One of the more interesting projects I’ve had to do in my journalism classes was to create this new independent media outlet. My idea was a website dedicated to the media coverage of high school sports. I was surprised that even though I tend to think of myself as highly knowledgeable on that particular subject area, putting the entire proposal together was difficult. In order to create a properly functioning website that can really work the way you imagine, you need to think through so many little details. I think overall, the entire class made some impressive presentations. All were unique, well-thought-out and I really thought all could be great assets. This project required a lot of thought, but at the same time it was interesting to see the different interests of different classmates. I thought Brandon’s radio station was very well planned out. It was clear that he had a lot of experience in the area and he was confident in what he was talking about. I also like Sam’s idea for the FOIA Finder. Although ambitious, I believe that type of a website could be a huge asset for journalists and other people looking for information. I think either of these projects could be fantastic investments for potential funders.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Anti-Net-Neutrality Ad Campaign
It is very rare that we see individuals openly campaigning against net neutrality. Groups from both the right and the left seem to agree that a free internet is incredibly important for our nations future.
The few groups who are against net-neutrality legislation are planning to launch an ad campaign across the US. This $1.4 million project will consist of TV commercials that state Washington will be spending our money to regulate our internet service. They claim that the government has no place sticking their nose in this industry, and net-neutrality laws will allow the government to restrict our access. They believe that if we haven’t had problems thus far with internet providers limiting our access, why should we worry about it now? The main groups behind this campaign are Americans for Prosperity, the National Taxpayers Union, Free State Foundation and the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council.
In my opinion, these groups are fighting a losing battle. Most legislators have agreed at this point that new laws are necessary in order to protect the free internet. After the controversy with Comcast this past month, the Supreme Court even acknowledged that legislation should be put into effect that protects open access to content. I hope we will be seeing this topic come up in Congress sooner rather than later.
Here’s a link to the BBC Article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8678750.stm
Five Years of Huffington Post
Huffington Post celebrated its 5th birthday on May 9th. Yes it’s hard to believe, but the hugely popular independent media site has only been around for 5 years.
It is truly amazing to see how quickly this website exploded. The independent blog receives over 10 million viewers every month. It’s up-to-date stories and diverse reporting has made the site incredibly popular with the younger, left leaning demographic. Huffington is often referred to as the counter to the right-leaning Drudge Report. Despite their comparisons, Huffington has become almost twice as popular than Drudge over the past 5 years.
Either way, both of these websites prove that there is an incredibly optimistic future for independent, web-based media. They both manage to produce the news that they want to cover, and they are incredibly successful in doing so. Hopefully we can expect 5 more prosperous years from Huffington.
Here’s a link to Robert Greenwald’s post on Huffington’s anniversary:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-greenwald/happy-birthday-huffington_b_569390.html
Public Broadcasting
In class, we were introduced to a FAIR study about the lack of diversity in the US public broadcasting system. Although this study is from 2006, I believe a lot of these issues still pertain to our current broadcasting system.
Public broadcasting was introduced to deliver information to the masses that was not slanted by corporate politics. In order to achieve this, they would need to report on stories from a variety of different angles and give voice to all sides of an issue. The FAIR report claims that the US public broadcasting system has done anything but that. Their guests had been heavily white, male, Republican, and government officials.
Even more interesting is the difference between the United States public broadcasting system and the various European public networks. In general, Europeans tend to have significantly more diverse public broadcasting. In addition, more of them watch public broadcasting. It is not a jump to assume that those two facts correlate.
In my opinion, diversity is one of the most important aspects of all television media. Diversity is the first step towards news being truly objective. Very few news outlets are objective these days, but instead, they acknowledge their biases. It is common knowledge that Fox news leans right while MSNBC leans left. This at least makes it so the public is aware of where their news is coming from. My belief however is that a public broadcasting network should not be leaning in either direction. If their mission is to provide people with the facts and not propaganda, they need to invite guests from a variety of organizations with a variety of opinions.
In addition, I believe that public broadcasting will be obsolete if it continues down this path. I know very few people who still watch PBS for news purposes and I think its lack of diverse, cutting-edge reporting is partially to blame.
Here’s a link to the 2006 FAIR report
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Mayhill Fowler Case
After reading the stories on Mayhill Fowler, I would say her ethics are certainly not up to par to consider herself a journalist. She has certainly managed to get some interesting scoops with both President Obama and President Clinton, but her tactics for obtaining these stories are unethical.
When she approached President Clinton about an article written about him, Clinton said some less than flattering things about the author. Clinton referred to him as "sleazy" "slimy". Although this is a great media story, Fowler had never identified herself to Clinton as a journalist. In an ethical sense, we all know it is important for media to identify themselves upfront.
With President Obama, Fowler managed to almost destroy his bid for the presidency. Although she identified herself as an Obama supporter, she printed some less-than flattering comments that the President made during a press conference. The problem was that Fowler blatantly ignored that the conference was closed press. Fowler never should have been at the conference in the first place.
With citizen journalism constantly growing and spreading, we have to be more aware of issues like these. Although this type of reporting allows more people access to information, we have to keep in mind that non-professional journalists do not have the same ethical training that professional journalists are given. Although professional journalists are often caught in scandals like this as well, citizen journalists are not nearly as aware of the rules or practices of the media.
Net Neutrality
Over the past several years the issue of net neutrality has been a hot topic. People are concerned that large internet service providers could potentially screen what the public sees, or how fast they see it. Last Tuesday, Federal Courts ruled that the FCC could not force Comcast to provide equal internet speed to all of it's subscribers.
Comcast had been intentionally slowing down their internet services to some of their customers who had been downloading large files over the internet. In 2008, the FCC told Comcast that they would have to provide equal access to all of their subscribers. When Comcast brought this issue to court, it was ruled that the FCC could not require Comcast to grant equal access.
Although this specific case is not the type of web-access-discriminaton that most people worry about, it certainly sets the stage for large internet service providers to provide internet access based on their company's needs. Potentially, if the FCC backs-off from regulating net-neutrality, internet service providers could slow down access to certain websites. The big internet service providers are telling customers that they have nothing to worry about. However, if the courts continue to rule in favor of companies like Comcast, it would not surprise me if we are headed in the direction of restricted web access.
One bright spot in this court ruling is that many politicians are calling for new legislation to be drawn up that would guarantee net neutrality. With any luck, we will see laws like this coming into play in the next few years.
Here's a link to the Wall Street Journal article on the case
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303411604575167782845712768.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read