Day-A-Week-And-Weekly-During-The-Summer) and the University Journal (which was three days a week during my freshman year and gradually worked up to five). A few years after I graduated, I learned the UJ went under, which was really too bad. Reading someone else's version of the story you covered, or seeing the photo someone else took at the same event, is really a great learning experience, even if it is sometimes humbling.

I remember when I used to cover city council meetings and other dry stuff for a local radio station, if three things happened that night and I write radio stories on two of them, no matter what, the next day at noon, the local paper would be out on the stands, and the third thing -- the thing that I didn't cover -- would be in the headlines. Being a very green intern, I was convinced that my news sense was completely wrong -- until the wiser, saner folks at the radio station pointed out that the newspaper was trying to reach the very same audience that listened to our radio station on the way to work in the morning.

Oh, I should note that the city desk editor of the local paper was married to the news director of my radio station; they were extremely professional about their work, and would try to scoop each other all the time. Once I worked hard on a 20-year anniversary story (on the destruction caused by Hurricane Camille), and had produced a half dozen stories, one or two minutes long; they were scheduled to run, one per day, in the week leading up to the actual anniversary. The local paper published a beautiful, in-depth report the weekend before the anniversary, which pretty much exhausted everyone's interest in the subject. Each of my little jobbies looked pathetic and lame, limping along five or six days after everyone had already clipped out the paper's big spread and saved it in their scrapbooks.

[A]t least two transformations appear to distinguish the production of new-media news from the typical case of print and broadcast media: The news seems to be shaped by greater and more varied groups of actors, and this places a premium on the practices that coordinate productive activities across these groups.

This, in turn, seems to influence the content and form of online news in three ways. The news moves from being mostly journalist-centered, communicated as a monologue, and primarily local, to also being increasingly audience-centered, part of multiple conversations, and micro-local.

In the online environment, a greater variety of groups of actors appear to be involved in, and have a more direct impact on, the production process than what is typically accounted for in studies of print and broadcast newsrooms. These studies have tended to focus on the work of editors and reporters. Based on the analysis presented in the previous chapters, it is reasonable to speculate that at least four additional groups of players may be having a growing degree of agency in new-media news production. --Pablo J. Boczkowski --Redefining the News Online  (OJR)

The "news world" is an interesting concept. I can't help but think of virtual worlds...

Warning... if you are one of those whose eyes glaze over whenever a geek starts blathering about Star Trek, you might want to skip to next paragraph. Okay, are they gone now? Good. I always wondered why Star Trek: The Next Generation didn't feature the Holodeck as a communications medium... Picard is being honored at a ceremony back on Earth, at which he is holographically present... perhaps a witness to a crime is prohibited from leaving her homeworld... or perhaps a race of aliens use facial expressions so different from ours that we can't understand them without the holodeck's mediation (though that would require the creation of alien physiognomy more complex than forehead bumps and splotches). I believe I saw an episode of Deep Space 9 in which Dax turned the captain's image into an alien of some sort, but there it was presented as a clever trick (and of course was never again mentioned in any other episode when a similar deception would have helped).

We're taught not to believe everything we hear, but it's hard not to have intense emotional responses to complex multi-sensory stimuli -- even when, intellectually, we know that what we're seeing has been manipulated or even completely manufactured.

I'm thinking of this topic more than usual because the student paper which I advise has published its first online edition: Setonian Online.

Brian McCollum designed the site as part of an independent study. I'm sure he'll welcome constructive comments.

[I]t seems the media (TV and newspapers) are just now picking up on the "Beyonce Knowles as Lois Lane" rumor from earlier this week, and even though the rumor has been shot down as being false, various TV news programs and newspapers are running with the story.

It also appears that Johnny Depp is not connected with the role of Lex Luthor as previously rumored, but that he is supposedly trying out for the role of Jor-El.

As always, take these as purely rumors. Nothing is official until Warner Bros. announces it... actually, believe nothing until you actually sit in the cinema and see it for yourself. :)

Media Rumors (www.supermanhomepage.com)

My former student Bobby Kuchenmeister sent me this item. The underground fan network has already deflated this as a rumor, but the mainstream media haven't noticed.

It's not unheard of for a PR campaign to "leak" something that is still under negotiation; when politicians do it, it's called a trial balloon. If the public response is too negative, the informal report can be disowned as premature.

Rant or Remark? Invective or Discussion?Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

Doesn't this just make your blood boil?

Writing

Instructor Loses Job for Discussing Iraq War in Class
WINSTON-SALEM, NC—Forsyth Technical

Community College (FTCC) writing instructor Elizabeth Ito has been dismissed for taking a brief part

of her class to discuss the war in Iraq. Ito criticized the Iraq war in a writing class on March 28,

2003, while the ground invasion was still underway. Her remarks, which later served as the basis for a writing assignment, lasted only ten minutes, but as a result administrators at the college decided not to renew her contract.

If it doesn't make your blood boil, then it's not doing its job. The dateline at the beginning makes it look like a news article, but it's actually a press release from the "Foundation for Individual Rights in Education." Sounds like a noble organization with a respectable mission... but I can't help feeling annoyed by the clumsy attempts to "spin" the facts in Ito's favor. How many rules of basic journalism does the headline alone violate? A journalist needs an open mind, but has to stick to facts. Consider the AP version of the story:

College teacher

believes views on Iraq cost her a job

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - A former English teacher at Forsyth Technical Community College is appealing

the school's decision not to renew her contract, which she claims is the result of her political

views about the war in Iraq. | Elizabeth Ito accepts criticism of her professional demeanor for

railing against the war during a business-writing class one day last spring. | But she says the

firing was a punishment for her political views.

While FIRE puts in the lead that Ito "has been dismissed for taking a brief part of her class to

discuss the war in Iraq," the AP story more accurately identifies that as a claim -- one that

the school contests. Whereas the press release says Ito was "dismissed," the news article gives the wordier but more neutral "the school's decision not to renew her contract."

While the press release uses the word "discuss" to describe Ito's handling of the political material, the AP story says "Ito accepts criticism of her professional demeanor for railing against the war" and describes the incident as follows:

Ito walked into her business-writing class, closed the door and said, "I guess we're going to liberate the Iraqis
even if it means killing every damned one of them."

"You could call it a rant, you could call it in an invective," Ito acknowledges. "I admitted I didn't do a good job. That's not a point of contention."

Two students walked out of class that day and complained to Susan Keener, the chairman of the humanities and communication department. At least one said that Ito had shouted down any student
with a viewpoint different from her own.

The press release refers to "remarks, which later served as the basis for a writing assignment," but
the idea for the assignment came only after Ito realized she "may not have given the subject a
balanced hearing," and in the AP story, Ito herself supplied "invective" and "rant" to describe what

the press release characterizes as "discussing".

Another passage from the press release is worth a mention:

President Green did not respond to FIRE's letter, instead choosing to explain FTCC's actions in a public statement posted on FTCC's website. Green accused Ito of, among other things, "a lack of competence." The college could provide no support for this accusation, however, and the statement was eventually removed from FTCC's website.

We can safely ignore FIRE's attempt to insert itself into the story here... but let's look at the rest of this excerpt. By placing in close proximity the statement that the school did not support its claims that Ito was incompetent and the observation that the statement was removed from the website, the press release may give the illusion of an association between those details -- the kind of potential misunderstanding a trained journalist would actively work against. Simply because the college has not offered proof does not mean that there is no proof. I am not a lawyer, but it doesn't seem to me that the college is under any obligation to divulge the contents of a private personnel file. Note that in both versions of the story, Ito accepts partial responsibility -- the press release only challenges the college's inability to come up with evidence of her incompetence.

Although the college's statement has been removed from the web, a Google search returns the URL http://www.forsythtech.edu/welcome/pressconf.html for the document. Given that the article was stuffed in the "welcome" directory (rather than a dated archive) and given the generic name "pressconf.html" one should probably not be surprised that this document has been moved. I can't find any trace of it online (which helps Ito in her effort to paint herself as an ideological victim), but Google yields a cached copy.

The "other things" with which Ito is accused include the following:

First and foremost, this is not about freedom of speech, academic freedom, politics, or the war. This is not about a single incident. Frankly, the college and I do not care whether she supports or opposes war in Iraq. This is about a lack of competence, professionalism, and ability to meet standards of professional behavior. It is about a first-year probationary teacher who did not do her job adequately.

Elizabeth Ito was at times unprepared to teach class, dismissing her class early because of failure to prepare. She spent time on issues outside of the regular class content, failing to relate the issues to the curriculum, and did not permit students to express their opinions. She failed to respect diverse ideas of students and in their own words, “shouted them down” when their views differed from hers. It’s important to note that the complaints of her own students brought much of this to our attention. When her supervisors tried to address these problems with her, she would not accept their valid constructive criticism.

If FIRE makes the appeal to silence -- arguing that, since the college hasn't provided evidence of her incompetence, it must not have any -- then perhaps we should note that FIRE does not say that the college has no evidence to support its claims that Ito lacked professionalism and professional behavior (terms mentioned in the same sentence as "lack of competence"); nor does FIRE object to the college's claims that Ito was "at times unprepared," that she did not respect diversity of opinion or relate material to the syllabus.

The administrator who defends the college's actions by saying "We're not here to spin out theories and sit around and blather about the world" is not exactly demonstrating intellectual curiosity; the quote makes me clutch at my heart and suck air in through my teeth. I don't see him winning any "educator of the year" awards, though he might have a career in politics. Ito fits pretty neatly into the stereotype of the out-of-touch campus radical consumed by an irrational passion for one ideological issue -- I'm trying to keep an open mind, but I've seen nothing so far that suggests otherwise.

Teaching is not easy work; I have made more than my share of mistakes, and I'm sure I'll keep making them.

Still, I can think of all kinds of ways to combine a technical writing

curriculum with a critical discussion of the military/corporate/political/legalistic complex -- and

one of the ways I did that was by

href="http://jerz.setonhill.edu/design/jupiter/jup-crit.htm">critiquing press releases.
I introduced the iteration and testing of psychological warfare

documents (surrender leaflets) dropped behind enemy lines. You may remember the story of a large Iraqi family gunned down in their vehicle because the driver didn't stop at a checkpoint -- because, according to an army specialist, the family misunderstood the meaning of a leaflet that was intended to instruct them to stay in their homes. I also used a document, full of passive

verbs and nominalizations, written by a Nazi engineer recommending improvements in the efficiency of

a gas chamber. I was conscious of the fact that I often had students who were freshly out of the

military and sometimes still in the reserves, and one of my former students was actually in psychological operations. Ultimately, I tried to argue language has the power to heal and the power to destroy.

Update: Oops, corrected the link to the AP story. Thanks, Mike.

Update: CommonDreams has a much more persuasive, much more effective press release... if I had read "North Carolina Teacher Fired for Antiwar Remarks" first, I probably wouldn't have been motivated to write this blog entry. The press release is marked as coming from the "Ito Defense Fund," so the bias in the headline is perfectly expected. I heard a warning bell when I noticed that the author refers to Ito as "Elizabeth," and John Slade, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, as "Dean Slade" rather than "John". That's a rhetorical strategy, designed to personalize Ito and emphasize her powerlessness in comparison to the administration -- but unlike the FIRE article's rhetorical efforts, this one works, and I suppose it's very possible that the article simply records an existing power imbalance on the campus; but as a writing teacher I am probably so sensitized to the use parallel structure and gender issues that I wouldn't take my reaction as typical. Nevertheless, the "Ito Defense Fund" release doesn't characterize Ito's classroom action as either a "rant" or a "discussion," but instead says Ito "spent ten minutes at the beginning of her business writing class voicing her concerns." I see nothing duplicitous or dishonest about that phrasing. The author of this piece describes Ito writing numbers on the board and inviting the class to respond to them. This is a good instance of showing details that lead the reader to make a conclusion -- in this case, Ito was not a ranting nutcase, but was instead using current events to spark a discussion. (I take back what I said earlier about not seeing anything that works against the image of Ito as a stereotypical ranting radical -- this was all I needed, and I was surprised that FIRE didn't do a better job of describing the controversial event.)

The article doesn't include any of Ito's statements indicating that she is willing to share the blame, but rather notes that one of the students who complained about Ito "did not think Elizabeth should have been fired for her remarks". None of this really examines the economic factors involved -- was Ito, as a new hire, simply at the bottom of the totem pole during a time of budget cutbacks, or were there newer, less experienced (and less vocal) people hired the semester after her contract wasn't renewed?

I'm going to hold onto these documents, and Mike Arnzen's thoughtful response to this blog entry, for the next time I teach journalism.

I recently posted a comment on Mike's blog in praise of "risk" as a criteria for grading student writing, and I feel I took a bit of a risk myself in writing this blog entry... but it's been an exhilarating couple of hours.

Oh, gaack... it looks like the curricular weblogs are down. Well, I hope it's just temporary. I'd better cut this off now...

[P]ress releases are unreal and possibly pointless. First, you write the press release from other already-written things. You can even fudge quotes, which is a big no-no in journalism. Then you have to get everything approved by absolutely everybody. I'm not big on getting stuff "approved." I think it's weird that you have to do this when what you wrote the release from was "approved" to begin with. Very odd. Anyway, you put six or so hours into this article, and then you send it out to news organizations. They can decide to use your article for a story idea, not use your article at all, or they can hack it up into bits and make it a "news brief."

That is scary. -- Julie Young --Write What? (A Work in Progress)

I often see students trying to cite university or corporate press releases in their research papers, instead of peer-reviewed academic articles. Julie's blog essay is a reminder that a press release is a persuasive document designed to cast the best possible light on the issuing organization.

And the made-up quotes in press releases are almost always laughable -- no good journalist wants to put long paragraphs of administrative mumbo-jumbo into an article.