Talking about the Iraq War makes me angry.
I don't hate the war, per se. I could care less about the war. We went over there, unprovoked, sure, but we did a good thing in getting rid of Saddam. He killed men -- then charged the family thousands of dollars for the bullet used to do it. He and his sons raped and killed, then punished anyone who talked about it. At that point, we had done something that made the world better.
I just hate that we can't cover the war without being crucified as pushing a liberal agenda. Things are bad. Truthfully, objectively, honestly, things are bad. "The good things" that are happening over there are few and far between, and no one -- Iraqi or otherwise -- can get too excited about clean water or a friggin' playground when it's offset by the rape of a 14-year-old and the murder of her family. Or an Abu Ghraib. Or any story with a lead like this: "Cpl Donald Payne, 35, of the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, pleaded guilty to the charge at the start of a court martial of seven British soldiers accused of beating and killing Baha Musa, an Iraqi hotel receptionist, while he was held by UK troops in Basra in September 2003."
In my humble opinion, that's on par with a taped beheading. Hell, maybe even worse: at least the guys doing he beheading were making a statement; our guys are just sadistic for the fun of it. But that's neither here nor there...
I hate that the idea of a liberal media bias is so ingrained that people ignore blatant attempts to skew the news the other way. I hate that whatever people choose to believe about the war, they can continue to do so because they can choose who gives them their "news" based on their war views.
It makes what we do inconsequential. Completely inconsequential. The only thing we can do that won't immediately get politicized and spun is the daily numbers report. Oh, wait. We can't do that. Running the numbers of American dead is only delivering the bad news, and that is unacceptable.
The worst part about it is that I see no end. The information explosion has required a way to filter through it, and a political filter is one popular option the media has embraced. It's easy to throw out words we've learned in school: "only run it if it's balanced!" "only show the objective stuff!" But it's much more complicated than that. Do you run one "good" story for every "bad"? What counts as good? What's bad? Maybe we even have a sliding scale -- one troop homecoming equals one car bombing, or some such, whereas the story quoted above requires seventeen elementary school openings to balance it out.
Maybe we take another approach, with each news agency sending two reporters -- one to cover exclusively bad news, and one to cover exclusively good.
Genius. If we take that approach, we'll be back to the good ol' days before we know it. I promise.
No... there is no going back. We're here now. And we're going to be here for a looong time.
I have no interest in war coverage, or even political coverage, for exactly this reason. I don't want to cover anything where the truth is biased.
The truth is something that doesn't require balance; balance comes in when the truth isn't clear.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Covering Tragedy
Shortly after I learned of the Virginia Tech shootings, I got a random IM on AOL Instant Messanger while watching the news. It was from a girl from a message board I sometimes post on. I had never talked to her, and she really didn't know anything about me. After a short conversation, I mention the shootings. Her immediate response is something along the lines of, "Now we get to watch the media turn it into a circus, that's the saddest thing." She probably felt a little stupid when I later told her I was a journalism major, but in reality, I can't really argue with her.
The three cable news networks, especially, basically treat real-life tragedies as if they were a movie. They create villains---the criticism of the administration immediately before the facts were even known, was sickening. Sure, they probably did deserve to have some questions asked of them, but there’s only one person who deserves to be treated like a monster in this situation. They create heroes, as well, out of those who hold doors closed and risk their own lives to help others. These stories should absolutely be told, but the dramatization of them for strictly entertainment purposes, is wrong.
That said, I have a hard time criticizing anyone who can cover tragedy on the spot, simply because I don’t know if I could do it. I have a hard enough time watching horrific events unfold from the comfort of my own home without getting emotional, and as much as I like to think that I would be able to pull myself together for the sake of journalism, I really am confident that I could do.
While watching the coverage, I was most amazed when members of the Virginia Tech student newspaper were interviewed. The editor of the paper appeared completely unshaken. She spoke of what was going on calmly, and even seemed to revel in the moment somewhat. That blew me away. If something like this happened at Mizzou, I would be a wreck. I can’t imagine not being. It’s hard enough for outsiders to cover tragedy, let alone those that close to her. This isn’t a criticism of her humanity though, but a tip of my cap to her. We need people like that. Someone has to be there to stay composed when the rest of us are shaken, and someone has to tell us the stories we need to hear. These news networks do it, and they do it well.
The competition amongst various news outlets is intense when it comes to breaking news, and there’s no denying the fact that networks have to consider ratings and other aspects of the business side of things. They have to make things interesting to keep viewers from changing the channels. I understand this, and others outside of journalism need to, also. Still, there’s a fine line between making news interesting and making light out of things. Tragedies like the Virginia Tech shootings should be treated as what they are, absolutely horrific and heartbreakingly sad events. They should be mourned, not used as an advertisement for why viewers should tune in. All the commercials I saw on news networks the night after the shooting telling viewers to “Tune in to our show tomorrow night for the latest on the Virginia Tech massacre!” made me sick. People know what happened, they know the news networks will have coverage of them. There’s no need to try to exploit tragedy to attract attention to your show.
The same can be said about coverage of the war in Iraq. By this point, it is completely taken for granted, and it doesn’t even seem to be major news when troops or civilians are killed. It seems the only time we hear much about the war is when a news network wants to promote a show they have coming up that will talk about it. Oh, and slightly off topic, as much as I dislike our current president and administration, Keith Olberman opening and closing his show every night by saying it’s the such and such night since the declaration of “missing accomplished” in Iraq is ridiculous. It’s one thing to criticize a president, but to make light of the fact that people are getting killed every day and to turn it into a joke that we’re still involved in this stupid war, is horrible. Then again, humor might make people watch. After all, isn’t that all that matters?
The three cable news networks, especially, basically treat real-life tragedies as if they were a movie. They create villains---the criticism of the administration immediately before the facts were even known, was sickening. Sure, they probably did deserve to have some questions asked of them, but there’s only one person who deserves to be treated like a monster in this situation. They create heroes, as well, out of those who hold doors closed and risk their own lives to help others. These stories should absolutely be told, but the dramatization of them for strictly entertainment purposes, is wrong.
That said, I have a hard time criticizing anyone who can cover tragedy on the spot, simply because I don’t know if I could do it. I have a hard enough time watching horrific events unfold from the comfort of my own home without getting emotional, and as much as I like to think that I would be able to pull myself together for the sake of journalism, I really am confident that I could do.
While watching the coverage, I was most amazed when members of the Virginia Tech student newspaper were interviewed. The editor of the paper appeared completely unshaken. She spoke of what was going on calmly, and even seemed to revel in the moment somewhat. That blew me away. If something like this happened at Mizzou, I would be a wreck. I can’t imagine not being. It’s hard enough for outsiders to cover tragedy, let alone those that close to her. This isn’t a criticism of her humanity though, but a tip of my cap to her. We need people like that. Someone has to be there to stay composed when the rest of us are shaken, and someone has to tell us the stories we need to hear. These news networks do it, and they do it well.
The competition amongst various news outlets is intense when it comes to breaking news, and there’s no denying the fact that networks have to consider ratings and other aspects of the business side of things. They have to make things interesting to keep viewers from changing the channels. I understand this, and others outside of journalism need to, also. Still, there’s a fine line between making news interesting and making light out of things. Tragedies like the Virginia Tech shootings should be treated as what they are, absolutely horrific and heartbreakingly sad events. They should be mourned, not used as an advertisement for why viewers should tune in. All the commercials I saw on news networks the night after the shooting telling viewers to “Tune in to our show tomorrow night for the latest on the Virginia Tech massacre!” made me sick. People know what happened, they know the news networks will have coverage of them. There’s no need to try to exploit tragedy to attract attention to your show.
The same can be said about coverage of the war in Iraq. By this point, it is completely taken for granted, and it doesn’t even seem to be major news when troops or civilians are killed. It seems the only time we hear much about the war is when a news network wants to promote a show they have coming up that will talk about it. Oh, and slightly off topic, as much as I dislike our current president and administration, Keith Olberman opening and closing his show every night by saying it’s the such and such night since the declaration of “missing accomplished” in Iraq is ridiculous. It’s one thing to criticize a president, but to make light of the fact that people are getting killed every day and to turn it into a joke that we’re still involved in this stupid war, is horrible. Then again, humor might make people watch. After all, isn’t that all that matters?
Bring back the fair, unbiased coverage
The April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech were, statistically, the worst campus shootings in United States history.
Newspapers, as usual, were right on the scene. But they had several questions to ask themselves. Reporters considered what angles to focus on. Photographers considered what photos to use – an even more difficult decision once the “military-style” photos of the gunman surfaced. Designers had to find a way to arrange the copy. And managers were in the background, supervising it all. Overall, I think they did a good job.
Newspapers all over did their best to inform their readers what had happened and keep them abreast of new developments. Those in or near college towns also answered another question many had: “what if this happened here? Would we be prepared?”
I was in Southeast Missouri when the shootings occurred, on a weeklong internship at the Southeast Missouri newspaper for another class which I’m enrolled in. I first saw the update on the Internet, and then was glued to Web and television updates until I had to leave for my copy desk shift. At the newspaper’s afternoon budget meeting, there was no question that the article on the shooting would be the centerpiece that day – a decision that was made partially because of a lack of other good art, but more so, I believe, because it was the big, breaking news. We only hoped that we could use a draft of the story that would advance what readers had already read and heard. Since the paper is located just a couple of miles from Southeast Missouri State University, we also ran a local sidebar with information from the college about its preparedness for a similar accident on its campus.
Newspaper designs varied. One of the most touching designs I saw was that at the Virginian-Pilot. The front had a memorial ribbon in Virginia Tech colors, and then simply listed the names, ages and a small blurb of information about each of the victims. All of the newspapers on Newseum gave a reverent feel to the design the day after the massacre. It was later in the week, when the video sent to NBC by the shooter surfaced, that newspapers had tough questions to deal with. An overwhelming number of newspapers on Newseum used one of the shots – either with the guns pointed to the side or straightforward – as their main art. Some tabloid-style papers used the photo as the entire cover. The Columbia Missourian used neither. Granted, there was a fatal shooting in Columbia on the same news cycle. But I think the decision not to run the photos – especially on the front – would have stood regardless of this other news. In Friday’s design critique, we discussed the photos. And the class of designers overwhelmingly agreed that those photos have no place in a family newspaper. They can invoke a sense of fear. Those pictures very easily bring about questions from children that parents most likely don’t want to have to explain. We were all comfortable with giving a Web site where the photos could be found for those interested, since they were splashed all over the Web.
In the beginning of the Iraq War, journalists practiced the same characteristics I just pointed out that have been in the media coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings over the past week. They were reverent. They covered the war from several angles.
But those attributes aren’t so apparent anymore. Lost are the reverence and balanced coverage on the good and the bad in Iraq. At the beginning of the war, I would read every story in the New York Times headlines that were e-mailed to me every morning. I rarely read these stories in their entirety anymore. They are too similar to one another and often show a bias against the war – reporting the now-higher death toll or recent violence. I think these things are important to report. But why not show what is being done in Iraq to make it better? Show the good things the soldiers are doing and accomplishing.
The managing editor at the newspaper where I will work after graduation lost her son in Iraq last October. For many like her, covering the Iraq War as if it is just a big mistake makes it even harder for these grieving families. They’re basically being told that their son, husband, dad, brother or loved one died in a pointless war – that they died for no reason at all. But it was something the soldiers did believe in. I know that’s what gave the managing editor comfort – that at least her son died doing something he believed in and wanted to do since he was a small child.
I charge journalists, especially those in our graduating class who are about to enter the industry, to change this. Bring back those characteristics we saw in the beginning of the war and in the Virginia Tech shootings. We owe it to ourselves and our readership to be fair and balanced – because that is the basis of journalism.
Newspapers, as usual, were right on the scene. But they had several questions to ask themselves. Reporters considered what angles to focus on. Photographers considered what photos to use – an even more difficult decision once the “military-style” photos of the gunman surfaced. Designers had to find a way to arrange the copy. And managers were in the background, supervising it all. Overall, I think they did a good job.
Newspapers all over did their best to inform their readers what had happened and keep them abreast of new developments. Those in or near college towns also answered another question many had: “what if this happened here? Would we be prepared?”
I was in Southeast Missouri when the shootings occurred, on a weeklong internship at the Southeast Missouri newspaper for another class which I’m enrolled in. I first saw the update on the Internet, and then was glued to Web and television updates until I had to leave for my copy desk shift. At the newspaper’s afternoon budget meeting, there was no question that the article on the shooting would be the centerpiece that day – a decision that was made partially because of a lack of other good art, but more so, I believe, because it was the big, breaking news. We only hoped that we could use a draft of the story that would advance what readers had already read and heard. Since the paper is located just a couple of miles from Southeast Missouri State University, we also ran a local sidebar with information from the college about its preparedness for a similar accident on its campus.
Newspaper designs varied. One of the most touching designs I saw was that at the Virginian-Pilot. The front had a memorial ribbon in Virginia Tech colors, and then simply listed the names, ages and a small blurb of information about each of the victims. All of the newspapers on Newseum gave a reverent feel to the design the day after the massacre. It was later in the week, when the video sent to NBC by the shooter surfaced, that newspapers had tough questions to deal with. An overwhelming number of newspapers on Newseum used one of the shots – either with the guns pointed to the side or straightforward – as their main art. Some tabloid-style papers used the photo as the entire cover. The Columbia Missourian used neither. Granted, there was a fatal shooting in Columbia on the same news cycle. But I think the decision not to run the photos – especially on the front – would have stood regardless of this other news. In Friday’s design critique, we discussed the photos. And the class of designers overwhelmingly agreed that those photos have no place in a family newspaper. They can invoke a sense of fear. Those pictures very easily bring about questions from children that parents most likely don’t want to have to explain. We were all comfortable with giving a Web site where the photos could be found for those interested, since they were splashed all over the Web.
In the beginning of the Iraq War, journalists practiced the same characteristics I just pointed out that have been in the media coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings over the past week. They were reverent. They covered the war from several angles.
But those attributes aren’t so apparent anymore. Lost are the reverence and balanced coverage on the good and the bad in Iraq. At the beginning of the war, I would read every story in the New York Times headlines that were e-mailed to me every morning. I rarely read these stories in their entirety anymore. They are too similar to one another and often show a bias against the war – reporting the now-higher death toll or recent violence. I think these things are important to report. But why not show what is being done in Iraq to make it better? Show the good things the soldiers are doing and accomplishing.
The managing editor at the newspaper where I will work after graduation lost her son in Iraq last October. For many like her, covering the Iraq War as if it is just a big mistake makes it even harder for these grieving families. They’re basically being told that their son, husband, dad, brother or loved one died in a pointless war – that they died for no reason at all. But it was something the soldiers did believe in. I know that’s what gave the managing editor comfort – that at least her son died doing something he believed in and wanted to do since he was a small child.
I charge journalists, especially those in our graduating class who are about to enter the industry, to change this. Bring back those characteristics we saw in the beginning of the war and in the Virginia Tech shootings. We owe it to ourselves and our readership to be fair and balanced – because that is the basis of journalism.
I Get Lost In An Array of Numbers and Can We Stop Playing the Blame Game
I’m a journalist. I consider myself to be pretty educated. I love reading and I especially love reading newspapers—something I do on a daily basis. But if someone asked me to explain what is really going on in the Iraq war, I feel as though I would not be able to offer anything substantial to the table. Why is that?
I get the New York Times sent to my email every morning. I scan through the stories, and everyday there is a story on Iraq. I read the story in its entirety if I have time, but if I’m pressed for time the other stories usually get priority over the daily Iraq story. Why? Because I feel like I get pretty much the same thing every day. This might sound incredibly insensitive but it’s just a different name and a different bombsite. This is not to say that I do not feel honored that these women and men are fighting for my freedom in Iraq or that I do not feel sympathy for their family and friends upon their death. However, the media has not done a good enough job relaying the Iraq war to the public. The daily stories get turned into more of a numbers game. “The death toll rose to xxxxxx today”. I need more.
I need stories beyond the numbers. I want stories about the soldiers who are dying, stories about the soldiers’ daily life in Iraq, stories about the good things that are happening in Iraq (I know there have to be some things), and I want more stories on the Iraqis living through this war.
I get a similar feeling when I read about Darfur. “XX million people have been displaced and xx people have died”. After a while statements like those lose their meanings. New York Times columnist Nick Kristof has provided the public with more. He has been committed to bringing the public the full story about Darfur. However, he faces another barrier- fighting America’s indifference to the outside world- especially to Africa. At least Iraq has American soldiers on its soil because if it didn’t, I’m not sure if Americans would care that much.
On a slightly different note- I wish the media would stop playing the blame game. I know its human nature to want to point a finger especially when there is a tragedy or a controversial topic. But what is the point of pointing fingers about the Iraq war? What is the point for searching for the justification? We entered this war four years ago- let’s focus on the present and not so much on the past. What’s done is done and now as a nation we have to deal with the fact that our countrymen are over in Iraq fighting with no end date necessarily in site.
A similar thing happened with the VA Tech shootings last week. It wasn’t but a few hours after the incident that people started pointing fingers. I can understand parents being angry and wanting to point fingers at the chancellor. That’s human nature. But is that supposed to be the nature of the media? If it’s a way of trying to prevent future incidents like this from happening, that’s one thing, but to attack the man only hours after the most violent school shooting is not good journalism.
I get the New York Times sent to my email every morning. I scan through the stories, and everyday there is a story on Iraq. I read the story in its entirety if I have time, but if I’m pressed for time the other stories usually get priority over the daily Iraq story. Why? Because I feel like I get pretty much the same thing every day. This might sound incredibly insensitive but it’s just a different name and a different bombsite. This is not to say that I do not feel honored that these women and men are fighting for my freedom in Iraq or that I do not feel sympathy for their family and friends upon their death. However, the media has not done a good enough job relaying the Iraq war to the public. The daily stories get turned into more of a numbers game. “The death toll rose to xxxxxx today”. I need more.
I need stories beyond the numbers. I want stories about the soldiers who are dying, stories about the soldiers’ daily life in Iraq, stories about the good things that are happening in Iraq (I know there have to be some things), and I want more stories on the Iraqis living through this war.
I get a similar feeling when I read about Darfur. “XX million people have been displaced and xx people have died”. After a while statements like those lose their meanings. New York Times columnist Nick Kristof has provided the public with more. He has been committed to bringing the public the full story about Darfur. However, he faces another barrier- fighting America’s indifference to the outside world- especially to Africa. At least Iraq has American soldiers on its soil because if it didn’t, I’m not sure if Americans would care that much.
On a slightly different note- I wish the media would stop playing the blame game. I know its human nature to want to point a finger especially when there is a tragedy or a controversial topic. But what is the point of pointing fingers about the Iraq war? What is the point for searching for the justification? We entered this war four years ago- let’s focus on the present and not so much on the past. What’s done is done and now as a nation we have to deal with the fact that our countrymen are over in Iraq fighting with no end date necessarily in site.
A similar thing happened with the VA Tech shootings last week. It wasn’t but a few hours after the incident that people started pointing fingers. I can understand parents being angry and wanting to point fingers at the chancellor. That’s human nature. But is that supposed to be the nature of the media? If it’s a way of trying to prevent future incidents like this from happening, that’s one thing, but to attack the man only hours after the most violent school shooting is not good journalism.
The war deserves coverage too
During the day of the shootings at Virginia Tech, I spent a good part of the day watching news coverage like many other people. I was shocked and frightened trying to understand what had just happened. But of everything I watched and heard that day on television, one anecdote really stuck in my mind and made me think. A Virginia Tech student was being interviewed and he spoke about how his friend fighting in
This student’s story emphasized how sad and significant this senseless tragedy was, but it also made me think about how much coverage the media budgets to tragedies and deaths like at Virginia Tech and how little the media allocates to the War in Iraq. For example, according to Reuters, at least 82 non-insurgents were killed or had their bodies found in
It’s pretty easy to understand why something like the Virginia Tech shootings receives so much media coverage, while the War in
But, the coverage allocated to events on the day of the Virginia Tech shootings doesn’t bother me as much as the way the War in
Massacres happen all over the world, but until it happens inside your little bubble, the weight doesn’t really sink in. The Virginia Tech tragedy was absolutely horrible. But, hopefully people will realize from this that all life is precious, and have similar reactions to some of the violence going on in the rest of the world. After all, it’s up to the journalists to help get them there.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Sports are important, but...
When I first heard about what happened at Virginia Tech, I think my initial reactions were probably pretty common.
The feelings of shock and sadness were some of the strongest I have felt in my entire life. Part of me wondered what it was like to have a friend, or multiple friends, murdered on that day, and how I would have reacted. I also wondered what I would have done if I were confronted with that situation. Would I have tried to run away from the shooter, or would I have attempted to foil him, knowing it may have meant my death? Hopefully, I will never know for sure.
Being a journalist, my mind then wandered over to how the media was covering the event. Among my criticisms were the words used to describe the day. “Massacre” and “Slaughter” were two of the words used and those made me feel uncomfortable. For some reason, many networks and news organizations chose to over-dramatize the day’s events by using these sensationalistic and insensitive words. Isn’t “32 murdered at Virginia Tech” enough, I wondered?
Over the next couple of days following the shooting, I tried to escape the coverage as best I could. CNN.com and CHICAGOTRIBUNE.com were two sites I didn’t visit. I didn’t want to know the details too well, because, frankly, they were too disturbing for me. I didn’t want to think about the horror of the event. And if that kept me from being as well-informed as I could have been, so be it. Besides, much of the information found a way of trickling to me whether I wanted it to or not. I know that the e-mail system at Tech may be flawed and that the university was not locked down as it should have been.
To escape from what happened, I do what I do often. I went to ESPN.com and tried to read as much as I could about sports. On that Monday, I wondered aloud when would the first stories about Virginia Tech sports come out. And, of course, they came out that very day. Football coach Frank Beamer said it was a terrible day for the university, and his basketball counterpart, Seth Greenberg, said the same. My reaction to that was twofold. The first was: Duh. Of course they are going to say something like this. It would only have been newsworthy if one of them had come out and said something like “Gee, this wasn’t as bad as it sounds” or something like that.
But the second, and more serious, reaction I felt was that sports was being injected into a story where it didn’t belong, and I had seen this before. During the 2006 football season, the New Orleans Saints were being portrayed as an inspirational group uniting the entire Gulf region. Some said they were giving hope to the area. Whatever. All I know is that not too many of the people that were at those Saints games this season were from the 9th ward, people who lost everything. Saying the Saints were giving Gulf residents an escape is fine. But that’s all the Saints were doing. And if I remember correctly, they were not the best supported team before the hurricane. They were always one of the teams mentioned to take the vacant LA football market, and not stay in New Orleans.
Later in the week, ESPN and NBC made a big deal of Virginia Tech’s first baseball game since the tragedy. When I think of Virginia Tech athletics, I do not think of baseball first or even second. The school is lacking a baseball tradition so much that it has only one obscure player in the majors. Still, when the Hokies lost 11-9 to Miami on Friday, it was described as an evening that “began the healing process” and a “return to normalcy”. Sure. If that’s true, that’s great. However, I doubt that a team that is miles behind the football and basketball programs (in terms of popularity) at the school is really doing that.
I just don’t think that sports should be portrayed as this great healer in our society. Yes, they can provide great excitement and stimulate some of our deepest passions. But only for a couple hours. The real healing and return to a somewhat-normal life at Tech starts with each student dealing with the tragedy in their own way. And I'm betting it wasn't from some college baseball game like ESPN told us.
The feelings of shock and sadness were some of the strongest I have felt in my entire life. Part of me wondered what it was like to have a friend, or multiple friends, murdered on that day, and how I would have reacted. I also wondered what I would have done if I were confronted with that situation. Would I have tried to run away from the shooter, or would I have attempted to foil him, knowing it may have meant my death? Hopefully, I will never know for sure.
Being a journalist, my mind then wandered over to how the media was covering the event. Among my criticisms were the words used to describe the day. “Massacre” and “Slaughter” were two of the words used and those made me feel uncomfortable. For some reason, many networks and news organizations chose to over-dramatize the day’s events by using these sensationalistic and insensitive words. Isn’t “32 murdered at Virginia Tech” enough, I wondered?
Over the next couple of days following the shooting, I tried to escape the coverage as best I could. CNN.com and CHICAGOTRIBUNE.com were two sites I didn’t visit. I didn’t want to know the details too well, because, frankly, they were too disturbing for me. I didn’t want to think about the horror of the event. And if that kept me from being as well-informed as I could have been, so be it. Besides, much of the information found a way of trickling to me whether I wanted it to or not. I know that the e-mail system at Tech may be flawed and that the university was not locked down as it should have been.
To escape from what happened, I do what I do often. I went to ESPN.com and tried to read as much as I could about sports. On that Monday, I wondered aloud when would the first stories about Virginia Tech sports come out. And, of course, they came out that very day. Football coach Frank Beamer said it was a terrible day for the university, and his basketball counterpart, Seth Greenberg, said the same. My reaction to that was twofold. The first was: Duh. Of course they are going to say something like this. It would only have been newsworthy if one of them had come out and said something like “Gee, this wasn’t as bad as it sounds” or something like that.
But the second, and more serious, reaction I felt was that sports was being injected into a story where it didn’t belong, and I had seen this before. During the 2006 football season, the New Orleans Saints were being portrayed as an inspirational group uniting the entire Gulf region. Some said they were giving hope to the area. Whatever. All I know is that not too many of the people that were at those Saints games this season were from the 9th ward, people who lost everything. Saying the Saints were giving Gulf residents an escape is fine. But that’s all the Saints were doing. And if I remember correctly, they were not the best supported team before the hurricane. They were always one of the teams mentioned to take the vacant LA football market, and not stay in New Orleans.
Later in the week, ESPN and NBC made a big deal of Virginia Tech’s first baseball game since the tragedy. When I think of Virginia Tech athletics, I do not think of baseball first or even second. The school is lacking a baseball tradition so much that it has only one obscure player in the majors. Still, when the Hokies lost 11-9 to Miami on Friday, it was described as an evening that “began the healing process” and a “return to normalcy”. Sure. If that’s true, that’s great. However, I doubt that a team that is miles behind the football and basketball programs (in terms of popularity) at the school is really doing that.
I just don’t think that sports should be portrayed as this great healer in our society. Yes, they can provide great excitement and stimulate some of our deepest passions. But only for a couple hours. The real healing and return to a somewhat-normal life at Tech starts with each student dealing with the tragedy in their own way. And I'm betting it wasn't from some college baseball game like ESPN told us.
Tell Me Something I Don't Know
When Mr. Weiss wanted to watch the news, he watched Fox News.
It was a predictable action for my then-boyfriend’s father. Mr. Weiss, a 1st Class Staff Sergeant, had retired from the U.S. Army after 25 years of service. He then got a job testing weapons and other gadgets for a group that contracted with the military. He would spend several weekends a year reporting to military groups in Washington D.C. about the findings of the tests.
Mr. Weiss’ oldest son had spent a tour in Afghanistan and Iraq as a member of the Marine Corps. He was sent home after sustaining minor injuries from a land mine.
The Iraq War was personal to the Weiss family.
Because I spent so much time at his home and was studying to be a part of the “damned liberal media,” I became the representative scapegoat Mr. Weiss would voice the complaints he had against all reporters who didn’t work for Fox News.
I can debate with the best of them. Even if I don’t know what I am talking about, I can usually put up a good front and make you mad as hell. But when it came to Mr. Weiss and media coverage, my very own specialty, I was cowed.
He was right.
CNN and the newspapers never report the positive things going on in the Middle East, he would say. What about the schools and the water treatment plants the soldiers are building? What about the children? What about….
At the time, I just took it all in and battled where I could. After all, the J-School was telling me Fox was nearly the Antichrist. Surely I couldn’t side with that news organization.
The Iraq War is one of the hottest and most unpopular topics in America right now and it is largely under reported. Dozens of media outlets cite safety as the No. 1 reason for lack of information; it is simply too dangerous to send reporters to the country and expect them to get accurate information. “The media’s vital role as eyewitness has been severely limited; the intimate narrative of victims, survivors and their persecutors is sorely lacking in places like Anbar Province, where the insurgency continues to inflict havoc” (Ricchiardi, 28).
A sorely lacking, intimate narrative in just Anbar Province? I have yet to see an intimate narrative about the goings-on of the Iraq War on anything, anywhere. Maybe you have. But I haven’t.
The journalists that are embedded and reporting for the world public are focusing on the life of the country, or rather the death. The American Journalism Review complains that while journalists are left to sift through the propaganda and challenges, “…Americans are left without a complete account of a prolonged, bloody war that is devouring billions of taxpayers’ dollars.”
I believe the American public has a pretty good idea about the length and bloodiness of the war. Unfortunately, that’s the only picture they have.
In a March 2006 PBS program through the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer called “The Media and the Message,” the moderator discussed the issue of good news vs. bad news with two reputable sources. Robert Lichter, a journalism professor and president for the Center for Media and Public Affairs, and Michael Massing, the former executive editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, both agreed that what the media reports, is what the public sees.
The public doesn’t know anything but what we as journalists show them. If all we show them is death and destruction in Iraq, then that is of course what they are going to know and believe. President Bush even spoke about the terrorist manipulation of essentially distracting the media by blowing things up and wreaking havoc.
“If it’s a disservice to the American public, using the traditional criteria for news, to miss other things that are happening; I can’t be sure they are happening because I don't see them in the media,” Lichter said.
Granted, no place in Iraq is going to be a safe place for a journalist. But there are 18 total provinces in Iraq, and I know some of them have been designated as more secure than others.
There are stories to be told in Iraq; and they are tellable.
So children are scared to go to school? It’s interesting that one of the jobs of Americans in Iraq is to build schools where there were none at all.
So Americans in the Middle East are building water treatment facilities? Those had to come before plumbing and pipes could be installed — where there were none at all.
So there are heroes in this war? We wouldn’t know it if we had to rely on the media.
What about the mothers? What about the children? What about the soldiers? What about Baghdad, a former cultural hotspot of the world? Think of the troves of art that are lost. What about Hussein’s coffers of treasures? Are they gone? Looted?
And how about one of Yahoo’s latest Iraq stories? Buried at the bottom was the announcement of thousands of gallons of nitric acid found in a hidden weapons stockpile. It may not be WMDs, but ask Mr. Weiss what else the soldiers have found that the media doesn’t talk about.
Mr. Weiss could share stories that would make your heart truly ache. The stories were of soldiers doing their duty in a foreign country to a population of foreign people. He worked alongside the parents of currently deployed soldiers and among the soldiers themselves.
Those are the stories I want to hear. And if Mr. Weiss can know about them all the way here in Missouri, then I don’t understand why our reporters can’t find them, as well.
Sources:
PBS program transcript:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june06/iraq_3-22.html#
Ricchiardi, Sherry. American Journalism Review. “Obstructed View.” April/May 2007, p. 26-33.
It was a predictable action for my then-boyfriend’s father. Mr. Weiss, a 1st Class Staff Sergeant, had retired from the U.S. Army after 25 years of service. He then got a job testing weapons and other gadgets for a group that contracted with the military. He would spend several weekends a year reporting to military groups in Washington D.C. about the findings of the tests.
Mr. Weiss’ oldest son had spent a tour in Afghanistan and Iraq as a member of the Marine Corps. He was sent home after sustaining minor injuries from a land mine.
The Iraq War was personal to the Weiss family.
Because I spent so much time at his home and was studying to be a part of the “damned liberal media,” I became the representative scapegoat Mr. Weiss would voice the complaints he had against all reporters who didn’t work for Fox News.
I can debate with the best of them. Even if I don’t know what I am talking about, I can usually put up a good front and make you mad as hell. But when it came to Mr. Weiss and media coverage, my very own specialty, I was cowed.
He was right.
CNN and the newspapers never report the positive things going on in the Middle East, he would say. What about the schools and the water treatment plants the soldiers are building? What about the children? What about….
At the time, I just took it all in and battled where I could. After all, the J-School was telling me Fox was nearly the Antichrist. Surely I couldn’t side with that news organization.
The Iraq War is one of the hottest and most unpopular topics in America right now and it is largely under reported. Dozens of media outlets cite safety as the No. 1 reason for lack of information; it is simply too dangerous to send reporters to the country and expect them to get accurate information. “The media’s vital role as eyewitness has been severely limited; the intimate narrative of victims, survivors and their persecutors is sorely lacking in places like Anbar Province, where the insurgency continues to inflict havoc” (Ricchiardi, 28).
A sorely lacking, intimate narrative in just Anbar Province? I have yet to see an intimate narrative about the goings-on of the Iraq War on anything, anywhere. Maybe you have. But I haven’t.
The journalists that are embedded and reporting for the world public are focusing on the life of the country, or rather the death. The American Journalism Review complains that while journalists are left to sift through the propaganda and challenges, “…Americans are left without a complete account of a prolonged, bloody war that is devouring billions of taxpayers’ dollars.”
I believe the American public has a pretty good idea about the length and bloodiness of the war. Unfortunately, that’s the only picture they have.
In a March 2006 PBS program through the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer called “The Media and the Message,” the moderator discussed the issue of good news vs. bad news with two reputable sources. Robert Lichter, a journalism professor and president for the Center for Media and Public Affairs, and Michael Massing, the former executive editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, both agreed that what the media reports, is what the public sees.
The public doesn’t know anything but what we as journalists show them. If all we show them is death and destruction in Iraq, then that is of course what they are going to know and believe. President Bush even spoke about the terrorist manipulation of essentially distracting the media by blowing things up and wreaking havoc.
“If it’s a disservice to the American public, using the traditional criteria for news, to miss other things that are happening; I can’t be sure they are happening because I don't see them in the media,” Lichter said.
Granted, no place in Iraq is going to be a safe place for a journalist. But there are 18 total provinces in Iraq, and I know some of them have been designated as more secure than others.
There are stories to be told in Iraq; and they are tellable.
So children are scared to go to school? It’s interesting that one of the jobs of Americans in Iraq is to build schools where there were none at all.
So Americans in the Middle East are building water treatment facilities? Those had to come before plumbing and pipes could be installed — where there were none at all.
So there are heroes in this war? We wouldn’t know it if we had to rely on the media.
What about the mothers? What about the children? What about the soldiers? What about Baghdad, a former cultural hotspot of the world? Think of the troves of art that are lost. What about Hussein’s coffers of treasures? Are they gone? Looted?
And how about one of Yahoo’s latest Iraq stories? Buried at the bottom was the announcement of thousands of gallons of nitric acid found in a hidden weapons stockpile. It may not be WMDs, but ask Mr. Weiss what else the soldiers have found that the media doesn’t talk about.
Mr. Weiss could share stories that would make your heart truly ache. The stories were of soldiers doing their duty in a foreign country to a population of foreign people. He worked alongside the parents of currently deployed soldiers and among the soldiers themselves.
Those are the stories I want to hear. And if Mr. Weiss can know about them all the way here in Missouri, then I don’t understand why our reporters can’t find them, as well.
Sources:
PBS program transcript:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june06/iraq_3-22.html#
Ricchiardi, Sherry. American Journalism Review. “Obstructed View.” April/May 2007, p. 26-33.
Blogs ftw
The comparisons to Columbine are inevitable. The words “Virginia Tech” are going to mean something to this generation. That meaning would be totally unique if we hadn’t had Columbine first. We may go down in history as the school shooting generation. We haven’t outgrown school violence. I wonder if there will be office place shootings when we are in our 30s.
One difference between Columbine and Virginia Tech for me was the complete ease in getting information this time around.
I first heard about it while we were sitting in this class, last week. An hour and fifteen minutes I met friends for lunch and pulled out my laptop, proud to be the first one to tell them what was going on. Before we separated for our respective classes we had the most up to date death toll, thought the gunman had been shot by police, knew that he was Asian and had watched the cell phone video three times. By the end of my next class I had witnessed the real-time online drama of the “gunman’s blog.” It only took a couple of hours for him to post that he has not the shooter.
By the next day I found myself arguing with my friend over the ethics of facebooking the dead, then doing it anyway. We had both already facebooked the killer, there was no debate there. That afternoon I read the first screenplay, a few hours later the second surfaced. That night I downloaded three studio-quality Virginia Tech tributes by various artists. They must have run to the studio to put them out so fast.
The interesting thing was the last place I always looked was a news organization’s Web site. I went to a blog, then to facebook, then a music sharing blog, back to blogs, most guiltily - to Wikipedia. The only time I looked at The New York Times or CNN.com was to see the death toll. That’s what I perceived the newspaper and cable news network to be best for. They weren’t reporting the hoax, facebook messages, or anything else I really wanted to see. In the next few days I would look to newspapers for information on the killer and victims, but it was mostly stuff I had heard before. I had to chuckle a little at an article in the New York Times discussing the online explosion of information surrounding the shooting. It covered everything I had already seen, the hoax, the screenplays, his “manifesto,” and a Wikipedia entry that could have put every journalist in America out of business. It was a well-written and interesting article, but it was 4 days late. The NBC editorial debate was an interesting juxtaposition to the blogosphere. Out in the ether of the people’s medium, every scrape of information was instantly available, with commentary and affiliate links. And all this was happening while NBC wondered how much information we, the public, could handle about Cho. I was so disappointed to visit nbc.com and find some measly “excerpt” and pixilated cuss-words. I felt like my quest for information had been halted – by journalists. I longed for bloggers who put it all out there and didn’t wonder what I could handle.
Maybe the “office place shooters” of the future will know to send their manifestos to The Smoking Gun or PostSecret.
One difference between Columbine and Virginia Tech for me was the complete ease in getting information this time around.
I first heard about it while we were sitting in this class, last week. An hour and fifteen minutes I met friends for lunch and pulled out my laptop, proud to be the first one to tell them what was going on. Before we separated for our respective classes we had the most up to date death toll, thought the gunman had been shot by police, knew that he was Asian and had watched the cell phone video three times. By the end of my next class I had witnessed the real-time online drama of the “gunman’s blog.” It only took a couple of hours for him to post that he has not the shooter.
By the next day I found myself arguing with my friend over the ethics of facebooking the dead, then doing it anyway. We had both already facebooked the killer, there was no debate there. That afternoon I read the first screenplay, a few hours later the second surfaced. That night I downloaded three studio-quality Virginia Tech tributes by various artists. They must have run to the studio to put them out so fast.
The interesting thing was the last place I always looked was a news organization’s Web site. I went to a blog, then to facebook, then a music sharing blog, back to blogs, most guiltily - to Wikipedia. The only time I looked at The New York Times or CNN.com was to see the death toll. That’s what I perceived the newspaper and cable news network to be best for. They weren’t reporting the hoax, facebook messages, or anything else I really wanted to see. In the next few days I would look to newspapers for information on the killer and victims, but it was mostly stuff I had heard before. I had to chuckle a little at an article in the New York Times discussing the online explosion of information surrounding the shooting. It covered everything I had already seen, the hoax, the screenplays, his “manifesto,” and a Wikipedia entry that could have put every journalist in America out of business. It was a well-written and interesting article, but it was 4 days late. The NBC editorial debate was an interesting juxtaposition to the blogosphere. Out in the ether of the people’s medium, every scrape of information was instantly available, with commentary and affiliate links. And all this was happening while NBC wondered how much information we, the public, could handle about Cho. I was so disappointed to visit nbc.com and find some measly “excerpt” and pixilated cuss-words. I felt like my quest for information had been halted – by journalists. I longed for bloggers who put it all out there and didn’t wonder what I could handle.
Maybe the “office place shooters” of the future will know to send their manifestos to The Smoking Gun or PostSecret.
Managing public perception, managing the media
Companies all over the world hire public relations firms to manage their corporate communications. Even small businesses have some kind of a spokesperson. But for some reason, I found it surprising that the U.S. Army has had contracts out for groups to handle public relations for the Iraq War.
It makes senses that companies with agendas, businesses that sell things and groups that disseminate a specific message to the public would need someone controlling the perception of that message. But the fact that this also is being done with the Iraq War is kind of scary, especially for the journalists charged with cutting through that to get the truth.
A Washington Post Article, written by Walter Pincus in August 2006 discussed a $20 million bid from U.S. military leaders in Baghdad “that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq.”
The article goes on to say that the Bush administration didn’t like what the media was saying about the war. Therefore, the bid called for monitors, who would “analyze stories to determine the dissemination of key themes and messages along with whether the "tone" is positive, neutral or negative.
Journalists are taught that it is their job to get the news and report information in a way that provides people with the tools needed to make their own decisions regarding the “tone” of a story. Journalists face a daily struggle in trying to keep biases out of their stories and maintain some objectivity so as not to mislead readers. But when the only information journalists can get to is already full of biases and has been managed and monitored to the point that the true news of the story is lost, it seems like reporters have few options.
The Washington Post story also said that a public relations firm, the Rendon Group, at the time, held a year-to-year contract with the military command in Iraq.
James Bamford profiled the head of the group, John Rendon, for a Rolling Stone article in 2005, titled “The Man Who Sold the War.” With all the pro-war stories run in Rolling Stone, an article that takes a scathing look at the propaganda that sold the Iraq War is quite surprising.
But however left leaning the story may be, it raises some interesting questions about what the media can do when there is someone like Rendon who could be doing anything from managing the dissemination of information to flat out lying. It’s certainly admirable of those reporters who refuse to accept that and will do whatever necessary, likely in the case of the Iraq War, risk their lives, to get the truth. But with few journalists like that working today and an increasing number becoming discouraged by the fight they are up against, accurate coverage of the Iraq War is suffering.
Bamford quoted a speech Rendon gave at the U.S. Air Force Academy. “I am a politician, a person who uses communication to meet public-policy or corporate-policy objectives. In fact, I am an information warrior and a perception manager.”
These seem like several contradicting jobs. When a politician involved with the Iraq War also is working to get highly-designed messages out to the public about that war, there are going to be some problems with what information the media have access to.
As for Rendon being an information warrior, I’m not really sure what that is. But it sounds like something that should be left up to journalists. Whether it means fighting for accurate information or fighting to get the information out to the public, it doesn’t seem like someone such as Rendon, trained to manipulate information, should be the one to be doing the fighting. As for him being a perception manager – well, I never thought perceptions were supposed to be managed.
On top of all of this, the U.S. military contract that was awarded in 2006 went to the Lincoln Group, “a public relations company known for its role in a controversial U.S. military program that paid Iraqi newspapers for stories favorable to coalition forces,” according to a story from USA Today.
So the saga continues. While journalists may be partially to blame for less than thorough coverage of the war, it’s difficult to see many options reporters have when the U.S. government continues to practice tactics that prevent reporters from doing their jobs.
It makes senses that companies with agendas, businesses that sell things and groups that disseminate a specific message to the public would need someone controlling the perception of that message. But the fact that this also is being done with the Iraq War is kind of scary, especially for the journalists charged with cutting through that to get the truth.
A Washington Post Article, written by Walter Pincus in August 2006 discussed a $20 million bid from U.S. military leaders in Baghdad “that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq.”
The article goes on to say that the Bush administration didn’t like what the media was saying about the war. Therefore, the bid called for monitors, who would “analyze stories to determine the dissemination of key themes and messages along with whether the "tone" is positive, neutral or negative.
Journalists are taught that it is their job to get the news and report information in a way that provides people with the tools needed to make their own decisions regarding the “tone” of a story. Journalists face a daily struggle in trying to keep biases out of their stories and maintain some objectivity so as not to mislead readers. But when the only information journalists can get to is already full of biases and has been managed and monitored to the point that the true news of the story is lost, it seems like reporters have few options.
The Washington Post story also said that a public relations firm, the Rendon Group, at the time, held a year-to-year contract with the military command in Iraq.
James Bamford profiled the head of the group, John Rendon, for a Rolling Stone article in 2005, titled “The Man Who Sold the War.” With all the pro-war stories run in Rolling Stone, an article that takes a scathing look at the propaganda that sold the Iraq War is quite surprising.
But however left leaning the story may be, it raises some interesting questions about what the media can do when there is someone like Rendon who could be doing anything from managing the dissemination of information to flat out lying. It’s certainly admirable of those reporters who refuse to accept that and will do whatever necessary, likely in the case of the Iraq War, risk their lives, to get the truth. But with few journalists like that working today and an increasing number becoming discouraged by the fight they are up against, accurate coverage of the Iraq War is suffering.
Bamford quoted a speech Rendon gave at the U.S. Air Force Academy. “I am a politician, a person who uses communication to meet public-policy or corporate-policy objectives. In fact, I am an information warrior and a perception manager.”
These seem like several contradicting jobs. When a politician involved with the Iraq War also is working to get highly-designed messages out to the public about that war, there are going to be some problems with what information the media have access to.
As for Rendon being an information warrior, I’m not really sure what that is. But it sounds like something that should be left up to journalists. Whether it means fighting for accurate information or fighting to get the information out to the public, it doesn’t seem like someone such as Rendon, trained to manipulate information, should be the one to be doing the fighting. As for him being a perception manager – well, I never thought perceptions were supposed to be managed.
On top of all of this, the U.S. military contract that was awarded in 2006 went to the Lincoln Group, “a public relations company known for its role in a controversial U.S. military program that paid Iraqi newspapers for stories favorable to coalition forces,” according to a story from USA Today.
So the saga continues. While journalists may be partially to blame for less than thorough coverage of the war, it’s difficult to see many options reporters have when the U.S. government continues to practice tactics that prevent reporters from doing their jobs.
The thinking inside the box
By Stephen Nellis
I take a sort of pride in not owning a television. Last week reminded me why.
Between murders at Virginia Tech on April 16, Cho Seung-Hui paused to mail off a package to NBC. It contained a multimedia manifesto.
But that’s puffing Cho’s video up a bit. It was really just the ramblings of a profoundly disturbed young man, a young man who sought to pin the blame for his rage on anyone or anything other than himself. No point, no value, no insight. Just adolescent sociopathology mixed with semi-automatic weapons and nothing to lose.
The only meaningful thing Cho’s package told us was that he wanted to be heard. And we can infer from his decision to mail his rant to NBC – a major network – that he wanted a large audience. He wanted a media spectacle, wall-to-wall coverage, all-Cho-all-the-time. In short, he wanted a national tragedy with his face on it.
And Mr. Cho got what he wanted. First NBC, and then other networks, aired the “Cho Show” on continuous loop beginning around 6 p.m. Wednesday of last week. The next morning, newspapers across the country ran still images taken from the video, mostly of Cho posing with his pistols pointed either at the camera or himself. Did you notice the nifty NBC logo in the corner of so many of those still images in the newspapers? Call it branding, I suppose.
Thank goodness for NBC. Now, each and every one of us who saw the images knows what it looked like to stare down the barrel of Cho’s pistol. And the families of those who died could see exactly what their loved ones might have seen before they were shot and killed. Boy, I bet those folks were thrilled.
I’m nonplussed at why NBC decided to air the footage or why newspapers decided to run images taken from it. Was it not incredibly obvious that having his rant slathered across airwaves and headlines was precisely what Cho wanted? Was it not equally obvious that the footage provided no useful insight into what happened and only served to further the grief and suffering of those who had already lost loved ones? And did we really need the American Psychiatric Association to tells us that airing the footage over and over might spur copycats?
The arguments I heard in favor of airing the footage were weak. And the people from whom I sought those arguments had plenty of experience and expertise: In the course of writing a Missourian story examining how some newspapers came to the decision to run images from Cho’s video, I interviewed Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute and our own Charles Davis.
Both argued that journalists are in the business of telling people what they know, not holding information back. Davis went further and asserted that seeing the footage could help viewers process a seemingly senseless tragedy, could help confirm people’s secret hope that this really was a random madman and that there really was nothing we could have done to prevent him. Both McBride and Davis agreed that NBC showed concern for the families of victims by carefully editing Cho’s blathering before airing it.
But neither Davis nor McBride put the question of whether to air the footage to what I would deem a careful analysis. I point this out not to say that their conclusions are flawed or their reasoning specious, but rather to say that I operate on different core beliefs about journalism.
Airing the video was sure to cause harm and suffering to the victims’ families and loved ones. But journalists are often called upon to cause harm and suffering when a greater public good is at stake, so this fact alone will not answer the question of whether the footage should air.
There are two other questions to be asked here: Who are the people who might be harmed by airing the footage? Would the good done by airing the footage outweigh the harm done by doing so?
The people likely to be harmed by airing the footage were those whose loved ones were killed. They were private individuals in a moment of profound vulnerability. They sought neither power nor fame and their private grief was now at the mercy of television cameras and microphones.
The distinction between power seekers and private individuals is important for journalists. Journalists are justified in examining those who have sought power, privilege and press time, but that justification does not necessarily extend universally. It’s one thing to expose the inveterately dishonest war-mongerers in the White House and another thing to mine the suffering of families involuntarily thrust into the spotlight by a deranged killer.
And what good could airing the video do? None whatsoever. It provides no insight into why Cho did what he did other than that he was a sociopath. (Was that in much question?) It provides no meaningful way forward. The only potential gain to be had was to reassure the public that Cho was simply a madman and that there was truly nothing we could have done to predict or prevent his killing spree.
However, it was unnecessary to air the video to provide the public with that information. The NBC news team could have simply explained the content of the video and then stated, “Because of the graphic content of Cho’s video and our desire to respect the grieving families of those killed, NBC has chosen not air the video itself.”
Because all the potential good accomplished by could have been achieved without airing it, we were, on balance, left with only the harm done by airing the footage. The families of those killed, still mired grief, anger and disbelief, were treated to looped footage of Cho waving his pistols in their faces. And the rest of us are still scared out of our wits, because we now know for certain we can never prevent another crime like this. No logic can stop a madman who is himself unbound by logic.
But I suppose there is one last potential benefit to running Cho’s rant that I failed to consider: the immense amount of cash media outlets garnered by feeding the public’s lurid curiosity and frothing desire for twisted tragedy.
I find it interesting that Davis and McBride’s ethics and core beliefs happen to systematically produce results also ripe with through-the-roof ratings and profits. It would of course be fallacious to assume any sort of causation when there is only correlation. And I’m sure Davis and McBride are well aware the tensions introduced by journalism’s classically “for-profit” nature.
I’m just as guilty of wanting to eat as the next aspiring reporter. But is this what happens when your paychecks are for too long signed by the Media Hydra, of which our blessed J-School is but a minor slithering head? Does it cloud the mind so?
I take a sort of pride in not owning a television. Last week reminded me why.
Between murders at Virginia Tech on April 16, Cho Seung-Hui paused to mail off a package to NBC. It contained a multimedia manifesto.
But that’s puffing Cho’s video up a bit. It was really just the ramblings of a profoundly disturbed young man, a young man who sought to pin the blame for his rage on anyone or anything other than himself. No point, no value, no insight. Just adolescent sociopathology mixed with semi-automatic weapons and nothing to lose.
The only meaningful thing Cho’s package told us was that he wanted to be heard. And we can infer from his decision to mail his rant to NBC – a major network – that he wanted a large audience. He wanted a media spectacle, wall-to-wall coverage, all-Cho-all-the-time. In short, he wanted a national tragedy with his face on it.
And Mr. Cho got what he wanted. First NBC, and then other networks, aired the “Cho Show” on continuous loop beginning around 6 p.m. Wednesday of last week. The next morning, newspapers across the country ran still images taken from the video, mostly of Cho posing with his pistols pointed either at the camera or himself. Did you notice the nifty NBC logo in the corner of so many of those still images in the newspapers? Call it branding, I suppose.
Thank goodness for NBC. Now, each and every one of us who saw the images knows what it looked like to stare down the barrel of Cho’s pistol. And the families of those who died could see exactly what their loved ones might have seen before they were shot and killed. Boy, I bet those folks were thrilled.
I’m nonplussed at why NBC decided to air the footage or why newspapers decided to run images taken from it. Was it not incredibly obvious that having his rant slathered across airwaves and headlines was precisely what Cho wanted? Was it not equally obvious that the footage provided no useful insight into what happened and only served to further the grief and suffering of those who had already lost loved ones? And did we really need the American Psychiatric Association to tells us that airing the footage over and over might spur copycats?
The arguments I heard in favor of airing the footage were weak. And the people from whom I sought those arguments had plenty of experience and expertise: In the course of writing a Missourian story examining how some newspapers came to the decision to run images from Cho’s video, I interviewed Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute and our own Charles Davis.
Both argued that journalists are in the business of telling people what they know, not holding information back. Davis went further and asserted that seeing the footage could help viewers process a seemingly senseless tragedy, could help confirm people’s secret hope that this really was a random madman and that there really was nothing we could have done to prevent him. Both McBride and Davis agreed that NBC showed concern for the families of victims by carefully editing Cho’s blathering before airing it.
But neither Davis nor McBride put the question of whether to air the footage to what I would deem a careful analysis. I point this out not to say that their conclusions are flawed or their reasoning specious, but rather to say that I operate on different core beliefs about journalism.
Airing the video was sure to cause harm and suffering to the victims’ families and loved ones. But journalists are often called upon to cause harm and suffering when a greater public good is at stake, so this fact alone will not answer the question of whether the footage should air.
There are two other questions to be asked here: Who are the people who might be harmed by airing the footage? Would the good done by airing the footage outweigh the harm done by doing so?
The people likely to be harmed by airing the footage were those whose loved ones were killed. They were private individuals in a moment of profound vulnerability. They sought neither power nor fame and their private grief was now at the mercy of television cameras and microphones.
The distinction between power seekers and private individuals is important for journalists. Journalists are justified in examining those who have sought power, privilege and press time, but that justification does not necessarily extend universally. It’s one thing to expose the inveterately dishonest war-mongerers in the White House and another thing to mine the suffering of families involuntarily thrust into the spotlight by a deranged killer.
And what good could airing the video do? None whatsoever. It provides no insight into why Cho did what he did other than that he was a sociopath. (Was that in much question?) It provides no meaningful way forward. The only potential gain to be had was to reassure the public that Cho was simply a madman and that there was truly nothing we could have done to predict or prevent his killing spree.
However, it was unnecessary to air the video to provide the public with that information. The NBC news team could have simply explained the content of the video and then stated, “Because of the graphic content of Cho’s video and our desire to respect the grieving families of those killed, NBC has chosen not air the video itself.”
Because all the potential good accomplished by could have been achieved without airing it, we were, on balance, left with only the harm done by airing the footage. The families of those killed, still mired grief, anger and disbelief, were treated to looped footage of Cho waving his pistols in their faces. And the rest of us are still scared out of our wits, because we now know for certain we can never prevent another crime like this. No logic can stop a madman who is himself unbound by logic.
But I suppose there is one last potential benefit to running Cho’s rant that I failed to consider: the immense amount of cash media outlets garnered by feeding the public’s lurid curiosity and frothing desire for twisted tragedy.
I find it interesting that Davis and McBride’s ethics and core beliefs happen to systematically produce results also ripe with through-the-roof ratings and profits. It would of course be fallacious to assume any sort of causation when there is only correlation. And I’m sure Davis and McBride are well aware the tensions introduced by journalism’s classically “for-profit” nature.
I’m just as guilty of wanting to eat as the next aspiring reporter. But is this what happens when your paychecks are for too long signed by the Media Hydra, of which our blessed J-School is but a minor slithering head? Does it cloud the mind so?
You Heard It Here First
As an exercise in one of my introductory journalism courses in college, the professor asked each one of us students to recall how we had heard about some of the decade’s biggest breaking news stories – September 11th, the death of Princess Diana, Saddam Hussein’s capture, the space shuttle Columbia crash, the Columbine school shootings, and so on. Needless to say, all our answers varied depending on where we were, who we were with, and what we were doing.
But one trend emerged as evidence of our society’s breaking news consumption: more often than not, breaking news is broken by non-traditional news sources. Mobile communication technologies has made this more the case now than ever before via pda’s, laptops, cell phones, radio, and the like. These mediums utilize delivery mechanisms which ensure the message is both immediately accessible and always available.
Yet by doing so, these sources act more as discovery mechanisms than delivery; serving as a gateway to more traditional news media coverage. Like a tip-off or an arrow, they direct interested individuals to the news websites, cable news stations, and radio news networks that serve society with 24/7 comprehensive news content and coverage.
Such was exactly the case last Monday. Where did I first learn of the Virginia Tech tragedy? Of all places, ESPN.com. Aimlessly browsing the internet as one is prone to do on a Monday morning, my appetite for the weekend’s sports scores led me straight to the must-read story. My surprise came as much from the source as from the story.
“There’s breaking news coming out of every US news network right now about what could end up being the worst school shooting in US history…it’s even plastered all over ESPN.com,” wrote one individual on toolpower.net.
At first visit, the news was a mere “breaking news alert”; a one-sentence summary of what was known at the time. By later visits, an abc.com news story was linked and eventually the story was given center-piece treatment.
Of course it was center-piece news, it was the deadliest mass shooting in United States history. But why on ESPN.com, the world-wide leader in sports? Though the expected sports-angles were later explored, on Monday morning the Virginia Tech tragedy had as much to do with sports as it did with food, fads and fashion combined.
And yet, I would be willing to bet whoever the world-wide leaders are in food, fads, and fashion all reported the incident too. If they didn’t, they certainly should have.
Major breaking news -- the kind of rare event that you know it when you see it -- transcends niche publications; even a niche as large and powerful as sports. A website with hundreds of thousands of unique visitors each day like ESPN has an obligation to its readers to at least acknowledge its occurrence, if not further its coverage. To do anything less would be a disservice to the worldly awareness all news tries to promote.
ESPN.com has a history of such service to serious stories. Blogcritics, an online magazine, noted ESPN.com’s role in September 11th coverage. “That's odd, I thought. ESPN doesn't normally run non-sports news on their front page.”
Major breaking news is just that, odd and not normal. Further, it is the exception to niches because major breaking news is universal -- universally interesting and universally important. To ignore it and assume readers, viewers, or listeners have gotten or will get it elsewhere is to fail to understand one of the most basic roles of journalism: agenda-setting.
Major breaking news – local, national, or international – is a priori, regardless of one’s target audience. Put simply, it trumps the context of all other content.
Besides, you never know when it might fulfill that inherent journalistic instinct we all seem to strive for: the ability to say ‘You heard it here first.’ For someone, somewhere, they probably did.
But one trend emerged as evidence of our society’s breaking news consumption: more often than not, breaking news is broken by non-traditional news sources. Mobile communication technologies has made this more the case now than ever before via pda’s, laptops, cell phones, radio, and the like. These mediums utilize delivery mechanisms which ensure the message is both immediately accessible and always available.
Yet by doing so, these sources act more as discovery mechanisms than delivery; serving as a gateway to more traditional news media coverage. Like a tip-off or an arrow, they direct interested individuals to the news websites, cable news stations, and radio news networks that serve society with 24/7 comprehensive news content and coverage.
Such was exactly the case last Monday. Where did I first learn of the Virginia Tech tragedy? Of all places, ESPN.com. Aimlessly browsing the internet as one is prone to do on a Monday morning, my appetite for the weekend’s sports scores led me straight to the must-read story. My surprise came as much from the source as from the story.
“There’s breaking news coming out of every US news network right now about what could end up being the worst school shooting in US history…it’s even plastered all over ESPN.com,” wrote one individual on toolpower.net.
At first visit, the news was a mere “breaking news alert”; a one-sentence summary of what was known at the time. By later visits, an abc.com news story was linked and eventually the story was given center-piece treatment.
Of course it was center-piece news, it was the deadliest mass shooting in United States history. But why on ESPN.com, the world-wide leader in sports? Though the expected sports-angles were later explored, on Monday morning the Virginia Tech tragedy had as much to do with sports as it did with food, fads and fashion combined.
And yet, I would be willing to bet whoever the world-wide leaders are in food, fads, and fashion all reported the incident too. If they didn’t, they certainly should have.
Major breaking news -- the kind of rare event that you know it when you see it -- transcends niche publications; even a niche as large and powerful as sports. A website with hundreds of thousands of unique visitors each day like ESPN has an obligation to its readers to at least acknowledge its occurrence, if not further its coverage. To do anything less would be a disservice to the worldly awareness all news tries to promote.
ESPN.com has a history of such service to serious stories. Blogcritics, an online magazine, noted ESPN.com’s role in September 11th coverage. “That's odd, I thought. ESPN doesn't normally run non-sports news on their front page.”
Major breaking news is just that, odd and not normal. Further, it is the exception to niches because major breaking news is universal -- universally interesting and universally important. To ignore it and assume readers, viewers, or listeners have gotten or will get it elsewhere is to fail to understand one of the most basic roles of journalism: agenda-setting.
Major breaking news – local, national, or international – is a priori, regardless of one’s target audience. Put simply, it trumps the context of all other content.
Besides, you never know when it might fulfill that inherent journalistic instinct we all seem to strive for: the ability to say ‘You heard it here first.’ For someone, somewhere, they probably did.
I want more than daily death tolls
I feel like I watch the news more often than most people my age. As a journalist, I basically feel responsible to do so. But when it comes to the war in Iraq, I feel as if I'm lost and know little to nothing about the truth of what is happening over there. And that bothers me.
The whole situation in Iraq has irritated me since the day America sent troops over there. But more than three years later, I feel even more annoyed. That's not necessarily because of what's happening, although that is factored in. But instead, it stems from frustration I feel because of the media's focus in Iraq. It's the bombings of the day and what event and place provided the highest number of deaths.
I want to know more. I need more than a daily story. I don't want to see polls about what my peers think about who is winning the war. I want a journalist who spends his or her time there to tell that to me him or herself, to tell me what they see on a daily basis. I realize some TV stations may not be able to answer my questions correctly about who is actually winning the war. And therefore, I’m forced to formulate my own opinions about what is really taking place. But that opinion shouldn't come with such little evidence. I should able to base it on more than the event of the day in Iraq. I should be able to look at the whole picture and from that, hopefully I can even reasonably see the future of the war. But, unfortunately, I feel like I don't have the opportunity to do either.
It's a journalist's job to investigate and answer these questions for me. It's the journalists' job to inform the public of the war in Iraq without just focusing on the bombings and the deaths. The reality is that American soldiers are dying and risking their lives to protect my freedom. As citizens of a country involved in the war, deserve to know what's going on. And the person that should be informing me is the journalist.
I want to hear a soldier's point a view. I'm tired of hearing what our president has to say about the war. I'm tired of relying on those statements and having no evidence to believe or disprove them. I want to see what it's like for a soldier to risk his life for this country. I don't want to hear about the daily death toll. I want the news coverage to include stories of the living soldiers. Their voices deserve to be heard. And as a citizen of this country, I deserve to hear it. If you're going to truly cover the war as a TV station, then cover it. Don't give me the death toll and a story on the latest bombing without giving these other stories.
I see my friends get into arguments constantly about who is winning the war. And it saddens me that I feel like neither are right. Neither has evidence to really back up what he is saying. Instead, we rely on political agendas and the statements from politicians living in the United States. At times I wonder if they know much more than I do.
I don't know what it would be like to cover the war in Iraq. It's a job I don't think I would have the guts to do. And I admire those who chose that path. But if you're going to chose that path, then don't go for the shock story of the day. For the first few weeks or months into the war, that might have been what us viewers were looking for. But four years later, I want more.
Give me an overall outlook. I can hardly stand to watch the daily shock story anymore. As a journalist covering the war, remember your first obligation is to all of us viewers back home, the viewers left questioning and wondering about the real situation of a war in which we have friends or family fighting in.
As for my final request, please stop arguing about the justifications for the entry into the war. It’s been four years. Whether it was justified or not, we are in this war. Let’s focus on the now. Let’s focus on what the outlook is for the war now and not whether we should or shouldn’t be there at all.
The whole situation in Iraq has irritated me since the day America sent troops over there. But more than three years later, I feel even more annoyed. That's not necessarily because of what's happening, although that is factored in. But instead, it stems from frustration I feel because of the media's focus in Iraq. It's the bombings of the day and what event and place provided the highest number of deaths.
I want to know more. I need more than a daily story. I don't want to see polls about what my peers think about who is winning the war. I want a journalist who spends his or her time there to tell that to me him or herself, to tell me what they see on a daily basis. I realize some TV stations may not be able to answer my questions correctly about who is actually winning the war. And therefore, I’m forced to formulate my own opinions about what is really taking place. But that opinion shouldn't come with such little evidence. I should able to base it on more than the event of the day in Iraq. I should be able to look at the whole picture and from that, hopefully I can even reasonably see the future of the war. But, unfortunately, I feel like I don't have the opportunity to do either.
It's a journalist's job to investigate and answer these questions for me. It's the journalists' job to inform the public of the war in Iraq without just focusing on the bombings and the deaths. The reality is that American soldiers are dying and risking their lives to protect my freedom. As citizens of a country involved in the war, deserve to know what's going on. And the person that should be informing me is the journalist.
I want to hear a soldier's point a view. I'm tired of hearing what our president has to say about the war. I'm tired of relying on those statements and having no evidence to believe or disprove them. I want to see what it's like for a soldier to risk his life for this country. I don't want to hear about the daily death toll. I want the news coverage to include stories of the living soldiers. Their voices deserve to be heard. And as a citizen of this country, I deserve to hear it. If you're going to truly cover the war as a TV station, then cover it. Don't give me the death toll and a story on the latest bombing without giving these other stories.
I see my friends get into arguments constantly about who is winning the war. And it saddens me that I feel like neither are right. Neither has evidence to really back up what he is saying. Instead, we rely on political agendas and the statements from politicians living in the United States. At times I wonder if they know much more than I do.
I don't know what it would be like to cover the war in Iraq. It's a job I don't think I would have the guts to do. And I admire those who chose that path. But if you're going to chose that path, then don't go for the shock story of the day. For the first few weeks or months into the war, that might have been what us viewers were looking for. But four years later, I want more.
Give me an overall outlook. I can hardly stand to watch the daily shock story anymore. As a journalist covering the war, remember your first obligation is to all of us viewers back home, the viewers left questioning and wondering about the real situation of a war in which we have friends or family fighting in.
As for my final request, please stop arguing about the justifications for the entry into the war. It’s been four years. Whether it was justified or not, we are in this war. Let’s focus on the now. Let’s focus on what the outlook is for the war now and not whether we should or shouldn’t be there at all.
Using more than the usual suspects
Primary sources are essential to journalism. But those primary sources also need to be verified with facts and other supporting information. Reporters writing on Iraq before and during the war have not always done that extra legwork.
Judith Miller, formerly of The New York Times, is a perfect example. Her stories leading up to the invasion of Iraq said there was enough evidence to remove all doubt that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. She relied on a usual set of sources, whom she trusted and had used in the past. They were the big-time officials of the Bush administration. She had no reason not to use their intelligence at the time, and even less reason not to accept what she learned when she was embedded with the exploitation team Alpha in Iraq.
But what should a journalist accept as fact and what should they question of their sources when several of those higher-ranking officials are telling you the same thing?
A problem that Miller should have been curious about is if the administration was hiding an agenda. In fact they planted these “facts” regarding WMD’s into her reporting and then often referred back to her stories as fact in other interviews with various media, as PBS’ Frontline examined recently in its “News War” program.
Jack Schafer, of Slate Magazine, did a lot of in-depth writing on Miller’s reporting and in an interview on New York Public Radio in 2005 he said, “viewed in today's context, Judith Miller's reporting on weapons of mass destruction from Iraq seemed very much like cheerleading…you can see that her reporting is consistently exaggerated and overplayed the evidence for weapons of mass destruction.”
But Miller is not the only journalist guilty of reporting what might be false information, though she was used as the scapegoat so the media could have someone to blame. And I think it is inappropriate to blame her for reporting falsities. I respect her for standing behind her reporting and explaining where she got her information and why it was not unusual to believe it.
When faced with situations that you cannot be directly involved with and you must rely on others to provide you with information – it can be tough for a journalist to know whom to trust.
I can’t imagine being a reporter in the war zone and trying to make sure I have my facts straight and enough proof from several people to back it up, all the while legitimately worrying about safety. I’m sure it’s easy and less threatening to just repeat what information the military officials are handing out, but as the war wears on people are getting more and more fatigued of the numbers dead story and the car bomb today story. These are still important things that everyone should be informed on, but now is the time to analyze why we are still where we are and what progress, if any has been made.
I see stories come over on the progress the U.S. has made with the security crackdown in Baghdad, with all the major sources as military and political officials. I will see a mention of how there might seem to be peace in Baghdad, yet out of the city there is still an insurgency threatening lives. What should be done with those stories is to go more in-depth about why there is this false sense of victory in Iraq’s capital and the reporters should take a more critical eye at what news is being fed to them instead of just spitting it back out at the readers.
A lot easier said than done, I suppose. And I do respect those who are over there trying to connect the story with those of us back at home.
Judith Miller, formerly of The New York Times, is a perfect example. Her stories leading up to the invasion of Iraq said there was enough evidence to remove all doubt that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. She relied on a usual set of sources, whom she trusted and had used in the past. They were the big-time officials of the Bush administration. She had no reason not to use their intelligence at the time, and even less reason not to accept what she learned when she was embedded with the exploitation team Alpha in Iraq.
But what should a journalist accept as fact and what should they question of their sources when several of those higher-ranking officials are telling you the same thing?
A problem that Miller should have been curious about is if the administration was hiding an agenda. In fact they planted these “facts” regarding WMD’s into her reporting and then often referred back to her stories as fact in other interviews with various media, as PBS’ Frontline examined recently in its “News War” program.
Jack Schafer, of Slate Magazine, did a lot of in-depth writing on Miller’s reporting and in an interview on New York Public Radio in 2005 he said, “viewed in today's context, Judith Miller's reporting on weapons of mass destruction from Iraq seemed very much like cheerleading…you can see that her reporting is consistently exaggerated and overplayed the evidence for weapons of mass destruction.”
But Miller is not the only journalist guilty of reporting what might be false information, though she was used as the scapegoat so the media could have someone to blame. And I think it is inappropriate to blame her for reporting falsities. I respect her for standing behind her reporting and explaining where she got her information and why it was not unusual to believe it.
When faced with situations that you cannot be directly involved with and you must rely on others to provide you with information – it can be tough for a journalist to know whom to trust.
I can’t imagine being a reporter in the war zone and trying to make sure I have my facts straight and enough proof from several people to back it up, all the while legitimately worrying about safety. I’m sure it’s easy and less threatening to just repeat what information the military officials are handing out, but as the war wears on people are getting more and more fatigued of the numbers dead story and the car bomb today story. These are still important things that everyone should be informed on, but now is the time to analyze why we are still where we are and what progress, if any has been made.
I see stories come over on the progress the U.S. has made with the security crackdown in Baghdad, with all the major sources as military and political officials. I will see a mention of how there might seem to be peace in Baghdad, yet out of the city there is still an insurgency threatening lives. What should be done with those stories is to go more in-depth about why there is this false sense of victory in Iraq’s capital and the reporters should take a more critical eye at what news is being fed to them instead of just spitting it back out at the readers.
A lot easier said than done, I suppose. And I do respect those who are over there trying to connect the story with those of us back at home.
Time for a self-critique
Once again, journalists – and journalism – seem to making the news instead of simply reporting it. Now a week removed from a horrific shooting at the Virginia Tech campus, citizens are complaining about the media coverage of the shooting and media outlets themselves are questioning how they handled one of the biggest news stories in recent years. I think one of the problems lies in the words in that last sentence: ‘the biggest news story.’ I will admit that I was initially glued to coverage of the shooting as were most Americans last Monday. However, as the week passed, I felt as if media outlets treated the unfolding events as simply ‘the biggest news story,’ without stepping back (literally) and showing true compassion and concern for those involved.
When I turned on one of the news networks on Monday night, the first news story I saw was a female journalists talking to students inside the Virginia Tech dorm where Cho killed his first two victims. The group of students this reporter found seemed willing to be interviewed. However, what we did not see were the students who the reporter asked and who refused. One of the students, according to NPR, was outraged at the request to be interviewed inside her dorm room. NPR reported that this female student was approached by another female reporter who asked for an interview. The student asked to be left alone and the reporter answered by handing the student her business card and saying, “Call me.” Again, journalists tried to take advantage of the vulnerable because they had a one-track goal: ‘the biggest story.’
This journalist was not alone in her invasion of the VT campus. When video cameras scrolled a parking lot adjacent to one of the school’s classroom buildings, you couldn’t see the end of a line of television news trucks. A campus, a community that was trying to heal had to do it while being inundated with a seemingly infinite amount of journalists. While it is our role to educate the public and to report on events like these in a thorough fashion, was it really necessary for news outlets to send so many people to Blacksburg? Was it in the best interest of the students who were trying to heal and to come to grips with the day’s events to have to be bombarded by notebooks, recorders, questions and video cameras? Why did morning news shows have to send their anchors to report live on campus? Was that really necessary? While journalism outlets were pushing to be the ones to break new details and to find the most inspirational stories from students, I believe they may have impeded some people’s healing process by not showing enough sensitivity.
After a few days of non-stop coverage on the Virginia Tech shootings, you could still turn on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and other 24/7 news channels and still see nearly 24-hour continuous coverage of the events. After a while, such inundation of coverage simply disillusions the public. With few new details emerging late in the week, was it really necessary to report the same stories over and over again each hour? Is there a point in which journalists overstep the necessary principles of information gatherers and reporters? I am fearful of what these 24/7 news channels have the power to do to the public. With the media already seen negatively by so many in society, the over saturation of events such as the Virginia Tech shootings may only further push away those who see the media as having its own underlying agenda and motives already.
Another aspect of the media’s coverage that is being questioned relates to NBC’s release of the video tapes and transcripts that they received from Cho in the mail. Going back to journalism’s role as an information provider, I think it was the right decision for the news station to release the video. However, I think that they played the clips of Cho way too frequently. For the public, seeing the images of Cho helped us to begin to understand the psychology of this killer; furthermore, it also helped assuage fears that people had about there being a larger plot beneath these killings. Jack Shafer of Slate also agreed saying: “NBC News needn’t apologize to anybody for originally airing the Cho videos and pictures. The Virginia Tech slaughter is an ugly story, but the five W’s of journalism – who, what, where, when, and why – demand that journalists ask the question ‘why?’ even if they can’t adequately answer it. If you’re interested in knowing why Cho did what he did, you want to see the videos and photos and read from the transcripts. If you’re not interested, you should feel free to avert your eyes.”
But once the tape was released, seeing it plastered as the background on news images and hearing the recordings played incessantly on the news became too much. We knew the information so why did we have to be reminded of it every time we turned on the TV? The images of Cho as well as the emphasis on his South Korean nationality may also have caused an unnecessary amount of scrutiny, blame and ridicule on the South Korean community. I have a friend on campus here who is a foreign exchange student from South Korea who was verbally assaulted last week on the MU campus. She was called names and cornered by a group of students because she shares the same nationality as the Virginia Tech shooter. I can’t help but wonder that if the media had not so emphatically emphasized the fact that Cho was South Korean that maybe the backlash against that community would not have been so strong.
In the midst of a crisis like we saw last week, it can be justifiably hard for media outlets to step back and dissect their coverage of the events. Details are coming out in a hurry, and there is that innate desire – and maybe even necessity because of the nature of the business – to want to provide more exhaustive coverage than your competitor. But even if we can’t self-critique during the events, we have the opportunity as journalists to do so now in order to better prepare for crises to follow. The events showed great strides in journalism as well, with one of the biggest being the level of citizen journalism that arose from that awful day. The citizen journalism that we saw last week marks a change in how journalism will cover crises in the future and how it will be reported. As for the professionals in the business, there is work to be done. Maybe showing compassion should be more important than an exclusive. Maybe we should be take a step back instead of finding a way to get past that police tape. Maybe labeling something “the biggest news story” shouldn’t be the first thing that comes to mind.
When I turned on one of the news networks on Monday night, the first news story I saw was a female journalists talking to students inside the Virginia Tech dorm where Cho killed his first two victims. The group of students this reporter found seemed willing to be interviewed. However, what we did not see were the students who the reporter asked and who refused. One of the students, according to NPR, was outraged at the request to be interviewed inside her dorm room. NPR reported that this female student was approached by another female reporter who asked for an interview. The student asked to be left alone and the reporter answered by handing the student her business card and saying, “Call me.” Again, journalists tried to take advantage of the vulnerable because they had a one-track goal: ‘the biggest story.’
This journalist was not alone in her invasion of the VT campus. When video cameras scrolled a parking lot adjacent to one of the school’s classroom buildings, you couldn’t see the end of a line of television news trucks. A campus, a community that was trying to heal had to do it while being inundated with a seemingly infinite amount of journalists. While it is our role to educate the public and to report on events like these in a thorough fashion, was it really necessary for news outlets to send so many people to Blacksburg? Was it in the best interest of the students who were trying to heal and to come to grips with the day’s events to have to be bombarded by notebooks, recorders, questions and video cameras? Why did morning news shows have to send their anchors to report live on campus? Was that really necessary? While journalism outlets were pushing to be the ones to break new details and to find the most inspirational stories from students, I believe they may have impeded some people’s healing process by not showing enough sensitivity.
After a few days of non-stop coverage on the Virginia Tech shootings, you could still turn on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and other 24/7 news channels and still see nearly 24-hour continuous coverage of the events. After a while, such inundation of coverage simply disillusions the public. With few new details emerging late in the week, was it really necessary to report the same stories over and over again each hour? Is there a point in which journalists overstep the necessary principles of information gatherers and reporters? I am fearful of what these 24/7 news channels have the power to do to the public. With the media already seen negatively by so many in society, the over saturation of events such as the Virginia Tech shootings may only further push away those who see the media as having its own underlying agenda and motives already.
Another aspect of the media’s coverage that is being questioned relates to NBC’s release of the video tapes and transcripts that they received from Cho in the mail. Going back to journalism’s role as an information provider, I think it was the right decision for the news station to release the video. However, I think that they played the clips of Cho way too frequently. For the public, seeing the images of Cho helped us to begin to understand the psychology of this killer; furthermore, it also helped assuage fears that people had about there being a larger plot beneath these killings. Jack Shafer of Slate also agreed saying: “NBC News needn’t apologize to anybody for originally airing the Cho videos and pictures. The Virginia Tech slaughter is an ugly story, but the five W’s of journalism – who, what, where, when, and why – demand that journalists ask the question ‘why?’ even if they can’t adequately answer it. If you’re interested in knowing why Cho did what he did, you want to see the videos and photos and read from the transcripts. If you’re not interested, you should feel free to avert your eyes.”
But once the tape was released, seeing it plastered as the background on news images and hearing the recordings played incessantly on the news became too much. We knew the information so why did we have to be reminded of it every time we turned on the TV? The images of Cho as well as the emphasis on his South Korean nationality may also have caused an unnecessary amount of scrutiny, blame and ridicule on the South Korean community. I have a friend on campus here who is a foreign exchange student from South Korea who was verbally assaulted last week on the MU campus. She was called names and cornered by a group of students because she shares the same nationality as the Virginia Tech shooter. I can’t help but wonder that if the media had not so emphatically emphasized the fact that Cho was South Korean that maybe the backlash against that community would not have been so strong.
In the midst of a crisis like we saw last week, it can be justifiably hard for media outlets to step back and dissect their coverage of the events. Details are coming out in a hurry, and there is that innate desire – and maybe even necessity because of the nature of the business – to want to provide more exhaustive coverage than your competitor. But even if we can’t self-critique during the events, we have the opportunity as journalists to do so now in order to better prepare for crises to follow. The events showed great strides in journalism as well, with one of the biggest being the level of citizen journalism that arose from that awful day. The citizen journalism that we saw last week marks a change in how journalism will cover crises in the future and how it will be reported. As for the professionals in the business, there is work to be done. Maybe showing compassion should be more important than an exclusive. Maybe we should be take a step back instead of finding a way to get past that police tape. Maybe labeling something “the biggest news story” shouldn’t be the first thing that comes to mind.
Making sense of the senseless
In times of crisis, news organizations take center stage as the primary sources of communication about such events. When events such as hurricanes or terrorist attacks garner national and international attention, people turn to news sources to provide them with the information they need. The April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech are no exception. Throughout that day and the days that followed, news organizations provided up-to-the-minute news and information on the shootings, the victims, the shooter and the responses. Many people, especially those with ties to Virginia Tech, stayed glued to their television or computer for the latest developments. In situations like this, the news becomes the primary means through which citizens begin to understand and give meaning to the events that have taken place. And when a major tragedy occurs, the skills and judgment of news organizations and those who work within them are put to the test.
After the Columbine shootings in 1997, Bob Steele of the Poynter Institute wrote, “In times of crisis, we demand the best from the people on the front lines of the story. The cops. The paramedics, doctors, and nurses. The teachers. We should expect no less from the people telling those stories.”(1) Indeed, the journalists covering the Virginia Tech shootings — whether writing for the Web, producing for a national cable news organization or reporting for a local community newspaper — were expected to cover the events accurately, truthfully and tastefully. “Whatever our role, whatever our platform,” writes Steele, “we are journalists trying to put together pieces of an incomprehensible jigsaw puzzle and tell a story that has meaning.”(1)
The ways in which journalists attempt to “make sense of the senseless”(1) can vary greatly among different organizations and among different news media. For example, NBC News chose to broadcast portions of the package it received from Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui. In a statement, NBC says it chose to air the material only “after careful consideration and with great sensitivity,” and the organization felt the material “provides some answers to the critical question, ‘WHY did this man carry out these awful murders?’”(2) NBC’s decision reflects the fact that these videos and photos, though violent and potentially offensive or painful, were the first glimpse into Cho’s state of mind when these acts were committed. Within this context, NBC decided that its role was to deliver this information despite its more controversial aspects.
The decision by NBC affiliate WSLS TV in Roanoke, Va. to ban further use of much of the material illustrates how this news organization perceived its role as different from that of NBC News. WSLS initially aired the images as “a new development in the investigation” and as “the first insight into his state of mind.”(2) But after this initial airing, WSLS chose not to continue airing the most violent of these images and words, explaining that the organization felt it was no longer newsworthy and “would only cause further pain to the Virginia Tech community.”(2) The decision reflects the affiliate’s role as a local news station that must keep in mind the ramifications of its coverage on the community it serves.
Citizens’ needs during times of crisis mean that journalists must consider the relevancy of information within the context of the individual communities they serve. Journalists must put aside their emotions and sift through conflicting reports to provide citizens with the most accurate, truthful information possible. When a major tragedy such as the Virginia Tech shootings occurs, it is the role of journalists and news organizations to help citizens understand and make meaning of the events taking place in their world.
(1) Steele, Bob. “Worst of times demand the best from journalists.” Poynter Online. 16 April 2007. http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=121526.
(2) Angelotti, Ellyn. “Decision Examined: Poynter discussion of NBC’s use of the killer’s video.” Poynter Online. 20 April 2007. http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=121760.
After the Columbine shootings in 1997, Bob Steele of the Poynter Institute wrote, “In times of crisis, we demand the best from the people on the front lines of the story. The cops. The paramedics, doctors, and nurses. The teachers. We should expect no less from the people telling those stories.”(1) Indeed, the journalists covering the Virginia Tech shootings — whether writing for the Web, producing for a national cable news organization or reporting for a local community newspaper — were expected to cover the events accurately, truthfully and tastefully. “Whatever our role, whatever our platform,” writes Steele, “we are journalists trying to put together pieces of an incomprehensible jigsaw puzzle and tell a story that has meaning.”(1)
The ways in which journalists attempt to “make sense of the senseless”(1) can vary greatly among different organizations and among different news media. For example, NBC News chose to broadcast portions of the package it received from Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui. In a statement, NBC says it chose to air the material only “after careful consideration and with great sensitivity,” and the organization felt the material “provides some answers to the critical question, ‘WHY did this man carry out these awful murders?’”(2) NBC’s decision reflects the fact that these videos and photos, though violent and potentially offensive or painful, were the first glimpse into Cho’s state of mind when these acts were committed. Within this context, NBC decided that its role was to deliver this information despite its more controversial aspects.
The decision by NBC affiliate WSLS TV in Roanoke, Va. to ban further use of much of the material illustrates how this news organization perceived its role as different from that of NBC News. WSLS initially aired the images as “a new development in the investigation” and as “the first insight into his state of mind.”(2) But after this initial airing, WSLS chose not to continue airing the most violent of these images and words, explaining that the organization felt it was no longer newsworthy and “would only cause further pain to the Virginia Tech community.”(2) The decision reflects the affiliate’s role as a local news station that must keep in mind the ramifications of its coverage on the community it serves.
Citizens’ needs during times of crisis mean that journalists must consider the relevancy of information within the context of the individual communities they serve. Journalists must put aside their emotions and sift through conflicting reports to provide citizens with the most accurate, truthful information possible. When a major tragedy such as the Virginia Tech shootings occurs, it is the role of journalists and news organizations to help citizens understand and make meaning of the events taking place in their world.
(1) Steele, Bob. “Worst of times demand the best from journalists.” Poynter Online. 16 April 2007. http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=121526.
(2) Angelotti, Ellyn. “Decision Examined: Poynter discussion of NBC’s use of the killer’s video.” Poynter Online. 20 April 2007. http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=121760.
Context is everything
Disclaimer: I am hesitant to talk about journalism’s role in Iraq and Afghanistan because doing so would inevitably involve my political perspective. I cannot remain politically objective if I am discussing why and what journalists should be skeptical of concerning our current military operations.
ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
Journalists are supposed to be gatekeepers. We are part of the system of checks and balances that is integral to democracy. It is our duty to be the most skeptical, to ask the most questions, to be pessimistic, to be untrusting.
Journalists don’t ask enough ‘why’ questions of officials. It is important for news audiences to understand the ‘why’ behind the ‘what.’ Telling readers every day that people died in one location and killed each other in another does not help them understand why it’s happening or what and whom it’s affecting.
We should challenge use of jargon and the political non-answers that are perpetually spewed out of politicians’ and military officials’ mouths.
All questions about her loyalty aside, Judith Miller didn’t provide enough substance for her claims while reporting about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Her nebulous sources should have been clearly identified and her evidence supported. But it wasn’t. And her editors should have looked past the Pulitzer badge that goes with her name, and questioned her.
FEEDING FLAMES
The public accuses the press of feeding the flames of war and opposition. We can’t win because we’re the ones (hopefully) providing all sides of the news. So when officials make an announcement about weapons of mass destruction, we’re going to report it. And we should follow up on it with our own research.
After the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration played the role of Chicken Little.
The sky was falling.
Other countries were harboring terrorists: We went to Afghanistan. Weapons of mass destruction were threatening our security: We went to Iraq.
Did anyone question these assertions? Not enough. I’m not going to make a statement here about whether I think the Bush administration’s claims were right or wrong. But I can say that journalists didn’t question things enough.
So why didn’t we challenge officials? Why didn’t we ask for harder evidence? I think part of that answer lies in the wall government often puts up between policy making and the press. Politicians tell the press they can only know what they can afford to know. But how do we know that’s even true? Can we ever truly know whose interests they're serving?
WHAT WE CAN DO
As the proverbial “they” say, hindsight is 20/20. Should we have asked more questions about political motives and economic interests concerning Iraq? Definitely. But we’ve been in Iraq and Afghanistan for several years now. And we probably won’t ever completely pull out. We still have military personnel in Korea and Vietnam, after all.
We should learn from our experience with this administration – and previous others – and ask the tough questions. The media should never have to feel inhibited or intimidated by officials. It’s politicians’ and journalists’ job to serve the public. And we shouldn’t let people stand in the way of that.
One of the best things we can do for readers today is provide context for them. Audiences have lost sight of how we got to Iraq and Afghanistan.
It amazes me that, in the face of civil war in Iraq, people don’t know the difference between a Shiite and a Sunni.
How much money have we spent? How much will we spend over the course of the next 20 years? How much progress has been made? How many troops have been killed and injured? What are the claims people make in favor of being in Iraq and Afghanistan? What are the claims people make against being there?
It is our duty to answer every question that could be asked about these issues. The best way I can think of doing this is through the use of infoboxes. Just two inches of copy with background information or type about how the issues affect readers could make a world of difference.
We aren’t doing good enough a job of breaking the issues down for readers. They’ve been reading every day about car bombings and the number of people killed. And the numbers are losing meaning.
People need to be reminded of the reasons given for why we got involved in the Middle East. People need to know what life is like for Iraqis and Afghanis.
People need to be told how these issues affect them.
When events occur thousands – even just hundreds – of miles away, Americans tend to take an “out of sight, out of mind” attitude. If it doesn’t affect them as part of a capitalistic society, they don’t care. They don’t seek answers. They’d rather not know the gory details.
But our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan is having an affect on us and our future. We should be preparing people today by educating them, giving them the information they can use to make decisions about their lives – and their votes – that can help determine what happens later.
ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
Journalists are supposed to be gatekeepers. We are part of the system of checks and balances that is integral to democracy. It is our duty to be the most skeptical, to ask the most questions, to be pessimistic, to be untrusting.
Journalists don’t ask enough ‘why’ questions of officials. It is important for news audiences to understand the ‘why’ behind the ‘what.’ Telling readers every day that people died in one location and killed each other in another does not help them understand why it’s happening or what and whom it’s affecting.
We should challenge use of jargon and the political non-answers that are perpetually spewed out of politicians’ and military officials’ mouths.
All questions about her loyalty aside, Judith Miller didn’t provide enough substance for her claims while reporting about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Her nebulous sources should have been clearly identified and her evidence supported. But it wasn’t. And her editors should have looked past the Pulitzer badge that goes with her name, and questioned her.
FEEDING FLAMES
The public accuses the press of feeding the flames of war and opposition. We can’t win because we’re the ones (hopefully) providing all sides of the news. So when officials make an announcement about weapons of mass destruction, we’re going to report it. And we should follow up on it with our own research.
After the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration played the role of Chicken Little.
The sky was falling.
Other countries were harboring terrorists: We went to Afghanistan. Weapons of mass destruction were threatening our security: We went to Iraq.
Did anyone question these assertions? Not enough. I’m not going to make a statement here about whether I think the Bush administration’s claims were right or wrong. But I can say that journalists didn’t question things enough.
So why didn’t we challenge officials? Why didn’t we ask for harder evidence? I think part of that answer lies in the wall government often puts up between policy making and the press. Politicians tell the press they can only know what they can afford to know. But how do we know that’s even true? Can we ever truly know whose interests they're serving?
WHAT WE CAN DO
As the proverbial “they” say, hindsight is 20/20. Should we have asked more questions about political motives and economic interests concerning Iraq? Definitely. But we’ve been in Iraq and Afghanistan for several years now. And we probably won’t ever completely pull out. We still have military personnel in Korea and Vietnam, after all.
We should learn from our experience with this administration – and previous others – and ask the tough questions. The media should never have to feel inhibited or intimidated by officials. It’s politicians’ and journalists’ job to serve the public. And we shouldn’t let people stand in the way of that.
One of the best things we can do for readers today is provide context for them. Audiences have lost sight of how we got to Iraq and Afghanistan.
It amazes me that, in the face of civil war in Iraq, people don’t know the difference between a Shiite and a Sunni.
How much money have we spent? How much will we spend over the course of the next 20 years? How much progress has been made? How many troops have been killed and injured? What are the claims people make in favor of being in Iraq and Afghanistan? What are the claims people make against being there?
It is our duty to answer every question that could be asked about these issues. The best way I can think of doing this is through the use of infoboxes. Just two inches of copy with background information or type about how the issues affect readers could make a world of difference.
We aren’t doing good enough a job of breaking the issues down for readers. They’ve been reading every day about car bombings and the number of people killed. And the numbers are losing meaning.
People need to be reminded of the reasons given for why we got involved in the Middle East. People need to know what life is like for Iraqis and Afghanis.
People need to be told how these issues affect them.
When events occur thousands – even just hundreds – of miles away, Americans tend to take an “out of sight, out of mind” attitude. If it doesn’t affect them as part of a capitalistic society, they don’t care. They don’t seek answers. They’d rather not know the gory details.
But our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan is having an affect on us and our future. We should be preparing people today by educating them, giving them the information they can use to make decisions about their lives – and their votes – that can help determine what happens later.
Doing the most good possible...
“Monday, April 16, 2007, will forever be remembered as the deadliest shooting in American history.”
I heard these words, or some variation thereof, many times last week…the broadcaster would dramatically say them on the TV and radio. News websites would offset them in bold writing. And every time I heard or saw these words I shuddered.
Let’s take a step back. There are moments in history where I feel like I’m proud to say I’m a journalist. I’m proud of the work that we do, the noble sacrifice that we make. Journalists were the ones to bring America to the Virginia Tech campus—to help the nation be bound together in the midst of tragedy.
But journalists can also misuse this great power to do harm. As I alluded to in the beginning of the essay, the first major problem journalists seem to have in response to the VA Tech shootings was sensationalizing the story. It gave a sense of awe to the “deadliest shooting in American history.” I couldn’t help but wonder how many psychos out there were listening to the broadcasts or reading the articles thinking, “I could beat that, then they would be talking that way about me.”
Secondly, there was the automatic insertion into the coverage about how this affects the great debate over gun control. Were policy makers discussing gun control? Was the average man-on-the-street discussing gun control? No. There were some foreign media institutions discussing gun control, but that was a little different. Journalists do have an important role in agenda setting, but in this case I think the automatic jump on the gun-control bandwagon only served to hurt journalists’ credibility. It reinforced the stereotype of liberal journalists who will use any situations to promote their agenda.
I am not saying that gun control should never be an issue in relation to the shootings, but the timing and the fact that the issue was solely media-driven, made it appear like journalists were taken advantage of the situation for their own platform.
My final media criticism relating to the crisis (although I’m sure I could think of more than just these three) was the extreme emphasis on the South Korean ethnicity of the shooter. It seems to be one of the most common things we here in journalism training, to quote Fred Fedler about crime stories, —“Never report a suspect’s race or religion unless it is clearly relevant to the story.”
Once again, I do understand that the fact that Seung-Hui Cho was not an American citizen did play some role in his biographical sketch, but the media paid so much attention to it. Headlines read “South Korean identified as shooter.” After reading some of the headlines and emphasis on Cho’s ethnicity, a person might think South Korea was out to get America.
Although there is no excuse for the senseless acts of violence that have taken place against the Asian community in the past week, I think the media helped to perpetuate them by putting so much emphasis on Cho being a South Korean. Instead of Cho being seen as a confused, troubled young man, he was presented as a confused, troubled South Korean…and those two words make a big difference.
I do have one last complaint. This does not directly relate to the media, but other responses. On Friday, the bells at MU rang 32 times. Thirty-three people died at Virginia Tech. Yes, Cho did inflict his own wound, yes he took the lives of many others. But Cho, like the other victims, still has a family that is dealing with loss. His family is probably also dealing with guilt, shame, anger and insults directed at them. Yet, MU and some other memorials did not want to recognize Cho’s humanity. Maybe it was because he was a “South Korean.” Maybe because it just seemed like the easy way out. I would be interested in knowing their rationale.
The original assignment had been to write about Iraq. Although this is much different in some ways, it’s the same. Every day journalists are faced with questions about Iraq—how much of their own agenda should be on the story (it often seems like it is there a lot, on both sides of the story)? How much should we show the humanity of the enemies (even if in doing so it could hurt our own troops)? These are tough questions. Questions that I don’t honestly can’t answer. But my best advice to journalists is don’t miss the question. I think that’s too often the problem with stories. It was the problem with Virginia Tech, it’s often the problem with Iraq. Journalists didn’t spend enough time examining their own biases and taking a step back and in the end the good they did may have equaled the bad.
I heard these words, or some variation thereof, many times last week…the broadcaster would dramatically say them on the TV and radio. News websites would offset them in bold writing. And every time I heard or saw these words I shuddered.
Let’s take a step back. There are moments in history where I feel like I’m proud to say I’m a journalist. I’m proud of the work that we do, the noble sacrifice that we make. Journalists were the ones to bring America to the Virginia Tech campus—to help the nation be bound together in the midst of tragedy.
But journalists can also misuse this great power to do harm. As I alluded to in the beginning of the essay, the first major problem journalists seem to have in response to the VA Tech shootings was sensationalizing the story. It gave a sense of awe to the “deadliest shooting in American history.” I couldn’t help but wonder how many psychos out there were listening to the broadcasts or reading the articles thinking, “I could beat that, then they would be talking that way about me.”
Secondly, there was the automatic insertion into the coverage about how this affects the great debate over gun control. Were policy makers discussing gun control? Was the average man-on-the-street discussing gun control? No. There were some foreign media institutions discussing gun control, but that was a little different. Journalists do have an important role in agenda setting, but in this case I think the automatic jump on the gun-control bandwagon only served to hurt journalists’ credibility. It reinforced the stereotype of liberal journalists who will use any situations to promote their agenda.
I am not saying that gun control should never be an issue in relation to the shootings, but the timing and the fact that the issue was solely media-driven, made it appear like journalists were taken advantage of the situation for their own platform.
My final media criticism relating to the crisis (although I’m sure I could think of more than just these three) was the extreme emphasis on the South Korean ethnicity of the shooter. It seems to be one of the most common things we here in journalism training, to quote Fred Fedler about crime stories, —“Never report a suspect’s race or religion unless it is clearly relevant to the story.”
Once again, I do understand that the fact that Seung-Hui Cho was not an American citizen did play some role in his biographical sketch, but the media paid so much attention to it. Headlines read “South Korean identified as shooter.” After reading some of the headlines and emphasis on Cho’s ethnicity, a person might think South Korea was out to get America.
Although there is no excuse for the senseless acts of violence that have taken place against the Asian community in the past week, I think the media helped to perpetuate them by putting so much emphasis on Cho being a South Korean. Instead of Cho being seen as a confused, troubled young man, he was presented as a confused, troubled South Korean…and those two words make a big difference.
I do have one last complaint. This does not directly relate to the media, but other responses. On Friday, the bells at MU rang 32 times. Thirty-three people died at Virginia Tech. Yes, Cho did inflict his own wound, yes he took the lives of many others. But Cho, like the other victims, still has a family that is dealing with loss. His family is probably also dealing with guilt, shame, anger and insults directed at them. Yet, MU and some other memorials did not want to recognize Cho’s humanity. Maybe it was because he was a “South Korean.” Maybe because it just seemed like the easy way out. I would be interested in knowing their rationale.
The original assignment had been to write about Iraq. Although this is much different in some ways, it’s the same. Every day journalists are faced with questions about Iraq—how much of their own agenda should be on the story (it often seems like it is there a lot, on both sides of the story)? How much should we show the humanity of the enemies (even if in doing so it could hurt our own troops)? These are tough questions. Questions that I don’t honestly can’t answer. But my best advice to journalists is don’t miss the question. I think that’s too often the problem with stories. It was the problem with Virginia Tech, it’s often the problem with Iraq. Journalists didn’t spend enough time examining their own biases and taking a step back and in the end the good they did may have equaled the bad.
Placing the Blame for Iraq (again)
Americans, especially journalists, tend to look back on the origins of the Iraq war too much in my opinion. I'm not talking about the assessment of blame for the ensueing debacle -- there no doubt needs to be a whole lot more accountability for faulty pre-war intelligence, suspicious allocation of "defense" contracts and the astonishing lack of an exit strategy that will leave America mired there for years to come, if not in terms of troop presence then in terms of the region's impact on our ability to deal with increased terrorism abroad. But that does us no good in fixing the problems that plague the region now, which should be a top priority, especially for those politicians who voted for the war and are now defending their vote as unavoidable at the time. The truth is, politically, it was the right thing to do at the time
In the beginning the Bush administration and Congress displayed what most of us now recognize as gullible optimism, something that, we should have realized by now, is never an asset in war. The worst sin, though, was the media's inability to recognize it at the time. At the time I halfheartedly supported the war because there didn't seem to be much reason to oppose it. Saddam was an awful dictator to be sure, but I have trouble believing that living under him was a worse experience than living in anarchy, at least for most Iraqis. Torture, rape and murder were not uncommon under Saddam, but they are seemingly less uncommon now, and the future certainly doesn't look any better, especially after American troops leave and Iraq loses its best stabilizing factor.
But looking to the origins of the war doesn't seem to do us any good at this point. America's prerogative today is finding a way to withdraw from Iraq without leaving an ineffective government in place. The media, to its credit, has atoned for its earlier lack of good reporting and has done its part in exploring the options. The best solution I've seen to date was explored "The New Republic" writer Peter Galbraith, who writes that we should partition Iraq into three segments, one for Sunnis, one for Shiites and one for Kurds, in his article "Iraq: What's next? Divide the country." The Kurds, he writes, have already voted by a 98% majority for independence, and the Sunnis and Shiites have largely approved of that.
The Shiites and Sunnis create a more complicated situation. If American troops leave sometime in the next two years, a period of increased instability will most likely follow. The danger is that Iran may choose to take advantage of that instability, a prospect that would no doubt push us back into war, especially with Bush, who is already exploring military options to deal with Iran (we know that thanks to the Seymour Hirsh, one of the few journalists who seemed to realize what the consequences of the war would be before it began), in the White House. Three separate Iraqs would no doubt be weaker than the one Iraq was under Saddam, but may be more powerful than the chaotic semi-anarchy that seems to exist today, or at least that would exist to a greater extent without the presence of American troops.
Another imperative should be allowing Iraqi citizens without ties to the insurgency into America with little or no wait period. It's a little bit of a pipe dream to think that this could work, but it's the only moral solution I could come up with. Iraq was no picnic before the invasion, but it seems to have only gotten worse in the ensueing years. Granting refugee status to the Iraqis who would choose to come to the United States -- and a great number of them have illustrated their willingness and desire to leave the country, just look at all those flowing into neighboring countries -- would be a good way to right some of the wrongs of the war.
But there is of course no easy or clear cut solution. They all have their advantages and disadvantages. I hesitantly supported the troop surge in the sense that it offers a little bit of hope that we can turn Iraq around, but it's easy for me to say that, I'm in no danger of being killed by a suicide bomber from 10,000 miles away.
In the beginning the Bush administration and Congress displayed what most of us now recognize as gullible optimism, something that, we should have realized by now, is never an asset in war. The worst sin, though, was the media's inability to recognize it at the time. At the time I halfheartedly supported the war because there didn't seem to be much reason to oppose it. Saddam was an awful dictator to be sure, but I have trouble believing that living under him was a worse experience than living in anarchy, at least for most Iraqis. Torture, rape and murder were not uncommon under Saddam, but they are seemingly less uncommon now, and the future certainly doesn't look any better, especially after American troops leave and Iraq loses its best stabilizing factor.
But looking to the origins of the war doesn't seem to do us any good at this point. America's prerogative today is finding a way to withdraw from Iraq without leaving an ineffective government in place. The media, to its credit, has atoned for its earlier lack of good reporting and has done its part in exploring the options. The best solution I've seen to date was explored "The New Republic" writer Peter Galbraith, who writes that we should partition Iraq into three segments, one for Sunnis, one for Shiites and one for Kurds, in his article "Iraq: What's next? Divide the country." The Kurds, he writes, have already voted by a 98% majority for independence, and the Sunnis and Shiites have largely approved of that.
The Shiites and Sunnis create a more complicated situation. If American troops leave sometime in the next two years, a period of increased instability will most likely follow. The danger is that Iran may choose to take advantage of that instability, a prospect that would no doubt push us back into war, especially with Bush, who is already exploring military options to deal with Iran (we know that thanks to the Seymour Hirsh, one of the few journalists who seemed to realize what the consequences of the war would be before it began), in the White House. Three separate Iraqs would no doubt be weaker than the one Iraq was under Saddam, but may be more powerful than the chaotic semi-anarchy that seems to exist today, or at least that would exist to a greater extent without the presence of American troops.
Another imperative should be allowing Iraqi citizens without ties to the insurgency into America with little or no wait period. It's a little bit of a pipe dream to think that this could work, but it's the only moral solution I could come up with. Iraq was no picnic before the invasion, but it seems to have only gotten worse in the ensueing years. Granting refugee status to the Iraqis who would choose to come to the United States -- and a great number of them have illustrated their willingness and desire to leave the country, just look at all those flowing into neighboring countries -- would be a good way to right some of the wrongs of the war.
But there is of course no easy or clear cut solution. They all have their advantages and disadvantages. I hesitantly supported the troop surge in the sense that it offers a little bit of hope that we can turn Iraq around, but it's easy for me to say that, I'm in no danger of being killed by a suicide bomber from 10,000 miles away.
Beat a story to death coverage
I have always been aware of media criticism. I’ve been presented the research in countless journalism and political science courses. These faceless figures show declining trust and viewer ship. But, until recently I haven’t heard the media criticized to this extent, and most importantly, the criticism is coming from my living room, from my peers.
Recent “hot” news topics have been the Don Imus controversy, Anna Nicole-Smith’s death, and the Virginia Tech massacre. And throughout it all, the war in Iraq is always on the front/side burner. The only similarity in these three topics is that the media can’t get enough. And it’s turning people off.
I recently flipped through the cable news channels and my roommates were begging me to turn it. They are sick of the 24-hour, beat-a-story-to-death approach to news coverage. The next day I heard the same thing at a friend’s house. People are getting tired of being bombarded by a news story. Often it feels like it's impossible to hide from the latest breaking news coverage of frivolous custody battles between worthless celebrities.
Eventually the media will move on, and popular perception is that they will just pick a new issue to over emphasize. I believe the lesson here is to learn, how much is too much. The Virginia Tech massacre warrants more coverage than Don Imus’ comments, and Don Imus deserved more coverage than Anna Nicole-Smith, but in every case there is a line that should not be crossed.
The war in Iraq is different. It has lasted over three years now and while the approval of the war is declining, I don’t believe we know enough about what is really going on there. I don’t want shock jock coverage of the war in Iraq. I don’t want bloody headlines. The saddest aspect of the war in Iraq is that there are good things going on there. We just don’t hear about it. I realize there are nearly daily bombings and instability. It should be covered, but where is the diversity in coverage?
Iraq is a different story.
I see the same white faces covering the war. I want to see how Al-Jazeera covers the war. I want to see all aspects of Iraq and we simply don’t get it here. It is easy to fall into the rut of what we think is best, or worse, what we think the people want to see. The only headlines I see are the number dead and latest bombing. I don’t know what is going on with the schools, sports, entertainment, or business in Iraq. Do these things exist in Iraq? Numbers just become statistics and the distance between the U.S. and Iraq seems to increase. People need to care. And the current pace of coverage is making people distance themselves from the media.
The reality is that the media can never get it 100% right. And competition between the media only complicates coverage. It’s about money and ratings, not quality coverage. It’s expensive and dangerous to send correspondents around the world. Iraq is dangerous and it’s hard to find the progress when civilians and soldiers are dying. But the public deserves better. We should see how Iraqis, Europeans, Russians, South Africans, etc. feel about the war too. We live in a global society.
I'm beginning to think that we have too many news channels, and not enough news.
Recent “hot” news topics have been the Don Imus controversy, Anna Nicole-Smith’s death, and the Virginia Tech massacre. And throughout it all, the war in Iraq is always on the front/side burner. The only similarity in these three topics is that the media can’t get enough. And it’s turning people off.
I recently flipped through the cable news channels and my roommates were begging me to turn it. They are sick of the 24-hour, beat-a-story-to-death approach to news coverage. The next day I heard the same thing at a friend’s house. People are getting tired of being bombarded by a news story. Often it feels like it's impossible to hide from the latest breaking news coverage of frivolous custody battles between worthless celebrities.
Eventually the media will move on, and popular perception is that they will just pick a new issue to over emphasize. I believe the lesson here is to learn, how much is too much. The Virginia Tech massacre warrants more coverage than Don Imus’ comments, and Don Imus deserved more coverage than Anna Nicole-Smith, but in every case there is a line that should not be crossed.
The war in Iraq is different. It has lasted over three years now and while the approval of the war is declining, I don’t believe we know enough about what is really going on there. I don’t want shock jock coverage of the war in Iraq. I don’t want bloody headlines. The saddest aspect of the war in Iraq is that there are good things going on there. We just don’t hear about it. I realize there are nearly daily bombings and instability. It should be covered, but where is the diversity in coverage?
Iraq is a different story.
I see the same white faces covering the war. I want to see how Al-Jazeera covers the war. I want to see all aspects of Iraq and we simply don’t get it here. It is easy to fall into the rut of what we think is best, or worse, what we think the people want to see. The only headlines I see are the number dead and latest bombing. I don’t know what is going on with the schools, sports, entertainment, or business in Iraq. Do these things exist in Iraq? Numbers just become statistics and the distance between the U.S. and Iraq seems to increase. People need to care. And the current pace of coverage is making people distance themselves from the media.
The reality is that the media can never get it 100% right. And competition between the media only complicates coverage. It’s about money and ratings, not quality coverage. It’s expensive and dangerous to send correspondents around the world. Iraq is dangerous and it’s hard to find the progress when civilians and soldiers are dying. But the public deserves better. We should see how Iraqis, Europeans, Russians, South Africans, etc. feel about the war too. We live in a global society.
I'm beginning to think that we have too many news channels, and not enough news.
Setting the agenda
What is our role as journalists in the war in Iraq? Well lets start with what our role is as journalists in general. To me, a journalist is supposed to educate. Specifically, they should help people understand how the news affects their daily lives.
The problem with the war in Iraq (well, one of the problems) is that people don’t care. There is no sense of urgency, even though we’ve been at war for over four years. Think about it, our nation has been at war for our entire college careers.
Studies have shown that people want news that affects them directly; it’s why so little attention is given to international news. Unlike Vietnam, there is no draft so many American lives are not interrupted by the war in Iraq. Therefore, they don’t want to hear about it all the time.
Journalism should take the war and show people how is affects them. How does this war change American lives?
As for giving people local news and giving little attention to international issues, I am strongly against it. Is journalism about what people want to know or what people need know? They say journalists set the agenda and decide what is news. Is Aleck Baldwin yelling at his daughter really more important than the war this country is involved in? That’s what I got from the two hours of CNN I watched Saturday morning. Stars before soldiers…
When news networks and papers do cover the war it’s always the same: a lot of numbers (mostly death tolls) or commentary about how it’s hurting Bush and the Republicans. No matter what side of the bench your on, I think we can all agree that we’re tired of hearing Dems and Reps go at it. And so are the American people, so why to journalists continue to cover it?
Instead of just telling us how many people died in a car bombing, tell us what it means. How many bombings have there been since the start of the war and what is being done to stop them? Is the situation in Iraq getting better at all? What are the positive and negatives about withdrawing the troops. I understand that these are difficult questions to answer in a war that is festering with scandal, secrecy and contempt, but why, then, do we even have reporters there risking their lives to get mediocre stories? Where is the analysis, the in depth reporting of what its really like or what this war really means for our country.
I admit there is some great reporting that comes out of war coverage; however, when that happens it’s often buried in the “international/national” section of the paper or in the middle of the broadcast. Our nation is at war. War makes the section front. I know we like local content, but on a slower local day why not put a story about the war on the front instead of an AP fluff piece? A reader shouldn’t have to dig to get information on the war.
Watching war coverage is sad and depressing. I don’t like hearing about how many young men and women died or how many people died in today’s bombing. And, after a while, I ignore it or become immune. That’s why it is so important for journalists to keep people interested and learning more about the war. It is our job to motivate people to form an opinion on the war, not to make the immune to it.
The problem with the war in Iraq (well, one of the problems) is that people don’t care. There is no sense of urgency, even though we’ve been at war for over four years. Think about it, our nation has been at war for our entire college careers.
Studies have shown that people want news that affects them directly; it’s why so little attention is given to international news. Unlike Vietnam, there is no draft so many American lives are not interrupted by the war in Iraq. Therefore, they don’t want to hear about it all the time.
Journalism should take the war and show people how is affects them. How does this war change American lives?
As for giving people local news and giving little attention to international issues, I am strongly against it. Is journalism about what people want to know or what people need know? They say journalists set the agenda and decide what is news. Is Aleck Baldwin yelling at his daughter really more important than the war this country is involved in? That’s what I got from the two hours of CNN I watched Saturday morning. Stars before soldiers…
When news networks and papers do cover the war it’s always the same: a lot of numbers (mostly death tolls) or commentary about how it’s hurting Bush and the Republicans. No matter what side of the bench your on, I think we can all agree that we’re tired of hearing Dems and Reps go at it. And so are the American people, so why to journalists continue to cover it?
Instead of just telling us how many people died in a car bombing, tell us what it means. How many bombings have there been since the start of the war and what is being done to stop them? Is the situation in Iraq getting better at all? What are the positive and negatives about withdrawing the troops. I understand that these are difficult questions to answer in a war that is festering with scandal, secrecy and contempt, but why, then, do we even have reporters there risking their lives to get mediocre stories? Where is the analysis, the in depth reporting of what its really like or what this war really means for our country.
I admit there is some great reporting that comes out of war coverage; however, when that happens it’s often buried in the “international/national” section of the paper or in the middle of the broadcast. Our nation is at war. War makes the section front. I know we like local content, but on a slower local day why not put a story about the war on the front instead of an AP fluff piece? A reader shouldn’t have to dig to get information on the war.
Watching war coverage is sad and depressing. I don’t like hearing about how many young men and women died or how many people died in today’s bombing. And, after a while, I ignore it or become immune. That’s why it is so important for journalists to keep people interested and learning more about the war. It is our job to motivate people to form an opinion on the war, not to make the immune to it.
The tension
The Missourian ran an article Friday about how readers responded to some newspapers’ decision to run the photos of Seung-Hui Cho on their front page. In the article, which written by our own Stephen Nellis, Brad Stertz, news editor at the Daily Press in Hampton Roads, Va., described the papers reason for running a page-width photo of Cho, pistols drawn and three smaller photos on Thursday’s A1.
I was wire editing Wednesday night, and Stertz was definitely right about the story breaking on the morning news cycle. A different breaking story – the shooting of 17-year-old Tedarrian Robinson – pushed the 3 o’clock budget meeting back to 4:30 p.m.; the news that NBC received a package from Cho bursted at about 4:20 p.m. By the time budget adjourned at 5, AP had a 20-inch story. At 6:30, NBC aired some of the package’s footage and photos. By 7, AP’s story was 55 inches.
During my shift, tracking down the photos Cho sent to NBC did not even cross my mind. Perhaps that doesn’t say much about me as a wire editor. Or perhaps it just means that we had a bigger local story that deserved the space. But if I had thought of it, and if there hadn’t been a shooting victim discovered at Reactor Field at MU, would have we run the photos?
It’s a hard question to answer, even in hindsight. The issue at hand, as Poynter Institute media ethicist Kelly McBride described in the Missourian’s article, is “an inherent tension between our journalistic obligation to something that the audience is very interested in and then our obligation to minimize the harm we might cause.” In other words, we would have had to assess the value the photos of Cho added to the story while considering the harmful impact the images could cause.
While I agree that the photos did add another layer to the story, I’m not sure I buy the Daily Press’ justification that they “would provide a lot more context to what happened.” Personally, I’m not the images aided in understanding the context of the killings since they were posed, planned pictures – all we saw was the person Cho wanted the world to see. Actually, the photos could have added to the confusion surrounding the events, as they scream the questions of why and how did this troubled man slip through the cracks?
With this in mind, had the conversation come up in the newsroom that day, I would have been in favor of using the photos – to an extent. The fact that Cho sent this package and its contents to NBC was big, relevant news. The story certainly needed to be out front, and perhaps the pictures, too. What did not need to happen is blow the photos up to dominate the page. Given the shock that struck the nation, the image of Cho pointing two guns at the camera would have had a powerful effect regardless of size. Making such a picture so large, especially when a smaller one would have sufficed, greatly increased the potential for harm. In the Daily Press' case, it actually did.At the Missourian, printing those photos on a day when the city had its own shooting scare certainly would have been harmful to its readers.
All in all, I think the Missourian handled the situation well (even if the on duty wire editor didn't raise the question).
“It came out right one our deadline. There hadn’t been a real complete picture that had come forward on the killer. The thought was, ‘This information and these images would provide a lot more context to what happened.’ With that as a basis, we decided to show it, as shocking as some of the information was and the pictures were.”
I was wire editing Wednesday night, and Stertz was definitely right about the story breaking on the morning news cycle. A different breaking story – the shooting of 17-year-old Tedarrian Robinson – pushed the 3 o’clock budget meeting back to 4:30 p.m.; the news that NBC received a package from Cho bursted at about 4:20 p.m. By the time budget adjourned at 5, AP had a 20-inch story. At 6:30, NBC aired some of the package’s footage and photos. By 7, AP’s story was 55 inches.
During my shift, tracking down the photos Cho sent to NBC did not even cross my mind. Perhaps that doesn’t say much about me as a wire editor. Or perhaps it just means that we had a bigger local story that deserved the space. But if I had thought of it, and if there hadn’t been a shooting victim discovered at Reactor Field at MU, would have we run the photos?
It’s a hard question to answer, even in hindsight. The issue at hand, as Poynter Institute media ethicist Kelly McBride described in the Missourian’s article, is “an inherent tension between our journalistic obligation to something that the audience is very interested in and then our obligation to minimize the harm we might cause.” In other words, we would have had to assess the value the photos of Cho added to the story while considering the harmful impact the images could cause.
While I agree that the photos did add another layer to the story, I’m not sure I buy the Daily Press’ justification that they “would provide a lot more context to what happened.” Personally, I’m not the images aided in understanding the context of the killings since they were posed, planned pictures – all we saw was the person Cho wanted the world to see. Actually, the photos could have added to the confusion surrounding the events, as they scream the questions of why and how did this troubled man slip through the cracks?
With this in mind, had the conversation come up in the newsroom that day, I would have been in favor of using the photos – to an extent. The fact that Cho sent this package and its contents to NBC was big, relevant news. The story certainly needed to be out front, and perhaps the pictures, too. What did not need to happen is blow the photos up to dominate the page. Given the shock that struck the nation, the image of Cho pointing two guns at the camera would have had a powerful effect regardless of size. Making such a picture so large, especially when a smaller one would have sufficed, greatly increased the potential for harm. In the Daily Press' case, it actually did.At the Missourian, printing those photos on a day when the city had its own shooting scare certainly would have been harmful to its readers.
All in all, I think the Missourian handled the situation well (even if the on duty wire editor didn't raise the question).
What are you first?
“When the nation goes to war, the press goes with it, the blather on CNN or Fox or MSNBC is part of a long and sad tradition,” Christ Hedges, reporter for The New York Times once said. The role of journalists, whether they are freelancing, embedded or sent with an entire news crew, during war has long been a debated issue. To provide accurate and objective news should still remain a priority for reporters, but the atmosphere and restrictions of war make this goal much harder to achieve.
The media coverage of the war in Iraq has led to many questions about the proper role of a journalist’s during role time of war. Shortly after the attacks on Sept 11 the federal government passed the Patriot Act, making searches on newsrooms and document confiscation from reporters legal. War allows for the government to pass more restrictive laws and engage in news censorship under the reasoning of “homeland security.” Critics of the media’s coverage of the war claim reporters are providing patriotic sentiments and acting as “cheerleaders” for the government.
When discussing the journalists’ role in war it is important to remember how we got here. How news is disseminated during war has improved over the years. During the Spanish English War and World War I journalists relied on military and government officials for news. Only portions of the news was provided by government officials, and they often left out death rates and minimized damages in an effort to gain media backing and support the war effort.
During WWII the government selectively allowed journalists to be embedded with soldiers but all reports had to go through the newly created Office of Censorship. The office reviewed all communications coming into and leaving the United States. One of the most popular and influential journalists during the Second World War was Ernie Pyle. A journalist from Indiana, Pyle convinced the government to embed him with soldiers in London. Pyle wrote a weekly column focusing not just on the war, but on the lives of the GIs. Pyle wrote about the hardships the soldiers faced like the lack of variety in the food and how they entertained themselves. He wrote about what he saw, felt and touched in a feature-like style that captivated the reader. Through his detailed writing his audience was able to understand what war is really like for soldiers. And it often didn’t match the “heroic image” the government was trying to paint. For 50 years correspondents wrote about war as heroic, and a glorious pursuit to unite the country, but the war in Vietnam changed all that. Because war was never officially declared against the country, the government could not restrict journalists and the reports they produced. Citizens were shocked and angered when they read the stories being produce by correspondents in Vietnam.
War correspondents in the Middle have more freedom and ability to move around during a war, but they’re still limited in what can and cannot be reported. War correspondents face hardships in their ability to report that other reporters don’t have to deal with. War reporters can’t generalize, it is impossible to know what is going on a mile away and it is always difficult to know what really happened.
War correspondences have the responsibility of accurately portraying what is going on over seas to our soldiers. Reporters should provide critical analysis reports of the action, and provide readers with balanced news. I think many Americans still do not know exactly what is going on in Iraq and other Middle East countries, and part of that is because of the lack of reporting. The American public needs access to independent sources of information, and reporters need to become more objective and analytical in their reporting.
There is a fine line between providing an accurate picture of what is going on overseas and giving away strategic military secrets. I have had many discussions about the coverage of the Iraq war and one of the most intriguing questions I have been asked is: What are you first: an American or a journalist?
The media coverage of the war in Iraq has led to many questions about the proper role of a journalist’s during role time of war. Shortly after the attacks on Sept 11 the federal government passed the Patriot Act, making searches on newsrooms and document confiscation from reporters legal. War allows for the government to pass more restrictive laws and engage in news censorship under the reasoning of “homeland security.” Critics of the media’s coverage of the war claim reporters are providing patriotic sentiments and acting as “cheerleaders” for the government.
When discussing the journalists’ role in war it is important to remember how we got here. How news is disseminated during war has improved over the years. During the Spanish English War and World War I journalists relied on military and government officials for news. Only portions of the news was provided by government officials, and they often left out death rates and minimized damages in an effort to gain media backing and support the war effort.
During WWII the government selectively allowed journalists to be embedded with soldiers but all reports had to go through the newly created Office of Censorship. The office reviewed all communications coming into and leaving the United States. One of the most popular and influential journalists during the Second World War was Ernie Pyle. A journalist from Indiana, Pyle convinced the government to embed him with soldiers in London. Pyle wrote a weekly column focusing not just on the war, but on the lives of the GIs. Pyle wrote about the hardships the soldiers faced like the lack of variety in the food and how they entertained themselves. He wrote about what he saw, felt and touched in a feature-like style that captivated the reader. Through his detailed writing his audience was able to understand what war is really like for soldiers. And it often didn’t match the “heroic image” the government was trying to paint. For 50 years correspondents wrote about war as heroic, and a glorious pursuit to unite the country, but the war in Vietnam changed all that. Because war was never officially declared against the country, the government could not restrict journalists and the reports they produced. Citizens were shocked and angered when they read the stories being produce by correspondents in Vietnam.
War correspondents in the Middle have more freedom and ability to move around during a war, but they’re still limited in what can and cannot be reported. War correspondents face hardships in their ability to report that other reporters don’t have to deal with. War reporters can’t generalize, it is impossible to know what is going on a mile away and it is always difficult to know what really happened.
War correspondences have the responsibility of accurately portraying what is going on over seas to our soldiers. Reporters should provide critical analysis reports of the action, and provide readers with balanced news. I think many Americans still do not know exactly what is going on in Iraq and other Middle East countries, and part of that is because of the lack of reporting. The American public needs access to independent sources of information, and reporters need to become more objective and analytical in their reporting.
There is a fine line between providing an accurate picture of what is going on overseas and giving away strategic military secrets. I have had many discussions about the coverage of the Iraq war and one of the most intriguing questions I have been asked is: What are you first: an American or a journalist?
The Journalist's Role In Iraq
Feelings on the media in Iraq are mixed. Most of those within the field, myself included, feel like it is the media’s duty to be there. Many members of the military feel like the media, especially those embedded with their troops, are a burden. People outside the media, many U.S. viewers, have mixed reactions – feeling that the media should be there but should stay far out of the way.
The opinion of many media members is expressed well in this quote from Sig Christenson, military reporter for the San Antonio Express-News. "All we ask for is fair play," says Christenson, currently on assignment in Iraq. "It's a pretty tough place to work, and what we reporters are doing is in the great tradition of American democracy: to tell people back home what is taking place, the good and the bad. At the end of the day, Americans should be thankful."
The media is there to inform the American people about things that they cannot see with their own eyes. It’s the same purpose that the media has at home. However, when the government puts restrictions on the media it makes it difficult for them to do their jobs. The government should not be able to tell members of the media where they can and cannot go, what they can and cannot take pictures of and what they can and cannot report on. These are violations of the First Amendment and hinder the media’s main job – to inform the people.
The stories about soldiers treating members of the media badly are horrible. The soldiers should be appreciative of the media – just as the media is appreciative of the soldiers. The media is there to tell the story of the soldier and relay it to the people back home. The media is not there to paint the soldiers in a negative light, and in my opinion has not been doing so.
Average citizens have varying opinions on the role of the media in Iraq.
“It’s nice that they’re there, but they’re not soldiers,” says Kathleen Blakeney. “They’re not necessarily qualified to be over there – it’s not necessarily the safest thing. When they get abducted or become involved in combat they don’t know what to do. It’s just not safe.”
Kathleen suggested that maybe retired soldiers or other people with military or security background should be war journalists. While this is a great idea, and probably has been implemented somewhere, I don’t know that it’s necessarily feasible. If a soldier is retired, chances are he does not want to go back into a combat situation, even if it’s not as a soldier.
In my opinion, the media has a right to be in Iraq. They have a right to report on anything and everything that they see in an unbiased, but informed manner. If they are inhibited from doing that somehow, then it is not fair. The American people depend on the media for information. If they can only get their information from the government, then they will not be getting the whole, unbiased story.
Rozen, Laura. Journalists take flak in Iraq. The Nation. 12 January, 2004. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040112/rozen
The opinion of many media members is expressed well in this quote from Sig Christenson, military reporter for the San Antonio Express-News. "All we ask for is fair play," says Christenson, currently on assignment in Iraq. "It's a pretty tough place to work, and what we reporters are doing is in the great tradition of American democracy: to tell people back home what is taking place, the good and the bad. At the end of the day, Americans should be thankful."
The media is there to inform the American people about things that they cannot see with their own eyes. It’s the same purpose that the media has at home. However, when the government puts restrictions on the media it makes it difficult for them to do their jobs. The government should not be able to tell members of the media where they can and cannot go, what they can and cannot take pictures of and what they can and cannot report on. These are violations of the First Amendment and hinder the media’s main job – to inform the people.
The stories about soldiers treating members of the media badly are horrible. The soldiers should be appreciative of the media – just as the media is appreciative of the soldiers. The media is there to tell the story of the soldier and relay it to the people back home. The media is not there to paint the soldiers in a negative light, and in my opinion has not been doing so.
Average citizens have varying opinions on the role of the media in Iraq.
“It’s nice that they’re there, but they’re not soldiers,” says Kathleen Blakeney. “They’re not necessarily qualified to be over there – it’s not necessarily the safest thing. When they get abducted or become involved in combat they don’t know what to do. It’s just not safe.”
Kathleen suggested that maybe retired soldiers or other people with military or security background should be war journalists. While this is a great idea, and probably has been implemented somewhere, I don’t know that it’s necessarily feasible. If a soldier is retired, chances are he does not want to go back into a combat situation, even if it’s not as a soldier.
In my opinion, the media has a right to be in Iraq. They have a right to report on anything and everything that they see in an unbiased, but informed manner. If they are inhibited from doing that somehow, then it is not fair. The American people depend on the media for information. If they can only get their information from the government, then they will not be getting the whole, unbiased story.
Rozen, Laura. Journalists take flak in Iraq. The Nation. 12 January, 2004. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040112/rozen
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Citizen Journalism kicks down the door
After a semester of talking about possibilities and probabilities, we finally got our answer with the shootings at Virginia Tech: citizen journalism is going to play a huge role in media’s future. It was easy to debate things before there was a really large news event to put our theories to the test, but I’d say now the evidence is undeniable.
As soon as I learned about the shootings taking place, I flipped on the TV and started browsing the Internet to see what I could find out. The style of reporting wasn’t a complete shock to me, but the scale on which they were using it
On TV, reporters had not quite reached the scene, but news anchors on all of the national 24-hour news networks were reporting on calls parents and students at the university made to them. They read stories from blogs and showed photos that were posted almost instantaneously. Their entire reports relied on reporting citizens were providing them with.
The Internet was even more detailed. The information was posted in story form, but the stories the Web sites posted linked to cell phone videos, pictures students with digital cameras took and stories students in the barricaded classrooms were posting to blogs. The complete reliance on citizens for the news drove home the point that we’re no longer working in a traditional media setting.
As much as some of us may dislike the idea that citizens can and will report on many large news stories, it’s no longer a choice we have nor something we can control. The ease with which you can post news to Blogger, photos to a site like Flickr and video to YouTube removed the barriers to citizens wanting to instantly share news. What our discussion should focus on now is not the “if the media is going to evolve” debate but how we are going to adapt with it.
By using these citizen reports, photos and video as a strong supplement to what we do, we can once again strengthen our position as a provider of information and more importantly, build more credibility with the people we are continuously covering. Denying the usefulness citizens have in reporting news is ignorance at best and ridiculous arrogance at worst. Providing a place for all of these forms of communication and information to culminate, newspapers (both print and more specifically online) can once again establish themselves as the top news source in media.
Large-scale news events like this, though horribly unfortunate and sad, will occur many times in the future. We should use this tragic event as the basis of how coverage should work in the new media world. By studying the coverage that was provided, we can learn how we can improve on what we did and how to fix flaws in our system. By providing complete coverage of events like this, we can start to regain some of the readership we’ve lost over past years.
This also applies to smaller events and news stories. By providing thorough coverage of them and giving citizen journalists the ability to contribute to the newsgathering and reporting processes, we stand to gain tremendously from a huge influx of stories, ideas and opinions that we’ve been lacking in recent years.
The concept of citizen journalism has been lauded as the future of our profession by certain professors during my schooling over the past few years, but I think the shootings at Virginia Tech drove the point home as a reality. If we’re smart, we’ll use this as evidence that we need to seriously consider making some changes in the newsroom and adapt to the future mediascape. If not, we’ll just continue to fall farther behind.
As soon as I learned about the shootings taking place, I flipped on the TV and started browsing the Internet to see what I could find out. The style of reporting wasn’t a complete shock to me, but the scale on which they were using it
On TV, reporters had not quite reached the scene, but news anchors on all of the national 24-hour news networks were reporting on calls parents and students at the university made to them. They read stories from blogs and showed photos that were posted almost instantaneously. Their entire reports relied on reporting citizens were providing them with.
The Internet was even more detailed. The information was posted in story form, but the stories the Web sites posted linked to cell phone videos, pictures students with digital cameras took and stories students in the barricaded classrooms were posting to blogs. The complete reliance on citizens for the news drove home the point that we’re no longer working in a traditional media setting.
As much as some of us may dislike the idea that citizens can and will report on many large news stories, it’s no longer a choice we have nor something we can control. The ease with which you can post news to Blogger, photos to a site like Flickr and video to YouTube removed the barriers to citizens wanting to instantly share news. What our discussion should focus on now is not the “if the media is going to evolve” debate but how we are going to adapt with it.
By using these citizen reports, photos and video as a strong supplement to what we do, we can once again strengthen our position as a provider of information and more importantly, build more credibility with the people we are continuously covering. Denying the usefulness citizens have in reporting news is ignorance at best and ridiculous arrogance at worst. Providing a place for all of these forms of communication and information to culminate, newspapers (both print and more specifically online) can once again establish themselves as the top news source in media.
Large-scale news events like this, though horribly unfortunate and sad, will occur many times in the future. We should use this tragic event as the basis of how coverage should work in the new media world. By studying the coverage that was provided, we can learn how we can improve on what we did and how to fix flaws in our system. By providing complete coverage of events like this, we can start to regain some of the readership we’ve lost over past years.
This also applies to smaller events and news stories. By providing thorough coverage of them and giving citizen journalists the ability to contribute to the newsgathering and reporting processes, we stand to gain tremendously from a huge influx of stories, ideas and opinions that we’ve been lacking in recent years.
The concept of citizen journalism has been lauded as the future of our profession by certain professors during my schooling over the past few years, but I think the shootings at Virginia Tech drove the point home as a reality. If we’re smart, we’ll use this as evidence that we need to seriously consider making some changes in the newsroom and adapt to the future mediascape. If not, we’ll just continue to fall farther behind.
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