Journalism: June 2004 Archive Page

Most Americans claim they don't believe what they read in newspapers or see on TV -- only a third say news organizations generally get the facts straight -- yet their opinions continue to be influenced by the media. Multiply this curious effect by the dozens of cable TV news shows, the hundreds of newspapers and perhaps thousands of websites and millions of blogs dedicated to disseminating news, and it offers great bounty for any media columnist. --Adam L. Penenberg --New Media's Age of Anxiety (Wired)

--No Train, No Gain

A great collection of short articles focusing on such topics as how to find an interesting story in a boring budget meeting, the basics of interviewing, and taking notes. For the first time this fall, students will be able to get credit for working for the student paper (of which I am the adviser). Blogging this so I can find it in the fall.

Weblogs, Comments, and Law (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

IANAL ("I am not a lawyer"), but here are some links I found interesting.

While a newspaper has a responsibility to check the accuracy of letters to the editor, if person A were to start a cafe, and person B walked into the cafe and made statements that the court deemed libelous, it doesn't seem likely that person A should be held responsible.

If Person A rents a hall, calls a public town meeting and invites people to walk up to a microphone to say whatever they like, and Person B makes statements that a court deems libelous, would person A be legally responsible for any offense committed by person B?

Last year, in Wired, the article "Bloggers Gain Libel Protection" described a ruling involving the re-use, in electronic form, of information taken from elsewhere. Thus, if a blogger were to quote an excerpt from someplace else, and the author of that excerpt was charged with libel, then according to this ruling, the blogger would not be responsible. Let the reader beware -- the title of the Wired article mentions blogs, but the case actually centered around an e-mail.

I missed it when I blogged the original article, but Jack Balkin quickly put it into perspective:

This does not mean that bloggers are immune from libels they themselves write. It means that they are immune from (for example) libels published in their comments section (if they have one) because these comments are written by other people and the blogger is merely providing a space for them to be published. Congress wanted to treat operators of chatrooms and other interactive computer services differently from letters to the editor columns in a local newspaper.

Balkin also notes that corrections, clarifications, and retractions are part of the weblog culture, in ways that traditional print journalism doesn't provide.

If that's so, when blogger A posts an inaccurate statement, visitors to blogger A's website can publish corrections -- by commenting on the post (and thus adding their text to the main text), or perhaps simply by sending an e-mail. The technology and practice of weblogs makes it easy for bloggers to correct their mistakes or give space to opposing views. This built-in series of checks and balances is part of what makes the online media so exciting, from a "power to the people" perspective.

We highlight U.S. prisoner abuse because the photos aren't too offensive to show. We downplay Saddam's abuse precisely because it's far worse -- so we can't use the photos. And that sets the stage for remarks like Sen. Ted Kennedy's claim that Saddam's torture chambers have reopened under "U.S. management." --Deborah Orin --Reporting for the Enemy (NY Post)

An extremely interesting argument. Two wrongs don't make a right, so if it's true that the US media are downplaying Saddam's tortures and hyping the US tortures, that doesn't make what the US did right. But it's still fascinating to consider, in terms of a media perspective, that the US torture was just outrageous enough to get coverage (after all, these photos don't document removing limbs or executions).

Two tales of gender, politics, weblogs, and cybercultureJerz's Literacy Weblog)

Both tales are pretty sad.

One is the story of Alexandra Polier, falsely accused of having an affair with Sen. John Kerry. According to Matt Drudge:

“In an off-the-record conversation with a dozen reporters earlier this week General Wesley Clark plainly stated: ‘Kerry will implode over an intern issue.’"

Polier painstakingly traces the sloppy reporting that led to her name being splashed across headlines. Polier had her editor call up the reporter who first named her, Bryan Flynn of The Sun, who brags smugly about breaking the story, but then when the phone is passed to Polier, he suddenly becomes too busy to talk to her. --"John Kerry intern scandal - Alexandra Polier's account"

The other is the story of Jessica Cutler:

...I posted my diary on a blog - the Washingtonienne - so my friends could read it for fun. As a young single woman, the diary was mostly about my sex life. I could not believe anybody besides them would want to read such a thing. But thirteen days later, it was all over Capitol Hill.... Then I saw my name and photo all over the internet. Type my name into Google and you'll find 32,600 results. I have read some of the racist, sexist comments about me posted on the internet with utter fascination. Unfortunately, these people can post anonymously, while I had to own up to all the stuff I wrote. But that is exactly what I love about the internet: expanding the social dialogue via the unrestricted sharing of ideas. Especially the ones that nobody wants to take credit for. -- "Senator Sacked Me Over Tales of Congress"

Polier shows superhuman restraint as she demonstrates the meticulous reporting skills that were so clearly absent from global reports linking her to Kerry. Cutler seems to think she's writing a Dave Barry humor column: "I opened mail all day (which is why you should never bother to write your representatives in government: somebody like me reads your letters). And then I either threw the letters in the garbage or I would make fun of them with co-workers. In retrospect, that job was perfect for me."

Assuming both women get book deals, whose will probably sell better?

Associated Press editors were forced to retract an earlier report that a meteorite might have hit near Olympia, Wash., this morning after discovering that a source, one Bradley Hammermaster, claiming to be an astronomy professor, had perpetrated a hoax. --Joe Strupp --AP Meteor Crash Report Was a Hoax  (Editor and Publisher)

"I was treated like a god," the former Nebraska quarterback says. "I had pretty much everything given to me out there from the start. | "I never thought I had to work for anything. It was pretty much understood, 'Hey this kid is going to take over the program.' I don't like things given to me. I like to work." --NU football program fell short, Dukes says (Omaha.com)

A Nebraska quarterback transferred to Duke, where he still plays football, but feels better about the pre-med education he's receiving.

I subscribe to a Google News alert, which sends me an e-mail every time the words "Seton Hill University" appear in a news story. I'm getting a steady trickle of announcements that so and so from such and such a hometown will be attending Seton Hill. It's funny that these are almost all being published in the sports pages.

Are we as a society that disinterested in the future careers of the budding writers, artists, philosophers, entrepreneurs, teachers, and scientists? Of course, athletic scholarships can help to produce any one of these professions.

A parody helps change a corrections policy at The New York Times. An online critic's query ends a career at the Chicago Tribune. Bloggers' scrutiny is making its mark on traditional journalism. --Mark Glaser --To Their Surprise, Bloggers Are Force for Change in Big Media (Online Journalism Review)

Another great suggestion from Rosemary.

THE world's newspapers enjoyed buoyant advertising sales in 2003 but overall reader numbers were in marginal decline, according to a report on the state of the industry delivered at the 57th annual World Newspaper Congress today. --Christine Pouget --Newspaper advertising up (Daily Telegraph)

An interesting detail buried in this story: "The distribution of free newspapers - not reflected in the overall figures - grew spectacularly in 2003, rising by 16 per cent."