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Assignments for Week 4 (Sept. 20)
READINGS:
• Mass Communication Theories
• McManus, Ch. 2 (pp. 1-10): “Truth vs. Truthiness”
• Read Pease’s column about McLuhan’s Fish
• Readings on Press Performance: NOTE: These readings will provide you with context and background for your first project on Truth vs. Truthiness, which will be due Friday, Oct. 15. Details to come.
• Where the News Comes From -- And Why It Matters
• 29% - Say Press is Generally Accurate
• Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two Decade Low
• The Wikiback Effect: If you’re a journalist who cribs from Wikipedia, it will get you back.
• “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand”
• “How to detect bias in news media” (#1)
• “How to detect bias in news” (#2)
• Fox News is cable champ
• “Seek and Ye Shall Find: How to Evaluate Sources on the Web”
• Book Review: How the Bush White House Handled the Press
“Truth v. Truthiness”
• “Is Jon Stewart the Most Trusted Man in America?”
• “Young adults eschew traditional nightly news for ‘The Daily Show’”
• “What the Mainstream Media Can Learn From Jon Stewart”
• It’s official: “The Daily Show” really is “the most important television program EVER”
• Now that Walter Cronkite has passed on, who is America's most trusted newscaster?
• Jon Stewart: The new most trusted man in America?
• In Jon We Trust
• NBC’s Brian Williams: Why Jon Stewart Is Good For News
• Beck's Misinformer of the Year defense rests on falsehoods
• SmartTalk on readings and course content
• Quiz
• Teddy TV on Mass Comm Theories (to be announced)
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I'm about half way through the readings for this week, and finding them to be a real eye opener. I'm not naive enough to think everybody's honest and trying to do the right thing all the time - OK, well maybe I am. I really do forget the world doesn't operate with complete honesty - particularly when we're talking about reporting the news. Who the heck can you trust, if you can trust those you trust to report the news? In any event, reading the background material has been good for me, reminding me to think critically and not buy into whatever I hear from what I think is a trustworthy source. (Kay Anderson)
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with McManus when he says, "Falsehood in news is more damaging than anywhere else." Honesty and truthiness are important in all aspects of our lives, especially in the media world. Disasters can result from misinformation and lack of truthiness. It is through the media that many people base their knowledge and beliefs. This weeks reading assignments have really opened my eyes as to how nieve I have been as far as the news and media are concerned. Often times I have sat down and watched the news, and taken the information that I have been told by the reporters as truth. I have never really considered that there is a possibility that what I am being told, through the magical tube in my family room, is not completley accurate. Nor the possibility that I am being lied to or deceived by those who are passing on the information. I feel as if I have been blind and now I can see the world for what it really is. Knowledge really is power.
ReplyDeleteBy the way - you asked what we thought of Teddy TV - if it were worthwhile and/or beneficial. I thought it was helpful - it's good to have a face, voice and "conversational tone" behind the material. (Kay Anderson)
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty interesting learning that not everything you hear is completely true or leans a certain way ... I also find it interesting that Fox News is one of the most trusted news sources. Isn't it the one that isn't always completely accurate... well not accurate but they don't completely tell the whole truth. Or they try to make you see things the way that they want you to see it? It's hard to imagine that these news broadcasts are lying to us. They are supposed to be keeping us up to date and being honest with accurate information and not false information. People have to try to figure out what is going on by themselves because you can't trust the reporters. (Joreigh Landers)
ReplyDeleteI thought the same thing as Joreigh when I heard that Fox news is the most trusted for relaying news to Americans. I thought that Fox was often under fire as far as if it presents the news truthfully and accurately.
ReplyDeleteKristi Ottley
I found a lot of these readings interesting, I think it gives a huge outlook on truth and truthiness.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I got thrown from the 3-inch deep side of the media knowledge pool into the 20-ft deep end after reading “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand." That single article has so much eye-opening information and pieces I NEVER would have put together that it's embarrassing for me to even think I knew the first few things about the war in Iraq. I feel almost ashamed of myself for watching nightly news and listening to reports on the war in Iraq from these 'analysts.' Just talking mouths. It's amazing.
ReplyDeleteEspecially by taking this class, I'm having issues with questioning the credibility of some of the so-called 'facts' presented in some of the articles here. The NY Times Analysts was completely believable, even to the point that it pointed out its' own minor errors (though I'm sure even that could be a ploy to make the rest of it sound even more accurate). I'm starting to get very worried.
ReplyDeleteI've gone through some of the articles already and the one called "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand" is really fishy to me. I want to know the actual truth on the war and what these analyst's really know but I will never know because the government will protect this information. As I kept reading it, all I saw were question marks because I didn't see any truth to the article. Even the analysts were suspecting that the information they're were being told could be false!
ReplyDeleteRomina Nedakovic
As students we are being taught now to question what we read, see and hear in the media - analyze, challenge, verify - but wading through all the readings and examples, I can't help but ask myself "who is teaching the media?" As "credible" journalists, shouldn't they know better?
ReplyDeleteI agree with joy. We are taught so often to actively seek our own information and question what we see in the media. You would think that journalist in todays society would be doing the same. We assume facts are actually factual when we hear them on the news but as some of these article revealed that is not always the case. It shocking to think about how much to we read as see isn't actually the truth. -Stephanie Harries
ReplyDeleteI was talking with an online friend about the subject of truth vs. truthiness, and the phenomenom of sensationalist media personalities (stars/celebrities?), and it occurred to her that their first names make up the acronym GNARL. This from Pam in Alabama. Credit her if you repost :-)
ReplyDeleteG--Glen (Beck)
N--Nancy (Grace)
A--Ann (Coulter)
R--Rush (Limbaugh)
L--Laura (Schlessinger)
There were others she mentioned - Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly - but they did not make the cut because they did not fit her acronym. However, their first initials combined are B.S.
That's awesome Joy!!! I like your friend ;)
ReplyDeleteRomina Nedakovic
That acronym is only slightly one-sided.
ReplyDeleteI love the interview that Stephen Colbert does where he's "out of character" and he talks about how he doesn't let his children watch The Colbert Report because that character is not really him. I am often surprised to find that people believe his show is actually real and not a satire. Hello! It's on comedy central, shouldn't that be red flag number one? (As if the dripping sarcasm wasn't enough of a clue). It's super interesting to take a look at truthiness and see what's out there and the kind of things people will believe.
ReplyDeleteIn my eyes there probably never is anything that is considered "truth". The new word we've learned, truthiness, is one that describes the majority of information we get from the media. We're all human and have our own particular bias and opinions. Heck everything I'm typing now is truthiness if you think about it. This is my opinion from what I've read, learned, and believe to be true. Media outlets have someone to answer to and a profit to make, so in turn a spin is put on the truth in order to benefit their interests. This is why this information is important to us all. We need to be able to be skeptical and pick apart the news as truth and truthiness. Just my two cents.
ReplyDeleteWhoa, once again, I'm a sucker. Fox news has been one of my most popular places to get news on the TV. This is what happens when you're an uninformed member of America. I feel like I have so much to learn. The articles "How to Detect Bias in News Media" are really points that should be common sense for us. In order to get a fair opinion we should have a good amount of examples from each demographic influenced. I never realized how much news coverage is covered by white men and because I have never been too critical about what I was watching I never questioned it. I feel my brain getting larger with information as we speak. I appreciate these news articles.
ReplyDeleteAnd second I would like to say I really enjoy Teddy TV. I always learn better hearing things as well as seeing them rather than just reading alone. I feel like I understand what is expected of us so much more with your pod casts. You should think about doing them for 1010 too (just a thought).
--Chelsea Ebeling
Thanks to all of you for your comments this week. This is complicated stuff--trying to be engaged with the world while also being skeptical about what we're being told. This is the core of not only this class, but of being a responsible citizen when we are governed/organized/indoctrinated by mass media messages. How do we really know what we think we know?
ReplyDeleteYou all will remember the statement on the syllabus (I hope! It was just four+ weeks ago!!) that we all should "Question Authority." That was a political bumpersticker in the 1960s, and it meant that the American people needed to think more deeply about what we were being told about the Vietnam War and Communism.
Today, that advice is even more important, because the "authorities" are everywhere:
1) a professor on Teddy TV (and yes, I'll try to do more but I'm technologically challenged);
2) anything you see/hear/read on TV/news/Internet
3) political officials
4) corporate officials
5) your mother.... and any other "authority."
Remember that all your professors and leaders and mothers know what's best for you. Maybe they do, but you owe it to yourself to take a deep breath and think and decide for yourself.
To be specific about your comments:
• a HUGE "A(men)" to Chelsea Ebeling, who wonders about her former trust in Fox News.
• and thanks, too, for Chelsea's feedback on Teddy TV: I have a "face for radio," but I agree that it's fun to be able to see the prof. This is what I dislike most about online classes: I like to interact w/ students directly. I'll do more Teddy TV, if only to rant from week to week.
• Elise is right that it's important (and a media-smart basic rule) to remember that Stephen Colbert (and everyone you see on TV) is an entertainer. Katie Couric won't let her kids watch her on TV either. And every journalist can tell you that when you go on the record, when the TV lights or the microphone goes on, the guy who was joshing with you a minute ago will become someone you've never seen before...the media persona and image are very different from reality.
• I like Joy's GNARLy way of understanding the media world. Let's come up with other combos:
CBS
Online
News
Fox ("faux"?
Ubiquity
Sounds
Internet
On-Air
Networks
= CONFUSION
•Romina's queasy feeling about war news from the Pentagon should be shared by everyone. A basic rule of anyone in news—reporters or consumers: What's the source's interest in framing the story the way s/he does? Self-interest...
Here's what the cynics tell newswriting students: Whenever a journalist's mother tells him that she loves him, he gets a second source. Question "authority."