The recent trend when talking about journalism seems to be consolidation. I believe this is primarily due to the internet and how it offers people all over the world free news. It is hard for news companies to compete with internet journalism and some companies are forced into considering consolidation. Consolidation is such a scary word when talking about any subject. Most importantly it represents the possibility of people losing jobs and few companies/entities getting stronger and more powerful.
I would say, overall, journalism consolidation is a bad idea because over time it will degrade the quality of reporting and investigative journalism. For example, if in the next 20 years newspaper companies all across the company consolidate to where there are only 4 companies left, the remaining companies will have a basic monopoly in their area of coverage. There would be no other viewpoints to any story and whatever one of these monopolistic companies printed would be only thing people in this region would read about.
An article on the huffington post’s website (huffingtonpost.com) talks about journalism consolidation and why it is a bad idea. The article is title, “Consolidation is not Cure for Journalism Crisis,” and is written by Craig Aaron. Aaron points out how large media companies have been “swallowing” local media outlets for the past decade. 5,000 journalists lost their jobs last year and over the past decade 16 percent of the industry has been terminated.
The article also covers a financial topic that I was not aware of. When buying up many of the smaller news companies, the large companies go into extreme debt in order to consolidate. Even though the large companies still take in approximately 20 percent profit, they are drowning in debt. The only way to fix this debt trouble is to cut down on operating costs also known as journalists.
I feel the only people who win when consolidating news companies are the executive officers of the large media companies who can sometimes turn a quick profit. Everyone else gets hurt by the fact that thousands journalism jobs are being cut and that the quality of reporting is being decreased.
The article referenced above can be found at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-aaron/consolidation-is-no-cure_b_180356.html
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Assignment 2-1: Aritcle Critique
For this assignment I decided to critique an article I found on the New York Times website (www.nytimes.com), titled, "Annual Poll of Freshman Shows Effect on Recession," written by Kate Zernike on January 21, 2010. The article (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/education/21college.html?em) reports on the results of a survey conducted on college freshman all around the country and how the recession is affecting many different decisions college freshman are now making.
The first criterion the book covers is attributing your sources correctly, which Zernike accomplished. In the fifth paragraph she cited the program that completed the survey (Cooperative Institutional Research Program at UCLA) as well as the director of the program (John H. Pryor). Another criteria Mencher describes in the book is accuracy or also referred to as verification. Verification means that the reporter made sure the information she received was credible and that the data was not fabricated. Obviously the reporter in this case has better ways and more sources than I do, so I am going to assume that she did. I did find the homepage for the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) as well as its many surveys conducted.
Objectivity is an important part of being a good reporter. Zernike does this well, she seems to take no side in the article and can be described as being fair and balanced. It would be hard however to take a side in this specific example, she is just reporting the statistics of a survey. Unless she was using misleading statistics it would be hard not to be objective in this instance.
For an article to have all components is should be complete (do all investigation) while having brevity (being brief/concise). These two components are very hard to get the right balance but I believe Zernike did a good job balancing the two. Survey results and statistics are a hard thing to write about because all they are is numbers, but the writer needs to make them more than just a number; each statistic should be described so an average person can understand their meaning. The writer does a really good job describing each statistic and how it relates to previous years. This is important because if you can’t relate a statistic to some other data then it’s just a number with no significant value. The article was complete with enough information but it also was concise enough not to lose my interest.
Lastly, the Focus of the article is important for the reader to be able to learn something from the article. This works together with the component, Human Interest. The writer should tell the story in human terms. I believe the writer did this be showing how there is a direct correlation between the economy and the decisions of first year college students. I enjoyed the article because it showed how people all over the country are being affected by the recession, which made it easier to read.
Overall I enjoyed the article, I thought it was informative but didn’t throw in an overwhelming amount of statistics and data that do not mean anything to the average person.
The first criterion the book covers is attributing your sources correctly, which Zernike accomplished. In the fifth paragraph she cited the program that completed the survey (Cooperative Institutional Research Program at UCLA) as well as the director of the program (John H. Pryor). Another criteria Mencher describes in the book is accuracy or also referred to as verification. Verification means that the reporter made sure the information she received was credible and that the data was not fabricated. Obviously the reporter in this case has better ways and more sources than I do, so I am going to assume that she did. I did find the homepage for the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) as well as its many surveys conducted.
Objectivity is an important part of being a good reporter. Zernike does this well, she seems to take no side in the article and can be described as being fair and balanced. It would be hard however to take a side in this specific example, she is just reporting the statistics of a survey. Unless she was using misleading statistics it would be hard not to be objective in this instance.
For an article to have all components is should be complete (do all investigation) while having brevity (being brief/concise). These two components are very hard to get the right balance but I believe Zernike did a good job balancing the two. Survey results and statistics are a hard thing to write about because all they are is numbers, but the writer needs to make them more than just a number; each statistic should be described so an average person can understand their meaning. The writer does a really good job describing each statistic and how it relates to previous years. This is important because if you can’t relate a statistic to some other data then it’s just a number with no significant value. The article was complete with enough information but it also was concise enough not to lose my interest.
Lastly, the Focus of the article is important for the reader to be able to learn something from the article. This works together with the component, Human Interest. The writer should tell the story in human terms. I believe the writer did this be showing how there is a direct correlation between the economy and the decisions of first year college students. I enjoyed the article because it showed how people all over the country are being affected by the recession, which made it easier to read.
Overall I enjoyed the article, I thought it was informative but didn’t throw in an overwhelming amount of statistics and data that do not mean anything to the average person.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Assignment 1-4: Moral and Ethical Issues of Wartime Journalism
As with any profession, there are many moral and ethical issues associated with journalism and journalists. In fact, journalists might face the most scrutiny when faced with these issues because journalists are the people that decide what citizens see and read about and also what citizens do not see and read about.
While I was looking for different websites that could give me some information on the ethics of journalism I came across the website for the Society of Professional Journalists (http://www.spj.org/). In this website there is a section of articles that discusses journalism ethics and as I was reading over the topics, the one that stuck out in my mind was titled “Resolving Ethical Conflicts in Wartime.” If you think about it, war brings about even more issues involving journalists because the stakes are even higher. If a journalist was to obtain some secret information that deals with military strategies or deployment strategies should he/she publish the information? My quick answer would be, No, he/she should not publish the information because it is fairly obvious that publishing this information could put soldiers in danger. There is also really no need for citizens to know about different military strategies for a war that is presently taking place.
This webpage talking about wartime journalism ethics can be found at: http://www.spj.org/ethicswartime.asp. I think this webpage is a great source because it contains a series of topics and questions a journalist should ask him/her before making any type of decision. For example, an important question that I found on the website was,
“How critical is the information in helping the public understand crucial issues, make informed decisions, influence policy or evaluate the performance of government?” There are many different types of wartime information that is good for the public to hear about. One of the great things about journalists is they keep the government in check. Without journalists a large part of the checks and balances not contained in the constitution would be lost and would allow the government more control to do what whatever it wanted.
There are even more moral and ethical considerations in a wartime environment than any other journalistic setting. Huge numbers of journalists are sent from all over the world, some put themselves in harms way in the hopes of getting a major story. But, journalists need to remember that no matter how much a story means to him/her there could always be a person or persons that the story could affect in a more important or even deadlier way.
While I was looking for different websites that could give me some information on the ethics of journalism I came across the website for the Society of Professional Journalists (http://www.spj.org/). In this website there is a section of articles that discusses journalism ethics and as I was reading over the topics, the one that stuck out in my mind was titled “Resolving Ethical Conflicts in Wartime.” If you think about it, war brings about even more issues involving journalists because the stakes are even higher. If a journalist was to obtain some secret information that deals with military strategies or deployment strategies should he/she publish the information? My quick answer would be, No, he/she should not publish the information because it is fairly obvious that publishing this information could put soldiers in danger. There is also really no need for citizens to know about different military strategies for a war that is presently taking place.
This webpage talking about wartime journalism ethics can be found at: http://www.spj.org/ethicswartime.asp. I think this webpage is a great source because it contains a series of topics and questions a journalist should ask him/her before making any type of decision. For example, an important question that I found on the website was,
“How critical is the information in helping the public understand crucial issues, make informed decisions, influence policy or evaluate the performance of government?” There are many different types of wartime information that is good for the public to hear about. One of the great things about journalists is they keep the government in check. Without journalists a large part of the checks and balances not contained in the constitution would be lost and would allow the government more control to do what whatever it wanted.
There are even more moral and ethical considerations in a wartime environment than any other journalistic setting. Huge numbers of journalists are sent from all over the world, some put themselves in harms way in the hopes of getting a major story. But, journalists need to remember that no matter how much a story means to him/her there could always be a person or persons that the story could affect in a more important or even deadlier way.
Goals for CMJ 236
My first and most important goal for this class is to pass because without this class I won't be graduating this spring. This class is required for my major which is Surveying Engineering Technology, so I'm not exactly taking this class because i'm interested in journalism, although a positive aspect of this class is it will improve my writing abilities. So another goal is to improve my writing skills because as with any major or profession, you always need to be able to write and communicate.
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