Assignments for Week 12 (Nov. 15)
Work on Project (Movie or Editorial Cartoons).
• This week, you all have more than enough to do with work on your second Smarts Project. I ASSUME (!?) that everyone has submitted to me a detailed enough proposal on what you intend to do that I can make substantive comments/suggestions. (But journalists know never to assume, which as we all know, is an attitude that “makes an ASS of U and ME.” So if you haven’t sent me your proposal or gotten feedback from me, please (re)send.)
Meanwhile, however, I may add some miscellaneous readings to this list as I come across them. Here is one from this coming Sunday’s (1/14/10) Washington Post, a column by longtime TV newsman Ted Koppel on “The Death of Real News.” I offer it to you because of Koppel’s critique of modern TV news, and the applicability of his insights to media smarts and the role of the news media in society.
Excerpt: “The commercial success of both Fox News and MSNBC is a source of nonpartisan sadness for me. While I can appreciate the financial logic of drowning television viewers in a flood of opinions designed to confirm their own biases, the trend is not good for the republic. It is, though, the natural outcome of a growing sense of national entitlement. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s oft-quoted observation that ‘everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts,’ seems almost quaint in an environment that flaunts opinions as though they were facts. “And so, among the many benefits we have come to believe the founding fathers intended for us, the latest is news we can choose. Beginning, perhaps, from the reasonable perspective that absolute objectivity is unattainable, Fox News and MSNBC no longer even attempt it. They show us the world not as it is, but as partisans (and loyal viewers) at either end of the political spectrum would like it to be.”
—Ted Koppel, “Olbermann, O’Reilly and the Death of Real News,” The Washington Post, Nov. 14, 2010. (Ted Koppel, who was managing editor of ABC’s “Nightline” from 1980 to 2005, is a contributing analyst for “BBC World News America.”)
• SmartTalk
In response to the article by Koppel, I do not think that people like Beck, O'Reily and Maddow should be scorned for doing their job. They, for the most part make it known that they are voicing opinion. The point where I would draw the line is when they declare something is fact when it is not. The true wrongdoers are the news programs that claim to deliver unbiased news with no ties to one side or the other.
ReplyDeleteI think that instead of criticizing and pointing out what is wrong with programs these days, journalists should work to fix the problem and create something better. Obviously television is the way to go as far as ratings and reaching a large audience, but reminding everyone about what the news and media is supposed to be about may be refreshing. We're at a desperate point in our lives, and I think that for everyone's benefit journalists need to come together and strive for truth and enlightenment instead of trying to feed their egos and tell themselves they're doing good.
ReplyDelete--Chelsea Ebeling