Blog 11; EOTO 4 - Katie Couric

 Katie Couric

    Katie Couric is an American journalist, author, producer, and presenter. She was born on January 7, 1957, in Arlington, Virginia. Her father, John Couric, was a journalist and author. Being the daughter writer and a journalist, Couric made the decision to pursue a career in broadcasting after completing her degree. She finished her education at the University of
Virginia in 1979 with a degree in American studies. 

    After graduating she immediately moved to Washington D.C., where she briefly worked as a desk assistant for ABC News. Not long after this Katie began working at the Washington bureau of CNN. For the next seven years, Couric worked at CNN bureaus around the country as a producer and, when she could, as an on-air reporter. In 1987 Couric returned to Washington and joined WRC, an NBC affiliate station. While there she won an Associated Press Award and her first of several Emmy Awards.

    A few years later she became a deputy Pentagon correspondent for NBC. Couric covered many major stories, some more notable ones being the U.S. invasion of Panama and the Persian Gulf War from her Pentagon position, as well as from a newly-created post on NBC's morning show, Today, as she began to substitute for the regular anchor of the show. Eventually, she replaced the show's host, Deborah Norville, who had been being blamed for the show's struggling
ratings. Viewers immediately loved her for her pleasant appearance, charming demeanor, and her surprisingly hard-hitting journalistic style. As a result, Today became the most-watched morning newsmagazine in the country.

    At this point, her salary and rankings were putting her right next to other large names in television across all networks. Katie Couric had also served at all the major news stations during this time: ABC, NBC, and CNN. Her career and success on NBC's Today show continued to prosper into the 1990s, and in the summer of 1998, she signed a four-year-long contract extension with the news program.

    Sadly, that same year, Katie Couric's husband of ten years, Jay Monahan, passed away at the age of 42 after a six-month battle with colon cancer. Following her husband's passing, she

decided to launch the National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance. Her goal in this endeavor was to encourage preventative testing and research. In order to encourage her viewers to get tested, Couric held a two-week-long television series where she actually had an on-air colonoscopy and mammogram. This was to help her viewers to understand the importance of getting tested and additionally raise awareness for colon and breast cancer.  

    

    Couric continued to make TV history in 2006: After 15 years with the Today show, she signed a deal to become the first solo woman anchor of the CBS Evening News. In addition to her hosting duties, she agreed to contribute to the longstanding news magazine 60 Minutes and anchor prime-time specials for CBS. Her first show on September 5, 2006, was the first show to be broadcast on TV and radio and was the most-watched inaugural show. Katie Couric stayed with CBS until 2011. 

    Katie signed a multi-platform deal with ABC in June of 2011 and began hosting her own talk show, Katie, which debuted in 2012. The show ran for two seasons until its unfortunate cancellation. She then became the global news anchor for Yahoo two years later in 2014. Today, Couric runs her own media company, Katie Couric Media, has her own podcast, Next Question with Katie Couric, and her own newsletter, Wake-Up Call with Katie Couric.

Blog 10; EOTO 3 Presentation Reflections

EOTO 3 Presentation Reflection

    For our third EOTO, we discussed concepts and terms that were important or influential in journalism. 

    The first topic that I learned about during our presentations was halftone photos. Halftone was a new and more productive way of printing. Halftone only uses small dots of black ink to print on
paper, and the technique consists of breaking up an image into a series of dots to produce all of the tones within a photograph. The tiny dots use a sort of gradient effect to create shading or certain images or words. The dots are actually made by screens that have a varying number of lines per inch, these lines determine the number of dots. For newspapers, the range is typically between 50 to 85 dots per inch. In higher-quality work, it is a much higher number, closer to 120 to 150 lines per inch. The halftone was actually a quite remarkable invention for its time; the first image was able to be published in a newspaper with this technique in 1880. Halftone techniques are still used today, however rather than using screens to make the dots, they are digitally generated. The longevity of halftone photos further shows how influential the halftone technique was and that its design is still very beneficial and effective in printing today.

    Another topic I gained a lot of knowledge on while watching presentations was political cartoons. 

A political cartoon is a cartoon that makes a satirical point about a political issue or event. Many political cartoons are in the daily paper or in this day and age - online newspapers or blogs. With social media being a huge part of the way a majority of our society gets their news nowadays, many people post political cartoons on Twitter. Political cartoons are a satire that tends to be funny and they additionally tend to display caricatures that over-exaggerate certain physical features for a humorous effect. It may point out the problems, and discrepancies of a certain political situation. Although a drawing reflects a cartoonist’s judgment and point of view and, as mentioned, the visual commentary often exaggerates circumstances, responsible editorial standards will never allow the artist to alter any facts. 

Political cartoons and halftone images have both had different effects on journalism and the way we get out information. However, if it wasn't for these two influential concepts throughout time, journalism would not be in the state it is today. 

     

Blog 9; "Collateral Murder"

 "Collateral Murder"

  On July 7, 2007, there was an airstrike in Baghdad, which followed the Iraq war. The airstrikes were a series of air-to-ground attacks conducted by two US helicopters in Al-Amin al-Thaniyah, New Baghdad. On April 5, 2010, a third party released a classified US military video of the aimless murder of dozens of people in a small Iraqui suburb. The person recognized as being responsible is held by the name of Julian Assange. Julian Assange is known to suffer from severe health issues.  

    After the publication of this video, Assange had begun to be tracked down by the US government for releasing the video. Though, Assange is not a US citizen so the US government had come up with and developed the false accusations of rape in order to maintain the reason for the ability to arrest Assange. Since there is no legal bias for the reason to arrest Assange since he is not a US citizen, he is being kept locked up in a prison in London, England, without due process or appeal. 

 Due to Assange and his suffering from severe health issues, it is assumed that the government is just going to wait for his death and not drop his case until further notice unless if until after his death. This situation is in regards to the third party (who is Julian Assange) being punished for spreading the truth. This truth was not intended to be or supposed to be exposed so Assange put the government at risk, this being the reason as to why he is getting punished. 

    Due to the fact that he was found as being the third party after anonymity, it proves how severe and official this situation was in the government's control and why he has gotten punished so harshly due to the unwanted exposure of his posting of the video.

Blog Post 8; EOTO 3 - Whistleblowers

 Whistleblowers

    Whistleblowing is defined by law as “disclosing information that you reasonably believe is evidence of a violation of any law, rule, or regulation, or gross mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, an abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety.” Whistleblowers are someone (usually an employee of a company/agency/organization) who reports and exposes the wrongdoings of that corporation. Said wrongdoings can include waste procedures, fraud of all forms, abuse, corruption, public health &/or safety violations, and much more. Whistleblowers are important because they disclose information that would have gone unnoticed or unfixed! 

Whistleblowers and journalists have a complementary relationship with one another. This is because whistleblowers need journalists to publicize their information, and journalists need whistleblowers to create news and/or fill in any gaps they might have in their stories. Whistleblowers are actually crucial to the process of making news because they provide insider information & necessary details. And although it is helpful, journalists refrain from citing whistleblowers and instead cite ‘official’ sources such as politicians, corporations, large companies, etc. As we can see, whistleblowers have a very large and strong impact on journalism and reporting. 

   

    There can be many risks that are associated with whistleblowing, and sometimes we see that it may not always be in the whistleblower’s interest to work with the press. Implications of
exposing corporations include being demoted, fired, shunned by co-workers, and even being harassed for acting disloyally. Good evaluations suddenly turn bad. Careers are ruined and many of them can never work in their industry or profession ever again. However, there are different federal, state, and local laws that act as protection for the whistleblowers, which all have their own unique procedures for addressing whistleblowing cases. This is why as journalists it is so important to know the law, protect the anonymity of the whistleblower, and understand what is at stake for them. 

    On the contrary, there are plenty of moments throughout history where whistleblowing has been beneficial at the end of the day. For example, it was whistleblowers who exposed Watergate and the massive accounting fraud that brought down Enron and WorldCom in the early 2000s; who exposed secret Swiss bank accounts; and who exposed the health dangers of nicotine in tobacco products.  To focus on one positive case specifically, John Kopchinski was a sales representative for Pfizer who exposed the company’s widespread illegal marketing of its prescription painkiller Bextra in 2009. This led to a government investigation and the largest healthcare fraud settlement of the time; $2.3 billion. 

    Whistleblowers are valuable in many aspects of society and are the ones who are brave enough to speak out when they notice something that is not right. Even though spreading the truth can have pretty detrimental consequences, whistleblowers do it for the benefit of bettering or exposing the corruption within an organization to shed light and spread awareness on the issue, and push for a change. This is something I find really admirable and wish more people could expose the wrongdoings of large corporations without facing consequences. Think about all the things that might still be going on today if it weren't for whistleblowers, and how many things they have yet to expose.

Blog 7; EOTO 2 Presentation Reflection

EOTO 2 Presentation Reflection

    For our second EOTO presentation, we focused on journalism heroes throughout history and the legacies they left behind. There were many different figures that left behind great legacies, but two that stood out to me, in particular, were William Randolph Hearst and Fredrick Douglass. Both of these individuals did their own part to shape journalism as we know it today.

    

William Randolph Hearst was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company. He originally began his career by taking over his father's struggling newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, in 1887. He then entered the New York City newspaper market by purchasing the New York Journal. The paper soon attained an unprecedented amount of circulation as a result of its use of many different illustrations, colored magazine sections, and bold headlines; its sensational articles on crime, and its reduced price of one cent. By the 1930s, he had built the nation’s largest media empire, including more than two dozen newspapers in major cities nationwide, magazines, wire and photo services, newsreels, radio stations, and even film production. As America’s first-ever media tycoon, Hearst invented the attention-grabbing methods that would change journalism forever. Hearst’s Journal and Pulitzer’s World began competing in a series of fierce circulation wars, and these newspapers’ use of sensationalistic reporting and frenzied promotional schemes brought New York City journalism to a boil. Competition between the two papers soon gave rise to the term yellow journalism.

    Fredrick Douglass was a famous abolitionist, journalist, and author. Douglass was an escaped slave who learned to read and write independently and through the help of others after he escaped. 

    Later on in his life, Douglass relocated to New York where he began his paper, The North Star. The paper's name was a reference to slavery, as slaves who had made an attempt to escape would follow the North Star to get to safety. Its first issue was published on December 3, 1847, and was a great success. The North Star continued to be a successful paper up until the 1860s when the Civil War was emerging. Even with this challenge, Douglass was still a respected writer. Douglass has even been famed for many of his speeches that cast great influence on the public. Along with promoting anti-slavery, he also fought for women’s rights and was a known feminist. A fun fact about Douglass is that he was one of the few men, and the only African American man, to attend the Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. Due to Douglass’ leadership and efforts to end slavery, be a voice for the voiceless, and feminist movements, he is a very influential and important figure in the history of journalism.

Blog 6; "Good Night, and Good Luck" Reflection

 "Good Night, and Good Luck"

    “Good Night and Good Luck” is a movie based off of a true story involving the real-life conflict between Senator Joseph McCarthy and Television newsman Edward R. Murrow. This film takes place during the early days of broadcast journalism in the United States in the 1950s. Award-winning actor George Clooney was cast in the role of Fred Friendly who plays the producer of the sub-committee of reporting investigations. 

    

    The film is based on the portrayals of tension between the news and government at this time. The film revolves around the CBS reporter, Murrow, focusing on his ideas and perceptions of the relationship between the news and the government, and creates the idea that the media, including television, are a distraction from our reality and manipulate the public’s viewpoint the world. This film takes multiple standpoints and recognizes Murrow's perspective, drawing interest in investigating and examining the proofs and lies behind the public’s vision which was constructed by feuding opinions and misunderstood ideas. 

    

    The story illustrates the fears of the public in society, informational ethics, righteousness throughout members of society, and acts of togetherness in one's community. The film highlights biased arguments and wrongful decisions that had become intertwined into society's everyday values and beliefs, allowing the public to draw several out-of-hand accusations. Many of these accusations based on political association drew ignorance and disagreement among society and this film helped uncover the ignorance and helped recognize that an accusation is not proof of the truth in reality.

    Overall I think this film is an intriguing political drama about journalism that aims to preserve the civil rights of citizens without bowing to the might of authority, its themes are very relevant as dissent and disagreement about government policies or leaders often cause controversy and how if you don't agree with something that government is doing that does not make you a traitor. This morality tale shows how even if people don’t want to hear it, the truth prevails. With a solid cast and shown through black and white, this classic will be memorable for years to come.

Blog 5; EOTO 2 - Horace Greeley

Horace Greeley 

    

Horace Greeley was an American journalist, publisher, editor, and politician who is known for his political legacy and newspaper, The New York Tribune. He was born on February 3, 1811, in Amherst, New Hampshire in a family of farmers. Horace's family went through some economic struggles, which resulted in him having inconsistent and irregular schooling that ultimately came to an end when he was fourteen years old. 

   Greeley did not want to become a farmer, and instead had bigger plans for himself. He worked as an editor's apprentice in Vermont for about 5 years, it was through this apprenticeship that Horace Greeley learned the value of news and how it operates. In 1831 he desired to improve his skills and taking matters into his own hands, he set out for New York City. The twenty-year-old Greeley found various jobs, one of which was a printer, and in 1834, he became the founding editor of a weekly literary and news journal, the New Yorker. Greeley even contributed to the newspaper himself,  and the New Yorker gained an increasing audience, therefore, giving him a widespread reputation. However, it failed to make money, and Greeley supplemented his income through writing, particularly in support of the Whig Party. 

    This caused him to catch the attention of and form connections with Thurlow Weed, William H. Seward, and other Whigs. This then led, in 1840, to his editorship of the campaign weekly, the Log Cabin. The paper's circulation rose to about 90,000 and contributed heavily both to William Harrison's victory and Greeley's influence. Greeley further directly participated in the Whig campaign by giving speeches, sitting on committees, and helping to manage the state campaign.

    His success in journalism encouraged him to undertake a new and more ambitious newspaper journey, and in April 1841 Greeley founded the New York Tribune, a daily Whig paper that was dedicated to promoting a wide variety of interests and causes. The paper soon became the largest daily paper in New York at that time and reached a circulation of about 200,000, although this number does not do justice to the influence the paper had because each copy often had more than one reader. Greeley additionally published a series of very compelling and convincing articles and editorials, and he eventually came to be considered the most outstanding newspaper editor of his time. His large and versatile staff all cooperated to help make the Tribune a huge success. 

    Greeley is also known especially for his vigorous articulation of the North’s antislavery sentiments during the 1850s. Compared to the other newspapers during this time the Tribune defied categorization and many causes were able to find a voice within its pages. In 1854 he transferred his allegiance to the newly emerging Republican Party, which he helped organize, and throughout the course of the decade published his vigorous articulation of the North’s antislavery sentiments. 

    After the Civil War Greeley pursued a erratic and highly controversial course. He lost much public respect by opposing Lincoln’s renomination in 1864 and by signing the bail bond of former Confederate president Jefferson Davis in 1867. Greeley joined a group of Republican rejectionists, and together they the Liberal Republican Party. In 1872, they nominated Greeley to challenge Grant, and as a result Greeley was attacked as a fool and a crank. The era of his personal editorship was ending, and as the Tribune grew in size, Greeley's influence on the paper greatly diminished. Following his defeat in the election, he found that control of the paper had passed out of his hands. Defeated and soured politically, suffering from the recent loss of his wife, and ill himself, he died on November 29, 1872.

    Horace Greeley was a highly influential and dedicated figure during the Civil War era of journalism. It it was not for him journalism today would not be the same. If not for his highly influential paper promoting anti-slavery, the war may not have gone the way it did. For this he is not only a journalism hero, but a hero of the American people and the freedom we all enjoy today.is influence is one that has been remembered overtime and still is to this day. 

Blog 4; The Press and War

 The Press and War

    Around August 2018, Donald Trump endured the wrath of critics again after claiming that the media can cause wars. Immediately they ridiculed his statement and claimed he was attempting to belittle journalists to be the enemy of the people, some even shot back with replies, Fox News reporter Chris Wallace bluntly asked National Security Advisor John Bolton: “What wars have we caused?” 

    Wallace and other critics may be technically correct, media outlets have no power to launch attacks on foreign countries or order U.S. troops into combat, however that viewpoint does not take into account the media's considerable ability to influence public opinion. If the press is irresponsible with the power and influence they hold over public opinion they can, and have before, stir up public sentiment for military actions that may be unnecessary and even immoral. 

    Two instances, in particular, stand out to me: The Spanish American War and the Iraq War. Many historians have since recognized that “yellow journalism,” played a significant role in the former conflict and was epitomized by the newspaper chains owned by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. Months before the actual outbreak of the Spanish American War, one of Hearst’s reporters requested to return home from Cuba because there was not any sign of a worsening crisis there. Hearst instructed him to stay, adding, “you furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war.” 

    This was an obvious exaggeration, however, the newspapers frequently hyped up the "threat" the Spanish posed. Outlets additionally took advantage and exploited the explosion that destroyed the USS Maine and killed over 250 Americans. To this day the cause of the explosion is still unknown, however, the yellow press jumped to the conclusion that the Spanish attacked deliberately. “Remember the Maine” became their slogan, which was further driving public opinion toward war. 

    We see further evidence of an irresponsible press influencing public opinion by writing pro-war narratives in 2003 before the U.S. military intervention in Iraq. Prior to this Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter, and other mainstream journalists

were publicizing information regarding Saddam Hussein’s government. They circulated "evidence" that Iraq was in alliance with al-Qaeda and may have possibly had a role in the deleterious 9/11 terrorist attacks, and additionally they pushed the narrative that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was actively working on developing a nuclear arsenal.

    While we cannot place all or even most of the blame for these two disastrous wars on journalists and the press, most of the media during those times was pro-war and that bias very much altered the narrative being projected to the public. When highly trusted and respected news outlets put out story after story about the security threats Saddam posed or the vicious Spanish attacks on America, it is hardly surprising that a good majority of the public believed them. 

    Even though Trump's comment was an exaggeration, it is important to recognize the truth behind it. Irresponsible media and journalists have undoubtedly whipped up public sentiment in favor of military actions in the past, and it could do so again in the future. The press needs to be careful about promoting and pushing policies that could result in further harm. Though it isn't right to brand the press as an enemy of the people, it is still a powerful institution that has not always used its powerful influence responsibly regarding matters of war and peace.