Sources

This week we have been talking about sources.  We have discussed whether anonymous sources should be used in scholastic media or not, as well as the importance of using a variety of sources.  Yesterday on the JEA listserve there was an email with the subject line "What to do when a source changes his/her mind?" The email was about a high school who was covering a local community college story.  The president, who had his share of controversy, was retiring and receiving a nice severance package.  The community was outraged at the amount he was receiving, which was what the story was focusing on - the community response.  The student journalist had interviewed, on the record, a professor at the college.  A few days after the professor emailed the student and said that nothing in the interview could be used without any explanation.  The adviser was emailing the listserv for advice.  This email really caught me off guard.  When I was thinking about whether or not anonymous sources should be used in a scholastic newspaper, I never even considered a source changing their mind.  Being a relatively new adviser there are many situations that I have never even thought of that happen all the time.   My first thought was to make a policy so that if we have these problems come up we will have a plan in place already.  However, I realistically know that won't work.  Every situation is different and handled individually.  It makes me uneasy but I think that situations that deal with anonymous sources and even sources backing out are something that you can't plan for.  I just have to teach my students to be the best journalists they can be.  

Page One

After finals, I had my students in Intro to Journalism watch the documentary Page One while I graded.  I've seen the movie dozens of times, but a lot of what it talked about resonated with what we have been talking about in both the Social Role class as well as my Editorial Writing class.  The documentary, although a bit dated now, follows David Carr and the Media Desk at the New York Times.  It primarily focuses on the changing landscape in the newspaper industry, but touches on many other topics that relate to journalism.  One of those being a journalist's responsibility.  I think that this ties into what we have been discussing in Social Role this week about objectivity.  Several times throughout the documentary they mentioned the arrogance that many feel the New York Times carries.  I believes this ties into objectivity, because the reporters from the NYT have to write objectively and not let their role or their job get to their heads.  It also means that the readers of the NYT have to read the paper objectively and form their own opinion.  The Judith Miller fiasco proves that reading too much into a reporter's story can lead to disastrous things.  In addition to touching on objectivity, the documentary also shows students the weight that the NYT and the media carries.  Having grown up without reading the newspapers, my students often do not understand the importance that a paper like the NYT has.  Page One speaks volumes to what the social role of newspapers was and is becoming today.  Overall, the documentary reminded me of the importance of newspapers as well as the power they hold.

What does it mean to be a citizen?

This week in class our readings and discussions were centered around the connection between civics and journalism.  Last year I taught a year long course titled Civics.  The first half was personal finance and the second was focused on civics.  We had several conversations about the definition of civics as well as citizen.  Every time we would come up with a new definition, which I think was okay.  I don't think there is one definite answer to what it means to be a citizen.  I especially believe that after volunteering one Saturday.  With the volunteer group at our school, I helped potential citizens study for their citizenship test.  Even with a degree in history, I still struggled with some of the questions on the test.  It was mind-blowing to see what people had to go through to become a citizen, something most Americans are oblivious to because they were born here.  This made me rethink the definition of citizenship even more.  As I shared my experience with my students we again changed our definition of citizen, but still felt that words could not describe what it meant to be a citizen.  Now thinking about it in a journalism context, I again find myself searching for a definition of citizen.  To be a citizen do you have to be news literate?  Do you have to vote?  Do you have to read the news?  Know what's going on in your community? Your city? Your country?  If the answers to these questions are yes, then much of America needs to begin their application to become an American citizen, myself included!  Although I can't define citizenship, rattle off endless facts about our founding fathers, or answer yes to my previous questions, I do know one thing.  Without journalism there wouldn't be any citizenship, for anyone.  Journalism, especially investigative journalism is what makes us a democracy.  Having the freedom of the press and freedom of speech allows us to be citizens.  There are too many countries today that do not have these freedoms and cannot question their government, do they even have citizens?  Or just prisoners?  Next time the discussion of what it means to be a citizen comes up with my students I am going to make sure to ask them how journalism ties into being a citizen, because like many Americans we take our freedom or press and speech for granted.  We take being citizens, not prisoners for granted. (Cue waving flag video and an instrumental of America the Beautiful)

The WHOLE truth

Walter Lippmann said, "News and truth are not the same thing...The function of news is to signalize an event. The function or truth is to bring to light hidden facts, to set them into relation with each other, and make a picture of reality upon which men can act."

This week in the Social Role of the Mass Media we talked about where truth belongs in news.  The above quote from Lippmann was given to the class by Professor Bowen before the week started.  It made me think of how and if truth and journalism exist together.  I think every journalists, especially a journalism teacher, wants to think that truth and news go hand in hand, however, our realistic side probably tells us that it's not as crystal clear.  News should absolutely have truth in it, but how much truth is actually in news?  In our class discussion, we said that there should be a balance, but could not define what the balance should be.  I searched for another word for balance, but couldn't find one.  Someone suggested using the word thorough and that seemed to work well.  There should always be a thorough investigation of truth, as well as thorough explanations in articles.  If a reporter can say to they thoroughly researched the topic then the article should be balanced, which is the goal.  It's not that I don't think journalists do this now; it's more so that I think that sometimes not all of the truth is told.  In other words, journalists, news stations, twitter members, whomever is sharing news have a tendency to leave out part of the truth when relaying the news.  So yes there is truth in news, but is it the whole truth and nothing but the truth?  Not so sure.  I hope to teach my students to always tell the whole truth and to always seek the whole truth. 

Thing Link

Week 1: Is there a social role for the media?

First I must explain that this is the first of many posts for my Social Role of the Mass Media course that I am taking at Kent State University as I pursue my masters.


This week one of our guiding questions was the social role of scholastic media.  At first I thought about what the social role of media was in general and I found myself agreeing with the Social Responsibility theory.  As I thought about that in relation to scholastic media, I thought that scholastic journalism may not have as large of a social responsibility as the mass media.  After all scholastic media focuses on what's going on at school: sports, clubs, awards, etc... Then as I was reading one of our assignments something clicked and I thought I must be crazy!  Of course scholastic journalism has social responsibility!  I'm not sure exactly what made me think of this, but all of a sudden I remembered all of the scholastic journalism pieces that had caused change in their school or community!  That is the social role of scholastic journalism, to be the watchdog at the school!! Why this originally slipped my mind, I'm not sure, but the more I think about it the more examples I can think of.  Recently I told my students and I read an article about a school newspaper who discovered a recent transfer student was a mid twenties sex offender!  And of course there is what is happened/ is happening in Neshaminy, Pennsylvania.  The editors of the Playwickian are changing the way national newspapers write!  They have gotten several people, probably hundreds of people to denounce the use of the term redskin! Talk about a social role! 

I'm disappointed in myself for even doubting the social role of scholastic media, but there is the high school newspaper definitely has a social  responsibility to its school, peers, and readers. And the teaches, not just journalism teachers, have a social responsibility to teach our students to be news literate citizens. 

CPS JROTC Timeline

Below is a timeline that documents the opening of each of the six CPS military academies.

CPS Military Academies History