The Mission of the Press

1
The Mission of the Press

• Ms. J. Kipling
• Dr. M. Malaszczyk
• News Literacy
• SUNY Stony Brook

2
Getting it Right Is Obama A Muslim? Read the
article and then watch the video.

• http//www.danielpipes.org/article_print.php?id53
  54v5429337121 article
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vZhWaiULqkp4
  video
• What responsibility does the news media have to
  get the story right from the start?
• Does the press have the
  right to be wrong?
• After reviewing both items, what do you think?
• How did the media analysis/reporting guide you in
  forming an opinion on the issue?

3
What is the purpose of the press in a democratic
society?

• Walter Lippmann believed that journalism acts as
  the mediator/translator between the public and
  the policymaking elites.
• Journalists inform the public of what the elites
  are doing!
• Acting as a watchdog over the elites

4
THE FIRST AMENDMENT

• Congress shall make no law respecting an
  establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
  free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom
  of speech, or of the press or the right of the
  people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the
  Government for a redress of grievances.

5
The Key to Our Liberty?

• During the American Revolution, a free press was
  identified by Revolutionary leaders as one of the
  elements of liberty that they sought to preserve.
  
• The Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)
  proclaimed that "the freedom of the press is one
  of the greatest bulwarks of liberty and can never
  be restrained but by despotic governments."
• Similarly, the Constitution of Massachusetts
  (1780) declared, "The liberty of the press is
  essential to the security of freedom in a state
  it ought not, therefore, to be restrained in this
  commonwealth."
• Following these examples, the First Amendment to
  the United States Constitution restricted
  Congress from abridging the freedom of the press
  and the closely associated freedom of speech.
• Why was this freedom so essential to the Founders?

6
The Danger of Censoring the Press

• Hitlers government controlled all the press in
  Nazi Germany.
• Newspapers and radio broadcasts were a major tool
  of Nazi propaganda.
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?veDQkhvUyxBg
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vrHAGSXBYl1gfeature
  related
• Think of the press as a great keyboard on which
  the government can play.
• --Joseph Goebbels, Nazi
  Minister of Propaganda

7
Near v. Minnesota 1931

• a United States Supreme Court decision that
  recognized the freedom of the press from prior
  restraints on publication, a principle that was
  applied to free speech generally in subsequent
  jurisprudence.
• The Court ruled that a Minnesota law that
  targeted publishers of "malicious" or
  "scandalous" newspapers violated the First
  Amendment to the United States Constitution (as
  applied through the Fourteenth Amendment).
• Legal scholar and columnist Anthony Lewis called
  Near the Court's "first great press case."

8
Do you agree with Senator Dodd D-CT?

• When the public's right to know is threatened,
  and when the rights of free speech and free press
  are at risk, all of the other liberties we hold
  dear are endangered.

9
MUCKRAKING.

• SHOULD THE PRESS BREAK THE BIG STORY?!?!?!?!
• TEDDY ROOSEVELT ONCE SAID THAT There are, in
  the body politic, economic and social, many and
  grave evils, and there is urgent necessity for
  the sternest war upon them. There should be
  relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil
  man whether politician or business man, every
  evil practice, whether in politics, in business,
  or in social life. I hail as a benefactor every
  writer or speaker, every man who, on the
  platform, or in book, magazine, or newspaper,
  with merciless severity makes such attack,
  provided always that he in his turn remembers
  that the attack is of use only if it is
  absolutely truthful.

10
Evaluation 1 Bin Laden using satellite phones?

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vAladFcSoBqE
• Was the Washington Times story responsible?!?!
• Washington Times criticized for breaking the
  story!
• But the story in The Washington Times was not
  based on a leak, and it did not say the U.S. was
  monitoring the phone.
• Reports of bin Laden's using a satellite phone
  had been in the press for years!
• In 1996, Time magazine, in a story on bin Laden
  in Afghanistan, wrote that he "uses satellite
  phones to contact fellow Islamic militants in
  Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
• The day before The Washington Times story
  appeared in 1998, CNN did a report on how bin
  Laden operates. The report quoted a bin Laden
  watcher as saying, "The guy has a fair amount of
  money. He communicates by satellite phone, even
  though Afghanistan in some levels is back in the
  Middle Ages and a country that barely functions.
  Bin Laden has been able to function fairly well
  there.
• "For perhaps the first time,Lynda Lawson writes,
  "the press was considered business, subject to
  public scrutiny and, to a lesser extent, to
  government regulation similar to other
  businesses, the First Amendment notwithstanding."
  
• The measure was the only federal law that
  attempted to regulate the press passed during the
  Progressive era, made possible by the fact that
  most publications enjoyed a postal subsidy.
• Although challenged by the American Newspaper
  Publishers Association, the U.S. Supreme Court
  upheld the act in 1913.

11
Evaluation 2 CIA SECRET PRISONS EXPOSED

• http//radio.villagevoice.com/2006-05-02/news/cia-
  secret-prisons-exposed/
• What is the impact of a story such as this?
• IS IT JUSTIFIED?

12
The Courts have ruled that there are two
exceptions regarding freedom of the press

• 1. National Security
• 2. Obscenity

13
Should there be government regulation of the
press?

• During the Progressive Era there was an effort to
  legislate a more responsible, yet free press
• hidden ownership of newspapers, advertisements
  disguised as news, and bogus circulation figures
  floated by publishers to gain postal rate
  advantages, revealed the press to be "a business
  susceptible to corporate abuses and government
  regulation as much as any other enterprise.
• In order the bring the press under the "purifying
  light of publicity," Congress passed the
  Newspaper Publicity Act in 1912, a measure
  included in a quickly approved postal
  appropriation bill.

14
The Delicate Balance.facts versus analysis as
news

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vn7Czxa1k5AU
• When is the line between factual truth and
  bloviating crossed?!?!?

15
Sixth Amendment v. Media Coverage

• In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall
  enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by
  an impartial jury of the State and district where
  in the crime shall have been committed, which
  district shall have been previously ascertained
  by law, and to be informed of the nature and
  cause of the accusation to be confronted with
  the witnesses against him to have compulsory
  process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and
  to have the Assistance of Counsel for his
  defence.
• Can the media compromise the integrity of this
  Amendment with its coverage?

16
Free Press v. Fair Trial?

• Once the press begins covering a major case, can
  a fair trial occur?

17
The News and National Security Should the
media be reporting this?2 Short Videos 2
articles

• CNN covered the breaking Abu Ghraib prison
  scandal as follows
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vuBeSyw_HmA8
• The Associated Press ran the following testimony
  of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft on their
  website
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vbBjPGoU7Cksfeature
  related
• Is it the role of the media to report such news
  as it is breaking?
• What obligation does the press have in regards
  to issues of national security or covert secret
  operatives?
• After reading through the articles distributed
  in class on this topic, do you detect any bias in
  the reporting?

18
In the book Elements of Journalism, Bill Kovach
and Tom Rosensteil, there are nine elements of
journalism. In order for a journalist to fulfill
their duty of providing the people with the
information they need to be free and
self-governing. They must follow these guidelines

• 1. Journalism's first obligation is to the truth.
• 2.Its first loyalty is to the citizens.
• 3.Its essence is discipline of verification.
• 4.Its practitioners must maintain an independence
  from those they cover.
• 5.It must serve as an independent monitor of
  power.
• 6.It must provide a forum for public criticism
  and compromise.
• 7.It must strive to make the significant
  interesting, and relevant.
• 8.It must keep the news comprehensive and
  proportional.
• 9.Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise
  their personal conscience.

19
Professional and Ethical Standards

• ?Use original sources of information, including
  interviews with people directly involved in a
  story, original documents and other direct
  sources of information, whenever possible, and
  cite the sources of this information in reports.
• ?Fully attribute information gathered from other
  published sources, should original sources not be
  available (not to do so is considered PLAGIARISM
  some newspapers also note when an article uses
  information from previous reports)
• ?Use multiple original sources of information,
  especially if the subject of the report is
  controversial?Check every fact reported
• ?Find and report every side of a story possible
• ?Report without bias, illustrating many aspects
  of a conflict rather than siding with one
• ?Approach researching and reporting a story with
  a balance between objectivity and skepticism
• ?Use careful judgment when organizing and
  reporting information
• ?Be careful about granting confidentiality to
  sources (news organizations usually have specific
  rules that journalists must follow concerning
  grants of confidentiality)
• ?Decline gifts or favors from any subject of a
  report, to avoid the appearance of being
  influenced
• ?Abstain from reporting or otherwise
  participating in the research and writing about a
  subject in which the journalist has a personal
  stake or bias that cannot be set aside.

20
Is there a media bias?

• Watch these clips
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vwkev1amkXnY
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vn6UOw8p9aM4feature
  related
• What do you think?
• Does the media play favorites?
• Is it all in how we interpret it as
  listeners/readers?!?

21
What is Bias?

• Your view? How do YOU define it?
• Media bias is a term used to describe a real or
  perceived bias of journalists and news producers
  within the mass media, in the selection of which
  events will be reported and how they are covered.
  
• The term "media bias" usually refers to a
  pervasive or widespread bias contravening the
  standards of journalism, rather than the
  perspective of an individual journalist or
  article.The direction and degree of media bias in
  various countries is widely disputed, although
  its causes are both practical and theoretical.
• Practical limitations to media neutrality include
  the inability of journalists to report all
  available stories and facts, and the requirement
  that selected facts be linked into a coherent
  narrative.
• Since it is impossible to report everything, some
  bias is inevitable.
• Government influence, including overt and covert
  censorship, biases the media in some countries.
• Market forces that can result in a biased
  presentation include the ownership of the news
  source, the selection of staff, the preferences
  of an intended audience, or pressure from
  advertisers.
• Political affiliations arise from ideological
  positions of media owners and journalists. The
  space or air time available for reports, as well
  as deadlines needing to be met, can lead to
  incomplete and apparently biased stories.

22
Assessment- Now it is your turn.

• Choose a major news event and download 3
  articles on it that appear in a selection of
  national newspapers on one day.
• Make sure to include one broadsheet and one
  tabloid paper.
• In a brief narrative, address each of the
  following
• What differences do you see in the way that the
  event is reported?
• How do the headlines compare?
• Can you sense a different political angle on the
  story?
• Do you see any bias? If so, explain.
• Why do you think it is important to have a free
  press that is not controlled by the government?