PERSUASION AND NEWS IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Colorado Christian University * College of Undergraduate Studies
School of Humanities & Sciences * Communications 212
Beginning with the 2011-2012 academic year, under the Project on News in the 21st Century, a 10-part unit on media literacy and contemporary journalism is included in the Com-212 course, which is required for all CCU sophomores (currently about 250) under CCU’s general-education core curriculum. These classes are taught jointly by Jay Ambrose and Stephen Keating. The Com-212 lead instructor is Chris Leland, Ph.D., Professor of Communication & Director of Debate. Here is a sketch of the subject matter to be covered:
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Class 1 – What is News? (Stephen Keating)
We’ll discuss individual perceptions of news in order to create a working definition of The News. With that, we’ll take a tour of fact-based reporting, analysis, literary journalism, TV news and commentary, talk radio, blogs, social media and satire.
** Reading assignment: “The New Journalism” by Tom Wolfe.
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Class 2 – History of News (Jay Ambrose)
The main point of this class will be to show how news in one form or another has always been an important part of the life of any community known to history and that it has developed a significance in American society that demands serious attention.
We will define what news is and is not, allowing that there are many complications we cannot get into in this survey, and then make the point that every society we have ever known anything about has had some form of news, even if nothing more than a watchman on the hill. We will quickly survey communication methodologies from the African speak drum to the printing press to the Internet to possible thought helmets.
We will discuss how the printing press changed Western civilization, turning our attention quickly to newspapers with emphasis on their history in the United States from the partisan press to the commercial press and the rise of the code of objectivity, noting that it is now in decline. We will touch on the history of the press in the West and in Denver. We will pay special attention to a few of the most important papers today, such as The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and The New York Times.
We will look briefly at magazines, noting how they moved from elite to middle class to specialized interests, giving special attention to the news magazines, especially Time. There will also be reference to the commentary magazines, such as The New Republic and National Review and various Christian news and commentary magazines.
We will review the electronic media, with remarks on how technology determines so much about our lives, and then move on to the telegram, telephone, radio and TV. Special attention will be paid to the evolution of radio talk shows and how TV went from three networks to the Cable TV mix. We will talk about such shows as “60 Minutes.”
We will discuss journalistic books and even novels with current event messages.
We will review documentaries as a form of journalism and make quick reference to movies about journalism.
We will end the history review with talk of how the personal computer developed, how we got to the Internet, a discussion of blog sites and ways of finding most of the world’s newspapers and magazines, and how the Internet, in taking classified ads from newspapers, has possibly spelled their doom.
Along the way, we will discuss some of the outstanding personalities in American journalism, including Ben Franklin, Horace Greeley, Mark Twain, Joseph Pulitzer, Randolph Hearst, Nellie Bly and Edward R. Murrow.
** Handouts: Lecture outline; short essay(s) by lecturer; handout on early forms of news from “A History of News;” handouts summing up the history of news; handouts about some of the leading figures in the history of the press in America; handouts about some leading news organizations; a handout summing up U.S. press history; a handout on important events in the history of electronic communications; handouts on the development of the Internet and a column on the “noosphere” by the lecturer.
** Assignment: Read new handouts plus news and commentary on the Web. You are expected to review the Drudge Report daily, reading the stories he selects as most important and reading the first page of at least two of the newspapers on that page, and reading a different columnist every day. You are also expected to look at Real Clear Politics, reading one or two pieces a day.
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Class 3– Free Press and First Amendment (Jay Ambrose)
While not neglecting some of the negatives of the press, the main emphasis in this class will be to get the students to understand and appreciate what Walter Lippmann once said, that a free press is the only system that gives truth about current events a chance to emerge.
The first item on the agenda will be to review how news outlets through most of history, with some exceptions in ancient Greece and Rome, were viewed as voices of the government, and how this began to change most dramatically in the American colonies. I will revisit some history, emphasizing editors who took their chances with royal governors for the sake of truth.
Next, we will deal with justifications for a free press, including the writings of Milton, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Stuart Mill, Walter Lippmann and some of today’s thinkers.
We will move from there to the First Amendment, spelling out how it came about and what its meaning was. We will review some of the interventions, such as the Alien and Sedition Act and prosecutions during World War I.. We will look at the Pentagon Papers and the Judith Miller case and the principle of no prior restraint. Reference will be made to Wikileaks and the dangers of leaking classified materials. We will briefly review Freedom of Information laws.
We will also deal with libel law, both why it is justified in some instances and not in others, what its impact has been on news outlets and why our libel laws allow more liberty than those of almost all other countries. We will discuss key cases, including New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.
We will then move on to the issue of government control of public airwaves and the Fairness Doctrine. We will investigate whether the Fairness Doctrine is an instance of subverting the First Amendment, while giving the other side, and will also look at limitations on campaign donations and commercial speech.
** Handouts: Lecture outline; short essay(s) by lecturer; copy of the First Amendment; quotes on free press; famous essay(s) on free press; summations of important court cases; articles on important events in fee press; an outline of free press development; four handouts on the Fairness Doctrine; a long handout on campaign restrictions.
** Assignment: Read handouts plus news and commentary on the Web. You are expected to review the Drudge Report daily, reading the stories he selects as most important and reading the first page of at least two of the newspapers on that page, and reading a different columnist every day. You are also expected to look at Real Clear Politics, reading one or two pieces a day.
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Class 4 – The Price of Free Speech (Stephen Keating)
The First Amendment guarantees free speech. Journalism is the business of reporting the facts to inform the public. Yet the very process of newsgathering, editing, writing headlines, use of photography and graphic design can amplify, or undermine, the context of those facts. What is the obligation of the journalist – and the audience – to dig deeper? And how does the “framing” of a story affect what’s communicated and what’s understood?
** Reading assignment: “News and the Culture of Lying” by Paul Weaver.
Class 5 – Media Activism and Media Bias (Stephen Keating)
The decline of mainstream journalism has created a vacuum filled by new media entrants, some of which wield tremendous influence in news, culture and politics. How do they operate and intersect with partisan, agenda-driven organizations?
** Reading assignment: “Rules for Radicals” by Saul Alinsky.
** Assignment to turn in: Find two pieces of commentary (in print or electronic media – which could be radio commentary, video, etc.) that use similar facts to make opposite arguments. Write a 600-800 word essay contrasting the techniques and methods used.
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Class 6 – News organization and impact (Jay Ambrose)
This class could also be thought of as Media Literacy I. A major message will be that students should read news and commentary daily because otherwise they are walking around in the dark and will be unable to defend their deepest beliefs in the cultural and political battles around them. A thesis will be that they should come at their reading with an understanding of how news is gathered and presented.
We will discuss how newspapers are the most complete, precise and reliable daily news providers, even though magazines and journalistic books can provide more depth looking at current events on a non-daily basis. We will look at the differences between weeklies, small town dailies and metropolitan dailies and discuss the newspapers with the largest circulations and the extent to which they influence events.
We will explore the difference between corporate and family ownership and the advantages and disadvantages of each and some of the criticisms of corporate ownership and the answers some make to those critics. We will talk about the structure of newspapers (business office, newsroom, circulation) and the role of advertising, including some history of advertising.
We will break down how a metropolitan newsroom operates: the editors, subeditors, the different departments, reporters, copy editors and relationship with the rest of the newspaper. We will talk about beat and general assignment reporters and how coverage decisions are made, how layout is done, who writes the headlines and what headlines are supposed to achieve.
We will talk about the jobs of reporters and the question of sources, relationship with government and the field of public relations. We will discuss different kinds of stories – various kinds of hard news and features and investigative reports – and distinguish these from opinion writing. We will discuss reporter ethics.
We will spend some time on news stories – the asking of who, what, why, when, where and sometimes how, the inverted pyramid, attribution, diction, sentence structure, as well as deadlines. We will talk about how deadlines lend superficiality to the news while arguing that the call for more attention to process fails to understand the chief function of daily news gathering.
We will discuss the good that comes out of this enterprise as a check on government, an aid to democracy and providing all kinds of information about cultural trends, news you can use, sports and more. While taking note of major negatives, we will discuss some positive impacts newspapers have had on events, noting that all this came together because of years of refining methodologies and new technologies that once saved the business.
We will compare TV news to newspapers and talk about TV’s impact on the nation both good and bad before talking about how newspapers have been in decline for a half century and now are struggling for survival. We will discuss all the possible reasons, including a public sense they are no longer credible, before coming to the two that right now are combining for a knockout punch, the lingering recession and the Internet, which has taken away classified advertising, one-third of newspaper revenue. Newspapers have Internet sites, but make little money from them.
Right now, Internet is greatest communication device ever in the history of the world. There are 14 billion Web pages. Practically all the world’s newspapers are there. The weekly paper I once edited is there. Scholarly papers are there. Encyclopedias that are updated daily are there. But if newspapers die, Web sites have to go get the news themselves, and there are no business models that work well because the pie is divided into too many pieces and no one site gets enough advertising for a large staff. We will talk about various solutions and my conviction that entrepreneurship will save the day.
** Handouts: Lecture outline; short essay(s) by lecturer; several pages from “A History of News;” articles on newspaper decline; an Ambrose column on newspaper decline; New York Review of Books article on the Internet; photocopied pages from several books on news gathering, Google and more.
** Assignment: Read handouts plus news and commentary on the Web. You are expected to review the Drudge Report daily, reading the stories he selects as most important and reading the first page of at least two of the newspapers on that page and a different columnist every day. You are also expected to look at Real Clear Politics, reading one or two pieces a day. Also, read Internet media bias sites as listed in one of the handouts.
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Class 7 – Plagiarism, Ethics and Fair Use (Stephen Keating)
The rise of the Internet has built a vast repository of knowledge, and also upended traditional notions of intellectual property, fair use, attribution, fact-checking and plagiarism. We’ll examine those concepts through the plagiarism of Stephen Glass of The New Republic.
** Reading assignment: Center for Social Media “Fair Use” guidelines.
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Class 8 – Media literacy (Jay Ambrose)
The main aim of this class will be to acquaint students with knowledge of what constitutes bad reporting and what steps to take to come closer to the truth. They will be warned to always be wary and skeptical, advised of particulars to watch out for and told how to use multiple sources and opinion pieces to counteract biased stories.
We will review surveys of how much people now distrust the press and then talk about studies showing liberal bias. We will look at bias examples from books and Web sites and from my own observations. We will look at some historical examples of journalists selling out their principles to support communism, such as Walter Duranty of The New York Times. We will look at some of the most common areas of clear bias today, such as the misreporting of environmental issues from the point of view of activists.
We will talk about codes of ethics and how impartiality still rides high. We will review attacks on the ideal of objectivity and discuss varied responses. We will discuss as well conservative bias, supposed corporate bias and issues of advertiser impact, independence and transparency.
We will discuss commentators with political backgrounds, celebrity journalism, in which the reporter becomes the news himself, herd journalists and the way in which disasters are almost always overplayed and why this happens We will discuss reporters being overly adversarial or not adversarial enough, sensationalism, intrusions in privacy and hurtfulness for the sake of an interesting story.
Television has special problems. As one critic has said, everything it touches turns to entertainment. Its stories tend to be shallow and insufficiently instructive, one of the best, however, being PBS. We will talk about how TV takes its leads from newspapers, even “60 Minutes,” which is guilty of major inaccuracies. We will discuss cable TV faults and take time to bash local TV news – if it bleeds, it leads. We will talk about radio talk shows and NPR.
The Internet also has many issues, such as blogs that will say just about anything. But just as discernment counts outside the Internet, so it counts on the Internet, and the Internet can be a great source for finding the truth.
** Pre-distributed handouts: Lecture outline; short essay(s) by lecturer; lists of bias examples; article on the press and presidential politics; articles on ethical codes and a number of codes from different organizations and newspapers; pieces on erroneous, overstated environmental reports; article on news objectivity; summaries of media bias studies and an article on those studies; article on Walter Duranty; an article in which a New York Times public editor agrees there is bias in news coverage at that paper.
** Assignment: Read handouts plus news and commentary on the Web. You are expected to review the Drudge Report daily, reading the stories he selects as most important and reading the first page of at least two of the newspapers on that page, and reading a different columnist every day. You are also expected to look at Real Clear Politics, reading one or two pieces a day.
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Class 9– Opinion (Jay Ambrose)
The aim of this class will be to distinguish opinion writing from other kinds of writing, to explain its enormous importance, to convince students they should read it and write it, to give them certain basic instructions about how to go about it and to convince them that if they get good enough they can change the world.
We will distinguish opinion from straight news stories, talk about how each is crucial while making the case that, in newspapers, opinion and analysis should be labeled.
Once we have explained what opinion writing is, we will discuss how it can provoke thought, if nothing else getting readers to reexamine their own points of view. It can lend perspective, spell out what’s at stake in an issue and make value judgments giving issues fresh meaning.
We will review the work of some of the most famous opinion writers, showing how their work helped combat anti-Semitism in France, start the Revolutionary War here, persuade the colonies to adopt the Constitution, end slavery in this country, start the environmental movement and make conservatism intellectually respectable. We will review some of the best opinion writers today and what it is that makes them good.
We will review fundamentals of opinion writer, beginning with the need to research and what some research techniques are. We will talk about the steps in clarifying one’s own thinking, such as summing up a thesis in one short, simple sentence.
We will discuss different ways of writing an opinion piece, but concentrate on a basic method that works pretty We will also discuss means of improving one’s writing.
** Pre-distributed handouts: Lecture outline; short essay(s) by lecturer; some short bios of famous opinion writers; writing advice; famous opinion pieces; list of 50 books that changed the world and Mark Twain’s essay on opinion.
** Assignment: Write an opinion piece from 600 to 800 words long. Pick a topic that has lately been prominent in the news, and research on the Web. Be sure to attribute the sources of your information.
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Class 10 – Faith, Religion and Bias (Stephen Keating)
How and why is religion ignored, misinterpreted and maligned in news coverage? We’ll examine the use and abuse of religion in news coverage, and discuss how to defend and promote faith in the public square.
** Reading assignment: “Christianity On Trial” by Vincent Carroll and David Shiflett.
