Rodger Streitmatter, author of “Mightier than the Sward,” explains in chapter 17 how the media has influenced history over the years. He begins the chapter by making an interesting statement, ” The news organizations that have influenced important events have been willing to set the agenda.” In Streitmatter’s opinion, media sets the tone for social theory, they have the power to report and persuade public attitude. After reading his case I would have to agree, the media leads society through their stories. Journalist have done amazing work uncovering numerous scandals and injustices through history. The systematic abuse that occurred in Catholic Church that the Spotlight team of Boston investigated is on example, and the Watergate scandal of 1972 another.   Yet, with the current political climate, it is hard to look at journalism as completely unbiased. There seems to be, at times, an agenda being pushed by the media. Prominence and controversy drive news, as well as the viewership. News and media have become a little too preoccupied in the drama that not enough attention goes towards the facts.

In the film, All the President’s Men, two journalists investigate and report on the Watergate scandal for the Washington post. The story is incredibly interesting because it almost fell into the laps of the reporters on accident, one minor lead to a small story became groundbreaking.

The film is exciting and thrilling due to the sense of knowing there is more to the story than initially meets the eye. As the reporters get closer to the truth the suspense grows with the release of the article. Though the actual aftermath of the story is not played out, viewers have a strong idea of what follows the release of the paper. It was another great example of how investigative journalism has the power to really change things in the world.

In the chilling documentary, Citizenfour, camera men and journalists expose the findings of labeled whistleblower Edward Snowden, a former government employee of the NSA who leaked classified flies informing the public of government surveillance. A majority of the documentary takes place in a Hong-Kong hotel room that Snowden has taken refuge in to avoid surveillance during his interview with several journalists.

The shocking, and very interesting aspects of the film are the scary realities faced by Americans unknowingly. Snowden, in the hopes to expose the truth, reached out to trusted journalists to tell the story with out his political bias. He states in the film, that he wanted the information consumed by the public, but that he did not want the media to put his face to the story because he did not want a figure to get in the way of the message he wanted to release.

This statement is incredibly interesting because of the trust he places in others to report such sensitive information. He knew that the best way to paint the reality of what is happening in the NSA was to leave it in the hands of journalists. People who he knew could avoid personal bias, and report the facts the way the public needed to receive them.

The movie Spotlight tells the story of an investigative journalist team made up of 4 members, that when presented a story about sexual abuse in the Boston Church system, takes on a life of its own. The events uncovered by the team in the film represent a true story of an actual Catholic Church scandal in that was uncovered by journalists with the help of victims and their lawyers working to serve them justice.

I found that the greatest impact that the film made was their stance on how investigative journalism made a difference in peoples lives. There was a scene in the movie that proved to be very pivotal, the leader of the Spotlight team along with another member were interviewing a lawyer who has settled some of the child molestation cases in the previous years. The journalists, after hearing the low numbers of the settlement seemed confused. This is when the lawyer they were talking to told them, cases against the Church can not be won in the court, but must be won in the public. Though a brief statement, it hints at the fact that if there was not a public display of the systematic abuse and coverup by the Church, nothing would be done.

The film was not only informative, but also extremely interesting. It showed the detailed process of investigative journalism, while uncovering a massive scandal that by being brought to the publics attention, gave some justice to its victims.

In the investigative article, “80 Times Trump Talked About Putin,” CNN Politics breaks down Tweets, interviews, and public appearances where President Trump mentions his relationship with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. The interest in analysis of Trumps apparent relationship with the President stems from controversy over intent, “His glowing statements on Putin have become central in stoking the suspicion that he and his campaign were somehow connected to Russian interference in the election,” according to the article.

The investigative piece was put together by three writers for the news network, Andrew Kaczynski, Chris Massie, and Nathan McDermott, to show connection of Trump’s statements and his personal affairs with Putin. The article was made up of a timeline of statements starting in June of 2013 when the current President tweeted from his personal account asking if Putin’s appearance at the Miss Universe Pageant in November would unite them as best friends. At the time the statement was looked at as foolish, yet with the current situation of our country, words like these have people thinking twice.

The three journalists responsible for creating this article took careful time searching through articles and interviews from other news networks gathering quotes and video prof of President Trump’s most controversial actions. The timeline that was constructed by the authors shows a very clear trend in first confidence of the “friendship” into denial as the 2016 election approached.  It gives readers a very good understanding of the situation, and through Trump’s own words they prove their theory, there is something suspicious about Trump and his claimed, yet recently unclaimed, relationship with Vladimir Putin. By putting together an easy to understand timeline of multi media proof of what seems to be a scandal, the authors of this article are successful in the persuasion of their audience.

Article Link: http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/03/politics/trump-putin-russia-timeline/

Citation: “80 times Trump Talked about Putin.” CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2017.

The New York Times fights back against President Trump’s claims of libel and deformation in their article written by Adam Liptak, “Can Trump Change Libel Laws?” In a recent Tweet sent out by the president in response to previous articles written by the Times, he claims, “I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.” After reading this quote by the President it becomes a question of if he truly understands what libel means. In order to prove libel there must be evidence of false statements with the intent of “actual malice” this being said, libel is an extremely hard case to win for highly known figures due to their heightened profile. The article continues to include the challenges President Trump would face if he indeed went through the process of suing the paper for libel; “Mr. Trump’s lawyers called the article libelous and seemed to threaten to sue. David McCraw, a lawyer for The Times, responded that Mr. Trump’s reputation was too tarnished to allow a successful libel suit.” Though it is understandable that the President would be upset about articles written that are not in his favor, such articles do not give him the right, nor the means due to states ruling over the law, to change the way courts define libel.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/us/politics/can-trump-change-libel-laws.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FLibel%20and%20Slander&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection&_r=0

“Can Trump Change Libel Laws?”

By: Adam Liptak