September 2005 Archive
Note that some of these links are short term and will expire after two weeks. If you have access to Lexis-Nexis at your college or university library, you can retrieve many of the stories that are no longer on the web.
Main Archive List
Thursday - September 29, 2005
- Former Marine To Report for Al-Jazeera
Former Marine captain Josh Rushing is going to be a reporter for a new English-language news network being put together by Arab news channel Al-Jazeera. And he's been getting a fair amount of static for doing so. Rushing worked as a public information officer for the U.S. Marines in Iraq and elsewhere, and served as the Marine liaison with Al-Jazeera. (Rushing's work with Al-Jazeera was one of the subjects covered in the documentary Control Room.)
While some accuse Al-Jazeera as being a pro-Arab propaganda channel, others have described it as the CNN of the Arab world. I would say a closer definition would be that it is the Fox News of the Arab world. That is, it works at telling the news accurately, but tells it from a clear point of view. (Interestingly enough, taking a play from the American media synergy department, there is also a Al-Jazeera Sports Channel!)
What makes Al-Jazeera interesting to me is that while it's headquarters are in Qatar, it tends to take a broad Arab point of view rather than that of one particular country. I think that we too often view Arab and/or Muslim countries as all being the same, rather than having distinctly different views. It's easy to forget that Iraq and Iran (and, yes, I know that Iran is not an Arab nation) were at war with each other for at least 10 years.
So the question that this story raises is whether Rushing is working on foreign propaganda or simply working as a reporter for an international news service. Required reading. (USA Today)
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- For My Intro To Mass Comm Students
Among the many reasons I write this blog, one of the most important is that it gives me a place where I can post up-to-date readings for my students. So feel free to read the following links, but they are all here to provide some supplemental reading for my JRL 101 students:
- Harper's Magazine Controversy
During my lecture this morning I noted that I had been involved slightly as a commentator on the controversy over a recent cover of Harper's magazine. Here's the story:
Harper's Misuses Marine's Photograph
Putting together a magazine cover using stock photos is a fairly normal occurrence. You've got a good story, and so you order up a photo from a photo agency to go with it. That's what Harper's magazine did with a photo of a group of Marine recruits. The only problem is that the story was about Marines deserting - going AWOL. And none of the Marines in the photo had deserted. They are all serving their country honorably. The photo was also manipulated to make one of the Marines look transparent, which was in violation of the photo agency's rules. Reporter Jake Stump at the Charleston Daily Mail wrote a story about the cover, and used me as a source in it.
Michelle Malkin Picks Up The Story
A month or so later, I was surprised to get an E-mail from a librarian friend who mentioned I was quoted by conservative columnist Michelle Malkin in her column blasting media coverage of the war in Iraq. Which was interesting given that I had not been contacted by Malkin.
My Response to Malkin
While Malkin did quote me accurately about my thoughts on Harper's, she used my quote as evidence of a point I'm not sure I would agree with. You can read my response to Malkin's column in an op/ed piece that ran in the Charleston Daily Mail where I write occasionally about media issues.
FishbowlDC on the Harper's / Malkin Story
Finally, the entire story got a brief mention in the media news blog FishbowlDC.
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- New Yorker Has Target as Sole Sponsor of Issue
- Remembering Jet & Ebony Publisher John Johnson
Wednesday - September 28, 2005
Monday - September 26, 2005
Friday - September 23, 2005
Thursday - September 22, 2005
- Tryin' To Reason With Hurricane Season Dept. Part V
Once again the media is looking at how it has covered first Hurricane Katrina and now Hurricane Rita. Fishbowl DC continues to bring some of the most interesting thoughts on the topic. In one item, the editors look at the cover of the Sept. 19 issue of The New Republic which features a photo of a floating corpse in New Orleans on it. Is running photos of dead bodies on a cover of a national magazine crossing a line? And on the topic of race, is the press more willing to run such a photo of a person of color than of a white person? After all, we are used to seeing photos within magazines of atrocities in Africa or Asia. But we don't generally see such photos that are so close to home. Fishbowl even goes poetic on us, asking what happens to coverage of Katrina as other news makes it into "a story deferred."
Other reporters are looking at what is to me one of the big problems that the press has to answer for: Why is there so little meaningful coverage in the press about the poor? WP media reporter Howard Kurtz looks at the issue and poses a strong question for the press:
A Sept. 12 Washington Post story was headlined "Katrina Pushes Issues of Race and Poverty at Bush." An equally apt headline would have been, "Katrina Pushes Issues of Race and Poverty at a Media Establishment That Has Largely Ignored Them."
Kurtz looks at how the press has covered poverty and why it has done so in the way it has. The Post seems to have taken these charges to heart, and is examining them in a Page 1 story today. But it will be interesting to see how long this coverage will last.
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Wednesday - September 21, 2005
Monday - September 19, 2005
Morality & the News Media
Our news media are frequently uncomfortable dealing with issues of morality and religion. Here's a few recent stories that give us a better understanding of the problem.
- Spinning Sex Dept. - What's the Report Really Say?
Last week the National Center for Health Statistics released a report with the alluring title "Sexual Behavior and Selected Health Measures: Men and Women 15 - 44 years of age, United States, 2002." The good folks at Fishbowl DC decided to take a look at how three different papers reported on the story: the Washington Times, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. No way to deny that each paper had its own take on the story. Let's take a look at how a few other news outlets handled the story:
- Round Up the Usual Suspects Dept. - Does Pat Robertson Speak for Evangelicals?
Last week I read a provocative column at Poynter Institute about how the press covers evangelical Christians. Author Terry Mattingly, senior fellow for the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities argues that both the press and evangelicals are poorly served when the first person to be quoted about religious issues is controversial preacher Pat Robertson. In essence, his argument was that the press gives Robertson lots of ink because he makes evangelicals look bad.
Unfortunately after I read the piece, I promptly lost my link. A quick Google provided no help. So I went to a listserv I belong to for journalism educators to ask for help. Along with getting the link back to the article, I also got some interesting feedback about the article which I'm reprinting (with permission) here.
Bill Kovarik of Radford notes:
[Mattingly] has a point. Remember the Tinky Winky thing? A "bright" by a Roanoke Va AP reporter about a serious article in a Falwell-sponsored magazine (an article few of us would agree with, but serious, nevertheless) turns into Jerry trying to "out" Tinky Winky. Totally absurd.
So -- why are journalists so keen to lampoon the fools on the margins? What are they missing by doing so? Mattingly has some suggestions in the religious area. I could think of others in the policy area.
Maybe there's just not enough to laugh about in the average newsroom.
No, wait. Couldn't be that.
John Carvalho at Auburn gives a plausible explanation why reporters like to go to Robertson when they want a comment from the Christian right:
What makes Robertson so attractive to the news media is that he provides lively, though often out there comments. In essence, he does the media's work for them -- frees them of the obligation to do the spade-work to dig and find what is really going on. This is a problem throughout the media -- choosing sources based on their quotability. It is certainly appropriate for journalists to step back and evaluate their sources' credibility in all areas.
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Thursday - September 15, 2005
- It's Not Just X, It's XXX! Dept. - Porn on the Internet
Congress, the courts, activist groups, and parents in general have been trying for years, more or less unsuccessfully, to stem the flow of porn on the Internet. The problem, as the U.S. Supreme Court found in ruling on the Communications Decency Act, is how do you protect children and unwilling adults from exposure to pornography without limiting the free speech rights of consenting adults? One idea that is being floated now is coming up with a new Internet address suffix for adult-themed web addresses - .XXX. This would replace .com as the suffix for adult businesses. Of course, using such an address would be completely voluntary, and it probably wouldn't help slow down the actions of sites that use deliberately confusing addresses. And, remember, one of the dirty secrets of media history is that pornography has always been a driving force behind the development of communication technology. This link is to an editorial that ran recently on the topic in USA Today. There's also a response from the Family Research Council activist group that says the .XXX address would legitimize the porn industry.
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Wednesday - September 14, 2005
- Will Disney Find Happiness in China?
Disney may put a proposed theme park for mainland China on hold until the company can get access for its programming on Chinese television. New media rules bar the broadcasting of foreign channels. (NY Times)
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- Things I Do Like About Disney Dept. - Lost Starts New Season Next Week
So enough of all this serious stuff. Let's get to appropriately shallow media content. The fall television season is getting started in the next week, and we will finally get some answers to some of last season's cliffhangers. Among the most fascinating shows from last year is the mystery/drama Lost. It was an incredible breath of fresh air from a medium known for doing the same thing over and over again. For those of you who haven't been paying attention, Lost is about a group of people who survived a plane crash on a mysterious desert island inhabited by monsters, polar bears (!) and eccentric characters. And nothing is as it seems.
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- Questions Worth Asking (Maybe)
Tuesday - September 13, 2005
- Tryin' To Reason With Hurricane Season Dept. Part IV -
One last day of hurricane media analysis before moving on. Here are several links without a lot of commentary that haven't quite fit in previous entries.
Monday - September 12, 2005
- Tryin' To Reason With Hurricane Season Dept. Part III - Photo Edition
Some of the biggest controversies to come out of news coverage of Katrina has been the photography - both still and video.
- Howard Kurtz - Rappin' About Race 'n' Rap
One aspect of Katrina that has been unavoidable if you've been watching television coverage is that there is a lot of poverty in New Orleans and Mississippi, and that many of those poor people are African-American. One of the legitimate criticisms of the news media, in my mind, is that it focuses way to much on the actions of the rich and powerful (whether they are black, white, Asian, or Hispanic). But coverage of Katrina has highlighted that there are a lot of folks living in poverty and that we don't generally see them on the news.
- Captions & Race - Looting v. Finding Groceries
There have been numerous accusations that the press has been racist in its captioning of Katrina photos. The most notorious of these are two photos taken by two different photo agencies. One shows a black man and calls his actions "looting." Another photo shows two white people carrying groceries, and the caption says they "found" the groceries. You've probably read about these two photos in previous entries. This is a thoughtful entry from the urban legends site Snopes.com that shows the actual photos and their captions, and gives a reasonable analysis of what happened. Essential reading. Thanks to photo professor Joel Beeson for this link.
- FEMA Says "No Photos" of Dead Bodies. Is It a Request or a Directive?
The current administration has attempted on several occasions to stop negative press coverage by keeping the press away from what is happening. For a brief while last week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) attempted to keep the press from taking pictures of the recovery of dead bodies from New Orleans. This link takes you to commentary from several folks at the Poynter Institute.
- Defining Images of Hurricane Katrina From Poynter
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Friday - September 9, 2005
- Napoleon's Dynamite With Marketers
Indie teen film Napoleon Dynamite took everyone by surprise when it became a big hit last year. It cost $400.000 to make and brought in $50 million at the box office and more than $100 million in DVD sales. And it is now the darling of the licensed merchandise market. Apparently being uncool has never been so cool! (I didn't know that the omnipresent "Vote for Pedro" shirts were from the movie.) (Washington Post)
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- ABC Offering Primetime Shows in Spanish
One of the little-known features most stereo televisions offer is the SAP, or secondary audio programming. This can be used for a variety of functions, such as described video for the blind, or completely separate audio programming. But a growing use of it is to provide a Spanish simulcast of the dialog on popular shows. The ABC television network is going to offer all of its primetime programming in Spanish this fall, with several being dubbed in Spanish (including Lost, Desperate Housewives, and George Lopez) and the rest being closed-captioned in Spanish. Why? Because research shows that about half of the 41 million Hispanics in the U.S. watch programming primarily in Spanish.
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- Hunter Thompson's Last Words
When gonzo-journalism icon Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide last February, it was while he was on the phone with his wife. But he had also written a suicide note four days prior to his death that has now been published by Rolling Stone. (Washington Post)
- Questions Worth Asking (Maybe)
Thursday - September 8, 2005
- Tryin' To Reason With Hurricane Season Dept. - Part II
One more day of looking at what is by far the biggest story in the news - Hurricane Katrina
- Playing the blame game
Sometimes news stories take on a rhyming catch phrase that seems to show up everywhere. With the O.J. trial, it was, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." For Katrina, reporters and government officials seem absolutely in love with quotes that deal with "the blame game." A quick search this evening on Google News shows more than 1000 stories out there on news sites dealing with the little ditty. Why is it that we seem so in love with these phrases that say so little? I mean, on Wednesday NBC reporter David Gregory tried to get President Bush's press secretary Scott McClellan to give a simple yes or no answer to a question about whether the president still had confidence in FEMA. All he could get in response was an extended treatise on, you guessed it, "the blame game."
- Front Pages from the Day After Katrina
The Newseum always has a daily archive of more than 400 front pages from around the world. It's a great place to see how news stories are playing in different locations. The problem is that they go away each day for a new set. But every now and then the folks at the Newseum keep particularly newsworthy covers up as part of an exhibit. You can see about four days of Katrina coverage, along with those from 9/11, the tsunami, and the revelation of Deep Throat's identity.
- The T-P is Mad As Hell
Looking for passion in an editorial? Read this one criticizing the government's initial response to Katrina that ran in the Times-Picayune on Sunday.
- When Stories Take the Networks by Surprise - Why the 7-Second-Delay Isn't Just to Stop Naughty Words.
Rapper Kanye West gave the federal government an earful during his appearance as a speaker at a Katrina charity concert on NBC last week. The person who was running the 7-second-delay system designed to keep obscenities off the air apparently didn't realize that West was criticizing the president and let him go on speaking. When the concert aired on a delayed basis on the West Coast, however, the rapper's criticisms of the president were cut. (Washington Post)
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Wednesday - September 7, 2005
- Tryin' To Reason With Hurricane Season Dept. - Part I
Back from being out of town. It is almost impossible to try to come to terms with the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, but I would like to take a look at how the news media have reacted to their own coverage of this disaster.
- For the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Katrina is a hometown story, not a national tragedy. Throughout it all the T-P kept up web publication, though it had to suspend printing the paper version for three days. This, the paper has shown that as a newspaper it is a key member of the community. The paper's web site includes missing person's links, pet rescue, the definitive photo galleries, photos from readers, Steve Kelley's editorial cartoons, and everything else you would expect.
- Although we are all fond of trashing the quality of television news, USA Today's Robert Bianco says that the first several days of television coverage gave Americans a realistic view of the hurricane's devastation in a way that holds public officials responsible for their actions (and inactions). He writes:
"Yet no matter how it covers the debate to come, there's no question the debate itself has been framed by television's coverage and might not even exist without it. When disaster struck, TV's newscasters did what they do best: They showed us what was happening as it happened, a service we too often take for granted.
Television made it impossible for government officials to say the situation was under control; we could see that it wasn't. Television made it impossible for government officials to say they couldn't get into New Orleans to help; if Harry Connick Jr. could make it in, so could they. Indeed, NBC put Connick on TV so often, you might have thought he was the head of FEMA."
- The Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page has written a provocative column where he examines how coverage of Katrina has brought uncomfortable issues of race and class to the forefront. Most notably, he mentions two photos, one that shows a young black man "looting" a grocery story and another that shows a white man and woman "finding" groceries.
- Howard Kurtz takes on the partisan rhetoric that is firing up in the aftermath, looking at how columnists and commentators are using Katrina as an opportunity to fire brickbats at the president. (Even the conservative and normally supportive Wall Street Journal has been critical.)
- Some of the best actual coverage of Katrina, IMHO, has come from NPR's interviews with flood victims. There was a thoughtful (and heartbreaking) story on All Things Considered Tuesday evening on how the small, rural, poor towns in Mississippi feel they are being ignored while the big cities like New Orleans get all the attention. It seems to me that news far too often focuses on the wealthy, the powerful, and the connected rather than the poor.
- My teenaged son, a big fan of Google Maps, pointed out that if you go to the site and view the New Orleans area, you can see the before and after satellite images of New Orleans, combined with the great street-level maps. If you are ever looking for a good way to get a handle on the geography of a story, Google Maps is the place to go.
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- Questions Worth Asking
