Each year since 1947, the National Turkey Federation and the Poultry and Egg National Board have given a turkey to the President of the United States at a White House ceremony. Since then, presidents have been more likely to eat the turkey rather than give it a reprieve. A notable exception occurred in 1963, when President Kennedy, referring to the turkey given to him, said, "Let's just keep him." It wasn't until the first Thanksgiving of President George H.W. Bush, in 1989, that a turkey was officially pardoned for the first time.
For fifteen years through 2004, the turkeys were given to Kidwell Farm, a petting zoo at Frying Pan Park in Herndon, Virginia. The turkeys would receive a last minute pardon before arriving, and were then led to their new home at the Turkey Barn after enduring a turkey "roast" full of poultry humor and history.
In 2005 and 2006, however, Presdident George W. Bush continued his father's traditions but the turkeys were flown to Disneyland in California where they served as honorary grand marshals for Disneyland's Thanksgiving Day parade. After that, they spent the rest of their lives at a Disneyland ranch. A spot in sunny Disneyland seems immensely preferable to a place called Frying Pan Park.
In Chapter 9 Brooke proposed that reporters aren't supposed to make the world better.
Their job is to tell us what is going on, so WE can make it better...
Would you trust them more if you knew more about them?
Video conferencing is pulling back the curtain on our private lives, as our friends & colleagues finally get a peek into our homes. Correspondent Mo Rocca talks with designer Jonathan Adler, fashion commentator Simon Doonan, and New York Times critic-at-large Amanda Hess about what Zoom is divulging about us.
1) What can we learn about our reporters and celebrities by 'peeking' into their living rooms and offices?
2) Do you trust them more or less? Why?
3) What is in your 'Zoom' background and what does it 'disclose' about you?
Objectivity emerged as a selling point in American Journalism when the price of a newspaper dropped to a penny. In 1833 The New York Sun slashed the price of their paper to multiply readership and increase advertising. Profits soared.
Yet all around their was a grinding, dehumanizing poverty reflected in the eyes of these 'newsies' selling papers on city streets. Before WWI people viewed the world as being cruel but rich with opportunity. Horatio Alger novels told stories of how the humblest orphans could ascend into the middle class through hard work.
This view changed following the war. As damaged soldiers returned home with stories and the hideous and meaningless death of millions of young men a deep cynicism sets in and 'Dadaism' is born. Its basic philosophy: everything is meaningless.
Do the election results for Butler County confirm or refute this graph?
What should the title of this map be? What do the colors represent? What other conclusions can we draw from this map? Who votes more: educated or non-educated? Rich or poor? If you were running for office where would you campaign?
Over twenty countries have some form of compulsory voting which requires citizens to register to vote and to go to their polling place or vote on election day. Should the United States be next?
On Sunday, April 19, 1953, at 8:30-ish in the evening, Ronald H. Tammen, Jr., disappeared from his second-floor room in Fisher Hall on Miami University’s campus in Oxford, Ohio. He left everything behind — his wallet, his string bass, his car, his clothing, even his toothbrush. No one could figure out what happened to Tammen. Miami University officials were mystified, the Oxford PD outwitted, the FBI flummoxed. Since the spring of 2010, I’ve been conducting my own search for Tammen and what his disappearance might tell us about this enigmatic 19-year-old who landed himself squarely in the middle of one of the most bedeviling mysteries ever to hit the state of Ohio.
Many journalists were 'embedded' with the troops in WWII. The legendary Ernie Pyle from western Indiana wrote columns on their grinding ordeal and uncomplicated courage. Armed only with a typewriter, Pyle personalized war reporting, creating a bridge between the everyday soldier, whom he dubbed GI Joe, and the American populace.
As a roving correspondent for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain, he earned wide acclaim for his accounts of ordinary people in rural America, and later, of ordinary American soldiers during World War II. His syndicated column ran in more than 300 newspapers nationwide.
At the time of his death he was among the best-known American war correspondents. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1944 for his spare, poignant accounts of "dogface" infantry soldiers from a first-person perspective. "No man in this war has so well told the story of the American fighting man as American fighting men wanted it told", wrote Harry Truman. "He deserves the gratitude of all his countrymen."
In 1854, London Times reporter William Howard Russel reports on the charge of the British Light Cavalry Brigade in Crimea. He writes of soldiers ill-fed, ill-led, and left on the field to die. Prince Albert is furious. Russell's reporting turns the public against the government, prompting history's first order of military censorship. Henceforth, any reporter who reports information that could be useful to the enemy will be expelled. Russell is hailed as the 'father of war reporting.'
Read both Tennyson's poem and Russel's report for understanding and then answer these questions:
1) Compare and contrast the tone and emotion of Tennyson's poem to William Russel's war report. How did each describe the soldiers? What was their view of leadership/ command? What was their message to the public?
2) What are some ways 19th-century readers might have reacted differently to a poem versus a newspaper report?
3) How does today’s media (TV, internet, social media) shape public opinion about wars?
4) Should war reporters try to stay neutral, or is it okay to take a moral stance? Explain your reasoning.
5) After studying both accounts, do you think the public should see the “heroic” side of war, the “tragic” side, or both? Why?
At its most extreme, bias will drive people away from sources they disagree with and push them to consume only media from outlets that confirm their existing worldviews. In the age of social media, this has become especially true. Because we often surround ourselves with like-minded people as our friends and acquaintances, our social media feeds will often reflect a shared bias. At its most extreme application, we create an echo chamber, or a situation where ideas and beliefs are amplified and reinforced through communication and repetition, around ourselves.
Bias is hard to avoid, but it can be really damaging - leading us to make poor choices without fairly weighing up the facts.
As human beings, we all bring a point of view into the world, and that point of view colors how we learn about and interact with it. This is built up from the moment we are born and will continue to evolve until we die. With that in mind, we should always be aware that we cannot react to anything in a completely objective manner.
That same logic holds true for media. All news outlets are organizations and made up of people. This means that editors, reporters, commentators, and researchers who work in journalism bring their point of view to work with them every day, and it is borderline impossible for them to completely separate themselves from the stories they report. It is therefore logical to assume that even the hardest news will be colored, to a certain extent, by the person reporting it. At a microlevel, when looking at a story, this point of view can manifest itself in a variety of ways that we should be on the lookout for:
Value as fact: In softer news, the presenter might attempt to pass off their beliefs as fact. This is especially true of punditry and opinion sections (think Tucker Carlson, Rachel Maddow, Sean Hannity, or Stephen Colbert) where the presenter is often attempting to confirm their own worldview and make that worldview more presentable to the consumer. If a worldview or set of values is stated, we should automatically be on the lookout for bias in how the story is presented.
Presentation of the facts: In hard news, it’s important to keep an eye on how the facts are presented. Were questions left unanswered? Was information omitted that could have been vital to building a clear picture of events?
Credibility and accuracy of sourcing: Did the story source a diverse array of credible viewpoints and make the effort to flesh out who or what they are and put the information gleaned from them in context? The less you notice this in a story, the more on guard you should be for bias.
Cherry-picking: How are sources represented in the story? Are they analyzed in depth or just at a glance?
Sensationalism: Does the language in the headline or body provoke an emotional response? If it does, it’s likely that you’re consuming something intentionally biased and seeking to elicit that reaction to further the agenda of its author.
Commentary: Does the story draw a specific conclusion? Do they tell you in the presentation of facts whether they judge a source to be credible or portray them in a positive or negative light? In general, we should be skeptical of any reporting that attempts to pass judgement on a source. It may be accurate, but further research will be needed on the part of the consumers to independently confirm this judgement for themselves.
Fighting BIAS can be even harder than detecting it, especially when we already have strong preconceived opinions...
Few reporters proclaim their convictions. Fewer still act on them to serve what they believe to be the greater good. In times of profound moral crisis, most reporters make the 'Great Refusal.' The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
In his poem 'Inferno' Dante tours the underworld and sees a swarm of anguished souls barred from heaven and hell doomed to limbo. They are the neutrals, whose lives meant nothing because they refused to commit themselves. They have all made what Dante calls the 'Great Refusal.'
The fear of phobias. Phobias are actually quite common, affecting more than 10% of the U.S. population. Phobias are the most common mental disorder in the United States, but far more women than men are affected by phobias. In many cases, people are able to recognize that their fear is irrational and therefore take steps to overcome their phobia. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, only about 10 percent of reported cases become life-long phobias.
A "fnord" is a pop-culture term used to describe something in the news media that subconsciously generates a feeling of uneasiness and confusion, preventing rationality, and creating fear. The term originally comes from conspiracy theorists who claim we are surrounded by 'fnords' every day and that the governments of the world are using them to control us.
Citizen Kane was a brutal portrait of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. When Hearst learned through Hopper of Welles' film, he set out to protect his reputation by shutting the film down. Hollywood executives, led by Louis B. Mayer, rallied around Hearst, attempting to buy Citizen Kane in order to burn the negative. At the same time, Hearst's defenders moved to intimidate exhibitors into refusing to show the movie. Threats of blackmail, smears in the newspapers, and FBI investigations were used in the effort.
Brooke Gladstone compares the press to blackbirds perched on a wire, saying, “one bird will fly to another wire, and when it doesn’t get electrocuted, all the birds will fly to that other wire.”
Senator Eugene McCarthy came up with that; but what does it mean?
Reporters are celebrated not because of the truth of their story, but according to whether their story fits the public's mood.
Without a free press doing its job as a journalistic watchdog, citizens are left to guess if their elected officials are doing their jobs, or if the people they have entrusted have earned that trust.
When NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked details of massive government surveillance programs in 2013, he ignited a raging debate over digital privacy and security. That debate came to a head this year, when Apple refused an FBI court order to access the iPhone of alleged San Bernardino Terrorist Syed Farook. Meanwhile, journalists and activists are under increasing attack from foreign agents. To find out the government's real capabilities, and whether any of us can truly protect our sensitive information, VICE founder Shane Smith heads to Moscow to meet the man who started the conversation, Edward Snowden. Watch the episode.
Described by WIRED as “the most wanted man in the world,” Edward Snowden is being sought for leaking top-secret documents that unveiled widespread surveillance programs overseen by the federal government. He currently is hiding out in an undisclosed community in Russia, where he says he goes mostly unrecognized.
1) Is Edward Snowden a 'traitor & a coward' or a 'patriotic hero? You decide.
2) What does Tulsi Gabbard, our new Director of National Intelligence, think?
3) Should we have secrets from our Government? Explain.
4) Should our Government have secrets from us? Explain.
Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst whose release of the so-called Pentagon Papers in 1971 blew the whistle on American decision-making during the Vietnam War, has died aged 92. Ellsberg was employed as an analyst at the RAND Corporation when he made the decision to leak over 7,000 documents covering US policy in Vietnam to papers including The New York Times and The Washington Post. The revelations contained within what became known as the Pentagon Papers showed how successive inhabitants of the Oval Office had deceived the public on the war's progress and the prospects of American victory. The government of President Richard M Nixon charged Ellsberg with federal crimes including theft, conspiracy, and espionage on the basis that his leaking of information compromised national security.
1) Who had commissioned the study of American entry into the Vietnam War? Why was the study commissioned?
2) Why did Daniel Ellsberg copy the report? Why did journalist Neil Sheehan feel it was necessary to publish the study?
3) What do you think is the more important issue, that government documents were leaked or that the US government hadn’t been totally honest in its assessment of the Vietnam War?
4) What was President Nixon’s original thought about the publication of the study? Why did he eventually change his mind?
5) Why do you think Nixon was so vigorous about trying to stop publication of the Pentagon Papers? In your view, is this a violation of the newspapers’ First Amendment freedom? Why or why not?
6) Why do you think the Nixon administration planned to go to such extremes to discredit Ellsberg (breaking into his psychiatrist’s office, leaking personal information about him)?
7) Could there have been a justifiable reason for Nixon’s conduct in this matter? What would it be?
8) Were Ellsberg or Nixon justified in their behavior, or did they both cross the line of responsible behavior by government officials? Explain why you think the way you do.
A press that is free to investigate and criticize the government is absolutely essential in a nation that practices self-government and is therefore dependent on an educated and enlightened citizenry.
On the other hand, newspapers too often take advantage of their freedom and publish lies and scurrilous gossip that could only deceive and mislead the people. Jefferson himself suffered greatly under the latter kind of press during his presidency. But he was a great believer in the ultimate triumph of truth in the free marketplace of ideas, and looked to that for his final vindication.
1) How is our Freedom of Press essential to our Democracy?
2) What does the 1st amendment say about Freeodom of Press?
3) In what ways is our Freedom of Press unique?
4) In what ways has the Press been limited throughout our History?
5) What were the 'Pentagon Papers' and how did they challenge the 1st Amendment?
He’s renamed a body of water and a mountain. He put himself at the top of the Kennedy Center. Now, President Donald Trump wants to put his stamp on the Smithsonian Institution and make its museums less “woke.”
"The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been," Trump said in a recent social media post.
This expression has been attributed to everyone from Voltaire to Uncle Ben in the Spider-Man comic book; but what does it mean?
The phrase “Great powers bring great responsibilities” is said by Peter’s foster father and uncle, “Uncle Ben”, in the form of advice or warning. Ignoring what would be the last words he would hear from his uncle, Peter decides to employ his new superpowers to win money in a wrestling tournament. He wins the fight, but ends up being deceived by the event's promoter. When a thief steals the promoter’s money, Peter takes revenge by omission: he chooses to let the thief escape. He later learns that his uncle had been shot to death. He starts looking for the killer. When he finally finds him, the hero-in-the-making finds out that it was the same thief that he had let go. The fact naturally awakens a heavy sense of guilt and an acute sense of responsibility and heroism. It is later repeated by Aunt Mae in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
What makes one thing worth reporting, while another thing is not? We offer a test for news which can work in all societies. We consider what makes some news stories stronger than others. Finally, we look at how news comes to journalists, and the areas of life where we most often find it.
This course looks at the role of the media on international, national, state, local, and school-wide levels. Although the content is constantly changing there are recurrent themes including domestic and foreign policy, the economy, war, crime, and the environment. Let's look back at the stories that made the headlines the past year and, make some predictions about what we may study this year.
What do you think was the biggest story of the Summer? What predictions do you make about this Fall?
Available in over 30 languages and able to transmit bespoke news stories faster than ever, its threat to the mainstream media is clear. But can we trust it? And would anybody actually watch a channel that lacks the human touch? The Guardian visited the channel’s creators in Los Angeles to find out more - and to audition for a role.
Emerging artificial intelligence technology is making it even more difficult to discern what's real and what's not, worrying some about the potential impacts on politics. ABC News senior reporter Emmanuelle Saliba has more on the risks the emerging technology presents for misinformation, and how to spot fake images.
Q. How can we ensure that our development as moral and social animals keeps pace with our rapidly evolving communications technology?
A. By playing an active role in our media consumption, trusting reporters who demonstrate fairness and reliability over time, offering corrections when they get something wrong, and when we care enough--reading the original documents they worked from.
Mere seconds before the Earth is to be demolished by an alien construction crew, journeyman Arthur Dent is swept off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, an alien researcher penning a new edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."Do movie trailers appeal to our 'deep' or 'hyper' attention?
Douglas Adams cult classic may have been the stuff of Science Fiction in the 1970s, but one can't help compare his fictitious guide to existing modern-day technology. Never before have we had access to so much information at our fingertips. So why is it we seem to know so little?
R.E.M. had a hit song in 1983 named after "Radio Free Europe," inspired by the federally funded news service that helped spread American ideals abroad. Now, the struggling organization, which says the Trump administration is withholding millions in funding that Congress had appropriated, is hoping a little bit of rock and roll can help keep them afloat.
The iconic rock band answered their call: They're now giving their 45-year-old smash a remix, sharing all of the proceeds from it directly to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. It's being issued on digital and on vinyl, with four other R.E.M. rarities.
1) What is 'Radio Free Europe?'
2) How was it important, especially during the Cold War?
3) Why is it ironic that President Trump wants to shut it down?
You can see it when you look out your window... when you turn on your television... when you go to work. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. The truth that like everyone else you were born into a prison that you can not smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind. More precisely the prison OF your mind.
Welcome to the home page of Mr. Kelly's Current Events class. This course looks at the role of the media on international, national, state, local, and school wide levels. Although the content is constantly changing there are recurrent themes including domestic and foreign policy, the economy, war, crime, and the environment. Here you will find assignments, online discussions, and your grades. Be prepared to keep up with weekly reading assignments and be respectful of each others opinions on this site.
