Journalists, teachers and advertisers

    There was a time when us Blade photographers wouldn't answer the phone because we were afraid of being asked to work overtime. It was about 10 years ago, in the height of the doc.com era. President Clinton had the national debt under control, and I made nearly $29 an hour.
   Advertising was good back then. The Blade was thick enough with ads to generate enough money to pay top salary to its reporters and photographers.
   But that was then.
   I make $5 less an hour now, overtime is practically non-existent, and the national debt is out of control.
   Nearly every week I hear about journalists being laid off and newspapers closing. Our own paper is thinner than ever because paid classified ads are now free in Craig's List, and the auto industry and grocery stores have cut their advertising to the bone.
   Advertisers and newspapers. This dysfunctional marriage ties in exactly with what the authors of the Elements of Journalism were talking about in the third chapter about who journalists work for.
   Truth is  - newspapers need advertising to get the job done. And advertisers used to need newspapers to get their sales published. But the Internet is changing things. But to what extent? I have no idea. Photographers don't know those kinds of details.
   Teachers are being laid off, too, because voters are not renewing levies for our schools.
   It sure is a hard time for both teachers and journalists. People think I'm crazy because I'm going to school to be a journalism teacher. But I can't imagine what life would be like without ethical journalists, or what journalists would be like without skilled teachers, or what newspapers would be like without paid advertisements.

The Pedagogical Imperative

   Journalism ethics has been a growing interest of mine ever since my first law and ethics class at Kent State two years ago. The easy part was memorizing this one simple explanation between the difference:  Law is what you have to do; ethics is what you should do.
   But applying that philosophy is not as easy as it seems. Sure, you have your cut and dry ethical guidelines, like don't fabricate, plagiarize or manipulate. But ethics goes much deeper than that,  according to the paper Teaching Ethics and Moral Reasoning in Scholastic Journalism, by Louis Day and John Butler.
  This is one document I will print and keep with me as long as I teach. The authors not only advise that teaching journalism ethics is necessary, they insist journalism instructors should also be responsible for teaching the kind of ethical behavior children learn at home.
   Their reasoning for this is because students come from different backgrounds and have varying degrees of ethical training and behaviors, so we should never assume students come to class ethically fit.
   I appreciate they went so far as to offer a pedagogical lesson tool: the case study simulation. This is a great way of teaching and evaluating a student's understanding of using analytical thinking when faced with ethical dilemmas. In fact, I'm going to create a lesson plan for this class that I can actually use in the Intro to PJ course I teach.
  I feel it's my duty, as a journalism instructor, to help students be as ethically fit as they can be in this stage of their lives.

3rd Blog is a charm

Intro
   Welcome to my newest blog, dedicated to the Social Role of the Media grad class I'm taking this semester at Kent State, taught by John "the ethics master" Bowen.
   This blog is one of three I currently manage.
   The first, called Lori King's Blog, began as a class requirement for my Teaching Multimedia course at Kent. It still exists, but has been in hiatus since summer, and will remain so until I graduate. However, it's still active and offers quite a bit of journalism ethics content, as well as photos and thoughts from the Kent State/New York Media Seminar last year. It's pricey, but I highly recommend it!
   The second blog is dedicated to the Intro to Photojournalism class I teach at Owens Community College. Blogging is a course requirement, because this is a perfect time to teach collegiate journalism students about the ethics and responsibilities of social media tools.
   According to the syllabus,  I am required to "create and maintain a blog that addresses social role concepts and issues we are discussing weekly."

The influence of the Internet
   The field of journalism has changed tremendously over the years, or has it? There's no doubt the delivery methods of getting our news has expanded. But have the basic principles of journalism changed? Is the Internet the cause for the death of so many newspapers throughout the country? Is it too easy for citizen journalists to have a say in the news business? Or are citizen journalists actually keeping the working press honest, like the working press is expected to do with our democratic government?
   These are just a few of the many questions I'm looking forward to examining this semester.

Hiatus

   This blog is in temporary hiatus.
   However, I have two other active blogs that are thriving: lking17.blogspot.com (Kent State's Social Role of the Media class blog) and owenspj.blogspot.com (the Owens Intro to Photojournalism class blog).
   Both of these blogs are pedagogical in nature, meaning they are directly linked to scholastic journalism education.
   Feel free to continue reading what's on this blog.

Mich Fest at 35

Back in 1976 I was a sophomore in high school. I annoyed the neighbors by playing Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath as loud as I could in my bedr

Mich Fest: 35 yearsrds

 In 1976 I was a sophomore in high school. I spun Pink Floyd and Aerosmith records as loud as I could in my really cool attic bedroom. It had pink and purple shag carpenting,

Credibility is our business

(Fox News photographer Chris Poturalski interviews a Sierra Club organizer)

   I have two job-related reoccurring nightmares: my car is stolen with all of my camera gear in the trunk, and I show up late to an event and miss it. 

   Both of these nightmares are awful, but the being late nightmare is the one I hate most because I have to admit to editors that I screwed up.

   Being late to an event can put a news photographer into an ethical dilemma. You would think it’s common sense to accept that if we as news photographers miss an event, we come up with something else to illustrate it. But it's not that easy. With today's job insecurities and fierce news competition, it's tempting to CYA (cover your butt) by doing whatever it takes to get the job done. 

   I bring this up because I recently witnessed two local TV stations staging an event they missed because they were late. It wasn't a life-altering ethical breach, but I was still a bit concerned over their decision to ask the participants of a BP handholding protest at Maumee Bay State Park to repeat what they had just finished. 

   Fox News photog Chris Poturalski and I were there on time, documenting the 15-minute protest. The two photogs showed up as I was leaving. I remember thinking, ‘Well, they could at least get sound bites from organizers and participants with the lake in the background.’ But that’s not what happened.

    Why is this a big deal? Credibility.

    The news business is suffering for many reasons, but loss of credibility shouldn’t be one of those reasons. Trust is what separates us from the social media bloggers and tweeters of the world. Our readers and watchers need to believe what we offer them. 

   What's confusing is that these types of events are actually made for the media. Yes, in a way we're being manipulated to get a message out. But that's our job - to get the news out, whether it's spot news or PR-conceived. 

   This is why it matters - those 10 people at Maumee Bay who had to get back in line and hold hands again will remember that fakery, and go home and tell their family and friends what happened. And that's the beginning of the erosion of our credibility. 

   Bottom line: Keep it in real time... 

                                                              --30--