Journalists have constantly shaped much of history throughout. They report on important things that impact the way our country works. Chapter 17 of Mightier than the Sword describes the different characteristics a journalist must have in order to shape history. This involves the willingness to break from the pack. For example, the first newspaper to go against slavery was criticized heavily, but it still impacted change. Another characteristic one needs is to be willing to put one’s self in harms way, like when William Lloyd Garrison was stoned for being a abolitionist. More characteristics include the willingness to set an agenda and to sacrifice financial gain for public good.

Journalism has impacted history for a very long time. Journalists increasingly push boundaries and state their opinions on public policy, the economy and civil rights. They can start movements and change the way the world works.

Citizenfour is about Edward Snowden’s journey to uncover the NSA spying scandal. Much of the documentary is a series of interviews of Snowden while he is in hiding and trying to reveal as much about this scandal to the American people. The film displays the process in which Snowden had to go through in order to hide from the American government and his communications with journalists in order to release information. I think this film was very important because it shows the importance of whistle blowing and the controversies of protection versus freedom. Not only does Citizenfour do this, but it also shows the toll that revealing this information took on Snowden’s life. For example, Snowden had to leave his partner with out any explanation. It also displays the very specific things Snowden had to be careful about during this time of hiding. He would unplug the phone cord in his hotel room and covered but head with a blanket when he went on his laptop. The documentary was an interesting insight into what life as a whistle blower is like and the repercussions of it.

The movie Spotlight was about a group of journalists who uncovered the scandals in the Catholic church regarding the sexual assault of children by priests. Without journalists, these horrors would have never been uncovered. They used records made by the church, and realized that many priests that had been logged as “reassigned” were actually moved because they sexually assaulted male children. The people that were assaulted hadn’t come forward about it until recently because the victims viewed their priest as a spiritual and personal guide. There was great cognitive dissonance about telling anyone what was happening, because the priest was viewed as someone who couldn’t do anything wrong. Through investigative journalism, this scandal was uncovered and although the Catholic church persists to have much power, this was a step towards revealing behavior that must not be condoned.

Journalism has a long and complicated history, but at its core journalism is a vital part of our democracy. Journalism is a important because it informs the public about issues that they may not know about otherwise. Journalism is being attacked now more than ever. News is more and more biased, and with Trump as president, free speech is being threatened. Trump claiming that everything he doesn’t agree with is “fake news” is dangerous to the core fundamentals of our country. It seems that truth is becoming less and less important, and we as Americans should fight for journalists right to publish facts.

News is told in a very sensationalized and biased way. We have a lot of fixing to do then it comes to journalism. Journalists need to cover more topics with less bias. This may be a long road ahead, but journalists need to be only concerned with fact and truth.

The Trump Administration has been criticized several times for it’s alleged ties with Putin and Russia. In an article published by the Washington Post written by Greg Miller, Adam Entous and Ellen Nakashima, they investigate Michael Flynn. Flynn is the national security advisor to the Trump administration. Although he denied it, Flynn spoke to a Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak about U.S. sanctions a month before Trump took office.

FBI officials are continuing to investigate, but some officials are saying that although Flynn discussed sanctions with Russia, there has yet to be any evidence proving that he made any promises to take action after Trump became president. Flynn is stating that this is normal for diplomats to discuss, but there are a lot of questionable things going on around this incident. For example, after Flynn spoke to Kislyak, Obama issued diplomatic expulsions of 35 Russians and Putin did not retaliate at all, when he normally does. Instead, Putin said he was going to focus on mending relations between the U.S. and Russia.

In recent events, Trump has accused Obama of ordering illegal surveillance on him during the 2016 presidential campaign. An article published by NBC News written by Phil McCausland, Ari Melber and Diana Marinaccio, discusses if Obama has grounds to sue for libel. The libel law provides much leeway for political speech, Trump may have gone too far this time. 

According to the article, “past Supreme Court cases have created a basic standard that seeks to answer two legal questions: Was the statement false? Did the person know it was false or was he or she reckless about whether it was false?” This can be difficult questions to answer for this case, no one really knows Trumps thought process. However, Trump did not even ask his own administration if this could be true, so that could give Obama some ground. The article concludes by stating that it is unlikely Obama will sue; past presidents have given the new administration quite a bit of leeway when it comes to these things.

In a recent article published in the New York Times, written by Stacey Patton, she described the issues with beating Black children. The article, named “Stop Beating Black Children,” gives a background to why this trend began and why it needs to stop.

She begins the article by stating that she was a victim of child abuse by her adoptive Black mother, and even though her mother thought “whupping” was the best thing for her, it damaged her severely. She then transitions into the history of why black children are beaten so much more than other races, statistically. Previous to slavery, black children were somewhat sacred. Beating black children was caused by white supremacy, and the concept was so engrained in Black culture because of the hundreds of years of slavery, that now Black children are regularly beaten because parents think it will keep them in line. Clearly, this is not the case.

Patton argues that the beating of Black children and the violence surrounding black people needs to stop. There is a multitude of evidence proving that beating children is not effective, and this trend absolutely causes more harm than good. Personally, I believe Patton makes a very good point. I think the cycle of beating children causes kids to be more violent, and to pass that on to further generations. Obviously, this will be a difficult culture change, but it is very necessary. The Black community will feel the repercussions of slavery for a long while more, but we should all begin to try to heal that.

In the latest Trump scandal, a New York Times article explains his latest tweets attacking the news media. Written by Michael M. Gyrnbaum, the article entitled “Trump Calls the News Media the ‘Enemy of the American People'” includes a tweet made by Donald Trump that says “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”

According to the article, Trump refers to the media as the “opposing party” and this is specifically dangerous for a sitting president to state. Even the man who uncovered the watergate scandal says this a dangerous path that he is leading. Many are stating that his actions condemning journalism and free speech mirror authoritarians and other hostile governments. Trump believes that the public doesn’t believe the news anymore and this is a very positive change in his eyes.

Trump Calls the News Media the ‘Enemy of the American People’

For this assignment, I decided to view the CBS Nightly News report from February 8, 2017. During this episode, there were multiple different values and elements of news that were incorporated. To begin, the main story was about Donald Trump’s supreme court nominee criticizing him for insulting the federal court system after a federal judge stopped the controversial travel ban last week. This addresses the value of impact. The travel ban affects many refugees throughout the country on a very large scale. This story also addresses timeliness, since it happened very recently and therefore is more important to viewers. Lastly, this story exemplifies conflict since the story shows how Trump’s supreme court nominee is having problems with the way Trump is speaking about the judicial system.

The other main story in this episode was about how a 77 year old man is currently excelling at CrossFit. This value is oddity. People don’t normally hear about a senior citizen doing workouts that most young people can’t even complete, therefore, it can be considered important news.

Overall, this nightly news episode essentially followed many of the 7 values that were discussed in class in order to be considered news. The stories within it involved impact, timeliness, conflict, oddity, and more.

Hey everyone! My name is Sarika Benawra and I am writing this blog for my Journalism 200 class. I am currently a sophomore studying Advertising at the University of Illinois and having an above average time here at college. My extracurriculars include but are not limited to being a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority and the American Advertising Federation on campus. My most recent online purchase was a sweatshirt with the phrase “Barack n’ Roll” written on it. Speaking of Barack Obama, in my 15 seconds of internet fame, Buzzfeed once posted a tweet I made about Michelle Obama in one of their articles. I still credit this moment in my life with giving me the most joy. In other news, I have a weird birthmark on my leg that looks like either a rocket ship or a giraffe, depending on how you look at it.