Questions, comments or suggested links? Contact me at: rhanson40@gmail.com Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, a new text for Introduction to Mass Communication classes.

Looking for Student Blogs

It's fall, and once again I'm looking for links to blogs being written by student journalists. If you have one, or know someone who does, drop me a note!

Dr. H

Tuesday - December 27, 2005

• Questions Worth Asking
  • Why Should Bloggers and Reporters Make Sure Stories Have Some Factual Backing Before They Print Them?
    The MSM and bloggers have been far to willing to print unsubstantiated rumors. If the press (in all its forms) wants to maintain any sort of reputation, it needs to be able to figure out when stories stink like fabrications. Take, for example, the story about the young man who was investigated by Homeland Security because he got a copy of Mao's Little Red Book through Interlibrary Loan. Only one problem -- the student involved made it up. Kudos to the Rarin' Librarian for running her correction in big type at the top of the page. (Librarian.net)
  • How Can You Tell The Difference Between A "Commentator" and a "Journalist"?
    Look at the writer's paycheck. If it's from the media outlet he/she writes for, the person could be a journalist. If the check is written by an outside interest group....
    
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Christmas - New Years 2005

• The-Year-In-Review In Review Dept. - The Best/Worst/Whatever of 2005
  For this week, I'll be posting links to the year-end roundups that dominate the press during the week between Christmas and New Years. Watch throughout the week for updates.
  • UPDATE: USA Today's Best of the Year 2005
    • Year in Pictures
    • Best Television
    • Best DVDS
    • Best CDs
  • Dubious Science Stories Of The Year
    The folks at STATS (a science information watchdog group out of George Mason University) calls the shots on seven widely misreported science stories for 2005 (Thanks to Romenesko for the link)
    Washington Post Year In Photos
    Photos from the WP staff covering the nation, spots, style, politics, the world, and the DC Metro area.
  • Time's Year In Photos
  • Authors Who Penned Their Last Pages Remembered
    The WP's Book World remembers authors who died in 2005. They include historian Shelby Foote, police novelist Ed McBaine, and Judith Rosner. Though none of these went out as spectacularly as did Hunter S. Thompson.
  • Newsweek's David Ansen's Picks For Top 10 Movies Of The Year
    About half are movies you haven't heard of. Ansen goes for "tales filled with paranoia, terrorism, broken hearts and busted families."
  • Newsweek's Top Cartoons Of The Year
    Flash presentation of 24 political cartoons.
  • Fox News Top 10 Stories Of The Year
    Fox News clearly has a distinctive style. Story number 10? "Stinky Gas Prices." Story number 6? Michael Jackson verdict: "The world saw more evidence in 2005 that Jacko is wacko."
    
    Link Me
    

Saturday - December 24, 2005

• Of Course, If She Had Been Wealthy and White The Cable Channels Would Have Been All Over This Story For Two Weeks Dept. - What's Really Wrong With The Press
  Lakesha Parker, age 33, was murdered by persons unknown 12 days ago in an elementary schoolyard in inner-city Washington DC. The murder was caught on a surveillance camera, but but the picture quality is bad because any lights in the area were burnt out. According to Washington Post columnist Colbert I. King, DC school officials took 12 days to replace missing locks at the school and had yet to replace a bullet-pocked door.
  
  According to a search of Google news, the only major published item on the case was by King. A broader search of Google showed a three graph mention in the Post in a crime round up.
  
  Don't tell me all the same old sanctimonious crap about left/right bias. You want to know what's wrong with the press? It hasn't learned the lesson of Katrina. It pays lip service to the idea that people who aren't wealthy and white count, but it doesn't believe it. Laci Peterson, who has been buried, and had her killer tried and convicted, had 275 links pop up for a story that her mother will collect her life insurance! Natalee Holloway? 568 Google News links.
  
  Carp all you want about the differences between Fox and CNN, neither network acknowledges Parker exists.
  
  But, you know, the debate over Merry Christmas is vastly more newsworthy than a woman being murdered in a schoolyard.
  
  Link Me
  

Thursday - December 22, 2005

• In Case You Cared Dept. - Kong is great, but overlong
  I saw King Kong Wednesday. A movie with great moments between Naomi Watts and the big ape. Nothing wrong there that cutting 30-45 minutes from it couldn't cure. But don't listen to the critics who tell you it starts out slow. The first hour has many of the film's best moments. Just cutout some of the endless action sequences. (And remember, most of my favorite movies are bloated fully developed epics.)
  
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• Bah Humbug Dept. -- Christmas, Commercialism and the Media Redux
  A week ago I wrote about the so-called "War on Christmas," which is really just an excuse for conservative commentators to avoid having to find something to write about over the holidays. (Of course, I'm just feeding the fire here by paying attention to them because it's an easy topic to write about on a day I'm busy doing my Christmas shopping. Who said I need to be consistent....) At any rate, Leonard Pitts has written a good response to the charge that Christmas is under siege. Also, Daryl Cagle has a couple of great political cartoon collections on Christmas related topics, including Christmas & Politics as well as on Politically Correct Christmas. (For the record, the battle over the "War on Christmas" shows that conservatives can be just as silly as liberals when it comes to PC worrywarting about names for things.)
  
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• Questions Worth Asking (Maybe)
  • Did US Weekly Libel Britney And Invade Her Privacy?
    Or does the former Mousketeer just like talking about suing the tabs for 20 mil?
  • Speaking of Invasion of Privacy, What Ever Happened With Jennifer's Photos?
  • How Often Does Fishbowl DC Have a Trashy Item Before Wonkette?

Wednesday - December 21, 2005

• Columnist/Investigative Reporter Jack Anderson Remembered
  Jack Anderson, who did much to popularize the idea of investigative reporting, died over the weekend at age 83. Among the many current journalists who learned their profession while working for Anderson is the WP's media reporter Howard Kurtz. Links and the basic details of what made Anderson important from Fishbowl DC.
  
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• When Public Relations Trumps Real Life, Practitioners Catch Flak
  One of the basic rules of public relations is that the communication you send out needs to match the action you are taking, something that PR professionals ignore at their peril. So it's little wonder that state and federal government officials are catching loads of flak (scroll down a ways) for worrying about what they wore and how they looked during Hurricane Katrina. It didn't really matter whether they were dressed appropriately for responding to the disaster, what really mattered was that they really didn't respond! Commentary from the ever-interesting Leonard Pitts. (BTW, the thing that makes Pitts so interesting is that although he is fundamentally a liberal, he doesn't let his views keep him from being critical of folks from the left as well as the right.)
  
  Link Me
  

Tuesday - December 20, 2005

• Where Do Arabs Go For The News? Al-Jazeera Whether They Like It Or Not
  In the Arab Middle East, satellite news channels that can cross over national borders are clearly the popular source of international news, and Al-Jazeera is clearly the most popular of the many Arab-language satellite channels. Well, let me rephrase that. It's the most watched, or the most important, though many profess to not like the controversial channel. According to NPR's On The Media, a recent survey shows that only 10 percent of Arabs who have access to satellite TV never watch Al-Jazeera. (That is, Arabs outside of Iraq and Kuwait, who were not a part of the survey.) In Iraq, the Saudi Arabian based Al-Arabiya is popular. But American channel Al-Hurra is clearly the last choice, with 53 percent saying they never watch it. Interestingly enough, the Hezbollah channel Al-Manar is Similarly unpopular. I will let you draw your own conclusions from that. OTM's main source for the story is Prof. Mark Lynch, who writes the blog Abu Aardvark. (MP3 audio of this story)
  
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• Questions Worth Asking (Maybe)
  • Is Anyone Surprised that CNN Fired Bob Novak?
  • Or that Fox News Hired Him?
  • Who's Paying For The TV Tech Commentators?
    Chances are it isn't your local TV station. (MP3 audio of this story)
  • Is C-SPAN's Brian Lamb Headed To CBS?????

Friday - December 16, 2005

• Tryin' To Reason With Hurricane Season Dept. Part VI - A Look Back At Ethics, Accuracy & Katrina Coverage
  It's now been three months since Hurricane Katrina roared ashore and changed our understandings of both costal living and journalism. I was reminded of this today while listening to the podcast of NPR's On The Media. OTM had two stories looking back at Katrina coverage in the 12/09/05 edition.
  
  The first was an interview by Bob Garfield with New Orleans Times-Picayune reporter Brian Thevenot on the creation of myths about events that supposedly took place during and following the storm. Among these were reports of baby raping, people shooting at helicopters, and dead bodies stacked in freezers. Thevenot talks about why such errors are inevitable during such a big and difficult story, and how corrections need to be handled.
  
  The second is an interview by Brooke Gladstone with American Journalism Review's Rachel Smolkin about the ethics of journalists getting personally involved with the people they are reporting on. The issue, which has always been somewhat controversial in the journalism business, came to a head during Katrina as reporters felt they had to get involved with the story by helping victims of the storm. She discusses the division reporters think they must sometimes make between being a journalist and being a human being.
  
  While the stories from OTM and AJR raise excellent issues, I think there is one that may have been missed - that is, journalists aren't just doing their job when they work as reporters, they are fulfilling an important human role as witnesses. And bearing witness to what happened may ultimately be of more value than adding one more pair of hands to a massive relief effort.
  
  That said, Smolkin makes the excellent point, "Your humanity is something that you bring to the journalism. It's not something that's separate from the journalism." She also points out that helping someone out in New Orleans did not involve taking sides in on an issue: "Brian Thevenot ... made the observation in this case you don't have to pick sides. You're not on the side of the Mayor or the City Council. You're just on the side of giving someone a sandwich."
  
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Tuesday - December 13, 2005

• Lebanese Journalist Killed in Bomb Blast
  Lebanese journalist and Syrian opponent Geran Tueni was killed Monday in a Beirut car bombing. He was a newly elected lawmaker and the publisher of al-Nahar, a leading Lebanese newspaper. He had been outspoken in his opposition to the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. (Washington Post and Committee to Protect Journalists)
  
  
  • List of Journalists Killed in 2005
    
    Link Me
    
• Media Business Notes
  Media companies are in the news right now because of mergers, splits, and 2006 profit outlooks. Here's a look at what's happening at Viacom and Time Warner, the two biggest of the media giants:
  
  • Paramount (Viacom) To Buy Independent Studio Dreamworks
    Dreamworks, the independent movie studio started by media giants Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, is being purchased by Paramount, which is in turn a unit within media conglomerate Viacom. This was the end of the line for the attempt to run a United-Artists-style studio by and for the filmmakers. (Washington Post)
  • AOL Founder Calls For Splitting Up Time Warner
    AOL founder Steve Case, in an op/ed piece in Sunday's Washington Post, suggests that it is time to undo the merger of internet giant AOL and oldline media corp Time Warner. (A merger Case was largely to blame for responsible for. Case also talked about his commentary with readers in an online chat.
    
  • Viacom and CBS Splitting Up (Sort Of)
    Viacom announced last June that it was planning on spinning off the CBS broadcast television and radio properties into their own company. That transition is now approaching, with stocks for the two companies being traded separately. But as I said back in June, this is more a way to bolster stock prices than really split up the companies. Don't see this as a real divorce. Look at it more like an elderly couple who get a paper divorce so that they can receive better Social Security benefits. (Forbes)
    
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Friday - December 9, 2005

• More Conspiracy Theories Than a Lost Podcast Dept. - Questions About Media & Politics
  Here's a round-up of items on the continual battle between the news media and politicians. At least that's the way it's supposed to be, though lately it seems like reporters and politicians are playing kissy-face with each other.
  • Is It Spin Or Business as Usual?
    The eternally hard-working Howard Kurtz asks whether the Bush administration is really the ultimate spin-shop? After all, he notes that "Some Clinton White House aides could spin faster than a top...." On the other hand, Kurtz points out that previous administrations didn't pay off commentators and create "bogus news releases." An interesting attempt to put it all in context - something journalists don't do often enough. (Washington Post)
    
    In my mind, the biggest problem with journalists today is not left/right bias, it's refusing to put news in a historical context. It seems that journalists (and their critics) live in the eternal present.
  • Does C-SPAN Lean Right?
    Fishbowl DC recently ran an item that notes that FAIR (Fair and Accuracy in Media) claims that C-SPAN's morning interview show Washington Journal favors "Republican and right-of-center interview subjects by considerable margins over Democratic and left-of-center guests. The study also found that women, people of color and public interest viewpoints were substantially underrepresented."
    
    To which I say.... What did you expect? Who is in power right now? What percentage of the powerbrokers in DC are white, conservative males? What percent are women or people of color? C-SPAN, it seems to me, always tries to present things as they are, not as journalists living in a "fair and balanced world" would like to see things. Like it or not, that's who's running things right now.
    
  • Did The Chicago Tribune Player Nicer with Bill than W On The Economy?
    ChiTrib ombudsman Don Wycliff says no, and backs up his discussion of the issue by reviewing the paper's coverage over the last decade.
    
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Thursday - December 8, 2005

• Paying the Bills Dept. Part II -- Challenges of Advertising in the Y2K+ Era
  Ok, so I had a great catchy topic on new advertising media, and then I remembered that I had OTM's great story about missteps in marketing beer.

• Video Games Are Hot New Media For Reaching Young Men
  The AP reports that ads in video games have a strong positive effect in getting people to buy and recommend the featured products, especially when the ad is well integrated into the game. Why does this matter? Because research shows that 18-to-34-year-old males spend more time with video games than television. (USA Today)
  • An Interview with Nielsen's Michael Dowling on Advertising Opportunities in Video Games (Inside Branded Entertainment)
    Must read stuff if you are going to be advertising to young men....
• Movie Theater Advertising Expected To Grow
  Do you think you're seeing more ads before movies? You're probably not imagining it. ZenithOptimedia reports that in-theater advertising grew by 18 percent this year, and it forecasts it to grow by 15 percent next year. And the movie industry claims it can't understand why more people don't go to the movies....
• So Flaming Farts Weren't The Best Way To Make Beer Seem Classy...
  NPR's On The Media interviews Bob Lachky of Anheuser-Busch on how beer advertisers may have damaged their product's image by focusing on crude messages targeted at young males. All kidding aside, this is a great look at why ethics matter in the advertising business. One of the consequences of ads that are in bad taste (or are more filling...) is that they can damage your core asset - your brand's reputation. Read or listen to.
  
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Wednesday - December 7, 2005

• Paying the Bills Dept. Part I -- Morality & Advertising
  The Christmas/Holiday/Winter Solstice season is upon us, and that means that advertising is going to move front stage in media news. So over the next couple of days we're going to be looking at issues surrounding the folks who pay many of the media bills. (Remember, our media don't exist to inform or entertain us, they exist to deliver an audience of a defined quality to advertisers. Oh dear, that sounds cynical. And during the season of love and rebirth....) Be that as it may, today's entries deal with advertisers facing moral conflicts in their ads.

• Speaking of the Christmas/Holiday/Winter Solstice Season...
  What a dilemma for merchants. What do you call the time between Thanksgiving and New Years? Let's face it. It is the Christmas season. It is a religious holiday, but it is also a secular event. (You doubt this? Try checking out what the local stores sell in the name of Christmas sometime!)
  
  So merchants want to draw in as many customers as possible without offending anyone. (Unless they are deliberately being as offensive as possible). If they talk about the Christmas season, they might offend some non-Christians; if they don't talk about the Christmas season, they might offend some Christians.
  
  But folks, get over it; either way most of these merchants don't care what you believe -- just what you spend. Do note that Chick-fil-a is a clear exception to this rule; the company wears its religious heart on its sleeve and always has. (USA Today)
• Ford Responds (Maybe) To Criticism For Advertising In Gay Press
  Advertisers covet upscale gay consumers, and yet courting them can lead them into trouble. Ford Motor has recently said they will stop advertising their Jaguar and Land Rover brands in gay publications. Although Ford officials say the pullout from the gay publications was done for "business reasons," it's hard not to see this as a response to criticism from conservative religious groups. Of course, pulling the ads also has the possibility of alienating the gay consumers Ford was after in the first place.... (Washington Post)
  
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Tuesday - December 6, 2005

• Wonder What The #1 Search Term Is Today? Dept. - Yes, Celebs Do Sue (Or At Least Claim That They Are Going To) For Invasion of Privacy, Intrusion
  I was just lecturing in my Intro to Mass Comm class this morning on the topic of invasion of privacy - intrusion, and whether celebs had any chance of winning an invasion of privacy lawsuit for topless photos taken with a long lens from a public location. And then what should I find in my e-mail but a note from the Smoking Gun website telling of a letter from Jennifer Aniston's lawyers being sent to various publications warning them not to publish topless photos of the actress being shopped around by a photographer. The letter is pretty scary stuff.... But keep in mind, its a long way from sending a scary letter to actually filing an invasion of privacy suit. (BTW, this is just a link to the letter, no photos.) If nothing else, it's a great stunt to get folks to pay attention to her topless cover photo in GQ...
  
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Thursday - December 1, 2005

• Overly Self-Referential Dept. - Podcasting and Broadcasting
  My op/ed column on podcasting ran in the Charleston Daily Mail today. You can find links to all of the podcasts mentioned in the piece here.
  
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Living in a Media World Archive