Practice Makes Perfect

Research is the backbone of good journalism, which is why we practice finding accurate information effectively. Good for journalism, but not the most riveting blog post you’ll ever read.

A link to the questions we needed to answer:

http://coloradodjlabs.org/courses/JOUR3001-002/assign4-research1.html

Answers to the research questions:

Weather Story 1.

The costliest hurricane in the U.S. since 1900 was hurricane Katrina, which affected South East Florida, South East Louisiana, and Mississippi. Katrina hit in 2005 and resulted in $81,000,000,000 worth of damage.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1440900820070520

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/Deadliest_Costliest.shtml

http://www.hhs.gov/disasters/emergency/naturaldisasters/hurricanes/katrina/index.html

Weather Story 2.

The following sites offer documents on earthquake preparedness:

http://www.fema.gov/hazard/earthquake/

http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/2007/41/gip41.pdf

Plane Crashes:

Two fatal aviation events have occurred in over the past year (1/27/09 – 1/27/2010). These were located in Simila, Colorado and Elbert, Colorado. There were also 10 non-fatal accidents in Colorado over the past year. The two fatal crashes involved different models, although both were for general aviation: a North American SNJ-5 crashed in Simila, and a Mooney M20C crashed in Elbert.

In 2000 a Douglas MD-83 of Alaska Airlines Inc. crashed in California, resulting in 88 fatalities.

In 2006, 49 people died in a crash in Lexington, Kentucky.

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/query.asp

Edit: The Alaska Airlines crash involved Alaska Airlines flight 261. Also, Colorado had 42 non-fatal crashes for the above dates (I failed to see that there was more than one page of crashes listed). From 1/1/2009 to 1/1/2010, there were four fatal accidents in Colorado and 41 non-fatal accidents.

Lessons of Memogate

Increasingly, I’ve noticed that the topics of media convergence and blogging work their way into my journalism classes. At first I was not convinced that the “new media” could have any significant effect on traditional media industries. I have come to realize that it is essential to understand the potential relationships between the two.

The Killian documents controversy highlights the need to understand the increasing power of bloggers on news production and consumption. On September 8th, 2004, a 60 Minutes Wednesday broadcast featured a story that investigated President George W. Bush’s time in the Air National Guard. CBS news producer Mary Mapes mostly based the story on four memos critical of Bush. Within hours after the show, bloggers began to question the authenticity of the documents.

Key points to remember about this incident: CBS aired the program weeks before the presidential election, and despite the claims of bloggers, no one really knows if the documents really were forgeries. Oh yeah, and Dan Rather, Mary Mapes, and other “big name” news individuals were disgraced and fired as a result of “watchdog” blogging.

While I tend to hold an idealistic vision of journalism’s purpose and principles, I realize that journalists are humans and subject to mistakes. So as a news consumer, I am more disappointed with the way CBS handled the situation than with the fact that the documents may have been fake. CBS didn’t immediately make their verification process transparent. They also needed to provide viewers with more context regarding the documents and interviews used. As for the documents, it is not clear as to whether CBS properly scrutinized their authenticity. What is clear is the depressed feeling that washes over me at the thought of CBS forgoing fact checking out of commercial interest.

As a journalism student, I’ve realized that I can no longer afford to ignore blogs as “pajama journalism;” whether blogs are qualified, amateurish, accurate, or trashy, they clearly are having an impact on the media. The bloggers who questioned the CBS story lacked a legitimate fact-checking process, and established news organizations followed their lead. This suggests that we need to answer some of the big blogging questions: should blogs be held accountable?

What made me the most upset about the situation is the fact that, whether the documents were fake or not, “rumors shaped the news and conventions of sourcing and skepticism fell by the wayside” (Corey Pein). The actual issue of Bush’s Guard years virtually disappeared. What mattered was what the people believed, rather than the truth. A healthy democracy requires informed citizens, not individuals who force a decision based on perception and rumor.

“Memogate” offers invaluable insights into the benefits and dangers of the blogging impact.

I found this site helpful: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4279605

Eye on Blogging: Design Sponge Online

One of the best things about blogging is the fact that it allows strangers to connect with each other and share ideas. From activist organizations spreading their messages to high school girls comparing shopping experiences, blogs of all types stimulate conversation and reflection.

We learned in class that there are at least hundreds of thousands of blogs in existence. Each one of these has its own purpose, content and personality. I took a closer look at a blog called Design Sponge Online to get a better sense of what characteristics make a blog unique.

The presentation of this blog really caught my eye. Dedicated to home and product designing, the site has a layered appearance with textured backgrounds resembling cloth or bits of ribbon and lace. This creates a fresh, artistic look. The appearance alone made me want to start an arts and crafts project. I’m not particularly interested in designing, but the layout drew me in.

I also enjoyed the writing style of this blog. Personal, clever and concise, the writers make their subject interesting and easy to digest. The blog has an editorial team of more than a dozen experienced individuals; the site’s sophistication and amount of content requires a team effort. I also noticed that the writers abandoned capitalization rules, which makes their posts quirky and adds to the overall personality of the blog.

The blog combines photographs of products, rooms and designs with commentary and links. The written content is a mixture of opinion and description, and the main purpose of the posts appears to be inspiring readers and sharing ideas. The intended audience seems to include young designers and those who have a passion for creative designing, but the friendly, simple tone invites anyone to come explore; this is not an elitist blog.

Design Sponge Online resembles a home décor magazine. In fact, according to Merriam Webster, this blog is a magazine: a periodical containing miscellaneous pieces (as articles, stories, poems) and often illustrated. The blog mentions that it does not accept free products in exchange for editorial coverage, which is a very journalistic principle. So can blogs be journalism? The uniqueness of Design Sponge emphasizes the vast range of styles, topics and appearances of sites that appear in the blogosphere. It seems silly to try to label blogging as journalism or non-journalism; as the creators of Design Sponge Online prove, a blog can be anything of your design.

Find your inner designer at: http://www.designspongeonline.com/

Walter Lippman, The Right to Know, and The Noble Pursuit

"The news of the day as it reaches the newspaper office is an incredible medley of fact, propaganda, rumor, suspicion, clues, hopes, and fears, and the task of selecting and ordering that news is one of the truly sacred and priestly offices in a democracy." ~Walter Lippmann 1920

Walter Lippmann’s statement relates to one of the most important purposes of journalism in a democracy: satisfying the people’s right to know. This essential right allows citizens to actively and effectively participate in their society. Traditionally, the journalist assumes the role of presenting an accessible account of events. In so doing, journalists strengthen democracy by providing citizens with the knowledge needed to develop informed opinions and to act on these opinions. With drastic changes working their way through the news industry, the relevancy of Lippmann’s statement can be called into question. Has the role of “selecting and ordering the news” shifted from that of the print journalist to include other actors, and is it still “one of the truly sacred and priestly offices in a democracy?”

The news coverage of the 2009 Summit on Climate Change reveals that Lippmann’s statement remains applicable to today’s news environment, but in ways that Lippmann probably did not foresee. After browsing the collective web project Carbon Watch both before, during and after the Summit, I realized that the job of sorting through and presenting the news has become more expansive. This web project not only includes news articles, but also videos, fact sheets, blogs, links to relevant sites, interviews with experts, and citizen responses. This plethora of information and news platforms reflects a shift from the newspaper office as the main actor in providing citizens with information. Citizens themselves are no longer passive receivers of news; they often create the news by posting their opinions or even gathering and sharing information. New technology threatens to bombard everyone with an overload of material, so the job of sorting the useful from the useless remains essential. This is especially true in the matter of climate change, as scientists discover new clues and effects on a regular basis and politics threaten to cloud the bigger picture.

Lippmann’s description of journalism as “sacred” and “priestly” reflects the image of journalists as the heroes of democracy. Today, with some news conglomerates seemingly more intent on profits than on challenging the status quo, this elevated status of the journalist begins to diminish. Regardless, the citizen’s right to know must be fulfilled. Those who participate in presenting fair and thorough news, whether they are journalists or citizens, continue to uphold a noble pursuit.

Carbon Watch Website: http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/carbonwatch/