"'Everybody’s trying to figure out a solution and still be good journalists along the way,' said Olivia Olander, a sophomore video journalist at Northwestern who covered the protest over the Sessions speech. At a time when some say heightened sensitivities have become the norm on American campuses, it is not uncommon for college newspaper editors to be confronted by students who are upset at being photographed in a public place without being asked for their permission; who view receiving a text message or phone call from a reporter as an invasion of their privacy; and who expect journalists to help assuage their concerns that graphic images in a newspaper could cause trauma to readers.... 'There was definitely a lot of panic,' [said the student who deleted his photograph of a protester.] 'There was me being worried that I’m hurting people with my coverage.'... [The dean of the journalism school wrote,] 'I have also offered that it is naïve, not to mention wrongheaded, to declare, as many of our student activists have, that The Daily staff and other student journalists had somehow violated the personal space of the protesters by reporting on the proceedings, which were conducted in the open and were designed, ostensibly, to garner attention,' he said."
From "News or ‘Trauma Porn’? Student Journalists Face Blowback on Campus" (NYT).
I agree with the dean, and I've followed that idea about publishing photographs of people who don't give their consent. I say they've chosen to make a spectacle of themselves and thereby given up the entitlement to say don't look at me or only look at me the way I want to be seen.
But that's just how I talk. If I were dean of a journalism school I might say their actions "designed, ostensibly, to garner attention." Garner! That word! But he used it in public, he chose it, ostensibly to garner admiration, so it's just fine for me to make fun of it.
As for those students, well, I guess they learned something. And don't tell me that seasoned journalists aren't pulling their punches when they get close to people they don't want to hurt. What is the example these students see? It's not be tough and neutral and show us what really happened.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
82 comments:
Yah responding to the changing expectations of the students they cover...the response should be an education that you don't have a right to anonymity, especially when you're in public making news. It is not our responsibility to protect you from your own fears. Those people what raised you should have equipped you to deal with an often ugly world.
The dean risks his career making a weak little stab at it...
And don't tell me that seasoned journalists aren't pulling their punches when they get close to people they don't want to hurt.
Are we talking about Epstein? Who, by the way, did not kill himself.
Did those journalism students learn the distinction between journalism and agitprop? Do they care?
I just started Press (2018) which is pretty good, billed as ethical press vs scandal monger across town but seems to be better than that. For one you root for the bad guy. It's not news, it's entertainment, he says. Some of the hurt use their scandal to get a better job, going along with it all. No mention so far of the audience beyond that they only buy entertainment.
Evidently entertainment is missing from student newspapers.
There’s a reason they call it “in public”.
Our parents thought the distinction so important it required clean underwear.
I didn't know much in college but I knew enough to determine that demonstrations were intrinsically uninteresting. Maybe when I grow up I'll see the point, I thought to myself.
Hasn't happened.
I have tried and failed to see this from the students perspective. I can't grasp just what the complaints are related to. This specific incident, is a news gathering organization, reporting the facts as they transpired. Using photos, that accurately depict a moment of time in a public space. Accurately identifying those involved. The protesters, are seeking to bring attention to the event. The protesters demand that their position against the event, be publicized. The protester want the wider public sphere to understand what is wrong with the event they are working hard to publicize. The protesters are getting exactly what they are seeking.
For the college paper to cover this event, and the protesters the event generated without filling in the facts, fails the sanity test. If these protester have a problem with the work of the student paper, they can start their own publication, reporting events that occur that are devoid of facts. Like minded consumers will flock to their publication, and they will change the face of journalism forever.
Again I cannot put my self in the place of the student complainants and see this from their perspective. My total lack of understanding their desires. But I am willing to listen to an explanation.
Applies as well to public displays of patiotism.
Universities are in a race to oblivion. Tuition goes up while education goes down. STEM courses and Accounting are the only valid reasons for a university in my opinion. I have a granddaughter who wants to study nursing. She wants to go away to college which I have serious reservations about.
Poor Medill students (we called them “Medilldos”), unloved by their fellow students.
My daughter majored in journalism at ASU and discovered you get paid crap. She was reporting on HS football schools at minimum wage. She made extra money as a waitress and eventually changed careers.
I can’t imagine how an NU Journalism major survives out of school with a low salary and incredible debt.
English majors are probably better off.
This is a small corner of the larger schism in our society: those who believe that the "little people" (in this case the students) can not be relied on to evaluate and process information correctly, and who therefore need the guidance of the elite (in this case the newspaper reporters and editors) versus those who trust the vast majority to become informed and to make rational or reasonable decisions. In the past this former group might have included "royalists" who favored a system with power in the hands of an aristocracy. But now it is made up of people on the left of the political spectrum who favor a system with power in the hands of an intellectual/educational elite. WIth this frame of mind, the correct role of journalism or media is not to report facts, but to use the expertise and experience and education of the reporter to lead the readers/viewers to the correct conclusion. Facts that might confuse the reader/viewer from following the correct path must therefore be not reported, or reported in a modified way to avoid such confusion.
We see a similar schism in the testimony about whether or not Trump and Trump appointees ought to be permitted to ignore the advice of the policy elite. I can't help but thinking that there is a silent majority that is insulted by the point of view that they are stupid children who need to be led by their betters; and that this silent majority is going to help Trump and Republicans in 2020.
Journalism!
It's gotten so confusing, this concept of objective reporting. Who ever heard of such a thing?
Iowan2 wrote: "I have tried and failed to see this from the students perspective. I can't grasp just what the complaints are related to."
Possibly: "Don't publish that picture of me hitting the Dean over the head with my sign."
Why are the students afraid to be photographed while protesting against that evil, racist, fascist, Jeff Sessions? Aren't they proud of their protest?
The newspaper editor, Troy Closson, is African-American.
Two of the other eight students who signed the stupid editorial are ethnic minorities:
* Christopher Vazquez, Digital Managing Editor and Diversity and Inclusion Chair
* Sneha Dey, Diversity and Inclusion Chair and Web Editor
Those three students got their exalted positions on the newspaper staff because they are ethnic majorities. Their signatures under the stupid editorial prove that they did not get their positions because they are smart journalism students.
For sure, the core of the students protesting against Sessions likewise were ethnic minorities.
-----
When universities enroll too many students who cannot and will not read at the university level, then the universities are going down a road that might ruin the university itself.
A few such students can be managed. However, once the non-readers constitute a substantial portion -- say, 15% of all the students -- then they might ruin the entire university. This is especially true if that portion is overwhelmingly ethnic-minority and if the many diversity administrators foster, encourage and justify those non-reading students' resentments and tantrums.
* The University of Missouri was ruined.
* Evergreen University was ruined.
* Oberlin College was ruined.
It looks like Northwestern University now is on to road to ruin.
a university cannot allow those few students and administrators to run rampant with their stupidity and thus ruin the entire university.
but, just to review:
It's STILL perfectly Okay, to publish the names, and addresses of Trump supporters, Right?
I mean; these 'privacy concerns' that say that you shouldn't even publish photos of protestors protesting in public.... Those are concerns Only for FAVORED GROUPS, right?
I mean, Right?
Dr K said... I have a granddaughter who wants to study nursing. She wants to go away to college which I have serious reservations about.
I don't know about where she lives; but here in iowa; our community colleges have good nursing courses. By which i mean that, Every Nurse i know went to one
YEA community colleges! Live at home, work during the day; go part time at night
(or, Live at home, work part time, go full time)
I'm going to have to go back and read some of the articles tagged garner, but I've never understood Ann's aversion to the word. Does she just not like synonyms to common words? Should I have used "dislike" earlier in this paragraph instead of "aversion"?
One of my favorite words is "penultimate" meaning "next to last". I could say "next to last", and frankly, more people would understand me. I occasionally have to explain "penultimate". But I just like the word. I like how it rolls of the tongue. I like how it looks on the page. Would Ann say that I should never use it?
Seems odd.
FYI, the progression:
ultimate, penultimate, antepenultimate, preantepenultimate, propreantepenultimate.
If you truly want people to be dismayed by your pompous display of erudition, use propreantepenultimate often.
Of course, I've never actually found a need for anything beyond antepenultimate in speaking, and even that one is exceptionally rare. That's probably part of why I like penultimate so much. I find uses for it often.
But I digress and have no doubt failed to garner anyone's continued attention at this point.
[S]ome student journalist... said they found themselves struggling to meet two dueling goals: responding to the changing expectations of the students they cover, particularly from those on the political left, while upholding widely accepted standards of journalism....
"Everybody’s trying to figure out a solution and still be good journalists along the way".
In sort, how to curry favor with the left without being obvious about the resulting bias.
Who says student journalists aren't learning anything about the 'real world' in college?
Kevin at 6:36 is the winner of the pithy quote, for this thread.
The Left and accepted journalistic standards cannot be reconciled. Those students will need to pick a side and I expect they will pick the easy side: influence and money.
"And don't tell me that seasoned journalists aren't pulling their punches when they get close to people they don't want to hurt." As much can be said of long-time "civil" servants. Called to witness, weighing nicely what the prospects of either a change or continuation of the Administration, they must be tempted to temper (heh) their testimony to make as few Congressional and organizational enemies as possible. "Nice gig you have there at State, shame if something happened to it."
We need more cruel neutrality.
When I was a college undergrad circa 62-66 the vast majority of "journalism" majors were screwed-up types that couldn't decide on a major and ended up in journalism by default (and were in the lowest quintile of SAT scores/grades of entering freshmen as well. Not exactly the brightest intellectual bulbs extant..)
The Omaha paper is a shadow of its former self; both the paper and online editions. If it wasn’t for Big Red sports, it would be BK.
It is interesting, this supposed expectation of privacy at a time when nothing seems private anymore, even information and activity we always thought was private, like medical data, which Google has apparently been happily harvesting in secret (Google has privacy for itself!) until it got outed recently.
No one seems to care about the massive invasion into our privacy by the IT giants and yet activity that we've always thought wouldn't have a privacy expectation attached to it, like being in a public place doing public things or even just receiving an inquiry about something -- which in the past I thought was supposed to be okay because one could simply ignore it-- suddenly there are these new rules we're supposed to figure out.
I believe a large part of what informs the student behavior is the emerging psychological need to maintain an over-exposed public presence in social media, while retaining a safety gap to prevent entities there from jumping into your real life. It is not a phenomenon in this country alone. The "digital natives" spend a large amount of time online in ways that would be shocking to the commentariat here. The entire phenomenon of this blog will never be repeated in this form. We Althousers are riding an efficient internet steam locomotive while the kids are headed for the stars.
Being an advocate is not the same as being an objective reporter. Unfortunately these kids don't know the difference.
Running tit pics on page three for a while might loosen the uptight leftists up.
What is the example these students see?
Seasoned Journalist: "Dammit, you have to learn to hide it better! Being this obvious about following journalistic principles limits our influence."
Automatic_Wing said...
And don't tell me that seasoned journalists aren't pulling their punches when they get close to people they don't want to hurt.
Are we talking about Epstein? Who, by the way, did not kill himself.
No, it goes beyond Epstein - who didn't commit suicide. The press pulls punches whenever the subject is their own behavior (e.g. sexual misbehavior at various news networks) or the behavior of Democrats.
In the good 'ol days, you protested to draw attention to your cause, get covered by the press.
Today's protesters are simply anarchist intent on criminal activity, which is why they are violently opposed to being filmed or photographed.
The Omaha paper is a shadow of its former self; both the paper and online editions. If it wasn’t for Big Red sports, it would be BK.
The LA Times has a smaller story today about the hearings. I only look at Sports. The OC Register used to be conservative. Now it is just as left as the Times. The little Tucson paper is useful only for weather.
Someone I knew who was getting ready to take their CItizen's Naturalization test told an acquaintance about the upcoming event. The person she told said to her, "When you do become a citizen and can vote, just vote straight democrat. Republicans are all crooks and undeserving of consideration." This person's occupation? She was the Political Reporter for the Belleville News Democrat.
Dean was in firefighting mode to save the reputation of his program and keep donations flowing from alumni.
Is this Dean a Boomer?
The reason the students don't want to be photographed or identified is because they aren't protesters. They are part of a mob. The fact that participants don't want to be identified shows that they are aware, however dimly, of that fact.
Oh, yeah. Reporters are dumb rich kids who couldn't get in to law school.
And Epstein didn't kill himself.
I recently read a book titled I Read It, But I Don't Get It, written by Chris Tovani who teaches special classes for high-school students who are failing academically because of poor reading comprehension.
Tovani categorizes such students into two main groups.
1) "Resistive readers can read but choose not to."
2) "Word callers can decode the words but don't understand or remember what they've read."
Students in both groups develop strategies from a young age to get by in school despite their poor reading comprehension. They focus on classroom lectures and discussions, study in groups, use other people's study guides and notes. Their very last resort is to try to read the textbooks.
Thus they manage to graduate from high school.
----
Now, however, these non-readers are attending universities. They cannot and will not begin now to read at the university level. Instead, they develop their strategies to get by despite their poor reading comprehension.
One method, apparently, is to spend all their time protesting and acting out.
Why were the students protesting against Jess Sessions afraid to be photographed, contacted and interviewed?
They were afraid because they are failing academically. They are afraid that 1) their academic failure and 2) their stupid protesting will comprise two reasons to expel them from the university.
Just unpeople:
https://spectator.org/the-new-york-times-hit-piece-on-john-solomon/
“Everybody’s trying to figure out a solution and still be good journalists along the way,”said Olivia Olander, a sophomore video journalist at Northwestern who covered the protest over the Sessions speech.
It’s simple, really. You can’t be a good journalist until you’re ready to tell the people who want to take offense at factual reporting to eff off.
The response of the staff of the student paper should have been a McAuliffe-inspired headline using the largest font available,
"NUTS"
They want public protest but to not be held responsible/get caught.
Lololol
It doesn’t work that way sweetheart.
It is worth reading Medill Journalism Dean Charles Whitaker’s full statement. An outstanding response.
What is the example these students see?
Bad writing furnishing no context, gaslighting, partisan sniping, coverups, obfuscation, and damn near treason at times.
"Yah responding to the changing expectations of the students they cover...the response should be an education that you don't have a right to anonymity, especially when you're in public making news. It is not our responsibility to protect you from your own fears. Those people what raised you should have equipped you to deal with an often ugly world."
Well said. Except, I would make specific the implied point that "you don't have a right to anonymity" if you choose to appear at public events or participate in public protests that are of public interest and will draw journalistic attention.
The LA Times has a smaller story today about the hearings. I only look at Sports. The OC Register used to be conservative. Now it is just as left as the Times. The little Tucson paper is useful only for weather.
I don't know why you support these clowns with subscription fees.
I used to read three papers a day (WSJ, Trib and Daily Herald) until 10 years ago. I am better off and no less informed for quitting the addiction.
Collateral damage from diversity (i.e. color judgment) and exclusion, close associations, witch hunts and warlock trials (e.g. trial by press), that progressed and liberalized with catastrophic consequences over decades when it was politically congruent. Oh, well, it was just pictures, this time. Perhaps placing people at equal risk will mitigate the progress of these processes.
Incidents at Northwestern and Harvard reveal a growing tension between traditional journalistic practices and the demands of student activists.
Traditional journalistic practice is advocatory; yea, even activist. "Cruel neutrality" is the exception, not the norm.
Caveat emptor.
My perception is that two different issues have gotten commingled.
(1) Some students who were at the Sessions protest were irritated and felt like their privacy was invaded when others students, who are trying to learn how to be journalists, tracked them down and texted or called them out-of-the-blue.
(2) Possibly some brutality occurred against some of the students at the protest. This was documented in one or more photos or videos: "I was on the ground being shoved and pushed hard by the police. You don’t have to intervene but you also didn’t have to put a camera in front of me top down."
As to (2), the kids who showed up at the protest wouldn't, I think, have realized that this was going to involve ending up "being shoved and pushed hard by the police". I don't think this student is upset because someone took a photo of her standing there at the protest. Rather, she appears to be upset that someone took a photo of her being brutalized. Hence, her reference to "trauma porn". I think there is such a thing as trauma porn. So I think there is some legitimacy to what this kid is claiming here although there are plenty of gray areas in it.
As to (1), yeah, no one likes to get unsolicited texts and phone calls from reporters. For sure. It's a pain. It's a thing that happens to adults in the adult world of politics. If I were one of the students who received one of those unsolicited texts or phone calls, I would have felt at least as vulnerable as adults do who all of a sudden are getting unsolicited attention from a reporter. I get how they felt. On the one hand, it would be good to counsel them that if you participate in the big game of politics, that might happen to you. On the other hand, I suspect that they had a bit of a feeling that their fellow students, the students who are trying to learn how to be journalists, were just play-acting the role of journalists by tracking them down like that and that for those students, it was a bit of a game/role, whereas for the students being tracked down, their perception would have been that whatever they said or did in a photograph was going to live permanently on the internet forever. Student-to-student, regardless of journalistic practices, I might have concluded that the "student journalists" were being assholes, and let them know that. I think that's a legit move on the part of their fellow students.
I suppose that Journalism is an attractive major for students who cannot and will not read at the university level.
* You can just interview people; you don't have to read much.
* You can be a broadcast or video journalist; you won't have to write much.
* You can be a CNN panelist; you can get rich and famous just spouting your opinion.
* You can be a co-writer, collaborating with someone who reads well.
* You enjoy hiring preferences just for being a colored person or a woman.
I think there is such a thing as trauma porn. So I think there is some legitimacy to what this kid is claiming here although there are plenty of gray areas in it.
"Trauma porn" is what wins Pulitzers and changes nations. Can you imagine the civil-rights protestors who faced Bull Connor's attack dogs and fire hoses whining like this?
The student newspaper's groveling apology was the worst of all of this. One former student editor noted on Twitter the pressure they are under. They work in total terror of angering the mob. If that's not addressed, the mobs will continue.
The dean of the journalism school seems to be taking a risk by telling the truth.
This just proves Farmer is right about Trump. Trump cannot even make *journalism* great again.
The topic of the article is yet more proof that what we're seeing is a manifestation of mental illness in student activists.
The purposeful misuse of therapeutic language is part and parcel of Snowflake Social Justice Culture and is manipulative, passive-aggressive control freak conduct. They use it in a lame attempt to paint themselves as victims and not to be held accountable and to not have normal rules apply to them, because they're special.
We've seen this movie before, where claims of past trauma are used to control others speech, whether it's in the classroom or in response to someone speaking on campus they don't like. The Toddler Therapy Safe Space rooms with coloring books and Play-doh.
They fully expect that they can clash with the cops and literally shove people around and not be photographed doing so. They think readers will be traumatized by photographs that depict the events.
The Dean is right. But, a far more effective response would be to expel students who clash with police over someone they don't like visiting the campus.
Give them what they want. Ignore them.
Ying Dai deserved what she garnered.
SGT Ted
Have you read Haidt's latest book, The Coddling of the American Mind? Really insightful on just what you wrote. He identifies three great lies these people really truly believe
What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker
You should always trust your feelings
The world is divided into good people and bad people
They really truly believe that a speaker giving them the sads shortens their life (they will prattle on about blood pressure and suicide rates), that they don’t need evidence for this, and the speaker is just a bad guy who needs to be stopped before he harms (speaks) again.
Pravda is isvestia
https://www.dailywire.com/news/judge-in-planned-parenthood-trial-orders-guilty-verdict-against-journalist/
"Your speech is violence, my violence is speech" is another aspect of this fascist mental illness.
And THAT is why the right needs to play by the odious rules the left has developed for the right.
Have they learned NOTHING from their Antifa brothers? Masks and hoods, kiddies. Masks and hoods.
Dean to students: GROW THE HELL UP, you pantywaists!
What's wrong with saying "garner"? Doesn't seem that hoity-toity of a word.
I just had to do 6-7 CAPTCHA "select the tiles with item X in them" to publish this comment. If anything is worthy of scorn, it's that.
Correction to my comment at 9:06 AM
I inadvertently wrote the expression colored person.
I meant to write Person of Color.
Please make the mental correction.
I would suggest that they are hurting their fellow students by enabling both their notion that their actions must have no negative consequences and that they are so fragile that concern for shielding and protecting their feelings must be primary and override any and all other concerns. These notions will not serve them well as the move out of academia and into the real world.
By the way, I can no longer remember if you have answered this before, but is there (in your opinion) an appropriate use for the word "garner?"
but is there (in your opinion) an appropriate use for the word "garner?"
When it is preceded by James or Jennifer.
The amount of courage required to be normal, fair and principled in today's dishonest snowflake culture is almost insurmountable. Doing the right thing is now grounds for personal and financial ruin. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm starting to get pissed. If you care about this country, justice, and truth, then there is no place for you on the sidelines pretending to be above it all. You are in it deep, whether you wanted that or not, because it is sweeping in like a tsunami of stupid fascism, and your imagined island of safety is below the coming water level.
I think "get" would work better there, but best would be "cried for".
"The Daily staff and other student journalists had somehow violated the personal space of the protesters by reporting on the proceedings, which were conducted in the open and were designed, ostensibly, to garner attention"
I see no evidence the protesters are concerned about privacy. What they're concerned about is the possibility of unfavorable coverage- including (but not limited to) unflattering photographs.
Occam's razor reduces the protesters' complaints to a demand that there be no coverage of their public protests other than those they expressly approve for publication.
So, journos, tell us: do you really think you can satisfy demands for prior restraint and still produce anything recognizable as journalism?
If their cause is so righteous, wouldn't those students want their message to receive more coverage? Including photos of them touting their righteous cause?
Or maybe wearing masks would be more to their liking. And courageous.
'I have also offered that it is naïve, not to mention wrongheaded, to declare, as many of our student activists have, that The Daily staff and other student journalists had somehow violated the personal space of the protesters by reporting on the proceedings, which were conducted in the open and were designed, ostensibly, to garner attention,' he said."
I remember when 'double-secret probation' was a joke.
“ By the way, I can no longer remember if you have answered this before, but is there (in your opinion) an appropriate use for the word "garner?"”
I’d use it in writing fiction, in the dialogue of a dull or silly pompous person.
My sensitivity to this word began with it’s frequent use by Jeb Bush,
My sensitivity to this word began with it’s frequent use by Jeb Bush,
At least he doesn't throw extra apostrophes in his speeches.
Perhaps the reason these protesters consider their protest to involve some kind of privacy is that they don't actually protest to send a message or garner change in the culture. Rather, their protest is a kind of party or ceremony where they polish each others wokeness in a tribal masturbation. Except for Louis C.K., most people consider that kind of thing a private ceremony.
It's not the fault of the activist-students that the journalist-students caved to their pressure.
People who are right-of-center distrust the media pretty pervasively and don't feel a great obligation to bend the knee to whatever it is that journalists think are their sacred obligations and privileges. Recently, right-of-center folks enjoyed going after the Des Moines Register for its outing of a young man who had written some racist tweets in his teen years, in the context of a contemporary story showing him as admirable. The Des Moines Register felt hounded enough that they ended up firing one of their reporters. I don't think right-of-center folks shed any tears over any of that.
Here, we have some left-of-center student-activists who instead of passively accepting that it is a sacred journalism privilege of student journalists to take pictures and look them up and pester them via text, decided that they didn't like being treated that way, and they pushed back. Student-activists have as much of a sacred privilege to push back and nag at and pester the students-journalists as the journalists had to do what they did.
We surely don't think that the journalists should be able to do whatever they want to do (even if it is relatively standard behavior) without consequence.
I read the original article. The comments were absolutely brutal, just unending attack on the journalists who had betrayed their profession.
Looking forward to the 10th Circuit's sensible opinion on the rights of privacy of rioters while rioting? Maybe they should hold court outside of the shroomer's base weed wafting town that is Denver to possibly not oppose (and in the case of uncovered boobs of heavyweights, damage) the senses of the majority population.
@Leslie Graves: Got a definition of what converts a "protester" into a "rioter?"
They followed precedents set by the mainstream press, social platforms, and House Democrats.
I’d use it in writing fiction, in the dialogue of a dull or silly pompous person.
And in particular a person both dull and pompous that developed an act of super-seriousness and "quiet competence" as a member of a generational permanent and sometimes political governmental dynasty, only to have his persona exploded when rebranded as "low energy" by some upstart character that was too dumb to follow all of the agreed rules of the progressives and their faux opposition that was sceered to be called names by progressives. Progressives complained about name calling! That's rich. That would be a helluva story.
If a journalist is conflicted like that, he or she needs to find another line of work, as they clearly lack the integrity to fill that role.
Unfortunately, that is NOT the prevailing take, and we are and will continue to pay hugely for having a press without integrity.
"What is the example these students see?"
Serve the interests of the rich and powerful and be rewarded, or cross them and suffer the consequences.
Post a Comment