Final Lecture Flashcards
The Corporation
News Chapter
(video)
2 reporters from Fox News want to report on Monsantos but Fox says no
OutFoxed “Rupert Murdoph’s War on Journalism”
Left-leaning documentary on Fox News channel/Corporation
They reach billions of ppl (4.7)
There’s political talk, but not much real news
Very right leaning channel
The case of Fox and Fox News
All news and commentary has a formula
o Breaking down “the Wall” – between corporate and news division
• The news agency is a marketing construct
o Not new – see pre-1950’s journalism in the US
o Fox (News Corp.) ≠ Fox News
The case of Fox and Fox News:
2 views
• Fox News promoting a conservative agenda
Political entity
• Fox (News Corp.) out to expand and profit from an integrative global media empire
Economic entity
Issues portrayed in Spotlight
1 Issue
2 Dangerous story
Issue: Alienating The Subscriber Base
Dangerous story: when he advises his reporters to “Start ignoring everybody”
- Pulitzer – A newspaper should have no friends
• Cause if you do, you’ll treat them differently than you would others
Issues portrayed in Spotlight
3 Stand alone
4 Finding the big story
5 Media & Law working together
“A paper has to stand alone”
o Gives you a sense of the pressure going on which journalists operate
Finding the big story: The System
o The institutional corruption – that’s involved behind it
Spotlight - teacher notes
Comment in the beginning – has the Globe changed since it’s been bought by NYT
Subtle way of asking if autonomy has been affected at all
Spotlight - teacher notes
Trusting the source?
Trusting the source and gathering evidence to see who they believe
Spotlight - teacher notes
Lots to figure out legally
legal aspects; lawyer taking on the catholic church and making settlements but it really undermines the process in making it all public
Spotlight - teacher notes
Takes an outsider
if you’re an insider, it’s a much more difficult position to take on the church
Spotlight - teacher notes
Next part of movie
we see that it’s the editor that really pushes the story instead of the journalists
Spotlight - teacher notes
2nd chance
The Globe gets a second chance at breaking the story
Spotlight - teacher notes
compartmentalize
There’s a way to compartmentalize to keep the story secret
Spotlight - teacher notes
Holding a story to a particular date
9/11 forces them to hold off on reporting/gathering info
Then xmas pushes it further back
- Cultural content in which everything occurs in the background
o Alienating the subscriber base
Lessons of Spotlight
Big stories
The biggest stories are systemic
Lessons of Spotlight
Systemic stories
Systemic stories tend to be met with internal disbelief (within the newsroom)
o Reporters tend to think that they wouldn’t be there if there wasn’t legitimacy behind them. So when you look at systemic stories, it tends to be something bigger
Lessons of Spotlight
Lobbying
Editors are lobbied by the powerful/interested/involved
Lessons of Spotlight
Powerful players
Savvy & powerful players (ppl that are influential) will tap internal dissent
o Individuals associated with the Catholic church
o Creating a wedge in the newsroom
• Role of Marty Baron as an outsider
He’s a non-Bostonian, Jewish
Better positioned to represent the story
Lessons of Spotlight
Outsiders
The outsider has an advantage
o He’s not intimidated by all of this – there’s a natural inclination to realize your messing with something that’s really big
Lessons of Spotlight
Producing and constraining news
Journalists produce news (have flexibility in doing so), but current events constrain journalists (ex. 9/11)
Lessons of Spotlight
Challenging the community
Who but the city’s newspaper could challenge a community pillar like the Catholic church in Boston
Lessons of Spotlight
Source credibility
Source credibility is essential
o They finally had the resources to get behind all the accusations
Lessons of Spotlight
Exposure
Chas Kaiser (ex. WSJ/NYT): “The Globe investigation… indirectly led to national/international exposure”
An Inconvenient Truth 2006
Profile of Al Gore
o How global warming is bad and a serious thing
Cool It 2010
Profile: Bjorn Lomburg
How they “debunk” parts of Inconvenient Truth on their numbers and usage of photos etc.
A special case in media and in problem solving: Ecological issues
• “Environment”
• “Ecology”
“Environment” – surroundings
“Ecology” – the branch of biology that deals with relations between living organisms and their environment
o Interconnectedness
• You can never do just one thing – you can build a dam, dig a pipe etc., but that effects many other things
o Systems theory
• Ecology leads us to think in terms of systems
A special case in media and in problem solving: Ecological issues
Ecological critiques (critiques of something from an ecological perspective) are attacks on political and economic arrangements
- Ecological issues that become acted upon or discussed, become inherently political
Ex. If I want all cars to be able to drive 40mph, I’m attacking your right to buy big cars
A special case in media and in problem solving: Ecological issues
• Types of problems
Ecological problems often are individual or democratic problems rather than technical problems
o EX. we know how to lower greenhouse gas emissions, but people don’t want to
A lot of times its not a matter of scientists coming up with solutions, and more so that we struggle with what we wanna do
A special case in media and in problem solving: Ecological issues
• Values
• Democracy
Many of these issues are about values
o They’re subjective rather than objective
Democracy is slow to respond to these issues
A special case in media and in problem solving: Ecological issues
• Causes and effects
Causes and effects of ecological issues may be far removed from one another
o Something in China or Africa can effect us
o The farther the more difficult – to solve problems or get people to pay attention to it
A special case in media and in problem solving: Ecological issues
• Overall difficulty
This is why it’s so difficult reporting on climate – these problems have a lot of features that make them seem too big/ineffective
• It’s hard to categorize some things
Crisis vs. Crunch
Crisis o Event – hurricane, fire etc. o EASY for media Crunch o Incremental o Gradual o DIFFICULT for media
Thresholds of perception
Perception requires crossing some sort of boundary
o Ex. when is it safe to cross a street or putting pressure on paper until it rips
Human perception has a sensory, often visual, bias associated with it
o Ex. you can’t see CO2 emissions or feel the ocean warmer
Al Jazzera video (self notes)
• About Paris climate accord
• Nothing in the media about climate change
o Trump said he would pull out of the agreement
• More about players involved and less about the actual planet
• It’s all about doom and gloom – there’s fear
• Barriers to climate change are not technological, they’re political
• Standing Rock tribal community stood up to big oil companies when they tried to stop them from digging the pipeline and only got media when the police used force
