Journalists and voting

I received a question this week from a student, asking whether she should cast a ballot, given that she's a journalist. "Does it hinder my ability to be objective," she asked.
This is an interesting effort at transparency from Slate, the online magazine.
What do you think of this? Frankly, I remain a bit unsure myself. I voted when I was a reporter, mainly because the mere act of voting didn't seem to threaten my objectivity. In fact, I was usually better at being fair when I was honest with myself and others about my own opinions.

Journalism schools' ethics obligations

What would you do as a faculty member in this situation?
Annenberg USC-Dubai journalism program
What factors did you consider? What does not matter in your consideration?

Strat comm vlogging

What do you do when you want to get around the "filter of the mainstream media"? Check out this State Department staffer's attempt at getting average citizens to engage with him on YouTube.
Do you think people will pay attention? Do you think journalists need to do a better job covering things that aren't "edgy"?

Cartoonist bias

Some are questioning Doonesbury cartoonist Gary Trudeau's decision to send a strip for this Wednesday, declaring Obama the winner. Check out this brief note from a paper that runs the strip, but also read the comments posted below. What are the ethics of posting and deleting comments? Is anything fair game as long as a reader is posting it and not a person who works for the publication? Should they be moderated?

KC's News Meeting

What's in the news this week? 3 thoughts to get you started. I'll pull quiz questions from the items you add as comments.
- Bloomberg's hopes as mayor of NYC
- OPEC prices
- new UW chancellor speaks

Young at heart

A post from a 202er:

Katy,

Joe here, one of your 202 students. I came across this article on msnbc.com.

This article doesn't have much of a connection to media ethics. On the other hand, this man is a "semi-retired journalist," as the article states.

Perhaps nothing embodies the Teddy Roosevelt quote I have below in all my e-mails more than this story. This is what life is about. This guy's a testament to the human spirit.

Just thought it was interesting. Take a gander.

Joe :-)

http://beyondthearc.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/10/22/1582620.aspx

What do you think about your journalism education?

Check this out from New Hampshire:

http://media.www.tnhonline.com/media/storage/paper674/news/2008/10/21/Commentary/A.Wake.Up.Call.To.Journalism.Students-3496916.shtml

Student journalist jailed

Hi Katy,

I was looking at PerezHilton (guilty pleasure!) and an article was posted about a journalism student who was sentenced to prison for asking questions about 'women's rights under Islam.' Thought you may find it interesting!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27297183/

(Follow links back, as well, for coverage of a claim of torture.)

Hitler talk

What should be the penalty for inappropriate references? What's inappropriate? Who defines that?

http://thebiglead.com/?p=8527

Hate and the election

This story raises points worth reading:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/21/us/politics/21whites.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Tell me what you think about hate speech. Should we allow people to spout racist views? The Secret Service is investigating at least one threat against Obama yelled at a Palin campaign rally. Should their intervention go beyond threats? I, for one, am surprised that race has not been a more vitriolic issue in this campaign (aside, of course, from last week's food stamp debacle). Do you agree? Why?

Opinion online

I was intrigued by this new idea raised on a listserv I subscribe to. What do you think of this idea?

Hello,

We’ve embarked on a different path from many of our newspaper.com counterparts today on our opinion channel:

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/

Rather than headlining our own editorials and links to content from our newspaper, the editorial staff has decided to centerpiece on the page the best of the Web – changing out links throughout the day in real time based on an editor’s sense of what the key conversation is online. While I know this is SOP for places like the Drudge Report or Digg, this is not the norm for a traditional news organization. Most news organizations relegate outside links to secondary spots on a channel front.

The team that is leading this charge, under the direction of editorial page editor Keven Willey, includes columnist Rod Dreher and assistant editorial page editor Mike Hashimoto. Rod and Mike conceived of this idea, learned how to use our outdated production tools, and began applying them today in the service of opinion journalism.

Anthony

Anthony Moor
Deputy Managing Editor/Interactive
The Dallas Morning News
508 Young St.
Dallas, TX 75202
(214) 977-8981

www.dallasnews.com

SNL and elections

Anyone watch Sarah Palin on SNL last night, as played by both Tiny Fey and Palin herself?

Check out this post from a 202er:

So I was the last group to do our ethics media analysis. We did ours on humor and politics dealing with Daily Show and SNL. Then this morning at the serf, CNN played this story on one of their news cast.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/TV/10/17/snl.politics/index.html

This could be interesting to share with the other class members.

Political advertising

J-School affiliated faculty member Ken Goldstein has interesting followup to the debate and assertions about the negativity of political ads:

http://www.news.wisc.edu/releases/14838

I also found this perspective intriguing:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/163476

Communication beyond all reason

I'm going to let this one speak for itself.

http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_buck16.3d67d4a.html

Great video

OK, I'm posting this one just for fun:

http://www.theexplodingwhale.com/evidence/the-video/

Liberal Media Bias?

Got this submission from a 202er:

This story was sent from JSOnline.com: http://www.jsonline.com.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you think this photo from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel shows a liberal media bias? I would argue it does because Obama's red tie is shown (indicating importance) and his torso is turned toward the camera. In addition, the handshake gesture shows equality/neutrality, but the fact that Obama is grasping McCain with his other hand incicates authority. A professor of mine said that asymmetrical touch indicates authority so whenever one political candidate places their hand on the other, the other will usually try to do the same. Then there's the close proximity of the candidates which shows Obama is taller, another (abeit false) idicator of authority. In this instance, I think the photo makes Obama look much more authoritative than McCain. What are your thoughts? Can a photo show bias? Do photographers have the same standards as writers? Are they required to take unbias photos or portray both candidates in the same way?

http://www.jsonline.com/multimedia/graphic.asp?graphic=/graphics/news/img/oct08/debateJ1101608.jpg

What do you think? Post your comments and let's discuss when we talk about design Monday.

Fact-checking Joe the Plumber

Good post from a 202er:

As much as I wanted to believe in Joe it looks like the Times did some serious background checking. His name isn't even JOE! seems like a good example of our fact finding lecture last week with checking for his licenses and taxes, I bet he's wishing he just kept his mouth shut.

U.S. | October 16, 2008
The Caucus: Joe in the Spotlight
By Larry Rohter and Liz Robbins
When "Joe the Plumber" stopped Senator Barack Obama during a visit to his block this weekend to ask about his taxes, he set himself on a path to being the newest media celebrity — and, like other celebrities, found himself under scrutiny.

Privacy and ethics

I'm tardy in posting this great submission from a 202-er.

Hey Katy,

After talking yesterday about how digging through someone's garbage can constitute invasion of privacy, I remembered this story from the Village Voice about how the author happened to find some of Harvey Weinstein's mail in a public trash can. I thought it was interesting enough to pass on.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-07-02/news/trash-talking-with-harvey-weinstein/

What do you think of this?

Medicine and statistics

A new post from a 202er:

Hi Prof. Culver,

My dad emailed me this article a few weeks ago. It was in the New York Times so you might have already read it (you seem to have the all-seeing eye of mass media). I thought it would pique your interest as it covers both the ideas of interpreting numbers and statistics but also the medical world and studies. My dad was particularly thrilled because as a doctor he said he rarely finds medical articles that are both factually significant but also would make sense to a regular person. I wasn't sure if it was blog worthy because we've sort of moved on from interpreting data but I thought you might like to read it anyway.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/health/30stud.html?_r=1&ei=5070&emc=eta1&oref=slogin

Ad controversy

When should student publications accept and reject advertising that prompts controversy? Conservative commentator David Horowitz has stirred the pot yet again, this time at UCSB.
What responsibilities do student publishers face? What's the role of free speech here? What's Horowitz's obligation in placing the ad?
This sort of communication reared its head here at the UW a few years back. Then some administrators chimed in. Then still more defended the students.