In chapter 17 of Mightier Than the Sword by Roger Streitmatter, several reasons are given as to why and how journalists have shaped history. Of these examples, the most prominent take aways for me were “be willing to set the agenda” and “be willing to break from the pack”.

Setting the agenda is imperative for great journalism. As the textbook stated, leading society is just as important as recording facts, and throughout history, what proved to be the most influential force for the public opinion on any number of issues would be reading the guidance of journalists. Some of the most pivotal points in the United States’ history–from the Spanish-American War to the Civil Rights Movement to Marriage Equality–came after the diligent work of journalists to change the common opinion, and without that, there is no telling where we would be today.

“Being willing to break from the pack” is also an essential factor in journalism because the most groundbreaking works were done when someone went beyond what was expected and put themselves in a situation that was outside of the norm. No matter what the issue, never be afraid to speak your truth on what you believe to be right, because at the end of the day, you will never be standing alone.

Looking back on my time in JOUR200, I think the most important lesson from the class was establishing how important journalism has been in the past and how it will continue to be in the future. People are always saying this industry is dying, but I feel it is just evolving. Journalism will always be essential for society, and I see it shaping American history profoundly for many more years to come.

All the President’s Men is a political thriller from 1976 based off the book by the same name by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, the journalists who investigated the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post in 1972. The film begins when security guard Frank Wills finds a door unlocked with tape at the Watergate complex, and once the police is called, five individuals were arrested for burglarizing the Democratic National Committee headquarters on the 6^th floor. Documents were photographed, telephones were wiretapped, and it soon become known that the Nixon administration had ordered the break-in and then continued to cover it up when they were caught. The film follows all the events and drama throughout the Watergate scandal, and eventually ends with the resignation of President Nixon.

Although old, I found this film to be very engaging. Watergate is an iconic incident in our country’s history, and even though I thought I knew everything, I clearly did not. After the movie was finished, I could not help myself but to think about how shady politics like this are still happening today, as was seen with Hillary Clinton and the DNC destroying Bernie Sanders campaign this past election. There is no doubt even more unjust things are happening behind the scenes with our government everyday, so I just hope we have a new scandal to the caliber Watergate was with the Trump administration just so I could say I lived through something monumentally scandalous like my older family members have.

Citizenfour is a 2014 documentary about Edward Snowden and the NSA spying scandal. In 2013, documentary director/producer Laura Poitras received an encrypted email from one “Citizenfour” offering her inside information about NSA, more specifically about their illegal wiretapping practices. From there, she and other reporters flew to Hong Kong where this mystery man was waiting in a hotel room, and it turned out to be Snowden. For four days she conducted interviews with him while he revealed confidential secrets, and once their location became known, Poitras fled to Berlin and Snowden found asylum in Russia after his passport was suspended by the U.S. government. He is currently still in Russia.

This documentary was very intriguing. This event happened when I was in 7^th grade so my knowledge about the topic was very limited, so watching this really caught me up to speed. It is really interesting to me how Snowden knew about all of this for years but had so much faith in the Obama administration he kept quiet. When Obama let him down, that was the last straw for him so he risked everything to become a whistleblower so all Americans would know the truth about how they are constantly being monitored. I also find the whole concept of finding asylum in other countries complex and fascinating, and I am looking forward to reading more into it and to follow what Snowden’s future holds with President Trump in power.

The film Spotlight is a 2015 drama based on the investigative journalists from The Boston Globe who exposed the widespread child sex abuse by numerous Roman Catholic priests in the Boston area in 2001. The “spotlight” team initially was investigating the crimes of one, but soon found that there were patterns that lead to the investigation of 87. When their first print on the issue went to the public, hundreds of people called in to tell their stories, and that lead to 249 priests and brothers being accused of sexual abuse within the Boston Archdiocese alone, leaving behind over 1000 survivors.

I found this film to be very engaging and eye-opening. I knew that these allegations had come out, but I had no idea that a group of investigative journalists were the ones that brought it to light. Near the conclusion, I thought the ending was going to be very satisfactory because the truth had come out and more and more people were coming forward, but soon the film left me enraged. At the very end viewers were told that Cardinal Law resigned from the Boston Archdiocese, but then we were informed that he was just relocated to the one of the highest ranking Roman Catholic churches in the world. Then, an extraordinarily long list of cities from across the globe was shown because they all experienced similar sexual abuse allegations. What upsets me the most is that the truth came out, but nothing was really done about it. The Catholic Church got away free and they probably always will, but at least I know there were and are people diligently working to expose these criminals and trying their best to give the public the whole story.

On Tuesday, April 25^th, I attended a lecture given by Cara Finnegan discussing the role of photography during the Syrian refugee crisis. Finnegan is a Communications professor on the UIUC campus.

When looking at this current crisis, photojournalism is leading the way with portraying the raw realities Syrians are facing. In American news, we rarely see video footage of what is going on and instead we are just given negative opinions about the matter. Reality is that these people are going through tremendous turmoil just to be alive and safe. Examining photography is the best way for us to get the whole truth on this group of people, and after viewing the images provided by Professor Finnegan, I was overcome with compassion and heartache for these people. Some of those images were absolutely heartbreaking, so it truly baffles me how so many people could care less.

This lecture was very interesting and engaging and I applaud Professor Finnegan for stepping up and giving students the opportunity to discuss and view something imperative that is being forgotten about.

In my opinion, “news” in today’s day and age is a tricky and exhausting concept. With dozens of different opinionated platforms and the ability for anyone to post anything they want and call it “news”, it is hard to distinguish the truth and to find out what is truly important.

To further explain, I can scroll through my Facebook feed at any point in time and see people sharing different articles and videos about any sort of topic. However, more than half of those are extraordinarily biased, full of lies, or only give you bits and pieces of what actually happened. The digital age has really made this type of journalism take off, and it is the reason people are so misinformed and it is also the reason those with a journalism degree are struggling post-education.

Another problem I have with journalism and news today is that often times we are focusing on the wrong things. We are so easily distracted by petty nonsense that we are missing big events that are happening right in front of our eyes. This past election and new presidency of Donald Trump is case and point. He will make one comment and it will be blown up, twisted, and made front page news when there are actual real issues going on in the world that should be taking the precedence.

While I wish that news could go back to its simplest forms without opinionated edges on everything, I know that is not realistic. Instead, we, as consumers of media, just need to be smarter than the things that are deferring us from the truth, but once again I have little faith in our population to be able to overcome this toxic system.

ProPublica and the Virginian-Pilot have filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for stonewalling requests for information and documents.

According to ProPublica reporter Robin Fields, the two organizations are seeking preliminary injunction to compel the government to release information about Agent Orange, the defoliant chemical most commonly known from the Vietnam War for herbicidal warfare.

ProPublica and the Virginian-Pilot have been doing investigative journalism on Agent Orange and the physical and mental health effects on veterans and their families for about 18 months. During this time, there have been two pleas to the VA from the reporting organizations for information about the coverage of veterans and the diseases linked to Agent Orange, but said requests have been pending for 618 and 506 days, respectively. Because the VA is disregarding the requests, that is a direct violation of the Freedom of Information Act.

Charles Ornstein, a senior reporter at ProPublica, stated that the VA’s unwillingness to comply with their requests will cause damage to the reputation of both reporting organizations to “timely and thoroughly report, for the public benefit, on these urgent and current issues concerning Agent Orange”.

The lawsuit was filed in Washington D.C. by the firm Adduci, Mastriani & Schaumberg, and the order is seeking the VA to produce the appropriate records and to pay attorney’s fees.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has not responded to the request for comment.

https://www.propublica.org/article/propublica-files-lawsuit-seeking-va-correspondence-related-to-agent-orange

Students of all genders, races, abilities and sexual orientations come together for music, dance, and inspirational at the Hear My Voice Diversity Festival on the evening of April 9^th. Themes of de-marginalizing the marginalized and self-love were prominent throughout all the activities.

Adam Liptak of the New York Times recently published an article  addressing President Trump’s Twitter comments about changing libel law. In the past years, Trump has started a media war with journalists from a variety major credible news outlets. He feels that these sources are constantly “[getting him] wrong”, and more specifically, he feels that The New York Times is “disgracing the media world”.

In order to combat this issue, President Trump has said that “I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.”

According to Liptak and our textbook, Trump clearly has no idea what he is talking about because libel laws are state-law torts, which means state courts and state legislatures have defined their own outlines on the matter and are the only ones able to change it. Additionally, in 1964, New York Times v. Sullivan set a precedent that attacks on public figures and government officials would not be libel because of the need to have honest and robust debates.

Changing New York Times v. Sullivan would require the Supreme Court to overrule the decision or create a new constitutional amendment, both of which are highly unlikely to happen.

Sources:

• https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/us/politics/can-trump-change-libel-laws.html?_r=0
• https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/847455180912181249

In this past 2016 election, the exceptionally low Millennial voter turn out is thought to be the cause of Hillary Clinton’s downfall. For years, the low turnout of younger voters has been a hot topic for discussion as well as what can be done to combat it. Evan Low, a California legislator, has introduced a constitutional amendment to try to address this national issue. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, he is proposing to lower the voting age to 17.

Historically, lowering the voting age has only decreased voter population with young people, as can be seen in 1971 when President Nixon lowered the age from 21 to 18.

Instead of throwing young adults into the system of democracy younger and younger, we should be easing them into it. Majority of students in this country are only required to take one 15-week term of civics in high school. By only having this crucial education of our country’s political science in a small window at the end of 11-12 years of prior education, our country is sending a message that it is not that important. If our educational system could introduce democracy and its concepts in primary school, we would have a new generation of informed voters who are comfortable with the process rather than viewing it as foreign and un-important.