Media Critique: CNN's "The Latest"

When you look at the sidebar that says "The Latest" on a a news website, you expect all of the need to know news pieces for that day. That is not the case with CNN. Instead of putting important events, it displays a feature articles titled "Breast Implants in Short Supply", "Miley Cyrus Flag Stunt Condemned", and "Did LeBron get his hairline fixed". I don't know about you as readers, but these excuses for feature articles hardly even qualify as journalism. They break a multitude of principles and yardsticks of journalism.

The first principle this section of the website violated was Watchdog. Not a single article featured was censoring or even centered on politics. The only mention of any American, political leader was in the article "Obama's Republican cousin is...?" which focuses on the fact that Senator Ted Cruz is Obama's cousin. A fact that is this worthless for the average American. The next principle broken by this sidebar is Make the Important Interesting. This principle doesn't work the other way around. Make the Interesting Important is definitely not a principle. Not only are none of these articles important, but CNN also tries to make them seem far more essential than they truly are.

Now to start on the seven yardsticks. Obviously none of these articles are newsworthy, for reasons previously stated and because hardly anything written there will have any sort of lasting impact. This sort of household gossip should not be allowed on a national website. This section of the CNN website definetly needs some reviewing and should be edited to only show events that are actually meaningful in peoples' everyday lives. 

Classmate Review: Oliva's "Fox News Media Critique"

Olivia did a really great job on this media critique. I agreed with everything she said. It's true that Fox News should not have reported on the story that they did. It definitely didn't hold up to the standards of journalism. Not only was the article not newsworthy, it also lacked verification! It was a great catch on Olivia's part that I don't think I, personally, would have noticed.

Classmate Review: Ella Mays' "Class Discussion Response #3"

I really enjoyed this response. It explained the three types of communication very soundly. Though, perhaps it could have been improved upon. It would be better if she had discussed her own thoughts and opinions in the piece rather than just repeating the information. Although the explanations were great and contained a lot of detail, I would have found it interesting to hear a bit more on her thoughts about the discussion and less of what we ourselves heard in class.

Class Response: The Importance of Zenger

John Peter Zenger published a reputation-destroying, career-hurting, and totally true article about a governor. He was then sued for his totally true report. You would think that the power governor would have won against the lowly reporter, but he didn't. This is the first sign of America's potential for total freedom of speech (assuming it's not liable). Not only did this case pave the way for freedom of speech, but it's also what pushed journalist to become government watchdogs too. Before this case, a journalist had to live in fear of publishing an article about the misuse of power. No matter how true, the article would be thought as as an "act against god". But after the Zenger Case, this was not longer an issue because not the truth was the ultimate defense against a slander charge. This case is what made journalism what it is today.

Class Response: Melding the Models

We discussed in class about how the different binary models are staring to become obsolete because of things like conglomerates and infotainment. One model that cant be combined is the "Hot-Cold" model. How can something that is intense and takes all of your concentration be background sound as well? On further examination, I decided that there are a few gray areas. Magazines, for example. A magazine could take all of your time and attention if you choose to sit and read every single word, but what about if you skim the headlines and chat with your friend beside you. This is one of the rare items which you can allow to take up different amounts of your concentration.

Class Response: The Important Principle

Journalism encompasses such a wide scope of ideas that I find it hard to imagine nine principles, much less a single one can truly explain everything about it. But after reading the nine principles and seven yardsticks, I felt differently. I began to realize that maybe their was one principle that outweighed the others in importance. I decided that "truth" is the most important. If people can't even believe what you say then there isn't even a point to the rest of the principles. First and foremost, an article must be truthful to the world as a whole. 

To prove what I said, think of all of the principles and yardsticks and think of a time when it has been violated. When someone fabricates stories, it is much more harmful for the audience than when a news outlet doesn't cover a story they probably should have. Though all of the yardsticks and principles are undoubtedly important, truth is among the most important.  

Class Response: The Printing Press

I got to thinking after the class took the One Question Quiz on what the world would be like without the movable-type printing press. I wondered about what events could have been avoided if humanity had had the printing press long before it was actually invented. My first thought was of the Crusades and the horrible bloodshed caused on religions behalf, mainly by illiterate farmers who decided to march for a place in heaven. But where does it say that in the Bible? This is exactly what we talked about in class earlier today. The more knowledgable the people got, the more they began to question religion. 

Just think of how illiterates would just march off to do whatever the Church told them to do. If the movable-type printing press had been invented sooner, then the Church never would've been to able to amass the power that it did and perhaps Christianity would not be as widespread as it currently is (not that wide-spread Christianity is a bad thing). The religions of the world might also be vastly different because of the ability to record the religions text, word for word. The inventing of the printing press changed humanity in a way nothing else could; it enlightened the masses on things that really effected how they lived.