Student journalist experiences the ‘trickle down’ of hostility toward the press

My own students haven’t described encounters like this, but I have encountered students who enter the classroom with the idea that there is a fairly consistent, uniform, organized entity called “the media” that it’s fashionable to distrust. It’s fair to point to specific news stories that got specific facts wrong or that showed bias, but attacking “the media” is blaming the messenger — it’s propaganda that benefits the status quo.…

C.S. Lewis: “On the Reading of Old Books”

Gearing up for teaching a new “American Lit 1776-Present” course. I’ll be at the office, sitting at my desk all day, wearing long pants instead of shorts. Not a screw gun or a stage platform or a digital camera within reach. This essay offers some well-phrased arguments for reading classic literature. Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were…

Portrait of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, biting his lips as if pensive or nervous.

 The Expensive Education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley

Because what he never managed to grok then was that the company he created was destined to become a template for all of humanity, the digital reflection of masses of people across the globe. Including — and especially — the bad ones. Was it because he was a computer major who left college early and did not attend enough humanities courses that might have alerted him to the uglier aspects…

Viral Video Vilifies Foul-ball Fan

A recent video that shows a kid in the bleachers bobbling a foul ball, and a man picking up the ball and presenting it to the woman next to him, doesn’t show what it seems to show. Julian Green of the Cubs said in a statement, “Unfortunately, a video that was quickly posted and unverified has made a national villain out of an innocent man.” The man doesn’t want to…

President Trump speaking at a political rally in Florida. He is pointing his finger in the direction of the camera.

‘Not good, not nice’: At Florida rally, Trump says China has ‘targeted our farmers’

They weren’t the most newsworthy part of Trump’s Florida rally yesterday, but I’m just taking a moment to acknowledge a journalist who is using muted language, in keeping with the charge of journalists to report objectively.  It’s perfectly neutral to place, deep in the body of the article, a note about the president’s claim that you need a picture ID to buy groceries, without using any loaded language.  Other reporters…