What I learned.

Well, here I am at Blog #25 (down to the wire, this whole project is due in 62 minutes, but I made it nonetheless). Because I’ll never feel as though I accomplish anything without a conclusion to my work, I’m going to do a little synopsis of the major points of this project. I am living evidence that AP English will ruin your life; I feel like anything without a thesis and conclusion is illegible. Don’t take AP English.

Anyways, I’ve written for the past month-ish about how the opinions and habits of college students are affected by their media consumption. For the most part, I assumed that the majority of college students were liberal; I also assumed that most college students have a efficacy that is far below the normal population. After researching and writing, I still believe these points are true, but only to a certain extent. Looking at possible reasons for why a college student might be more liberal than the average citizen, my eyes were opened to aspects of college life that are exactly the opposite of what I predicted. Though teenagers are stereotyped as rebellious liberals, their disregard for the environment conflicts with most liberal ideology. College students aren’t as ignorant as I anticipated either; sure, there are the token individuals who will find out a woman is running for president a month after she is inaugurated (pray that our first female president has a normal laugh), but we really do care about current events. From the people I talked with, especially freshmen, this first semester was so turbulent with moving out and getting new freedoms that forming educated opinions wasn’t high on the list of priorities. I’d be interested to talk with a few freshmen again after the end of another semester, to see how more college experience affects them. Perhaps after getting a longer chance to settle in, they’d resume, or begin, new media habits to stay in the know.

If I could repeat this assignment, I’d like to think I would try to space out my entries more, but we both know that probably wouldn’t happen. Besides my obvious procrastination, I wish that I would’ve had a better media diet myself going into the project. Until I had to write these blogs, I read the newspaper only because I didn’t want to fail daily news quizzes in my journalism class. Now I’m at the point where I wake up and skim AZ Central and Huffington Post just so I have the gist of the news, and then I read the paper later in the day. Then throughout the day, I’ll poke around on a few blog pages and, before the strike, I’d catch The Daily Show/ Colbert Report on TV. If I had these habits three months ago, I think I would’ve gotten a lot more out of the assignment. These blogs have also given me a taste of writing out of obligation. Sure, I’ve always had to write essays and things for grades in school, but I’ve never had the opportunity to do this more creative type of writing for a school project. I know now that I don’t feel the same way about writing as a career, I don’t like it as much when it becomes a requirement. Yeah, I know honors projects aren’t a requirement, but I’ve always had trouble with defining the term “requirement.”

Thanks for reading. I’m newly addicted to iWeb, so I have a website in the works. I’ll keep you all posted.

Please Read Responsibly.

On my present topic of humor, I found this article. It mostly pertains to business owners, but humor improves businesses and advertisements in the same ways as journalism. Everything is a business, including journalism. So even if I don’t agree with the use of humor to spice up news, I never really considered humor as a means of keeping the industry alive. Worldwide changes in how people get the news have changed the field of journalism from an emphasis in print media, to broadcast and digital media. Newspaper readership is down; everyone knows this, but the downward trend in voter participation isn’t showing signs of stopping either. If humor is what it takes to get people educated on current events, then so be it. Just as I concluded with the subject of The Daily Show/Colbert Report, if the population is knowledgeable about their world, then who cares how it happened? Let’s say they read USA Today, awesome. Let’s say they read The Onion and watched Bill Maher, that’s awesome too.

Politicians themselves can also use humor. I never listen to radio. But when I do, it’s with my parents, so NPR is the station of choice. NPR has a great storyon humor and politics. (I don’t think it will work on Macs, I had to get on my roommates computer to hear it.) I never thought about the humor actual politicians use, this radio segment gives more of an inside view on humor from the other angle. At a different ASU (Arkansas State University), Dr. Patrick Stewart conducted a study where he analyzed the 2008 presidential candidates by the humor they used (this was directly following his brief stint on the U.S.S. Enterprise). He makes quite a few claims about the candidates just based on his or her sense of humor and how they deliver jokes.

“ ‘Looking at the other candidates and seeing how they use humor will tell us a little bit about them, but also tells us how Americans respond,’ Stewart said.”

Americans are going to feel more comfortable with a candidate if he or she is able to crack a few jokes every once in awhile. Humor can make even the most pretentious person very relatable. The moral of the story; humor is okay, in politics and journalism. This probably makes me bi-polar, because I certainly didn’t feel that way yesterday.

This is what happens when humor in news just gets completely ridiculous. But of course, it’s still funny.

Misusing News.

I might be in a conservative mood today, but for this blog I will look at the drawbacks of humor in politics. Back on 23/6.com, I found this article criticizing Rudy Giuliani and his flippant use of statistics. Like most satire, the article is funny; I won’t deny it. Now take a look at how the New York Times covers the same issue. When the two stories are compared with each other, the funny article holds no facts. Other than the basic idea that Giuliani uses statistics badly, there is no actual information in the 23/6 story. None. The story functions solely to provide a laugh after the real information is understood. In fact, without the NY Times link placed directly below the 23/6 story, the story doesn’t even make sense. But, like I said, I could just be feeling conservative and I have less patience for pointless exaggerations that pretend to be real news.

It scares me that people might be using humorous satire new sources as their only news sources. I’m not trying to insult 23/6.com. They aren’t pretending to be completely reputable; I mean their slogan is “Some of the News/Most of the Time,” and they pride themselves on being “News You Can Misuse.” These fake news sources, including our old pals John Stewart and Stephen Colbert, are very easily misused because they are very tempting. Like Wikipedia and freaking ready-made brownies that now include their own baking tin so you don’t have to bother with even touching the unbaked batter, humorous news is tempting because it’s easy, accessible and more fun.

But don’t be too quick to throw out 60 Minutes, Encyclopedia Brittannica or your old-fashioned flour and cocoa powder.

Yo mama’s so fat, she directly contributes to a robust economy.

I stole that title from the headline of this article featured on 23/6.com. It is a website primarily for satirical humor and is affiliated somehow with Huffington Post. With headlines like “Dennis Kucinich Wants to Hook Up With Ron Paul” and “These People Need to Have Their YouTubes Tied,” the website follows the number one rule of headline writing; grab the reader’s attention. Now, if you saw either of these headlines on the front page of your Arizona Republic this morning, I’d be willing to bet the delicious chocolate soymilk I’m currently drinking that you’d read the story with the funny headline first. And why not? Humans like to laugh; it’s why six comedies can be found among the twelve highest grossing movies from last Friday, it’s why shows like Family Guy, The Office, South Park, The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live and Scrubs (!) have found such astounding popularity among Americans and, unfortunately, it’s assured that “Laughter is the best medicine” will be the most clichéd and annoying proverb or all time.

This is where my question/topic for today comes in, at what point does the use of humor to make tedious stories more reader friendly interfere with basic reporting?

I would have to guess that the illustrations of Thomas Nast are probably one of the earliest examples of using humor to make politics interesting. I’m not sure I believe this, but according to Wikipedia, Nast created the Republican Elephant, the Democratic Donkey and the commonly accepted version of Santa Claus. He was a pretty intense guy, and his works opened the door to other editorial cartoonists. For the most part, humor in politics has historically been reserved for minority parties (the party not in power, not a party full of Asians or Hispanics). In present-day journalism, Steve Benson draws political cartoons for the Arizona Republic; he pokes fun at the Bush Administration, Hilary Clinton and pop culture in general (his archives).

Political cartoons can be likened with cheating in school. There are two kinds of students who try to cheat in school. There are smart people with no conscience who plan everything and are never caught, and there are the less-conniving, naïve bunch blatantly flipping through a test copy during the test and are caught every time. Political cartoons are funny if you’ve got the background knowledge to help explain exactly what the artist is trying to convey. But if you don’t keep up on the news, a bias-laden cartoon is only going to sway your opinions without your knowledge. Or you just won’t get it. I don’t get a lot of cartoons I see; but if nothing else, it’s funny to see how different artists portray George Bush. He is a characterature-friendly guy I suppose.

Because most people my age aren’t as interested in current events as their counterparts from the prior generation were, they look for humor to make the news more interesting. Cue The Daily Show/Colbert Report, but I’ve talked about them enough. However, as teenagers watch or read humorous commentary on an event, they are only getting the warped version of what happened. It’s a vicious cycle; the very reason thing that makes the news exciting creates a false image of what’s going on.

This doesn’t say much for my profession. Or mankind. People have decided that the factual truth is not exciting enough, so they should make it funny.

More on this later today…

Some political cartoons I found funny.

CNN/YouTube Debates.

Rudy hides the expenses.

Bush bashing.

Some politicians are worth investigating.

Rather than just babble on and on like I did in the last blog, I think I’ll just give links to what intelligent people had to say and comment on that.

This article is very comprehensive (codeword for long), but it tackles the issue of trust vs. truth that so many journalists deal with on a daily basis. Mark Feldstein points out in the article that every journalist’s dream is to make big discoveries like those of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein; it isn’t often that someone will stop and really consider the consequences of their actions when the possibility of fame looms nearby. Granted, Woodward and Bernstein weren’t most concerned with the hopes of being famous, but the success of these men has created a precedent for other aspiring journalists. The article also tells of how the government-media relationships changed on a smaller level.

“The media's ‘gotcha’ questioning is also the product of White House evasion and duplicity, which has continued since Nixon's resignation. Indeed, just as journalism has grown more aggressive since Watergate, so, too, has political spin. Investigative reporter Polk, now a senior producer at CNN, believes that ‘politics has changed more as a result of Watergate than journalism has, to the benefit of politicians more than journalists. Even in the Nixon White House, there was at least a camaraderie of proximity among officials who worked near reporters. Now, not only are the doors closed, but administrations are much better at controlling leaks of sensitive information.’ ”

More recently, the discovery of Giuliani’s flagrant use of thousands in taxpayers’ money is a common-day example of investigative journalism at work. Yes, the scandal is minor (so minor, that I’m not really even sure why it’s still a leading story on many websites), but even this fairly insignificant slip-up will no doubt cost Giuliani in the polls. Before this story, he had ratings of anywhere between the upper twenties and lower thirties; his lead among the other Republican candidates is fairly substantial. Personally, I don’t like him, and I like him even less now. I don’t think that the presidency is the next step for him; I’m sorry Rudy, I know you were mayor of the biggest city in the country during the biggest terrorist attack in the country, but be a senator or a governor or something. Then we’ll talk. Now, John McCain, he was a POW during the Vietnam War; we should just inaugurate him now.

This article shows how the ex-mayor of NYC feels about Giuliani’s abuse of power.

Investigative Journalism: blessing or curse?

As I enter the home stretch of this project, I’m going to use Rudy Giuliani’s recent slew of bad publicity to talk about investigative journalism. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read up.

With primaries right around the corner, these next four weeks are going to be intense for all the candidates. Americans tend to vote with a short-term memory, so the candidates’ actions will greatly affect their success as the primaries draw near. It will be interesting to see how the uncovering of Giuliani’s minor skeleton plays out for the GOP front-runner.

The role of investigative journalism has had a substantial effect not only on the perception of government, but it could be attributed to the overall lack of political efficacy my generation suffers from. Go with me on this; events like the Tet Offensive and Watergate asserted the media’s function of a watchdog over the government. The media begins to uncover scandals of politicians and corporations throughout the rest of the century, and through the next. Because my generation, the “echo baby boomers” or whatever we are called, has grown up in the midst of this new perception of the government’s ineptitude; people have no desire to read the newspaper or keep up with current events. We’ve been brought up with the notion that constituents are detached from the institution of government. Maybe I’m pulling this out of thin air, but I feel like the way I look at our leaders is much different from the way my grandmother did when she was my age. When she talks about events of the past, like World War II or the Red Scare, she thinks of them as national efforts; whenever the government was involved with a country or an altercation overseas, most Americans felt committed to whatever the government was doing. Today, Americans are very detached from the Iraq conflict, and all the blame is placed on the Bush Administration/Republican Party rather than the entire country taking responsibility for what our government has done.

This growing distance between citizens and leaders, no doubt, is partially due to the media’s responsibility to report the truth, no matter who, or what, is at fault. What was once controversial to disclose, such as a president’s polio affliction, is now grounds for a top story, like the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal or Giuliani’s run-in with the law.

Arguably, the era of investigative journalism has already passed. Sure, every once in awhile, local news stations will do an investigative piece, but that thread of journalism is expensive. An investigative team is a costly expenditure that many newspapers cannot afford during this perpetual dip in circulation. Regardless, the work of investigative journalists has left its mark in history.

An interesting article on the future of investigative journalism.

More on this subject later…I’m going to go play in the rain like the native Arizonan I am.

GOP Debate. Yawn.

And I’m not just yawning because it’s nearly one in the morning…

So I don’t think I could let this night go by without blogging about the Republican CNN YouTube debate. Part of this is because it interests me, part is because I have six more blogs to do before Monday. But it could be worse. Much much worse.

Right off the bat, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney got in this petty argument incited from the first question on immigration. Poor Anderson Cooper is trying politely, but desperately to keep the candidates moving with the schedule for the debate; neither man will shut up. I felt bad for him. Giuliani is backed into a corner for his “sanctuary city” immigration policy, so he jabs at Romney for hiring illegal immigrants in his house. Once everyone got back on track, it seemed that the questions came smoothly and each candidate answered on topic (for the most part).

I predicted in my earlier blog about this debate that the GOP would have the most difficulty dealing so closely with the American people in an unscripted environment. Romney made a big stink, as you probably remember, about answering the question of a lowly snowman; he suggested that the imposed snowman in a video wasn’t worthy of inquiring a potential President of the U.S. I felt that the Republicans handled the spontaneity of the video questions very well, but their answers were still rehearsed and dull. Granted, I missed the last 45 minutes of the debate; I had to go to choir, so don’t hold me to whatever happened to the end. Not one of the candidates said anything unexpected or out of their comfort zone.

Watch it. Decide for yourself.

Even though I was less than impressed with the Republicans today, I still love the idea of placing the tradition of a presidential debate in the hands of the electorate. Maybe I’m just in a Constitutional mood, but what better way to increase voter efficacy, involve a reticent generation and ensure that candidates are staying true to issues of the people? It might not be traditional, but these new debates raise the standards for both leaders and constituents. Kudos. Kudos to everyone.

Here are some articles on the debate’s better moments.

Mike Huckabee’s fantasy of Clinton on Mars.

The joke is on you New York City! Your taxpayers helped fuel Giuliani’s affair, bet you feel duped. Giuliani’s response. I guess I believe him.

A good pre-debate article.

A good response to criticisms from the “good pre-debate” article.