River City Times: Blake makes a point

Previous Prompts

Consider this excerpt from a Columbia Journalism Review item. Respond to one or more of the points Business Week Editor-in-Chief Steve Adler shared with journalism students at Columbia University.

"In his speech, Adler explained how he came to head BusinessWeek, via The Wall Street Journal, American Lawyer, by way of Tallahassee Democrat, where Harvard roomie Jim Cramer got him the job. Adler offered ten things that magazine journalism programs don’t tell their students:

1. Your career will probably depend on luck.

2. Few journalists write really well, so you have an advantage if you can, especially as editing resources shrink.

3. Despite the current hard times, students have an advantage over professionals because they have tech skills, and aren’t entrenched in the hierarchy.

4. Attitude counts more than ever.

5. You’ve got to get known, because editors tend to hire people they already know. (Note, this is when Adler mentioned that he’s interviewed “children of board members of companies they cover” for jobs.)

6. Be essential, not discretionary.

7. Advertisers have much more power than ever, and that’s an enormous problem.

8. An editor-in-chief spends less than half his time doing anything even remotely journalistic.

9. Analog dollars make digital pennies, but online may save the industry.

10. The skills of a journalist have value, even if it’s not in journalism. (Especially helpful to hear when Adler predicted that journalists’ salaries will likely take a downward turn.)

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Jim Walls, a former projects editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has launched an independent Web site that conducts investigative journalism in the wake of unprecedented layoffs in newsrooms in Georgia and across the country. His site, Atlanta Unfiltered, is unadorned and a bit clunky and unpolished but it may also be representative of what many journalists have long aspired to ~ providing "watchdog" oversight of public officials. Is Walls's venture the future of serious journalism? Would that be a bad thing?

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"(T)he chorus of media bashing from certain quarters has succeeded in convincing many Americans that they don't need newspapers. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press recently found that fewer than half of Americans -- 43 percent -- say that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community 'a lot.' Only 33 percent say they would miss the local paper if it were no longer available. A younger generation, meanwhile, has little understanding or appreciation of the relationship between a free press and a free society. Pew found that just 27 percent of Americans born since 1977 read a newspaper the previous day. " ~ Kathleen Parker

While it might be argued that reading a newspaper the previous day is not, in fact, an indicator of failure to understand the value of a free press to a free society, how does what Parker has written square with the unprecedented growth in voter turnout among 18- to 29-year-olds in the 2008 election? What is connecting young people to civic life and what is the journalist's role in forging or maintaining that connection?

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UConn basketball coach Jim Calhoun was asked recently if, in light of the economic crisis, he would consider giving back some of his enormous salary. (He's the highest paid state employee in Connecticut.) Calhoun said no, questioned the reporter's intelligence and advised him to shut up. Setting aside questions of the coach's temperament, what are we to make of his statement that knowing that his program contributes $12 million to the university's general fund is a condition for interviewing him? Where does the conversation about him, his program or practices go from there?

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The upcoming motion picture "State of Play," starring Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck, tells the story of a metropolitan political reporter chasing leads on the mysterious death of a congressional aide. The film is based on the BBC TV series of the same name from 2003. Many reports and books have been produced on the portrayal of journalists in film and the practice of having a reporter at the center of the action has not diminished, even though the profession and the industry are undergoing major shifts. The final season of the critically acclaimed HBO series "The Wire" featured a storyline involving an unscrupulous reporter chasing prizes more than facts. The reporter's scheming and manipulation echoed the shenanigans of the reporter in Billy Wilder's classic film "Ace in the Hole" aka "The Big Carnival" (1951). What is Hollywood's fascination with journalists? Do you think they generally get it right?

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ill Doctrine is a hip-hop video blog hosted by John "Jay Smooth" Randolph, creator of the hip hop music blog and founder of New York's longest running hip-hop radio show, WBAI's Underground Railroad. His video postings are usually smart and engaging commentary on events and trends related to hip hop culture. Recently, he posted an edited interview he conducted with journalist Elizabeth Mendez Berry regarding R&B performer Chris Brown's alleged assault on fellow artist and companion Rihanna. Randolph says in the introduction to this vlog that he was doing a little bit of journalism for a change. Is this indeed journalism? Why or why not?

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Paul Blake, publisher of Columbia City Paper, recently wrote a column critical of Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott's arrest of eight young men in connection with the incident in which Olympic champion Michael Phelps was photographed smoking from a bong at a party in River City. Blake ran a photo of himself smoking from a pipe (right) and stated that he was "high" when he wrote the column. The photo, and the column, were swipes at Lott's threat to arrest Phelps if the sheriff were able to determine the swimmer had indeed smoked pot at the party.

Even though Blake's paper has the reputation for sticking its finger in the eyes of local city and county officials as part of its watchdog role, some might question the wisdom of such a blatantly provocative move. While it is quite unlikely that the sheriff could successfully make a case against Blake based on the photograph, might one argue that it (the photo) works against the publisher's argument? If so, how so?

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Today Show co-host Matt Lauer congratulates Ann Curry for securing an interview with Nadya Suleman, the mother of the octuplets. As you listen to this report and interview, can you determine where the "story" lies. Is it in Suleman's successful delivery of eight babies? Would this be a bigger feat, and bigger news, if the births had not been aided by fertilization treatments? Is the story in Suleman's insistence on delivering and raising all of the babies despite being a single mother of six other children with no visible means of financial support? Or does the story lie somewhere else, somewhere untapped in this interview or in the remarks that followed?

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Media scholar Herbert Gans wrote 30 years ago that one of mainstream journalism's enduring values is small-town idealism, that is, the belief that rural communities are where we find true American goodness. Big cities, on the other hand, are dangerous places that suffer from many social problems. Gans discovered this value while watching broadcast news reports on the major networks and reading major news publications.

The world has grown smaller since Gans conducted his original study, due primarily to the Internet and the ubiquity of cable television. Has this perception of small-town America changed, as well? Or are rural communities still portrayed in the media as the place where true American goodness is rooted?

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French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to p rovide free subscriptions to French youth s on their 18th birthday in an attempt to reverse the decline in newspaper readership among young people. This proposal is part of the Sarkozy's plan to shore up the ailing newspaper industry in his country, which provides financial support for print media. As Sarkozy said of his country's commitment to support newspapers, "It is indeed (the state's) responsibility ... to make sure an independent, free and pluralistic press exists." This is not an American tradition. Should it be? The American people have bailed out banks, insurance companies, airlines and Wall Street. Is there an argument to be made for bailing out the news media?

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Sociologist Alvin Toffler wrote a generation ago that rapid technological change was stressing people out and causing great anxiety among the general population. He called this phenomenon "future shock." He is also credited with coining the expression "information overload," to refer to the dizzy feeling some of us feel when trying to process all the information we're exposed to each day. The pace of technological advances has only quickened since Toffler wrote "Future Shock" in 1970, but, some argue, society has adapted. We're no longer shocked by change. In fact, we're impatient for it. Do you agree? What might be the effect on news and information media if the trend continues?

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Blake makes a point

Blakes article, as over-the-top as it may seem, conveys perfectly the point I believe he was trying to make.
Whether you condone the use of marijuana or not, its not unreasonable for a citizen to challenge the law. I commend Blake for taking a stand and making a case for the ludicrousness of Sheriff Lott's pursuits. Blake didn't just want to say that Lott's attempting to charge Phelps based on a photo was ludicrous, he wanted to note that pursuing the case is simply a waste of his time because of the nature of the crime. By using marijuana, taking a photo, posting the photo, and writing about his experience using the marijuana Blake makes a very convincing (in my opinion), ironic, and humorous point about the nature of the law and law enforcement.
Blake was within his rights as a writer and publisher. He wanted to make a statement and he did. If Sheriff Lott wants to pursue him as well... we'll just see who wins that battle. My money's on Blake.

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Thursday, February 19, 2009

Blake makes a point

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