Jeff Cohen

I thought that Jeff Cohen's lecture on Mainstream v. Independent Media last Thursday was absolutely fascinating. He said a lot of things that I could have predicted he would say and some things that I never would have guessed. I expected him to talk about small media outlets and the impact they make on the overall market. He reminded us all about how big and bad mainstream media can be and within the first few minutes I had almost decided to zone out because I felt like I had heard this lecture before.
But then he said something that I didn't see coming at all. One of my peers raised their hand and asked him something that is on everyone's mind; should we, as new journalists who will enter the working world sometime in the next 2 years, take jobs we are given at mainstream media outlets or do the "right thing" and strive to work for an independent media? When he said that accepting a job at a mainstream outlet was ok, I was shocked. Sure he himself had worked at mainstream outlets for a long time before switching over to support independent media. The reasoning behind his answer was that it takes a lot for mainstream outlets to change their ways but every person who pushes them towards a different direction counts. Plus, it helps to have the mainstream experience sometimes so that you can better appreciate the independent sources.
Overall, I learned more from his hour and a half lecture (or so) than I have in some of my Journalism classes that I've taken for a full semester. It enlightened me to the fact that people CAN make money in independent media and just how important independent media is to the public as an information source, even if it seems more biased.

Hard or Soft news?

Both articles we read for class today, "Facts, Fallacies and Fears of Tabloidization" by Linn Washington and "Off Course" by Michael Massing, show good statistics and reasoning behind the theory that hard news shows are going soft.  Washington brings up the point that tabloid newspapers are decreasing dramatically in sales since the "traditional news organizations" have started printing tabloid-style articles.  I think it only makes sense that these trends should be seen but I also think  that these tabloid-style articles are not as much of a crime as some "hardcore" journalists might make it out to be.  For example, Washington quotes Steyn (a British journalist) as praising the tabloids for getting the word out about Clinton's womanizing and Princess Diana's hollow marriage.  Although these are private lives of public figures, the stories definitely had an impact on their respective countries.  Also, there are some people who will only read a story if it has been sensationalized in the typical tabloid style.  If papers that are supposed to be hard news can get messages out about hard news by disguising it in a soft news shell then I think that there should perhaps be more tabloid style stories in hard newspapers than there already is.  Isn't that the point of a journalist?  To uncover things for their audience and present them in a way that will both intrigue and be understandable for them?

Frontline: News War

In today's video, a variety of the best news anchors, editors and reporters that the industry has to offer admitted that the news is straying from its original stance as a public service towards more of an entertainment entity.  Although some seemed more comfortable with this new format of "journalism" than others, almost all of them admitted that this was where the industry is heading.  Ted Koppel put it best when he said (and I didn't catch the direct quote but it was along the lines of) giving the public what it wants instead of what it needs is a nice idea but will ultimately be fatal.  It's sad to think that the days of news being a public service, that wasn't "in it for the money" like everyone else, are over.  The way Frontline tells the story it seems to be due to a combination of the deregulation laws Reagan put into place in the 1980s and 60 minutes, which proved that news pieces could make significant amounts of money.  I'm sure that these factors played a big role but Frontline definitely skips over a lot of historical events and other TV shows that have made it more acceptable for the news to be more of what the people want rather than what they need.  The creation of on demand news such as CNN and the seemingly sudden American obsession with celebrity to the point of destroying any privacy they may have had.

Content Analysis

Going over the details of our final project today in class really proved to me that I love studying the media.  While we were discussing the paper and the presentation I kept thinking of tons of topics that I could potentially get to study!  The one that I most want to study (although I obviously have to run it past my group first) is the phenomenon that has come to be known as "Brangelina".  The fact that Americans will pay money to see the photos of the infants that this couple happens to have (even though thousands of couples have infants every day) is fascinating to me.  The trend of selling photos of a baby is fascinating and looking at the couple that "started it all" would be really interesting.   If my group agreed and we actually did this project I would probably want to compare the number of pages and pictures devoted to the family in the initial  magazines they sold the pictures too both with the birth of their first child and then recently with the birth of their twins.  I'm willing to bet that my group won't be very excited about this topic though so maybe I will do it on my own some other time.

Agenda-Setting Theory

I think the quotes we were given in class by McCombs are, sadly, extremely true to the state of the media today.  Yes, there is agenda-setting in every type of media (news and otherwise) but it simply cannot be prevented.  As long as human beings with their own individual agendas and biases are the ones finding, researching and writing the stories then the agenda-setting theory will continue to play a role in media across the globe.  McComb is correct when he says that editors and news directors are the ones making big decisions that will influence what stories the public thinks are important and what issues they choose to follow.  This massive responsibility of all involved in the media is why it's important that every nation attempt to educate their future reporters to the best of their ability.  Unfortunately, even with the best education at our finger tips, the corporate news world is a bureaucracy.  So when the hopeful journalism students of today become the journalists of tomorrow, we too will have to follow the rules and ways of traditional news organizations in order to keep ratings high and keep the pay checks flowing.

"A Year in the News"

Most of the readings that are given to students majoring in Journalism by the professors are doomsday tales.  Since the first day of freshmen year, we are taught that sales of newspapers are on the decline and that reporters are being "let go" across the country.  Reading "A Year in the News" last night was uplifting and optimistic compared to all of the readings I have done on the subject of journalism before it.  It didn't deny that newspaper, as a national medium, is on the decline but it did raise hope that those journalists who are being let go can find other jobs and that the media as a whole is not dying or dead.  Most of the facts that made up the rest of the article did not come as too much of a surprise (such as Iraq and the presidential elections having dominated as mega-stories in the past year).  The only fact that came close to surprising and actually upset me a little was that the legal system was listed as one of the least covered domestic issues.  In a country that was built on the fundamental system of checks and balances, it's the media's job to research and tell the public about what is happening around them - especially in the government.  What's the use of having free speech if we're not going to use it to our greatest advantage?