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Smarts Project #1—Truthiness

Truth vs. “Truthiness”

Are the news media telling us what/how/when/why? we think?

“Truthiness is what you want the facts to be as opposed to what the facts are, what feels like the right answer as opposed to what reality will support.”

—Stephen Colbert
pundit/philosopher

The Project: This project asks you to pick a current news topic, and compare the facts of the issue (as confirmed by a variety of nonpartisan news fact-checking services, listed below), and how the issue is reported/framed by 1) Fox News and 2) Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” and Stephen Colbert’s “The Colbert Report.”

Rationale: Fox News is the most-watched cable news network, attracting twice as many viewers as the other two cable news networks, CNN and MSNBC. Research shows that only 29% of Americans “say that news organizations generally get the facts straight, while 63% say that news stories are often inaccurate.” At the same time, “faux journalist” Jon Stewart is cited as the “most trusted” newscaster in America, and many self-described conservatives believe that Stephen Colbert shares their values and beliefs. Further, despite its “fair & balanced” claims, Fox seems more overtly partisan than other news networks (which all have their own biases, too), and so Fox misstatements are easier to identify.

Project Goal: Research, analyze and compare the true facts of a newsworthy issue, and then compare the facts to the ways the issue is framed by Fox News and by “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report.” Fox is “real” news” and Stewart/Colbert are “faux” news. Whose “truth” is truer to the facts, as you can find and present them?

Directions:
1. Select a topic (see some on the list below or propose your own current issue to research).
• “Birthers” Movement
• Gulf oil drilling
• Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Gays in the military
• Global warming/climate change
• Health care reform
• Immigration
• Racism & President Obama
• Same-sex marriage
• Other: describe and make a case

2. Research the topic for its “truth” from the non-partisan online fact-check sources below. Document the facts of your issue. How confident are you about what you think is true about the facts?
• News media or scholarly research (fully documented—How true/truthy are these?)
• Annenberg Political Fact Check
• Fact Checker
• Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
• Media Matters for America
• PolitiFact

3. Framing:
A. How have the topics been framed by Fox News channel?
• Are audiences presented with more “truth” or “truthiness” by Fox journalists and pundits?
• How well are Fox’s fact-claims supported by evidence? Are any fact-claims erroneous? Is important information omitted, distorted, or taken out of context?
• Do the sources cited reveal favoritism, partisan bias, or omission of relevant viewpoints?
• Be specific, using several examples to support your arguments.

B. ... And by Stewart/Colbert?
Compare the facts from your research to the “coverage” of the topic on “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report.”
• How does Fox coverage of your topic compare to the “fake” news reporting by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert?
• Which represents more “truth”?

5. Relate your findings to code of ethics for journalists, media effects theories/concepts. Be specific. (See mass comm theories and list of ethics codes.) Here’s the point: Journalistic ethics codes all espouse “truth” and “do no harm” and other central principles of social responsibility of the mass media. How do your news reports perform? Be specific.

6. Include URLs for clips of specific episodes and news segments to support your conclusions. (Video clips of most news segments are available online.)

Reporting Options
You must report on your project to the class. Send essay/blog URL to Dr. Ted, who will post your report to the class blog.
1. Essay: You may write a 1,200- to 1,500-word essay (plus bibliography and endnotes). Click here for essay guidelines.
or
2. Blog (or other multimedia blockbuster): Create a multimedia project (blog, power point presentation, or “documentary”). Click here for a past Smarts student YouTube example. Part1. Part2.

Deadlines:
• Proposal: Propose a fully developed topic and rationale to Dr. Ted (by email) by Monday, Oct. 4
• Project Due: Monday, Oct. 18

Content: Your project simply identifies and reports the facts (according to reliable sources) on an important social/cultural/political issue, examines how it is framed by Fox and Stewart/Colbert, and evaluates how well We the People are being informed. Consider the mass comm. theories and media literacy concepts we’ve examined: How is the issue framed? How is it skewed? What is the agenda being set by the way the issue is presented? What larger perceptions are cultivated by the mass media? Are we (in the immortal words of the syllabus) being lied to, boys and girls? In what specific ways?

NOTE: Although media pundits and commentators do not have the same ethical responsibilities as news journalists, pundits do share many of their ethical responsibilities. For example even opinion writers and pundits must:
1. Tell the truth.
2. Never report anything known to be false.
3. Never manipulate images or sounds in ways that may be misleading.
4. Resist distortions that obscure the importance of events. Deliberate distortion is never permissible.
5. Clearly disclose the origin of information and label all material provided by outsiders.

ALSO . . . The object is NOT for you to take a position on your topic. This is not about your opinion, but about your analysis of how the issues are reported in these news media, and how well the reporting you find conforms to ethical goals of responsible journalists.

Colbert on Migrant Workers

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Alert Media Smartie Eric Budd offers the following

Eric writes: “I thought you would appreciate this if you hadn’t seen it already.” Colbert Testifies on Capitol Hill: Migrant Workers.

I urge all Smarties to check out Eric’s post. Things to think about as you do:
1) If you don’t know the background of this testimony and why Stephen Colbert is testifying before Congress, find out.
2) What is Colbert’s expertise in migrant labor?
3) For the media-literate among us, why is Colbert’s engagement with this issue more than a comic riff?
4) What is your reaction to the process of Congressional process, as reflected by this item (and whatever else you can find related to this hearing)? (and how come so few of the people behind Colbert have smile muscles?)
5) Congressman Conyers (from what state? What political party?) makes these statements: a) he asks Colbert to leave the room, and b) he commends Colbert on his planned event on Oct. 30 in DC. What is that?

From a Smartie perspective: What strikes you about this as a part of the role of the mass media in the political process and public engagement with an issue?

Seriously. What is “truth” and what is “truthiness,” and how does this example of the political process move either forward?

Media Myths Answered

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Get Smart(er)!
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Dear Smarties: Professor Brenda Cooper and I started compiling items for the “media myths” quiz many years ago when we noticed how many weird stories (and I’m not talking about “News of the Weird”) routinely circulate in the popular media. At first, these things were just funny: How could people be so gullible? But more recently we can see that certain big players in public discourse have moved from the whacko fringes into the mainstream, resulting in misinformation that is not funny, but actually misleads sizable portions of the population.

One recent example is the Pew Center poll that showed major percentages of “normal” Americans believing that Barack Obama is a) a radical practicing Muslim who was raised in a Muslim madrasah; and b) Obama was not born in America. A decade ago this stuff would be banner headlines on Weekly World News (I have one from the 1980s: DONOR WANTS KIDNEY BACK! but today they're usually about sexy aliens), and would be worth little more than a chuckle at the supermarket checkout. But now, “fair and balanced” has been coopted by “loud and ridiculous” in the “responsible” press—a Spring issue of American Journalism Review documents how the mainstream news media out-whackoed the whacko press with increasingly lurid stories about golfer Tiger Woods that were completely unsubstantiated. Sure, Woods is a dawg and a philanderer, but serious news outlets from the “Today Show” to major newspapers simply repeated claims by a string of women who said they’d had affairs with him, without ever getting confirmation beyond their own stories.

In other areas, it also should be clear from the “myths” quiz that demographic and economic factors play important roles in the content of news, entertainment and advertising content. For example, what is the impact of so many white, middle-class men being in charge of so much of media content? As we discuss in the theories section this week, individual selective perception inevitably (but not necessarily intentionally) plays a role in how individual reporters or directors frame their stories.

Of course they do! A white, middle-class man sees and understands the world and what’s “real” and “true” differently than a, say, white, middle-class woman or—certainly—a 20-something Palestinian or a 75-year-old black woman from Birmingham, Alabama. I see the world differently than you do, and my mother sees the world differently than I do. Are we ideologically driven? Probably not. (Some are, but I read in the Weekly World News that Glenn Beck is an alien, which explains a lot...) It’s just that different people see and understand events from different perspectives. That’s a good thing in a free society. It also means that we all need to consider the source of our information (from Glenn Beck to Rachel Maddow to Ted Pease) and the source’s perspectives and possible goals.

Anyway, I meant to send you the “answers” to the Media Myths Quiz over the weekend. You can find them here. Check them against your answers, and think about some of the implications of these items and what they mean to you, personally, in your media use and information consumption, and what they might mean to the larger society. Media Myths Answered.

Smarten Up!
Dr. Ted Professor of Interesting Stuff

Syllabus • Fall 2010

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JCOM 2010 • MEDIA SMARTS
Making Sense of the Information Age (the online edition)
Professor Ted Pease (ted.pease@usu.edu)
Department of Journalism & Communication
Utah State University • Fall 2010

• Email: Ted.Pease@usu.edu
• Website: USU Blackboard; Blog—you’re here! (additional materials at AskDrTed)
• Required Text: John McManus, Detecting Bull: How to Identify Bias and Junk in Print, Broadcast and on the Wild Web (2009), Purchase (or “rent”) online. Go to the Detecting Bull website and click on “buy/rent” link at left. Follow the directions. Permanent copy of entire book: $23.95. Temporary copy (20 weeks): $14.95. Also available in a dead-tree version for $24.95—see website for details. (I recommend the online version, because it's cool and because it is full of hotlinks to great extra URLs. On the other hand, you can mark up the paper version. Your call.)
• Other Resources: Look at the INDEX at left on the blog for weekly assignments, readings, quizzes and whatnot. See also Today’s WORD on Journalism and AskDrTed; occasional hilarious “Teddy TV” lectures will be posted on Blackboard.
• Office: 310B Animal Science (435-797-3293)

Preamble: Wise Guys

1. Whose Reality?
“I don’t fret about TV because it’s decadent or shortens your attention span or leads to murder. It worries me because it alters perception. TV, and the culture it anchors, masks
and drowns out the subtle and vital information that
contact with the real world once provided.”
—Bill McKibben, author, The Age of Missing Information, 1993

2. Critical Thinking
“Question Authority!” –1970s slogan

3. The Power of Words
“Words are sacred. They deserve respect.
If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.”
—Tom Stoppard, playwright, 1967

4. How Do We Know What We (Think We) Know?
“I believe television is going to be the test of the modern world,
and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision we shall discover
either a new and unbearable disturbance of the general peace, or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by television—of that I am quite sure.”
—E.B. White, author, 1938

• • • • •

What we’ll do

Welcome to Media Smarts, where we equip you to make sense of the information age—journalism, movies, advertising, books, TV, the Internet, radio. Some issues we’ll discuss and explore:
1) We’re being lied to, boys and girls.
2) The way we are told to see the world is not necessarily the way it really is.
3) Trying to operate in a free and participatory democracy without accurate knowledge and information is like piloting a boat through the fog without radar or GPS.

The central question driving Media Smarts is this: How do we know what we (think we) know about _____________? fill in the blank: the economy? Iraq? Lady Gaga? Barack Obama? Hair care? Health issues? Global warming?

In this information age (which author Bill McKibben said should more correctly be termed an age of missing information), nearly every waking moment is somehow affected by the mass media, which teach us to see the world in particular ways. The media teach us to value certain lifestyles and norms and to reject others; to desire certain products—food, cars, gadgets, political figures; how to perceive different groups of people based on their gender, racial background, skin color, height, weight, eye color, or religion.

This constant diet of mass media images and values skews how we as individuals and we as a society see and understand the world.

The goal of this course is to help you see past the mass media’s version of the world, and to give you the analytical and critical thinking skills you’ll need to take the mass media version with a grain of skepticism, and to make sense of the world for yourself.

During the semester, we will develop critical thinking skills—informed skepticism—to explore whether, when, how, and to what extent the mass media—both news and entertainment—can influence events and people’s view and understanding of them, focusing on how mass media messages can cultivate perceptions, perspectives and attitudes, particularly in areas of gender, racial diversity, violence, children, and as regards how Americans “know” their own history. We’ll start with general principles of media literacy, and then focus specifically on how the mass media present “reality”—political, social and cultural.

Course Goals: To expand students’ recognition of the role of mass media versions of “truth,” and their critical thinking and analytical skills to make them more savvy consumers of mass media. In particular, the course will ask students to analyze and evaluate various mass media versions of historical events, cultural norms, and individuals in society.

The core question for this course is, How do we know what we know about the world and the people and events in it, and how sure we are of those “facts”? (Note: This question is nicely illustrated in the current debate about whether President Obama was born in this country, and whether he is a Christian or a Muslim: 27% of everyone (and 41% of Republicans) responding to a Pew Research Center poll said they think Obama is a Muslim. What is a “fact”? Whose “facts”?)

We will examine the unique and essential social interaction between the individual and the mass media:
a) How do mass media—from newspapers to TV and radio to Hollywood and the Internet—frame the world and the people in it?
b) How does this affect the press, people, culture, societies and participatory democracy?
c) What stories about cultural norms (race, gender, society, politics, etc.) are told?
d) And how do we learn to “see” and understand the world through such lessons?

Children, of course, are the most susceptible victims of media images and messages. Humor columnist Erma Bombeck once said, “In general, my children refuse to eat anything that hasn’t danced on television.”

Most Americans under the age of 50 were raised on such a diet; the world has been created for us, and isn’t real unless we’ve seen it on the tube, or on YouTube. In predicting more than 45 years ago how the information age would change the world, Canadian sociologist Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) used the analogy of a fish. He said he didn’t know who discovered water, but he was fairly certain it wasn’t a fish.

Hunh????

Well, like fish in a pond, McLuhan suggested, most of us in the information age are unsuspecting and uncritical about the mass media environment in which we live. We eat TV, we breathe media messages, we overhear news and rumors, and unknowingly absorb advertising and cultural attitudes through our gills and into our psyches and worldviews.

This represents an enormous responsibility both for the producers of mass media messages, and for those who consume them. How healthy is this diet?

As beat-era poet Allen Ginsberg said, “Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture.” The fundamental assumption of Media Smarts is that most of us are so accustomed to the mass mediated world of the 21st century that we don’t even notice the environment in which we live, the mass media diet that we consume and digest, and which becomes part of what and who we are, and how we think about and perceive the world.

“Television tends to be the main centerpiece in our culture,” says Professor Gary Edgerton. “TV in a sense creates instant history . . . that shapes how we think about an event.” Even beyond the sit-com or QVC or reality-show fads—which help us learn from TV what we value and how we should live—most Americans learn what they think they “know” about historical events and people from how they are depicted and framed in TV or movies. For example, students can “understand” the events of Pearl Harbor only with Ben Affleck in the middle of them. Many Americans “know” what they think they know about the death of President John F. Kennedy from Oliver Stone’s movie. The story of D-Day is told by Tom Hanks going ashore at Normandy to find a soldier named Private Ryan.

This is how many people today “know” the world. I believe that today’s students—you guys—are so steeped in mass media from infancy that you may need remedial critical thinking skills to help you recognize how entertainment media affect perceptions of both current and historical “reality.” That’s not intended as a criticism—it’s not your fault that, as philosopher-king Bart Simpson told Homer and Marge, “It’s just hard not to listen to TV—it’s spent so much more time raising us than you have.”

Media content-producers—which means not only newspapers and Hollywood producers, but anyone with an Internet connection or a Twitter account—decide what to include and exclude in their messages, what to highlight or downplay in order to frame “facts” the way they want. This may be intentional to mislead and misrepresent, but it easily might also be unintentional: we all see and know the world in our own ways.

“Truth” is in the eye and mind of the beholder—often diluted, distorted and even fabricated by the media to sell you something, to privilege ideologies or social class, to distort gender and race, and otherwise to reshape social reality.

In the process, in a mass media marketplace that has become more like “reality” for most Americans than reality itself, the stories we tell and the stories we learn through films, TV and more broadly in popular culture pre-empt truth, and reshape reality for most American media consumers.

In Media Smarts, students also examine the economic, political, and cultural environment that influences the ways in which society is depicted and limited by the mass media. By the end of the semester, students will have practiced critical and analytical skills in several areas that will help them become more critical consumers of all media products.

Text, assignments & grading

Because this is an online course, and exists within a context of journalism and the role and performance of the press and the mass media, our readings will be online articles or other materials placed on the class website.

Aside from assigned online readings, which you will find listed from week to week on the blog, you will need the online “book,” Detecting Bull, which you can purchase or “rent” for the semester (see details at the top of the syllabus).

Other assignments will be posted through this blog week-by-week.

Assignments and Grading: (Subject to change)
This is a critical thinking course. It’s also a talking (or emailing) and writing course. Students will present their thoughts on mass media events and the readings on each week’s posts on the Smarts blog. Details on this requirement to follow separately.
1. Quizzes on readings/news 25 pts
2. Projects: Critical essays/reaction papers or blog projects 10 pts & 20 pts
3. SmartTalk participation 15 pts
4. Exams: Midterm 15 pts; Final 15 pts
Total = 100 pts

• Quizzes: Every week (more or less) on readings and the news.

• Projects: Two short (750 wds) essays—or, alternatively, create a blog—on assigned topics, using extensive citation of relevant articles and sources. Details to come.

• SmartTalk: Every week you will encounter readings or come across stuff on your own that pushes your buttons about the intersection of mass media and your life. When this happens, I want you to post your rants on that week’s assignment site on the blog (for example, click here the Week1 posting—if there were something that you wanted to rant about, you would click on “comments” at the bottom of the post, and write your rant in the little box. You can “comment as” there either using your gmail or aggiemail address, or you may click anonymous).
Comment/kibbitz/rant regularly on the blog. Sometimes Professor Pease will start a thread. Sometimes the WORD will push your buttons (like this one, which makes me CRAZY....) Everyone must initiate a substantive thread on the readings or a current media issue, as well as comment/respond substantively to someone else’s post.You can comment on the readings, on Today’s WORD on Journalism (which you will receive by email daily) or on anything else that strikes you in news about the media or in the media themselves. I expect you to comment substantively (more than, “Yeah! I agree!”) at least 12 times during the semester, both initiating your own subjects and responding to others’ rants. Check Week1 scroll down for an example from last semester.

• Exams: Comprehensive midterm (~Week8) and final exams. Short answer and essays.

• Other grading issues: The instructor takes no prisoners when it comes to writing, grammar, spelling, mechanics, etc. Fair warning. Obviously, DEADLINES ARE ABSOLUTE. That’s why they’re called deadlines. In the real world, missing deadlines means you don't get in the paper; in this class, missing deadline means zero for the assignment.

Housekeeping Details: Some cautions, instructions and threats. Ask anyone; Pease is an irascible old poop and can be testy at times.

Academic Honesty: The University expects students and faculty alike to maintain the highest standards of academic honesty (for a complete definition, see University Catalogue or the Code of Policies and Procedures for Students at Utah State University, Article V, Section 3). The policy states:

“[C]heating, falsification or plagiarism can result in warning, grade reduction, probation, suspension, expulsion, payment of damages, withholding of transcripts, withholding of degrees, removal a class, performance of community service, referral to appropriate counseling" or other penalties as the university judiciary may deem appropriate.
Because public trust and personal credibility are essential to journalists and other professional communicators, I adhere to the JCOM department’s zero-tolerance policy regarding academic dishonesty: Cheaters fail the class and are expelled from the JCOM major. As per the USU Student Code, any documented form of academic dishonesty—including plagiarism—will result in an automatic F in the course and a report to the dean of the college and the USU vice president for student services. If you have questions about what’s acceptable work under strict codes of academic honesty, see the USU Code of Policies and Procedures for Students, or consult your professor. Any suspicious work may be submitted to a web database. For guidance on plagiarism and how to avoid it, see this website.

Decorum: It’s a funny thing about email and other online communication—people often type things that they would NEVER say in a face-to-face setting, sometimes without thinking. So please read your emails out loud to yourselves (this also will help with typos and stoopid language) and count to 10 before sending or posting. We’re all in this together. That means that we will need each other in order to succeed. And that means that everyone is expected to treat everyone else with fairness, courtesy and honesty. Central to this subject matter is the willingness to examine our own beliefs and how we arrived at them, and to acknowledge that others may see the world differently. So I hope we all will be able to express and consider opinions collegially, in the spirit of open inquiry. Let us agree to disagree, if necessary, and to accommodate contrarian viewpoints and differing perspectives. Disruptive or abusive behavior will not be tolerated.

Disclaimer: The instructor has no desire to offend anyone’s personal or cultural beliefs, and he apologizes in advance if he does so inadvertently. But students should be aware that journalism (and advanced education) often deals with issues and content that some may find disagreeable—from profanity and offensive attitudes and perspectives that may make you uncomfortable. But that’s the business or examining society and becoming media-savvy and making sense of the world. It’s a critically important job for every citizen of a free society. Please do tell me if you have problems with any of the material, and we will try to accommodate if possible.

Finally, any rumors that you may have heard that Professor Pease is a heartless, obdurate, irritable, demanding, tough, pugnacious, unpleasant SOB probably falls short (and wide) of the truth. The fact is that I will press you hard this semester to develop an advanced level of critical thinking and analysis required for success in the information age. But if you're having a problem—with this class or anything else—please feel free to call or email me, or for those of you on-campus, come find me in my office, for a talk, a coke, career advice, a crying towel or whatever.

§ § §

SCHEDULE

(subject to change—pay attention!)

The advantage to online courses is that you can do the work as your schedule permits, and in your pajamas if you want. In fact, Professor Pease may be in his jammies even now (picture that! Well, actually, don’t....). But you do have to complete the assignments when they are due. Students who wait until the end of the semester to submit everything in a pile will flunk.

The weekly assignments will appear as a single hotlink (ex: Week 1...) on Blackboard, linking to details on our blog. You don’t have to go through Blackboard—bookmark the Media Smarts blog on your computer, and just do your work there. There is an INDEX link in the upper lefthand corner of the blog page, and the week-by-week links also appear in that column. There’s a lot of other fabulous stuff there, too, for the curious or bored, and more will be added as the semester goes on.

§ § §

JCOM 2010 (online edition)—Media Smarts Schedule F10 (subject to change)

NOTE: Here’s a start on our readings schedule, which I will add to on the weekly listings, so click on those links regularly for updates. This is your responsibility.

WEEK 1 Aug. 30
• Get acquainted with our Blackboard site and the Media Smarts blog.
• Read “First Thing—Read This!” and syllabus closely.
• Order John McManus’ Detecting Bull online. Here’s how-to...
• Quiz on syllabus will be emailed.
• Students post introductions of themselves on “About Us” post on blog.

WEEK 2 Sept. 6
Starters: Yes, Virginia, I DO Expect You to THINK!—Stephen Colbert clip.
How Do We Know What We Think We Know?
READINGS:
• McManus, Intro Chapter (pp. 1-4)
• What Is Media Smarts? “Media Smarts—Making Sense of the Information Age,” by Ted Pease & Brenda Cooper
• “Media Myths” quiz.
• SmartTalk at Week2 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 3 Sept. 13
• Video: Billy Joel condenses history
• Lecture Notes: Media Literacy: How do we know what we think we know? to accompany an online video on “TeddyTV” (details to come)
• READINGS: Media Literacy
• “What is media literacy?”
• “Some principles of media literacy” and online handout from DrTed
• McManus, Ch. 1 (pp. 1-15)
• SmartTalk at Week3 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 4 Sept. 20
READINGS on Mass Communication Theories—How does this stuff work?:
• Mass Communication Theories
• McManus, Ch. 2 (pp. 1-10): Truth v. Truthiness
• Pease column: McLuhan’s Fish
• Start thinking about Truthiness Project, due Friday, Oct. 15.
• SmartTalk at Week4 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 5 Sept. 27
READINGS: Journalism Ethics—NOT an Oxymoron! A Free & Responsible Press
• Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics; other professional ethics codes.
• Social Responsibility: “The Philosophical Underpinnings of Free Expression in Society,” by Edward C. Pease; the Hutchins and Kerner commissions
• SmartTalk at Week5 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 6 Oct. 4
See Blog
• SmartTalk at Week6 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 7 Oct. 11
See Blog
• SmartTalk at Week7 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 8 Oct. 18
See Blog
• Midterm Exam
• SmartTalk at Week8 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 9 Oct. 25
See Blog
• SmartTalk at Week9 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 10 Nov. 1
See Blog
• SmartTalk at Week10 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 11 Nov. 8
See Blog
• SmartTalk at Week11 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 12 Nov. 15
See Blog
• SmartTalk at Week12 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 13 Nov. 22
See Blog
Thanksgiving Week

WEEK 14 Nov. 29
See Blog
• SmartTalk at Week14 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

WEEK 15 Dec. 6
See Blog
Last day of classes: Dec. 10
• SmartTalk at Week15 on blog
• Quiz will be emailed.

FINAL EXAM WEEK Dec. 13

More Truthiness: Climate Change

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Global Warming, Global Schmarming
See!? It’s SNOWING! Take that, Al Gore!!

When the East Coast got whacked by the biggest week of blizzards in a century this week (well, only the part of the East Coast that counts to the news media—D.C.), some commentators took the opportunity to crow that this was evidence that global warming is a fraud.

More! Yesterday (2/12), 49 of the 50 U.S. states had measurable snow on the ground (kudos if you can figure out which didn’t!)—up to 4-6 inches across the Deep South.

The two-part mid-Atlantic storm was so heavy that Baltimore had more snow so far this season—six feet!—than Buffalo, NY. Meanwhile, of course, the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, BC, struggles with trucking in enough snow for the mogul and Xtreme hills, and Utah (“Greatest Snow on Earth!”) is at 63 percent of normal snowpack, the weather moguls say, predicting another year of significant drought.

But never mind. Some media pundits used the East Coast blizzard as a way to poke the Obama administration and environmentalists over their “hysteria” about “alleged global warming.” See this clip from The Daily Show, in which Jon Stewart and friends showcase some of the climate change discussion. Many more conservative (whatever that means) politicians and media (like the Wall Street Journal) also took the storm as an opportunity to poo-poo science and political positions they dislike. See this link to “Media Matters for America” (a liberal—whatever that means—media watchdog group).

Closer to home, the Utah Legislature this week passed a formal resolution questioning whether global warming exists (and what about that Utah drought-y thingy?), leading scientists from that radical campus to the south (B-Y-U) to send a formal letter of protest and then to testify before a legislative hearing.

USU science Professor Will Popendorf writes: “Regarding the resolution, you may be aware that some faculty from BYU were involved in testimony to the legislature on this topic. . . . In addition, a group of their faculty initiated a letter response (see PDF at http://utahjwj.org/img/Legislature2.pdf). My understanding is that this letter is being supported by
faculty at the UofU.”

So, where does all that leave us? As normal humans with no particular position or expertise on this topic, how are we to respond to these kinds of strong statements from elected representatives and prominent news people? How can we make sense of these things? Certainly, we have seen the pictures of disappearing glaciers, and heard about declining stocks of fish that apparently can’t find food in warming oceans; and then there are those poor polar bears whose icebergs are melting. Al Gore won the Nobel Prize, fergoodnesssakes!, for his work on climate change, including “An Inconvenient Truth.” There’s got to be something to all that. But what about all these other people who also seem to know what they’re talking about?

How do we know what we think???

Dr. Ted
Perfesser of Confusing Things
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How (Some) News Media Cover Same-Sex Debate

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Covering the Same-Sex Marriage Debate

Here’s an interesting post on a site called “10000 Words—Where Journalism & Technology Meet” about how some news outlets have used technology in telling the same-sex marriage story. This relates to truthiness in that media consumers are bombarded by so much information (if we choose—or have time—to pay attention to it!) that it becomes difficult for us to figure out what’s true. You can see from this example of impressive coverage how being media smart can be hard work!

El Peez

PS: And in Saturday’s Salt Lake Tribune (2/13), this conversation about the distinction between religious/church marriage and civil unions. Is this really a religious issue, or a social/civil issue? The opposition to same-sex marriage seems to come on religious grounds, but few same-sex couples seem to want church weddings—the California law that was struck down by Proposition 8 in 2008 permitted civil marriages by mayors and judges, not church weddings, which are up to individual religions.

In her story, Rosemary Waters writes: “When a bride and groom exchange vows in a cathedral, chapel or temple, they receive a marriage license, blessed simultaneously by their clergy and their state.

But why? Other religious ceremonies aren't wedded to civil ones. The county clerk doesn't issue a baptism license. A priest doesn't deliver a funeral eulogy and then sign the death certificate.”

For couples—gay or straight—the central issues of marriage may be as much about matters like inheritance, health care and insurance as anything else. Oh, and love and commitment, too, of course. (Happy Valentine’s Day—to all loving couples!)


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Examples of Truthiness at Work

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Dear Smarties:

I have noted a couple of examples of the ramifications of the “truthiness” syndrome in the press this weekend.

Yesterday (2/6), the Herald-Journal ran this wonderful letter from a guy in Smithfield named Russ Larsen, titled “Gore & Co. distorting facts,” about what he calls “all the recent ‘hoopla’ about global warming.” Click here for the full letter. Note the “facts” Mr. Larsen is citing. Wherever you stand on the question of global warming and environmental change, this guy’s understand of reality is a little skewed. I’m not saying he doesn’t believe what he’s saying, but why does he believe it?

Another example is yesterday’s appearance at the Tea Party convention in Nashville by Sarah Palin. Without asserting any facts, Palin pumps up the crowd with her anti-Obama rhetoric, which then can be reported as news on outlets including Fox, which employs her as a commentator. Again, wherever you stand on Obama, reality is being created by the echo chamber of the event, the coverage and the creation of news from the event and the coverage. This morning, Chris Wallace was interviewing Palin (again, a Fox employee) on the Fox Sunday talkshow.... If you repeat something often enough, it becomes important, and maybe even “true.” (See Christian Science Monitor coverage here.)


One more example: In today’s (Sunday 2/7) Salt Lake Tribune, columnist Peg McEntee addresses climate change as a “conspiracy theory”—NOT! (And cartoonist Pat Bagley, right, also focuses on this.) This is targeted at Utah state Rep. Mike Noel of Kanab, who thinks scientists, government officials and liberals are conspiring to force global cooling on us. Last year, Noel asked USU President Stan Albrecht to discipline some USU climate researchers because they had testified before state legislative panels about climate change (they believe it). Noel said these guys are on the state payroll, and shouldn’t be allowed to promote lies. (Noel later backed down). As McEntee reports in her column, Noel and others who see global warming as a fake left-wing conspiracy (like Mr. Larsen from Smithfield, above; Gov. Gary Herbert also thinks humans have nothing to do with climate change) think this is an effort at world population control. Bills are pending before the Utah Legislature to shut down the federal Environmental Protection Agency until “a full and independent investigation of the climate data conspiracy and global warming science can be substantiated.”

So this “truthiness” stuff is complicated. How do we “know” what we think we know? We see letters like Mr. Larsen’s or columns like McEntee’s, or cartoons like Pat Bagley’s, or coverage of rhetorical entertainment like Sarah Palin’s or Glenn Beck’s or Rachel Maddow’s (or Jon Stewart’s!). Yikes! How to decide what to believe? See how important it is to be critically thinking media smarties???

Keep thinking, Smarties.

Dr. Ted
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Media Myths Quiz—The Answers

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Media Myths DeMystified

Dear Smarties:

I know you are eager to see the actual answers to the Media Myths Quiz you took as a warm-up for this class. I haven’t had time to get to Teddy TV to talk about the quiz in, er, “person,” but I wanted to get you the answers and a little commentary so you can relieve your consternation and suspect over, say, whether Americans have more TVs or toilets in their homes... (!).

Click here to find the answers to the Myths Quiz on AskDrTed. Any comments or surprise or whatever, please post in the comments box on this page.

Dr. Ted
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News Quiz!

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How Well Informed Are We?

The Pew Research Center is a valuable resource for anyone interested in what’s going on in America, and what we Americans think. The researchers do constant surveys on all kinds of stuff in the news—like the health care debate or where President Obama stands in the polls, etc.—and sometimes it’s a little frustrating and frightening to find out what “we” think/know.

Sometimes it’s a little confusing to find out what “we” really think about issues, because if you watch the news, you think (for example) that most of us don’t want health care reforms (to use a current example). But a new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, another important nonpartisan research outfit, finds that a lot of us do support health care reforms when we find out what actually is proposed, instead of what opponents and the media say about it. After all, who would not want poor people to be able to get doctor care and meds when they’re sick or hurt? Are we an enlightened society or aren’t we?

The Kaiser poll, done in January, “finds that Americans are divided over congressional health reform proposals, but also that large shares of people, including skeptics, become more supportive after being told about many of the major provisions in the bills.” Imagine that! When you tell people what the thing is really about, they think about it differently than the way the media tell them to!

Anyway, you are (mostly) journalism students, so you should be more interested in news than the average citizen. You are, at least, engaged humans who care about what’s going on in the world. So I’d like you to go to the Pew Research Center and take its current news quiz. Click here for the quiz. Please do the quiz before you read the results and commentary on this Pew website.

And then please post your results and any comments in the dialog box below. I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.

El Peez
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About Us!

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All About Us Smarties

Dear Smarties:

To introduce you to each other, and to get you connected on the blogsite, please click on the “comments” link below this post, and tell us a little about yourself. If you have your own blog, you can include that link if you want.

I’ll start. My name is Ted Pease. I am ancient (55 years old!), and have taught at Utah State for 17+ years. Impossible! When I came to Utah, I expected the stay about three years and then go somewhere else. There’s a life-lesson there, I think.

I was department head in JCOM for 11 years, and then stepped back into the faculty and let someone else do it in 2005. But then that guy left for another university, so I’m department head again. It’s not as cool and exotic and powerful as it sounds. You know that stuff that hits the fan? I’m the fan. Before starting my teaching career, I was a newspaper and magazine reporter in various places, including Little Rock, Ark., where I knew Bill Clinton (not the same way Gennifer Flowers did!) when he was governor.

What else? I bought a Hyrum Reservoir ski boat a couple of years ago and dragged it over to our place in northern California, where it now has a second life as a salmon-fishing boat. It’s a much happier boat.

I’m married to Dr. Brenda Cooper, who’s also in the JCOM Department and director of the Women & Gender Studies Program. We have kids, but they’re grown and gone. We prefer our dogs. Click here. And here. And here for Stoopid Pet Tricks.

As you can see, I also like to take photos.

The craziest thing I ever did: So many to choose from.... When I was 19, I rode a bicycle from Seattle to Atlanta. I haven't liked riding bikes much ever since.

That’s enough. If you REALLY want to know more, here’s some more at this link.

And a more formal one here: Pease Bio.

And more than ANYONE could POSSIBLY want to know here.

So add your deep, dark secrets in the comments box below. If you want to post a photo and can’t include it, send me a jpg and I’ll add it.

El Peez
Professor of Interesting Stuff

“Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad...”
—Aldous Huxley, author

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A Truthiness Tour de Force

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Now THAT’s Truthiness!

All:

FYI: A great “Truthiness/Truth” project by a team in Brenda Cooper’s Media Smarts class examining how the media frame the illegal immigration debate, and incorporating constitutional precepts, mass communication theories, journalistic ethics codes, and reporting by the news media. The assignment—in the context of the central Smarts question, “How do we know what we think we know about the world?”—asks students to take a controversial topic and find out how the media frame the debate, and then to fact-check using PolitiFact and other nonpartisan fact-checking organizations.

Among the mass communication theories the students used to evaluate media performance in this case: framing, agenda-setting, cultivation. What I like about this kind of project—an this team’s effort in particular--is that it requires research, fact-checking, evaluation and critical thinking, sense-making and synthesis, and incorporation of a wide range of theoretical and real-world issues, presented persuasively with evidence in an effective package. Very nice work. We will post it as well to the JCOM website.

The team—Pizza Feasters United—created a 16-minute multimedia video, which has been posted in two parts to YouTube. Team members: Ryan Parkinson (filmmaker), Angelica Drumm, Kellen Knowles, Teresa Nield, and Torie Welsh.

The video is too long for YouTube, so it’s posted there in two parts:
Part 1
Part 2

TP

On Objectivity

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Read this essay, “On Objectivity.”

Quiz on this reading and McManus assignment to come.

Gatekeeping and Framing

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Privacy, Taste or the Public’s Right to Know?

One of the most hot-button issues in news occurs when the press publishes or airs images that are emotional or violent or express grief.

Throughout the Bush administration, for example, photographers weren’t allowed to shoot images of flag-draped caskets coming home from the Iran or Afghanistan wars. The argument was thaat such photos violated the families’ privacy, even though many families wanted their loved ones honored as they returned home, having made the ultimate sacrifice. (Cynics, critics and tree-hugging Democrats said the real reason was that the Bush administration didn’t want public support for the war eroded by reminders that bad things were happening over there, in our names).

Ironically, some TV networks were accused of routinely sanitizing the news for squeamish audiences, even as their international feeds contained much more graphic images and commentary. For example, bodies and injured from bombings rarely showed up on CNN, while CNN International broadcast much more horrific stuff.

Here’s discussion of a recent example: the photo of an American GI shortly before and after he was shot and killed.

UPDATE: AP Photo Captures Death of Marine in Afghanistan -- Pentagon Protests

What do you think? How can you relate this to a) what mass communication theories tell us about how news and perception work? and b) to what you consider the expectations of ethical journalists and their obligations to readers and viewers and citizens?
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First Thing—Read this!

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Dear Media Smarties:

Welcome to the online edition of JCOM 2010—Media Smarts: Making Sense of the Information Age at Utah State University. This is only the second time this class is being offered online, so it will be a learning experience for all of us. Please bear with me and, as always, when confused, ASK!

To make sure that everyone receives these instructions, they are being sent to you via email, as well as being posted here. If you are reading this on email, please click here now and finish reading this on the blog: Media Smarts—JCOM 2010.

As discussed in the syllabus, this is the same as the standard face-to-face Smarts class, but with some important differences. For one thing, because it is an online class, it requires considerable self-discipline and responsibility on the part of students. You HAVE to keep up with readings and assignments.

Before we get into all that, however, you all need to read these files carefully. There will be a GRADED QUIZ this week! on the syllabus (consider the syllabus your first lecture) and on these opening instructions, because it’s essential that everyone understand how the system will work.

Most of your work will be done using materials posted on our own dedicated Media Smarts blog. Some work also will be required on the JCOM 2010 site on USU’s Blackboard, which provides links to all course requirements and assignments, but most of our time will be spent on the blog for readings, links and discussions.

If you look at the Smarts Index, which appears on the upper left-hand side of the blogsite, you will be teleported to the complete listing of course materials and week-by-week assignments for the first five weeks. Investigate this.

Assignment: The first requirement is to read the first five files in the blog index to get up to speed. (Note: clicking on these links takes you to other ebsites. Just his the return arow to go back to the Smartsblog.)
1. First Thing—Read This! (nice work—you’re already reading it!)
2. Syllabus
3. Info on the Online JCOM Minor
4. Dear Students: LISTEN UP! (Some good start-of-term advice.)
6. Please also visit Blackboard and make sure you can navigate our course there. These two links —Blackboard Tech and Blackboard Tools—give you information on using Blackboard. Please explore the various Blackboard tabs.

In case you're curious, here’s some background information about the instructor—me. Part of this week’s assignment is for you to go the the About Us page and tell us a little about yourself (note: crazy or funny is good!)

Please familiarize yourself with all this material by the end of Week 1. Consider the syllabus the first class lecture. There will be a quiz!

Finally, once you’ve gotten yourself acclimated, click on Week 1 in the Index for the first week’s assignments.

A note about email and communicating: This is an online class, so nearly all communication with be on the blog and via email for individual questions. For questions, please use my USU address—ted.pease@usu.edu (not the Blackboard email). Every time you email me, please put JCOM 2010 in the subject line so your message isn’t misplaced.

OK? Questions, ASK!

Let’s get Smart!

Ted Pease
Professor of Interesting Stuff

Mediated America

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Dear Smarties:

The basic premise of this class is simple: That much (if not most) of what we “know” about the world—about people different from us, other nationalities, about gender roles, about traditions and beliefs and “normal” behavior—comes to us through the mass media. Sure, our parents and families teach us as children, and so do our schools and churches and friends, but most of what we learn about things distant and strange to our everyday lives come to us through the mass media, especially television and, increasingly, the Internet.

The writer E.B. White, whom you may know as the author of children’s books like Charlotte’s Web, was also a wonderful columnist and essayist for The New Yorker and Harper’s magazines throughout a long career. In 1938, he visited the World’s Fair in New York City and saw one of the first demonstrations of an amazing new invention—television. It was a tiny, grainy picture, but in the snowy screen one could make out human figures and heard them talk. White wasn’t so sure this was a step forward. He wrote this in a Harper’s essay in 1938:

“Television will enormously enlarge the eye’s range, and, like radio, will advertise the Elsewhere. Together with the tabs, the mags, and the movies, it will insist that we forget the primary and the near in favor of the distant and the remote. More hours in every 24 will be spent digesting ideas, sounds, images—distant and concocted. In sufficient accumulation, radio sounds and television sights may become more familiar to us than their originals.”

“When I was a child, people simply looked about them and were moderately happy; today they peer beyond the seven seas, bury themselves waist-deep in tidings, and by and large what they see and hear makes them unutterably sad.”

“...I believe television is going to be the test of the modern world, and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision we shall discover either a new and unbearable disturbance of the general peace, or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by television—of that I am quite sure.” (E.B. White, “Removal,” One Man’s Meat, New York: Harper & Row, 1938)

That’s pretty prescient, I think, for someone in 1938 to worry about how television would change the world.

In Media Smarts we examine how media messages sometimes skew the way we “know” ourselves and our planet, and we’ll discuss whether television—and other mass media—have been, in White’s words, an “unbearable disturbance” or a “saving radiance.”

The following quiz explores some of what the media have taught us, and how they teach us things that may not be entirely accurate about the world around us. As we start trying to “make sense of the Information Age,” these items provide an illustration of just how screwy the world may sometimes look through the mass media’s lens.

This quiz is supposed to be fun—it doesn’t “count.” So enjoy picking the answers, and involve your friends and family if you like, because discussing these things is fun and maddening. I suggest you print this out and complete it by the end of the week (don’t send me your answers). I will provide the answers next week, and we can discuss some of these things, and where these “media myths” come from and what impact they might have—comment below in the “Comments” section if you like.

Ted Pease
Professor of Interesting Stuff

§ § §

I. MEDIA TRIVIA: Media & Society

1. In 2007, American adults and teens consumed an estimated ______ hours of media.
a. 1,500 hrs b. 2,500 hrs c. 3,500 hrs d. 4,500 hrs e. 5,500 hrs

2. American 1-year-olds watch an average of how much TV per week?
a. 0 hrs b. 2 hrs c. 4 hrs d. 6 hrs e. 8 hrs

3. The American Association of Pediatrics recommends children under 2 watch how much TV per week?
a. 0 hrs b. 2 hrs c. 4 hrs d. 6 hrs e. 8 hrs

4. T/F Kids who watch four hours or more of TV daily are more likely to be bullies than kids who watch less.

5. Who spends more time watching TV—women with young children or single men? (circle one)

6. T/F The average U.S. household has more TVs than people.

7. What percentage of U.S. households has an Internet connection?
a. 51% b. 61% c. 71% d. 81%

8. Americans buy almost _____ movie tickets per day.
a. 1 million b. 2 million c. 4 million d. 6 million e. 7 million

9. How many DVDs are rented from Netflix per day?
a. 1½ million b. 2½ million c. 3½ million d. 4½ million

10. Before Clairol introduced its 1950s ad campaign for home hair color with the slogan, “Does she or doesn’t she?” what percentage of American women colored their hair?
a. less than 5% b. 10% c. 15% d. 25% e. 50%

• Three years later, what percentage of American women colored their hair?
a. less than 5% b. 10% c. 15% d. 25% e. 50%

11. Which U.S. city is the nation’s “vainest,” based on amounts spent on plastic surgery and cosmetics?
a. Los Angeles b. Salt Lake c. San Diego d. Louisville e. New York

12. Ooo-lala! Which country is the world’s leading producer of pornography?
a. U.S. b. France c. Sweden d. Japan e. Italy f. India

13. T/F Teens surveyed in 12 countries believe the violence, crime and sex portrayed in U.S. media accurately depicts life in America.

14. It takes how many trees to publish Cosmopolitan magazine each year?
a. 28,000 b. 128,000 c. 228,000 d. 328,000 e. 428,000

15. _____ % of Cache Valley residents responding to a Logan Herald Journal survey believe that the assassination of John F. Kennedy was an internal U.S. government plot.
a. 1% b. 9% c. 22% d. 52% e. 82% f. 92%

II. MEDIA TRIVIA: Politics
Clearly, there is a strong and growing connection between American politics and the mass media. Given the assumption that the mass media are more powerful than most or many other information sources in our lives, spending on political advertising takes on some ominous implications.

16. The top-three Democratic presidential candidates in Iowa’s 2008 caucuses spent $____ per voter just on TV ads.
a. $178/voter b. $140/voter c. $100/voter d. $87/voter e. $47/voter

17. TOTAL TV political ad spending in Iowa’s 2008 caucuses was . . .
a. $63 million b. $50 million c. $13 million d. $9 million e. $7.5 million

18. Four years earlier, TOTAL TV political ad spending in Iowa’s 2004 caucuses was . . .
a. $63 million b. $50 million c. $13 million d. $9 million e. $7.5 million

19. Mix ’n Match: Which presidential campaign spent how much on TV ads ALONE in Iowa?
Clinton..............$1.4 million
Edwards............$4 million
Huckabee..........$7.1 million
Obama..............$7.5 million
Romney............$9.5 million

20. In July 2008 alone, how much did McCain and Obama spend on media advertising?
a. $73 million b. $54 million c. $24 million d. $9 million e. $7.5 million

21. Percentage of people ages 19 to 29 who cited The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live as regular sources of their election news.
a. 21% b. 31% c. 41% d. 51% e. 61%

22. During the 2008 primary season, which presidential candidates received the most negative coverage?
a. Obama b. Giuliani c. Edwards d. Clinton e. Romney

23. During the 2008 primary season, which presidential candidates received the most positive coverage?
a. Obama b. Giuliani c. Edwards d. Clinton e. Romney

24. Percentage of Americans who believed in 2008-09 that Barack Obama is not only unpatriotic, but also a secret practicing Muslim.
a. 2% b. 5% c. 10% d. 12% e. 15%

25. U.S. rank among 100 nations in terms of women holding national political office:
a. 32nd b. 52nd c. 72nd d. 82nd e. 92nd

26. Of 172 nations that held elections in 2006, U.S. rank in voter turnout:
a. 13th b. 39th c. 79th d. 119th e. 139th

27. Whose press coverage in the 2000 presidential election was more negative?
Democratic nominee Al Gore or Republican nominee George W. Bush

28. Percentage of people age 19 to 29 who cited The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live as regular sources of their election news.
a. 21% b. 31% c. 41% d. 51%

29. Was President Barack Obama born in the United States?
• 30% of ______ are not sure.
• 93% of ______ and 83% of _______ do believe he was born in the U.S.
• 28% of _____ do not believe he was not born in U.S.
a. Democrats b. Republicans c. Independents

III. MEDIA TRIVIA: News

30. Which of these news magazines are in the top 10 best-selling mags in the U.S.?
a. Time b. Newsweek c. U.S. News & World Report d. The Nation e. none

31. The average American newspaper subscriber spends ____ reading the daily paper.
a. None (don’t read at all) b. 20 minutes c. 45 minutes d. 60 minutes

32. How many Americans 18 to 24 years old do not read, watch or listen to any news on a daily basis?
a. 10% b. 15% c. 25% d. 30% e. 40%

33. The average American 18 to 24 years old spends less than ____ a day reading newspapers.
a. 5 minutes b. 10 minutes c. 25 minutes d. 30 minutes e. 40 minutes

34. Approximately ___ % of all Americans watches TV network news every night.
a. 10% b. 30% c. 50% d. 75% e. 89%

35. How many Americans under 30 say they get their news primarily from late-night comedians?
a. 13% b. 23% c. 33% d. 43% e. 51%

36. T/F Regular viewers of comedy shows (e.g., The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, etc.) are just as well-informed about news as consumers of more elite news (e.g., PBS’s Lehrer News Hour, newspapers, etc.).

37. One-in-eight American families lives in poverty. One-in-nine American households goes from day to day without being sure they’ll have enough to eat. How much time do nightly network newscasts spend covering poverty in the United States, on average?
a. 2½ seconds b. 4 seconds c. 2½ minutes d. 4 minutes

38. America viewers who rely on (which TV network?) for their news are most likely to believe that the U.S. found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in 9/11.
a. ABC b. CBS c. CNN d. Fox e. NBC f. MSNBC

39. T/F A recent research study found that conservatives believe Steven Colbert shares their conservative values, and uses his program to make fun of liberals.

40. T/F Most news reporters consider themselves to be political liberals.

41. In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations that the U.S. had evidence of weapons of Iraqi mass destruction (WMD). In the two weeks before Powell’s speech, CBS, NBC, ABC & PBS ran 392 stories about Iraq, Saddam, WMD and war. How many of these stories questioned the evidence that Iraq had WMD?
a. 1 b. 3 c. 5 d. 10 e. 20 f. 50

42. During 2007, how much of U.S. news coverage was devoted to reporting on the Iraq war?
a. 3% b. 13% c. 23% d. 33%

43. In 2008, through the end of June, how much U.S. news coverage focused on Pakistan?
a. 1% b. 2% c. 3% d. 4% e. 5% f. 8%

44. Buxom celeb Anna Nicole Smith died of drug overdose in June 2007; how much of total news coverage focused on her during the two days after her death?
• On cable news
a. 10% b. 25% c. 30% d. 40% e. 50% f. none of the above
• In all news sources
a. 10% b. 25% c. 30% d. 40% e. 50% f. none of the above
• In newspapers
a. 10% b. 25% c. 30% d. 40% e. 50% f. none of the above

45. In the first 28 hours after Michael Jackson’s death, U.S. news outlets devoted _____ of their coverage to the story.
a. 10% b. 20% c. 40% d. 60% e. 80%

46. Which U.S. newspaper did billionaire Rupert Murdoch recently purchase?
a. The Wall Street Journal b. LATimes c. New York Daily News d. USA Today

• Can you name another major news outlets owned by Murdoch?

47. How many newspapers have failed since January 2009?
a. 25 b. 50 c. 75 d. 100 e. 125

48. Over the past two years, how many major U.S. metropolitan daily newspapers have closed or adopted hybrid online/print versions or online-only models?
a. 10 b. 20 c. 30 d. 40 e. 50

49. Veteran CBS newsman and anchor Walter Cronkite died this summer. During his career, he was considered “the most trusted man in America.” Since his death, a Time “Click” poll reports that Americans voted who the new most trusted newsman in the U.S.?
a. Brian Williams, NBC c. Jim Lehrer, PBS e. Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
b. Katie Couric, CBS d. Charlie Gibson, ABC f. Steven Colbert, The Colbert Report

50. Which story generated the biggest worldwide Internet coverage since Jan. 1, 2000?
a. Obama’s Election (2008) d. Iraq invasion (2003)
b. Michael Jackson’s death(2009) e. Hurricane Katrina (2005)
c. 9/11 terrorist attacks (2001) f. Beijing Olympics (2008)

51. Which story has generated the most U.S. news coverage since Jan. 1, 2000?
a. Obama’s Election (2008) d. Iraq invasion (2003)
b. Michael Jackson’s death(2009) e. Hurricane Katrina (2005)
c. 9/11 terrorist attacks (2001) f. Beijing Olympics (2008)

IV. MEDIA TRIVIA: Race, Ethnicity & Gender
52. T/F Fox News pundit Glenn Beck recently told viewers that President Obama is a racist who hates white people.

53. People of color make up about 38% of the U.S. population. With the exception of sports and coverage of Barack Obama, what percentage of the news appearing in newspapers is about people of color in America?
a. 5% b. 10% c. 20% d. 30% e. 35%

54. Between 1995-1998, TV network evening news ran 48,000 stories; how many were about Hispanics?
a. 1% b. 2% c. 5% d. 10% e. 15%

55. In 2003, Hispanics were the focus of _________ stories airing on ABC, NBC, CBS & CNN newscasts.
a. 1% b. 2% c. 5% d. 10% e. 15%

56. What percentage of nightly network-news stories was reported by whites in 2000?
a. 49% b. 59% c. 69% d. 79% e. 89% f. 99%

57. What are the chances that a U.S. film with male Arab or Muslim characters made before Sept. 11, 2001 (9/11), depicts them as greedy, violent or dishonest?
a. 1 in 20 b. 5 in 20 c. 8 in 20 d. 15 in 20 e. 19 in 20

58. ______ % of children say criminals on TV shows are usually played by a African-Americans.
a. 19% b. 29% c. 39% d. 49% e. 59%

59. ______ % of children say bosses on TV shows are usually played by a white actors.
a. 21% b. 41% c. 51% d. 71% e. 91%

60. Percentage of entertainment and news media decision-makers who are white men.
a. 20-25% b. 45-50% c. 70-75% d. 90-95%

61. Who is most likely to be pictured in TV news stories about youth crime?
a. African-Americans
b. Latinos
c. Asian-Americans
d. Native Americans
e. Caucasians
f. Mexicans

62. How many black men have appeared on the cover of Men’s Vogue since it launched in 2005? a. 0 b. 2 c. 3 d. 4 e. 5 f. 10

63. How many black women have appeared on Vogue’s cover since it was founded in 1892?
a. 0 b. 2 c. 3 d. 4 e. 5 f. 10

64. Percentage of ads in bride magazines that featured African-American women (2000-04).
a. 0 b. 2 c. 3 d. 4 e. 5 f. 10

65. Number of covers of bride magazines that featured African-American women (2000-2004).
a. 0 b. 2 c. 3 d. 4 e. 5 f. 10

66. About 52% of Americans are women. Excluding Hillary Clinton coverage, how much of the news in U.S. newspapers is about women?
a. 10% b. 20% c. 40% d. 50%

67. Men reported what percentage of nightly network news stories in 2000?
a. 46% b. 56% c. 66% d. 76% e. 86% f. 96%

68. How many U.S. newsmagazine covers (Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report) in 1996 featured women who were not princesses, murderers, or models?
a. 0% b. 5% c. 10% d. 15% e. 22%

69. Between 1987 and 1997, Time magazine published 574 issues. How many Time covers featured women who were not entertainers, wives of politicians or Princess Diana?
a. 29 b. 59 c. 79 d. 99 e. 159

70. Total number of news stories during three months in 2006 that mentioned ex-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was a grandfather:
a. 6 b. 60 c. 160 d. 260 e. 306

71. Total number of news stories during the same three months that mentioned new Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a grandmother:
a. 6 b. 60 c. 160 d. 260 e. 306

72. Which of the following terms has been used by print & broadcast journalists to describe House Speaker Nancy Pelosi?
a. “Wicked Witch of the West” b. “Shrew” c. “castrater” d. “Squeaker of the House ” e. all

73. Which media talk show host referred to Hillary Clinton as a “She-Devil”?
a. Rush Limbaugh b. Chris Matthews c. Bill O’Reilly d. both a & c

V. Miscellaneous
74. T/F The majority of people worldwide are followers of Christian religions.

75. One-fourth of the world’s population lives in the United States. How much of the world’s natural resources are consumed by Americans?
a. 25% b. 33% c. 50% d. 67% e. 75%

76. Number of plastic grocery bags used in a year by the average U.S. family of four.
a. 500 b. 1,000 c. 1,500 d. 2,000

77. Americans recycle what percentage of plastic bags?
a. 1% b. 5% c. 10% d. 15% e. 20%

78. How long does it take for a plastic bag to decompose in a landfill?
a. 10 yrs b. 100 yrs c. 500 yrs d. 1,000 yrs e. 1,500 yrs

79. Debate over health care reform has dominated the news and talk shows in recent weeks. According to the World Health Organization, which country(s) ranks in the top 10 nations that provide the best health care to citizens?
a. U.S. b. France c. Japan d. Costa Rica e. Slovenia