- The media reform movement over the past few years- how the movement was covered in the media itself in the past and how it is discussed today; how the movement has either grown or slowed down over the years.
- Bernie Madoff – The story of the man who was convicted of operating a Ponzi scheme that has been called “the largest investor fraud ever committed by a single person”; how the story is being covered by newspapers, such as the New York Times, compared to how it is being covered on news programs such as Fox News.
- Reporting of financial stories over the years in the New York Times compared to USA Today; how the ownership of both effects the reporting, etc…
Mar 31, 2009
Mar 29, 2009
It’s hard getting the word out w/o the media…
YouTube Video!!! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQcLRIwSXZU
What do you do when the one thing you’re fighting against is the only thing that will help get your word out to the public? There are hundreds of millions of blogs on the internet, it’s the latest crazy. Everyone wants to be a journalist, a writer, and have their opinions out in the cyber-world for others to hear, agree with and even fight against. But these blogs that about the media reform movement are new to me and probably to most people. Maybe it’s because I’ve never really been interested in the topic or maybe it’s that this topic, media reform, isn’t broadcasted on the news or on the radio or the magazines I read. It’s hard getting the word out about a topic when the thing you’re fighting is the media that can help get your word/passion out.
All these blogs have one thing in common; the media reform movement. The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), Project Censored, and the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) have set up websites as a place for them to voice their concerns about the biases and inaccurate reporting going on in the mass media. Founded in 1993, CMD’s mission is to “promote transparency and an informed debate by exposing corporate spin and government propaganda and by engaging the public in collaborative, fair and accurate reporting.” They do the dirt-work for the public, investigating to make sure that they uncover any corruption by the government as well as public corporations. While Project Censored’s objective is to train students in the fields of media research and First Amendment issues, all with the goal of protecting the free press rights of the country.
The main reason why so many blogs with the goal of highlighting the issue with the mass media have sprung up in the past few years is because of one startling fact; since 1983, the number of corporations controlling the vast majority of all news media in the US has dropped from 50 to FIVE in 2004. Today, the control of most of the media industry in the US lies in the hands of five huge corporations – Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS). – Media reform information center
It’s an obvious problem; power, especially the power to control the public opinion cannot lie in the hands of so few people. It’s a problem that is being brought to light by organizations such as the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), Project Censored, and the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA). However, I don’t think they are doing a very good job, because so few people actually know about this problem and never a fewer number of people care about it.
What do you do when the one thing you’re fighting against is the only thing that will help get your word out to the public? There are hundreds of millions of blogs on the internet, it’s the latest crazy. Everyone wants to be a journalist, a writer, and have their opinions out in the cyber-world for others to hear, agree with and even fight against. But these blogs that about the media reform movement are new to me and probably to most people. Maybe it’s because I’ve never really been interested in the topic or maybe it’s that this topic, media reform, isn’t broadcasted on the news or on the radio or the magazines I read. It’s hard getting the word out about a topic when the thing you’re fighting is the media that can help get your word/passion out.
All these blogs have one thing in common; the media reform movement. The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), Project Censored, and the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) have set up websites as a place for them to voice their concerns about the biases and inaccurate reporting going on in the mass media. Founded in 1993, CMD’s mission is to “promote transparency and an informed debate by exposing corporate spin and government propaganda and by engaging the public in collaborative, fair and accurate reporting.” They do the dirt-work for the public, investigating to make sure that they uncover any corruption by the government as well as public corporations. While Project Censored’s objective is to train students in the fields of media research and First Amendment issues, all with the goal of protecting the free press rights of the country.
The main reason why so many blogs with the goal of highlighting the issue with the mass media have sprung up in the past few years is because of one startling fact; since 1983, the number of corporations controlling the vast majority of all news media in the US has dropped from 50 to FIVE in 2004. Today, the control of most of the media industry in the US lies in the hands of five huge corporations – Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS). – Media reform information center
It’s an obvious problem; power, especially the power to control the public opinion cannot lie in the hands of so few people. It’s a problem that is being brought to light by organizations such as the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), Project Censored, and the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA). However, I don’t think they are doing a very good job, because so few people actually know about this problem and never a fewer number of people care about it.
Mar 24, 2009
A Welcomed Change…
Most of the articles we have read so far this semester, while being educational were lacking in the department of entertainment. Reading a ten page article took more willpower and energy than writing an actual ten page paper. Instead of trying to comprehend the meaning of the article, finding the author’s point and arguments; it took all my strength to just get through the piece with the vaguest understanding of the main point. This wasn’t the case with Michael Lewis’s article. It may have helped his case that the piece was on an interesting current and relevant topic, the collapse of the Iceland economic system as well as its government. But what Lewis brought to his piece, that the past authors ignored was humor and simple, everyman language. I didn’t need a dictionary in one hand with the article placed in the other. It’s an amazing thing when writers realize that they don’t have to use big words and complex writing that hides their meaning within a maze of a paper. The best, most educational articles that people walk away from with the feeling of actually learning something new, are the ones written with no desire to be anything more than they are. I felt as if Lewis was talking to me about this every complex situation in a way that I and even my little sister could understand. It was new and refreshing; a welcomed change.
To the actual context of the article… “We are Iceland” was a fascinating look at what has occurred in the almost forgot country of Iceland in the past few years. From the ranks of the lost and unimportant, to having a booming economy with outsiders looking in on this unknown land and culture. After reaching an unimaginable peak with the rapid expansion of their banking system, Iceland reached the depths of horror when they become the center of the “greatest act of madness in financial history.” What’s amazing isn’t that these former fishermen with no financial experience and barely any financial knowledge began making millions, what’s amazing is that no one questioned it. Sometimes - most of the time, when something seems too good to be true, usually is. It seemed like everyone in Iceland became that wife whose husband suddenly starts spoiling her with jewelry, trying to hide his on-going affair. They ignore their instincts because the jewels were just too pretty to give up. I get that they experiences wealth that they never even imaged, but didn’t they realize that it wasn’t going to last forever and when it did finally all fall apart, it wasn’t going to be worth all the previous joys?
One of the reasons why they refused to hear-out and consider the criticism might have been due to their unbelievable desire for individualism. Even when the outside just wanted to help, they refuse to hear out their reasoning; whether due to anger, mistrust or even jealousy. For a country with so limited knowledge in the field of finance, to turn a back on the masses amount of people who tried to warn them of their inevitable future; it just seems so stupid and almost immature. When it seems like everyone but you agrees on something, they are probably right.
Mar 17, 2009
The rush to be the first...
The goal of so many news outlets isn’t to be the most accurate or the most professional; their goal is to be the “leaders” for late-breaking news. To claim that their outlet was the first to report a story, the first to break a huge developing account. But have news agencies today become too greedy with their need to be the first and thrown away their need to be accurate and professional? And many even more importantly, how do editors balance the need for speedy news with the need to be right?
Most recently I saw this need to be the leading reporter on a public story when British-born actress Natasha Richardson fell and suffered brain injuries Monday while skiing in Quebec, Canada. When the story broke Monday night, only the few, basic details of the accident were being published by many news outlets. But when Tuesday afternoon rolled around, there seemed to be fifteen differing reports on how the accident occurred and what the condition of the actress was. Some of the more reliable news outlets, such as CNN.com and People Magazine continued to just report the known facts; that the actress was injured in a skiing accident in Canada and was taken to a local hospital for brain injuries. However, news agencies such as TMZ and the New York Post continually updated their websites with reports specifying the injuries, without any specific and reliable information. It seemed like they were making assumptions about the condition for the actress based upon nothing but their own imagination; assumptions that were not only false, but also extremely hurtful to Richardson’s family.
A little after 3:00 on Tuesday, both Time Out New York and Perezhilton.com flashed eye-grabbing headlines that stated that the actress had passed away. No more than 60minutes later, both sites had retracted their statements. Although they were both first to report the news- it doesn’t matter if the news isn’t true. It’s not only that they reported something that wasn’t right; reporting of someone’s death isn’t something that should be thrown around. This story proves that it is best to be accurate, take your time and tripe-check your sources and the stories they are reporting before stating them as fact to the world.
Most recently I saw this need to be the leading reporter on a public story when British-born actress Natasha Richardson fell and suffered brain injuries Monday while skiing in Quebec, Canada. When the story broke Monday night, only the few, basic details of the accident were being published by many news outlets. But when Tuesday afternoon rolled around, there seemed to be fifteen differing reports on how the accident occurred and what the condition of the actress was. Some of the more reliable news outlets, such as CNN.com and People Magazine continued to just report the known facts; that the actress was injured in a skiing accident in Canada and was taken to a local hospital for brain injuries. However, news agencies such as TMZ and the New York Post continually updated their websites with reports specifying the injuries, without any specific and reliable information. It seemed like they were making assumptions about the condition for the actress based upon nothing but their own imagination; assumptions that were not only false, but also extremely hurtful to Richardson’s family.
A little after 3:00 on Tuesday, both Time Out New York and Perezhilton.com flashed eye-grabbing headlines that stated that the actress had passed away. No more than 60minutes later, both sites had retracted their statements. Although they were both first to report the news- it doesn’t matter if the news isn’t true. It’s not only that they reported something that wasn’t right; reporting of someone’s death isn’t something that should be thrown around. This story proves that it is best to be accurate, take your time and tripe-check your sources and the stories they are reporting before stating them as fact to the world.
Mar 4, 2009
MID-TERM Short Answer
Article - "Dark Green Doomsayers" by George F. Will
From my first reading of the article by George F. Will, I was immediately distracted by the amount of quotes that he included in his article. It is always a good idea to include work by others and relevant quotes by experts on topic one is writing about, but when one page of a one and a half page article is composed of quotes, its a bit of an overload. But the one aspect of Will's writing that makes the amount of quotations almost expectable is that when he does actually write, the humor that he writes with makes the topic readable. Those two aspects are the first things I noticed about the article " Dark Green Doomsayers."
But what is Will even writing about, and more importantly, what is his stance on the topic. The article is about the on-going issue of global warming and about all the theories these scientists have come up with. From the title of the article alone, I could tell that this wasn't just a news article; it wasn't a reporting of new developments in the field. The author, Will's has an opinion on the topic and freely and openly lets everyone who reads the writing see it. He isn't trying to hide his stance and opinion on the issue of global warming and those predicting such disasters as the beginning of a new ice age.
When began reading the article, i did think that it was just a report on the issue of global warming; but after reading the entire article, i realized that it was an article almost making fun at the people who are obsessed with the topic. Will ends the piece with; "Real calamities take our minds off hypothetical ones. Besides, according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade, or one third of the span since the global cooling scare." Will spent the entire article discussing the different beliefs and theories of those scientists who believe that global warming is an immediate threat, than in his last two sentences, made them seem like idiots. I also believe that the author's argument is that the country and its people should be more worried about pressing and real problems such as the economy, rather than be enthralled in the "theory" of global warming.
The article comes from the Washington Post, which is the first sign that the article can be somewhat trusted since the Post is the newspaper with the largest circulation and the oldest paper in the country's capital. Researching the author, my immediate belief that this article was more an editorial piece seems to be correct since George F. Will is a Op-Ed columnist. Will is not a reporter, he doesn't get paid to report the news, he gets paid to write his opinion; but not only to write his opinion, but to make it interesting, entertaining and maybe even controversial. A columnist is a journalists who writes editorials; an editorial is "relating to an article stating opinions or giving perspectives." (wordnet.com) Because the writer of this piece is a columnist, his writing cannot be taken as fact or true because he is without a doubt writing with opinion and an objective or 'spin'. Although he filled his article with lots of quotes from scientists about global warming, he specifically chose those quotes because they made his point stronger by the way that he presented them. Even just Googling the article, I found it reposted in numerous websites, sites that share Will's point of view, such as; Climate Change Fraud.
From my first reading of the article by George F. Will, I was immediately distracted by the amount of quotes that he included in his article. It is always a good idea to include work by others and relevant quotes by experts on topic one is writing about, but when one page of a one and a half page article is composed of quotes, its a bit of an overload. But the one aspect of Will's writing that makes the amount of quotations almost expectable is that when he does actually write, the humor that he writes with makes the topic readable. Those two aspects are the first things I noticed about the article " Dark Green Doomsayers."
But what is Will even writing about, and more importantly, what is his stance on the topic. The article is about the on-going issue of global warming and about all the theories these scientists have come up with. From the title of the article alone, I could tell that this wasn't just a news article; it wasn't a reporting of new developments in the field. The author, Will's has an opinion on the topic and freely and openly lets everyone who reads the writing see it. He isn't trying to hide his stance and opinion on the issue of global warming and those predicting such disasters as the beginning of a new ice age.
When began reading the article, i did think that it was just a report on the issue of global warming; but after reading the entire article, i realized that it was an article almost making fun at the people who are obsessed with the topic. Will ends the piece with; "Real calamities take our minds off hypothetical ones. Besides, according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade, or one third of the span since the global cooling scare." Will spent the entire article discussing the different beliefs and theories of those scientists who believe that global warming is an immediate threat, than in his last two sentences, made them seem like idiots. I also believe that the author's argument is that the country and its people should be more worried about pressing and real problems such as the economy, rather than be enthralled in the "theory" of global warming.
The article comes from the Washington Post, which is the first sign that the article can be somewhat trusted since the Post is the newspaper with the largest circulation and the oldest paper in the country's capital. Researching the author, my immediate belief that this article was more an editorial piece seems to be correct since George F. Will is a Op-Ed columnist. Will is not a reporter, he doesn't get paid to report the news, he gets paid to write his opinion; but not only to write his opinion, but to make it interesting, entertaining and maybe even controversial. A columnist is a journalists who writes editorials; an editorial is "relating to an article stating opinions or giving perspectives." (wordnet.com) Because the writer of this piece is a columnist, his writing cannot be taken as fact or true because he is without a doubt writing with opinion and an objective or 'spin'. Although he filled his article with lots of quotes from scientists about global warming, he specifically chose those quotes because they made his point stronger by the way that he presented them. Even just Googling the article, I found it reposted in numerous websites, sites that share Will's point of view, such as; Climate Change Fraud.
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