Junyu Song

Journalism and history were closely connected. The press and media had played an important role in shaping the history crucial events. When facing some history events, words seemed to work better than the war, just like the name of Rodger Streitmatter’s book, “Mightier than the Sword.”

In Streitmatter’s book, he talked about some crucial history events, such as the Civil Rights Movement and Women’s and gay’s right, and how the journalism shaped them, positively or negatively.

According to Streitmatter’s book, instead of just recording the history with stenographic precision, good news organizations should set the agenda. Also, good journalists were standing tall and alone, and willing to sacrifice their financial gain to preserve the integrity of the news. Besides, they were fearless to expose themselves to harm. In the United States’ history, there were many journalists being killed for seeking the truth and reporting them.

Journalism shaped the history and it would continue to impact the present and the future.

Stephen Glass, was portrayed as a perfect man who had a perfect life at the front part of the movie “Shattered Glass”. He was friendly, polite, passionate and most importantly, he was talented. Everyone talked about him, and everyone wanted to be like him. However, this rising star at “The New Republic” magazine, turned out to be a lost star as the story began.

Had fabricated over 20 of his 41 stories, making up the events, locations, dates and figures, Stephen Glass created one of the biggest scandal in journalism.

Stephen Glass was unfortunate, not because his scandal was revealed to the public. He was unfortunate because he pursued a wrong career at the beginning. Imagination is a valuable talent, but a journalist shouldn’t have too much.

This movie demonstrated the environment of the journalism. How can journalists stand out from the competition? The audience needed breaking news. However, breaking news didn’t happen everyday.

In 1976, the first child molestation by Catholic priest was noticed.

In 2001, The Boston Globe united the “Spotlight” team, which was made up of a small group of investigative journalists, to investigate priest John Keoghan’s crime. At the beginning, the “Spotlight” team” just wanted to bring priest John to justice. However, as the investigation moved on, the Spotlight team found out that there was a pattern of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests in Massachusetts, following by the ongoing cover-up by the Boston Archdiocese. Finally, they revealed a list of 87 abusive priests in Boston, which counted as six percent of priests.

It’s a true story. It’s the movie “Spotlight”.

For the “Spotlight” team, the meaning of “the king without a crown” is seeking the truth and reporting it. Journalists are like the beacons in the sea, lighting up and giving direction to the people in darkness.

At the end of the movie, the team was inundated with phone calls from victims telling their stories after the investigation was published. That’s the power of media. As the voice of people, it gives strength to the weak, encouraging people to speak up. Maybe, this is the greatest value and meaning for a journalist.

“Sometimes it’s easy to forget that we spend most of our time stumbling around the dark. Suddenly, a light gets turned on and there’s a fair share of blame to go around.”

Having wisdom is easy, but speaking up is hard.

 

 

“When a dog bites a man, that is not news. But if a man bites a dog, that is news.”

Many famous journalists, living in different ages, have said this common sentence.

 
What is news? As I was taught in Journalism 200 class, the precondition of news is to have at least one trait among timeliness, oddity, prominence, proximity, conflict, human interest and impact.

However, in my opinion, there are two most important traits the news should have.

One of them, as expressed in above, is oddity.

No matter in which era, people are expecting something unexpected. It won’t be news if it snows in December. However, it is news if it snows in August.

Also, I think news must be new. Just like its name, the news is made up of new things. I prefer calling Brad’s divorce as news to saying the War of Independence or Princess Diana’s wedding are news. They are histories.

When the recent and organized information becomes news, the way to report the news becomes important.

I think one fundamental principle for news reporter is to be objective. If a journalist puts his or her personal attitude or emotion into the news, the public will get biased information and they may be mislead. And this news can’t be called news, but a story.

Also, I think the news should be reported in suitable tone and wording. According to the different circumstances, news should be reported in different ways. The Oscar Award can be told in a humorous way, while the suffering or disaster must be told in a serious tone.

I only have limited knowledge about news. However, I believe that everyone has the right to express opinions toward news, no matter right or wrong.

 

 

 

According to the Global Investigative Journalism Network, Matt Kiefer and Julia Smith did research about the settlements and judgments of police misconduct and aimed to revealed the results to the public via a standalone App.

Their research based on a 2012 investigation, which showed Chicago police officers sued in different lawsuits. Kiefer and Smith believed that publishing defendants and settlement amount with data-driven approach would restrain the police officer’s misconduct.

At the first stage of research, Kiefer and Smith found it was hard to identify the officers because of the partial or misspelled names given in many legal complaints, along with the lack of badge numbers.

In the consideration of being responsible for the accuracy of their research, Kiefer and Smith decided to take a new approach. They loaded the complete list of police officers FOIA’d from the Chicago Police Department into a Django object-relational mapper. Based on the officers’ full names, badge numbers and dates of service, they wrote algorithms to derive a match for each named defendant with a high degree of certainty. In this approach, 85% of the matches could be automated and published on the GitHub.

To bring the data to the public, Kiefer and Smith were devoted to build a standalone news App with the help of the INN technology team. They used a Chicago Tribune’s static site generator named Tarbell to provide easy content management and a built-in publishing workflow that “pushes pre-baked files to Amazon S3.” Also, they used Backbone as their data-binding framework for the front end.

Although there were some technical problems during the development process, Kiefer and Smith thought these problems as fun puzzles. They continued to collect data on police misconduct in Chicago and believed this App would become a worldwide database for those who are interested in policing issues.

 

 

Exposing the Cost of Police Misconduct in Chicago

If someone told you that you could be kicked out of the University for writing a post on Facebook, would you believe it?

In 2012, Craig Keefe, a student at Central Lakes College’s Brainerd nursing school, was expelled for calling one classmate as a ‘ stupid bitch’ in one of his Facebook posts.

The college claimed Keefe’s post violated the student handbook policy. However, Keefe believed that the College violated the First Amendment which protects his freedom of expression.

This Monday, The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear this case. This refusal lets the Eighth Circuit Court’s decision that upheld the expulsion stand.

As a supporter of the College, Judge James Loken thought that the College had the right to rule students and punish them if they violate the professional standard. He thought the expulsion of students who “speak at the wrong place and time” is as reasonable as a falling grade a student received for “submitting a paper on the wrong subject.”

On the contrary, as the director of the Student Press Law Center, Frank LoMonte said:

“Even a middle-school student is entitled to First Amendment protection unless her speech substantially disrupts school operations, and the Eighth Circuit’s misguided decision has left college students with lesser free-speech protections than 12-year-olds.”

Dust has settled down. However, the debate is continuing.

 

 

www.splc.org/blog/splc/2017/04/keefe-certiorari-denied

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment

 

When I transferred to the college of business last year, I was asked to write two papers, personal statement and professional statement. Both of them required me to show my leadership.

What is leadership? When I enter this question to Google, I find various answers. Most of them talk about how leadership affect and inspire others, contributing to their achievement. This kind of leadership seems to care more about the result rather than “the soul of leadership,” as emphasized by Chris Myers in Forbes.

In Chris’s view, authentic leaders should confront their soul. Instead of hiding their weakness, they should admit their vulnerability to their subordinates and most importantly, to themselves. A true leader should have strong internal faith and fight for something in spirit rather than pursue wealth or physical well-being.

“A leader who lacks passion, or is merely chasing a paycheck or position, is doomed to fail,” Chris said. Although I do agree that a true leader shouldn’t be tied up with money or fame, I think money and fame are excellent motivation. I did’t see there’s a problem if a leader works hard to live a better life. And we can’t say this kind of leader is terrible or lack of leadership just because he or she doesn’t pursue a spiritual goal.

 

 

 

According to the New York Times on February 25th, The Supreme Court is now deciding whether North Carolina law, which forbids the sex offenders from using commercial social networking sites where they can gather information about minors, goes way too far.

This lawsuit is sparked by Packingham’s post on Facebook to celebrate the dismissal of his pending ticket in 2010.

“No fine, no court cost, no nothing spent……Praise be to GOD, WOW! Thanks, JESUS!”

Photo courtesy of Durham County Clerk of Superior Court

Lester Packingham Jr. is a registered sex offender who served ten months in prison due to indecent liberties with a minor when he was 21. A 2008 North Carolina law forbade him from using commercial social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter that he can gather information about minors.

This time, his good fortune in traffic court didn’t help him in Durham. A Durham police officer found that he used an alias rather than his real name. He was prosecuted, convicted of a felony and received a suspended prison sentence.

Although the North Carolina law was meant to protect the young people from sexual predators, dissenting justices argued this law violates the Constitution’s free-speech protections.

The objector of the law claimed that the law goes further that makes registered sex offenders illegal to say anything about any subject on social media where is central to Americans’ daily life. And it would unconstitutionally outlaw them looking for a job, reading news on New York Times or daily musings of the president.

However, the law’s defender claimed that the law didn’t regulate what sex offenders say, just the time, place and manner of their speech. Also, Louisiana Deputy Solicitor General Colin A. Clark emphasized that the law doesn’t ban offenders from using the internet, just certain social media sites like Facebook.

The debate is still continuing…

 

Supreme Court Weighs Law Banning Sex Offenders From Facebook (2017). The New York Times.Retrieved From https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/02/25/us/ap-us-sex-offenders-facebook-ban-.html