Role-Models

As the Comms 239 class continue to discuss ethics and a journalist's responsibility to conscience, I want to bring up the importance of industry role models. I've begun to identify both reporters, editors, and managers that I respect and want to emulate in my career. (I've also kept a few mental notes about those that I want to keep my distance from.) Good role-models help people rise to the best that they can be.

Here's a list of some people in the news industry that I admire:

• Historically: Edward R. Murrow of CBS News
• Historically: Walter Cronkite, also of CBS News
• Nationally: Nicholas Kristoff of the New York Times
• Locally: Elisabeth Neff of the Salt Lake Tribune
• Editing/ Management: Peter Bhatia, editor of The Oregonian (not just because I'm from Oregon)

Response to a NYT Conclusion About Marriage

The New York Times recently published an article entitled For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside Marriage (by Jason DeParle and Sabrina Tavernise.) The story is useful because it calls attention to a troubling cultural landmark. But it does make a claim that is premature and slightly sensational.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

One group still largely resists the trend: college graduates, who overwhelmingly marry before having children. That is turning family structure into a new class divide, with the economic and social rewards of marriage increasingly reserved for people with the most education.

“Marriage has become a luxury good,” said Frank Furstenberg, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania. 

The shift is affecting children’s lives. Researchers have consistently found that children born outside marriage face elevated risks of falling into poverty, failing in school or suffering emotional and behavioral problems.

Ditch Twitter? But then how would I follow Kristoff?

I did an evaluation of my social media habits and realized that most of what I do on twitter (including tweet) is probably a waste of time. Twitter doesn't allow me to develop thoughts beyond that iconic 140 character limit. As far as sharing links goes, I doubt the effectiveness of my efforts because not many people follow my Twitter account.

So then, should I give up my Twitter account altogether, I wondered? Even though I enjoy the time I waste on it?

But wait! If I ditched the T-bird, then how would I hear about Nicholas Kristoff's articles and thoughts? (Like this one, an important addition to the discussion of poverty in America.) He's a writer for the New York Times, and my role-model in the industry. (It helps that he's from a small town in Oregon, just like me.)

Twitter, I realized, is valuable to me because it is a curator for my news consumption. Well, perhaps favorite reporters like Kristoff curate news first, and then Twitter aggregates their 'curations' for me. Possibly I could get the same utility from an RSS feed; I've never tried.

---now for a look back to last week's class discussion---

	Social Responsibility Model	Identity-based Model
Goal:	A better society	Survival of the publication
Responds to perception of:	Audience needs	Audience Wants
As a business model:	Seems impractical	Possibly successful

The reading we were assigned this week, from The Long Tale, offers interesting insights into the practicality of the identity-based model, calling it 'niche culture'. Probably there's even a way for forward thinking individuals to utilize niche culture to make a profit writing things that are actually beneficial to society (beyond entertainment value.)

Two Articles From the News This Week

It was a week of interesting news articles and two stuck with me in particular:

First of all, the horrific developments in the story of the Powell family. Specifically, Josh Powell apparently attacking his sons with a hatchet and exploding the house with all of them inside. I can't think of a set of news items that emotionally affected and disturbed me as much as these events.

The article in today's New York Times: 'We The People' Loses Appeal Around the World also bothered me. The article began with something interesting and valuable: coverage of a recent study showing that countries aren't using the U.S. Constitution as a model like the used to. That's definitely worth knowing. But as the writer, Adam Liptak, goes on and tries to explain why this might be, I saw him inserting his opinion into the piece carelessly and jumping to conclusions about what should be in a constitution.

Liptak quotes Thomas Jefferson's remark that every constitution “naturally expires at the end of 19 years” because “the earth belongs always to the living generation.” Just because Thomas Jefferson has a (well-deserved) place in the pantheon of American founders doesn't mean his opinions were all gospel truths.  If every generation had to relearn and establish the hard lessons of establishing and maintaining an effective democratic republic we would lose all of the benefits we currently enjoy from the toils of our forebears. The idea is to continually improve from generation to generation, not continually to restart. 

Liptak also writes that:

"Americans recognize rights not widely protected, including ones to a speedy and public trial, and are outliers in prohibiting government establishment of religion. But the Constitution is out of step with the rest of the world in failing to protect, at least in so many words, a right to travel, the presumption of innocence and entitlement to food, education and health care.

It has its idiosyncrasies. Only 2 percent of the world’s constitutions protect, as the Second Amendment does, a right to bear arms.  "

In conceding that the U.S. Constitution protects the many rights that other nations neglect (speedy and public trial, religion, right to bear arms) Liptak seems to really weaken his argument that our Constitution is failing to protect basic rights the rest of the world now expects.

Also, entitlement to food, education, and healthcare are all very controversial as civil liberties. I want everyone to have the necessities of  life, too; I'm just not convinced that the government should assume that responsibility on the scale Liptak implies. Entitlement is a dangerous beast to enthrone in a national consciousness. It promotes selfishness and removes incentives to work hard for one's self. Most of what the Constitution guarantees are protections against government intrusion, not promises of government assistance.

The first, second, fourth, fifth amendments and most others are examples of protections against government intrusion. About the only real things the Constitution says Americans are positively entitled to are a republican form of government, confrontation of witnesses, and protection by the military. 

I think the study Liptak was reporting on is good to know about, but I don't think that he left political bias out of his coverage.