Media coverage on Flight 17 crash

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Xiao Lyu

By XIAO LYU

The crash of Malaysia Flight 17 was caused by a missile warhead, according to the Dutch Safety Board’s report on Tuesday.

Flight MH17 crashed in Eastern Ukraine in July 2014. Everyone on board was dead. Distressingly, many aviation accidents and incidents took place in 2014. They range from the missing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 to Malaysia Flight 17, from Algerian Air Force C-130 crash to TransAsia Airways Flight 222.

News media produced much coverage of those aviation accidents. They were filled with stories analyzing the facts and evidence of the crash. However, many of them were reckless and speculations, because they jumped to all sorts of conclusion without any interviews or data to support their theory. Such analysis is nothing less than the weather issues, man-made causes, terrorist attacks, or aircraft malfunction. It now appears that the interpretation of lost of the Malaysia Airlines MH 370 was absurd. Almost every media covered the cause which is the disintegration in the air. CNN dedicated 100 percent of its coverage to flight 370, even inviting a psychologist to talk about the possible causes of the crash. Later CNN theorized on their network’s website involving the highly unlikely scenario that the plane landed on a remote island in the Indian Ocean.

U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is the world’s most professional air accident investigation agency, but it should takes several months or even several years for them to complete the analysis. Therefore, reporters can’t make their conclusions recklessly.

In fact, most of the press did not show its responsibilities and the respect for the victims and their families. On the contrary, journalists made a fuss, creating the tense atmosphere. Also, they accused and shirked responsibility, misguiding the emotions and views of the publics and gradually became a conspiracy theory and led to the political debate.

During the investigation, the news we heard about was Russia and Ukraine accusing each other of causing the incident. As the Dutch Safety Board’s report was released, another round of uproar was set off. Russian national television is questioning the report — it showed that Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov echoed these denials on Tuesday, calling the Dutch report an “obvious attempt to draw biased conclusions,” according to the country’s state-run news agencies. “Russian Today” television released a short video, displaying a test involved detonating a BUK missile near the nose of an aircraft similar to a Boeing 777. It seems that the truth remains a mystery, especially under the media hype.

The responsibility of the press is to debunk myths and rumors, not to opine on events and make speculation from sources for capturing eyeballs, enhancing ratings, and boosting advertising revenue.

A new perspective on the debates

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Isabella Mesquita

By ISABELLA MESQUITA

CNN produced a virtual reality version of last Tuesday’s presidential debate telecast and succeeded at what many major media companies have been competing to do since Samsung’s GearVR technology came out.

Not only was this real-time streaming a milestone for CNN technologically speaking, it was also a wise marketing choice. Despite the record 980,000 online viewers, around 73 countries logged onto the VR live stream causing the debates on CNN to be ranked as the #10 cable program with the greatest audience – behind college football games on ESPN and the Fox debate last month.

For the new VR technology streaming, two cameras were installed near the questioners, allowing VR viewers to see how the candidates reacted to each other. Another camera was placed right behind the candidates’ podiums and a fourth camera was embedded in the seating area. With this, anyone with the VR app or the VR headsets had a priviledged 360-degree view of the debate.

According to DJ Roller, co-founder of Next VR and CNN’s partner for the live-stream,“You’d probably get attacked by the Secret Service if you tried to get as close as these cameras! With VR each and every viewer has a seat in the room and a new perspective on presidential debates.”

CNN plays a Trump card

Posted on September 25, 2015 by Briana Scott

By BRIANA SCOTT

CNN was put on the defense this past Wednesday, after commenting on the lack of attendance at an event held by Donald Trump (current Republican candidate for president) at the South Carolina African American Chamber of Commerce annual conference.

The following day, Trump went on the defense claiming that the reason there were photos or videos of the room being half-empty was because everyone “rushed” to the front of the room when he began speaking. He then went on to personally attack the CNN reporter who covered the story, calling her “terrible” and a “horrible reporter.”

But the CNN reporter was, in fact, reporting what had truly taken place at this event. The room was half-empty before Trump began speaking and after he began speaking. And of the half-full room of attendees, the majority of the people were white, disputing Trump’s claim that there were “many African Americans there.”

I watch the news on a daily basis and, based on what I have seen in regards to the coverage of Donald Trump’s campaign for presidency, it seems as though most news organizations have been tip-toeing around Trump afraid of his reaction.

This past week, Trump recently announced via Twitter that he was done with FOX and would not be doing any more shows with the network. But Trump has done this before. He threw a similar temper tantrum with FOX in August. Shortly after, he spoke with Fox’s network Chief Roger Ailes who “smoothed” things over and Trump was back on Fox.

As Trump has been garnering a large amount of attention from viewers, news networks are inclined to satiate the candidate and not ruffle his feathers in order to have him on their broadcasts for higher ratings. But it seems as though, more and more networks are reaching their limit with the brash candidate.

Shortly after CNN covered the story, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Associated Press reported on the story as well — mirroring CNN’s report. They all came to same conclusion: Donald Trump did speak to a half-empty room which consisted mainly of white people.

They didn’t beat around the bush or come up with excuses for the candidate. They simply reported on what actually happened, supporting CNN as a news organization. The Associated Press wrote in their article that, “CNN’s assessment appears to have been the correct one.”

I applaud CNN and the other news networks that stood behind CNN, for finally calling a spade, a spade Trump.

Trump re-enters war with Fox News

Posted on September 25, 2015 by Charlotte MacKinnon

By CHARLOTTE MACKINNON

It is no secret that Donald Trump has been extremely vocal when it comes to his experiences with the news media during his campaign for office these past few months. He has notoriously bashed not only individual reporters, but entire news networks themselves, and much of this has been documented through his Twitter posts and live interviews. His controversial presence on social media and verbal attacks on individual journalists as well as entire news networks has become a defining factor of his campaign – let’s review.

One of the most substantial of these feuds occurred in early August, after Trump stepped out onto the Fox News debate stage and was questioned by reporter Megyn Kelly about his sexist remarks in the past. Trump responded the next day through a twitter tantrum attacking Kelly, as well as a few other Fox News personalities. He also addressed the debacle in an interview with CNN, saying, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her … wherever.” Soon after the remark, he was disinvited to a Red State event by Erick Erickson, a Fox News contributor. It had appeared that Trump had started a war with one of the most influential networks, especially for Republicans.

Trump eventually mended his relationship with Fox News after clearing the air with Fox News CEO, Roger Ailes. But as of this past Wednesday, it appears that the “war” between Trump and Fox News is back on.

On Megyn Kelly’s Fox News talk show, conservative columnist Rich Lowry asserted that Carly Fiorina had castrated Trump during the CNN debate last week. Lowry referred to Trump’s private parts, saying that Fiorina had the “precision of a surgeon”.

Obviously, the statement created a lot of shock, prompting Trump to tweet that Lowry was “incompetent” and that “he should not be allowed on TV and the FCC should fine him.” The conflict continued to heat up, leading to Trump’s declaration via Twitter that he would be boycotting Fox News because the network has treated him “very unfairly”.

Fox News addressed Trump’s boycott in its statement about the cancellation of his scheduled appearance on “The O’Reilly Factor”, but declined to specify what had canceled the appearance. However, according to CNN, an unidentified Fox News spokesperson said about the issue: “When coverage doesn’t go his way, he engages in personal attacks on our anchors and hosts, which has grown stale and tiresome. He doesn’t seem to grasp that candidates telling journalists what to ask is not how the media works in this country.”

Now, we’re all waiting to see how long Trump’s latest war with the news media will last. A boycott with Fox News means that he will miss out on access to the millions of viewers who are tuning into the network each night for coverage of the 2016 race. And what will the repercussions be? As of Thursday afternoon, Trump is already down 8 points in the latest CNN/ORC national poll. Only time will show how his campaign will continue to be affected by the turmoil with Fox.

It’s important to pay close attention to Trump’s controversial relationship with the news media throughout his participation in the race. All of these feuds have been made extremely public, and the drama surrounding Trump’s campaign is going to play a crucial role in an election that we will all be impacted by. If there’s anything we need to be keeping up with, it’s the news coverage of the 2016 race – and as we watch these disputes unfold, we will be able to observe, firsthand, the role that the news media play in politics and the impact that it can have.

Martin Shkreli, ‘most-hated man’

Posted on September 24, 2015 by Xiao Lyu

By XIAO LYU

This week, Martin Shkreli, the 32-year old CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals of New York, has earned the title “most-hated man in America.”

Turing Pharmaceuticals bought a drug called Daraprim, the drug can fight toxoplasmosis, which infects people whose immune systems have been weakened by AIDS. However, the company raised the price from $13.50 to $750 for one tablet. According to the latest announcement, the increase of price has been rescinded under the pressure of public opinion.

The conflict was rising when presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said on her Twitter account on Monday: “Price-gouging like this in the specialty drug market is outrageous. Tomorrow I’ll lay out a plan to take it on.”

However, Shkreli has used television interviews and his own social media account to defend the company and himself.

He told The New York Times earlier, “This isn’t the greedy drug company trying to gouge patients, it is us trying to stay in business.”

Recently, in the interview by CNBC, he said that the infection Daraprim is used to treat had been ignored by the pharmaceutical industry because there was little money to be made. He claimed that the money will be able to educate doctors about the disease, improve delivery to patients, and develop better drugs for the infection.

There is no hope for saving his reputation, especially due to his way of responding on Twitter.

He wrote on Twitter on Monday, “It seems like the media immediately points a finger at me so I point one back at ‘em, but not the index or pinkie.”

He also said that Twitter seems to be a great medium for socialist and liberal rage and declared once again the price of drug will be a great thing for society. According to CNN Money, Shkreli was fired when he was the CEO of Retrophin. The reason he was fired, in addition to his poor management skills, was his irritating Twitter usage.

The whole issue is causing biotechnology stocks to fall across the board, involving the lively attention of the government, politicians, the healthcare field, and the financial industry. At the same time, the explosion of social media and TV networks have also made it a hot topic around the world.

Twitter boosts TV audience, appeal

Posted on September 24, 2015 by Isabella Mesquita

By ISABELLA MESQUITA

Recent research conducted by Twitter revealed the importance of real-time tweets for the popularity and audience of broadcast and cable television.

New and rising media outlets such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Buzzfeed, and other online news and search engines have grown among all generations causing television to lose much of its prominence and value in the past years.

However, a new research made by Twitter revealed that Twitter and other social media platforms can actually increase the interest for TV shows and programming and drive a greater audience to take action regarding a specific TV show.

According to Twitter’s global media and agency research director Anjali Midha, the talk about TV shows and its programming on Twitter strongly influences mainstream media as well as consumer attitudes and behaviors.

“There are actionable strategies and tactics that can help both programming content and advertising work harder by tapping into the power of their audiences,” said Midha.

In other words, through TV related posts on Twitter, advertising agencies, directors, anchors, hosts and all others responsible for television programming, gained a real-time access to the audience’s opinion about their work and thus are able to create and deliver material that directly meets the public’s expectations and needs.

Results from the research show that in 2014, 93 percent of Twitter users had a cable subscription and that 85 percent of people active on Twitter during prime-time hours Tweeted about TV. Also, every show with a hashtag integration, had a significant 20 percent increase in tweets per minute about it.

–> Tweets about Television has influenced the audiences to:

– Take action on a show’s social media sites – 52 percent

– Search the show online (through Google, Yahoo, etc.) – 47 percent

– Follow TV show or talent on Twitter – 46 percent

– Search show on Netflix – 43 percent

– Plan to watch show later – 42 percent

Finally, with this increase in viewership and brand engagement, Twitter is reshaping the ‘TV landscape’ and ironically preventing television from becoming obsolete in an era where social media has taken over.

Brazilian superfan dies at age 60

Posted on September 18, 2015 by Xiao Lyu

By XIAO LYU

According to the Brazilian media Gaucha, on Sept. 16, the world’s most famous fan in football, Clovis Acosta Fernandes has passed away at the age of 60.

His name may not sound familiar to you, perhaps you may wonder who is this “famous fan”? But if you are a fan of the Brazilian national team, you would notice on TV or in an online photograph the face of an old Brazilian World Cup fan with a white beard wearing a bowler hat, even carrying his replica trophy in the bleachers.

Fernandes gained further popularity in the last year’s World Cup. When he saw Brazil collapsed to a 7-1 semi-final defeat to Germany, the image of him clinging on to his replica trophy with tears in his eyes drew many attention from international news media. It later emerged that Fernandes had passed his replica trophy on to a German fan, apparently telling her to “… take it to the final. As you can see, it is not easy, but you deserve it, congratulations.” The photograph immediately exploded on social media and Fernandes became something of a celebrity.

Fernandez had followed the Brazilian national team to more than 60 countries. He watched more than 150 tournaments of the Brazilian team and made sure his face and his trophy were on camera at every World Cup since 1990. He witnessed his beloved team become champions twice. People call him the “Brazil’s 12th player.”

Sadly, he was diagnosed with cancer nine years ago and was taken away by the disease on Wednesday. He was known to be a friendly man and he liked to be interactive, such as share his selfies and pictures with his fans via his Twitter account.

FIFA made a tribute via Instagram on Wednesday saying: “…Innumerable fans snapped selfies with the good-natured Gaúcho during Brazil 2014, while the sight of him crying during the Seleção’s semi-final defeat was one of the most iconic images of the tournament. We’ll miss you, Clóvis.”

Many fans from all around the world are still leaving messages under FIFA’s tribute, and tweets are currently circulating on Twitter to his well known account @Gauchodacopa. They talked about his background story and expressed condolences through the social media. This time, social media play the role of disseminating the story and uniting people through remembrance.

Will flu shot be effective this year?

Posted on September 18, 2015 by Meredith Sloan

By MEREDITH SLOAN

With flu season right around the corner, the annual immunization debate has resurfaced. This season, health officials have something to prove after last year’s mishap.

According to NBC News, a new Type A strain of the flu appeared last year after vaccine doses were already brewed. This caused the vaccination to be less effective than in previous years.

Regardless of last year’s mishap, half of American’s didn’t receive the immunization anyway. Consequently, flu kills about 24,000 people a year in the United States.

Health officials have created alternative methods for receiving the vaccination besides the traditional shot, such as a nasal spray, a higher dose version for senior citizens and a needle-free injection for those who have an aversion to needles.

Although the alternative methods are accommodating, I don’t believe that they will influence an opponent of the immunization to change his mind. When it comes to immunizations, most individuals value their own opinion over that of a health official.

If health officials could prove the effectiveness and strategically market the immunization, opponents may comply. In order for health officials to strategically market the immunization, they would need to prove that the effects of the flu are dangerous and prevalent.

Hopefully, this year’s flu immunizations will protect against the new Type A strain and put a stop to 24,000 preventable deaths.

Sensationalism of 9/11 video coverage

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Charlotte MacKinnon

By CHARLOTTE MACKINNON

Today marks the 14^th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, an event that changed America in so many ways – with news coverage being one of them.

The live coverage of the jets hitting the World Trade Center in New York City exposed millions of Americans to the horror that was happening, in real time, during the terrorist attack. News networks did not have time to plan a way to present the footage in any scripted manner; it didn’t matter if you were the anchorman of NBC or a stay-at-home mother watching the TV in her kitchen as she made her children breakfast. We were all faced with a crisis, and we were all able to see it unfold before our eyes – and that’s the kind of sensationalism that has impacted news coverage and shaped the way viewers react and commemorate certain events in the past 14 years.

Certainly the 9/11 attacks would still be a landmark event in American history, regardless if they had been caught on camera or not. However, the sensational – and horrifying — footage had so many immediate implications on the nation, both for the viewers and the media.

In the days after the attacks, David Westin, president of ABC News, ordered the the video not be repeated continuously so as not to disturb viewers, especially children. This type of decision raises the ethical question that journalists have been faced with time and time again, about where to draw the line in terms of how much we expose to the public. This applies to not only disturbing content, but content that threatens national security – which also became a major issue in the aftermath of 9/11, which I won’t get into here.

But where is that line? There is no definitive answer, but most would agree that even if coverage is shocking and violent, the viewer has the right to see it. In cases like 9/11, there really is no warning for such a catastrophe, and in live situations, there really is no opportunity for such a question to even be considered. In fact, in the past week or so, the nation has been abuzz about the live coverage of the shooting of two journalists by their former co-worker while broadcasting for WDBJ. The entire event was caught on camera and aired live without warning. And that coverage – that immediate visual access to the gruesome tragedy – completely changed the way the news was handled and perceived. The live video element of the story created a sensational wake following the incident that has sparked debate about the nation’s gun laws and other security issues. People are shot and killed every hour of the day throughout the world; but it was the live coverage of the event that made this one particular incident so sensational.

In this day and age, the landscape for journalism is constantly evolving with the developments of new technologies that give way to new platforms of communication. Video footage has been the leading form of journalism that has created lasting reaction in the past decades, and with technologies like smart phones and online platforms like social media, content has become immediately accessible to almost everyone. The footage of the 9/11 attacks that was recorded 14 years ago today is a landmark for broadcast journalism to show just how lasting the impact of visual news coverage can be.

Covering the color of that mystery dress

Posted on March 2, 2015 by Hanya ALKhamis

By HANYA ALKHAMIS

It was on a Thursday night when everyone was on their phone and staring at a dress, which was either black and blue or white and gold, depending on the viewer.

Pathetic, it was just pathetic to view how people made a big deal over a worthless dress that had no significance what so ever. It was on all Web news sites. And it got considerable mainstream news media attention. Even the national TV networks gave it attention.

Everyone was all over the place about it and yet, if it were to be about the wars and political disputes happening in Arab world, no one would have cared.

The social media’s main topic on Thursday night and all of Friday was the dress and the color perceived by each and every person.

It is insane and foolish how everyone was on his or her phone Thursday night talking about this mysterious dress that was both black and blue or white and gold. Everyone spent an hour or two or even the whole day just to figure out the mystery and Googling the reason why they saw what they had seen.

The image contained a striped dress, a dress that was seen to be white and gold in my perspective. The controversy was all over how one perceives the dress color differently than another. Many argued it was white with gold stripes or blue with black stripes.

The mystery dress was a sight test to test how people view colors differently. The dress is actually known to be white and gold, but there is an explanation why some viewers, viewed the dress to being black and blue.

As some people go through hard negative events in their life they start to see colors a different way. This proves why many people believed that the dress was black and blue rather than white and gold.

Whatever color you saw depended on the emotion you were feeling and the type of mood you were in, and that is the primary reason why people argued about the actual color of this mystery dress.

NBC reveals much in Williams’ case

Posted on February 13, 2015 by S. Molly Dominick

By S. MOLLY DOMINICK

If I was reporting even a low-profile story in my town and fabricated a piece of information, I would be fired. For that matter, if I’m on the job under any circumstances and I fabricate information, I better start packing up my things. It’s a gross violation of the journalistic code, no questions asked.

But for some reason, when NBC anchor Brian Williams does it — with multiple instances of the crime, and in high-profile situations to boot — the network doesn’t know what to do with him.

He hasn’t been fired, yet. Instead, he’s been suspended for six months without pay, and that suspension was only announced once the popular anchor’s television ratings dropped following the outbreak of scandal.

The decisions made regarding Williams’ job, as well as the timeline of those decisions, are revealing. What separates me and Brian Williams (other than his wry smile, iconic silvery slicked-back hair and practically everything else) comes down to clout, and thus, money. Being the anchor of the number one evening news program, this even separates him from other big name anchors. And that appears to be why he’s receiving special, or lenient, treatment.

But there should be no room for special treatment regarding matters of journalistic integrity.

In this same vein, the coverage of the Williams scandal is also disproportionate. With article after article speculating the fate of his job, it is easy to forget that while in that helicopter in Iraq and while reporting on Hurricane Katrina, Williams was not alone. He was with a news team. People witnessed the truth, and their silence contributed to the cover-up for years until the scandal only recently broke.

Their crimes were just as severe as those of Williams, yet I’ve heard next to nothing about the state of those jobs. Since they aren’t the big name money-makers for NBC, it seems the media don’t regard their company-wide breach in integrity as too important, judging from the amount of media coverage they’ve received since the scandal.

As a journalist-hopeful, it’s troubling that our priorities are so out of line.

If you have bias, at least admit it

Posted on February 6, 2015 by S. Molly Dominick

By S. MOLLY DOMINICK

One of the primary tenets of journalism is impartiality. In an ideal world, all news sources would be perfectly objective and never speak a word out of turn. But this is the real world, with news sources run by real people, so remaining completely impartial is easier said than done.

Some news sources seemed to have abandoned this notion of impartiality. From what I’ve heard from most people, the first examples of this that come to mind are MSNBC and Fox News. These news organizations have been known to report news containing obvious biases.

But I don’t have a problem with them.

As stated, the biases are obvious. Although the company motto of Fox may be “fair and balanced”—granted—no one there is hiding anything when they publish and broadcast stories about the Benghazi panel when others have moved on. Similarly, no one at the Drudge Report is keeping any secrets when “IRS PAYS ILLEGALS FOR BABIES” is a teaser headline on their homepage.

Source: drudgereport.com

When you come to news sources like these, you should know what you’re getting. No one is trying to fool you; the bias is too open for that.

What I personally find more conniving is when bias is existent, but less apparent. This kind of bias is more sly, attempting to subconsciously sway readers without tipping them off about those intentions. This is underhanded, in my opinion, and thus more reprehensible.

Take CNN, for example. An informal survey of my friends will tell you that many people my age consider CNN to be a reliable source of unbiased information. At face value, I might agree with them — but a closer inspection of headlines reveals something different.

Consider this screenshot at the left from the CNN iPhone application.

That headline regarding vaccines technically says nothing wrong. No journalistic principles were violated.

But the request posed by CNN is worded in a way that psychologists would compare to a leading question. It draws readers’ attention to parents who do not vaccinate their children, pointing the finger at a group that has recently received a lot of flack and inviting messages from their opposition, because opponents of an issue are more likely to respond voluntarily to requests like these than sympathizers, who expect attack, and much more than those who are simply ambivalent.

To gauge an honest reflection of the public’s views, the website could impartially ask readers to state their opinion about the issue of vaccinations in general, very easily. But it did not.

I understand that the sly nature of the bias is strategic from a business standpoint; no currently respected news source wants to become the household name of bias like Fox News or MSNBC. But in that case, you might as well honor the journalistic code and remove your biases altogether.

Local news channels… Please keep up

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Kacie Nelson

By KACIE NELSON

What is it about local television news stations and their lackluster approach to reporting news?

Earlier in the semester, I wrote about the ridiculousness that was the Channel 10 newscast one night in Miami. Last night, I found myself watching another local news channel’s nightly newscast and once again was disappointed.

This one admittedly was not as horrible as the first, but it was still falling short of my expectations of what a newscast should be.

In particular, they had a segment about “new tips when buying flights during the holidays,” aided by an “expert” in the field. Now, how you can be an expert in such a field is beyond me, but we won’t go there.

The story was roughly three to five minutes long, with no concrete content. The reporter would prompt the “expert” with a leading question and the “expert’s” response would be completely unrelated or completely opinion based. The program really didn’t leave me (the viewer) with any concrete, new tips to buy cheap flights as it had promised to do.

Worst of all, it ended with a reporter informing us of the best dates to get the cheapest plane tickets for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Unfortunately, those dates were both at the beginning of October, proving to be absolutely useless for anyone watching that night.

So the two main issues I, and I’m sure many other viewers, had with last night’s newscast were that a) the information was not delivered in a timely fashion at all, a crime in the news industry; and b) the information wasn’t even informative or clear.

The fact that my boyfriend, who was also watching the program with me, said “well that made absolutely no sense,” is an indicator that local news stations need to up their game and the quality of their newscasts. In the meantime, I’ll stick to the national news channels.

Oh, CNN, did you have to?

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Autumn Robertson

By AUTUMN ROBERTSON

The other day, I was in line for coffee at Starbucks and I feel a buzz go off in my pocket. I glace at my phone to see a CNN push notification.

I get plenty of these alerts a day, but this one was slightly different than the others. The alert read “Two workers trapped on scaffolding dangling off new World Trade Center tower. Open your app to watch on CNN.” The Starbucks line was pretty lengthy that day, and it would have been a perfect opportunity for me to open up my CNN app to watch two men danging off the largest building in the United States. But at that moment, I felt too annoyed to even consider watching.

CNN’s popularity is based off of the news network’s ability to quickly access newsworthy stories and I applaud CNN for that. But, at times, it makes a spectacle out of news in order to get viewership. People love drama; that’s a fact. But the moment when CNN turns something scary and serious into a cash cow opportunity is when they lose me. I know that it is their job to give the viewers what they want, but that last sentence in the alert made CNN appear trashy to me instead of a company who delivers great news.

Maybe it’s just me, but I found that alert to be very harsh. I felt like CNN was saying “we have live footage and I know that you want to see if they survive or not!” Maybe I can’t fully blame CNN; viewers have probably asked for them to show more live footage of traumatizing events that they could easily open up on an application while waiting in line at a Starbucks, like I was. Is this the way news is progressing? I wouldn’t be surprised if I received more alerts similar to this one in the future.

Let the teams decide who’s best

Posted on November 11, 2014 by Dylan Weems

By DYLAN WEEMS

There has obviously been a lot of controversy in the news lately about everything from Ebola to athlete conduct. Something has been rarely talked about however, is the new college football playoff system.

Personally, I think it’s a great idea. The Southeastern Conference is not as dominant anymore as teams from all across the nation begin to land top recruits and coaches. There’s more of an even playing field. Every conference gets an opportunity to prove its worth.

However, there are a couple things I am not thrilled with. The sportscasters seem to lose their minds every week whenever a team gets upset. All they can talk about is how it will affect the playoffs. They need to relax and actually analyze past and future match-ups because, as we see literally every year, it all works itself out. The cream rises to the top.

The other issue will be the post-season fallout. If one team gets blown out in a game, the entire year’s conversation will be about how undeserving they were to be in the playoffs and how they didn’t play a strong enough schedule. This will affect the playoffs for years to come because analysts will reason that since one conference was destroyed in the playoffs before, history will repeat itself. This leads to an imbalance in conferences once again and the cycle will repeat.

Gives other teams a chance.

Do news media exacerbate the problem?

Posted on November 11, 2014 by Kacie Nelson

By KACIE NELSON

It’s an age-old question: can the news media be blamed for exacerbating an issue? Do the means by which an issue is covered or relayed to the public really affect the way the audience perceives an issue?

The answer is absolutely yes.

Numerous times throughout history, the media covered issues in such a way that caused unnecessary, misguided, and even angry reactions from the public.

When it comes to the “crisis” of Ebola in the United States, that is exactly what occurred.

In early October, the media released that the first case of Ebola had arrived in the United States, carried by a Liberian man named Thomas Duncan who had just returned from a trip to West Africa.

Duncan was hospitalized in Texas, where he died eight days after his diagnosis. While he was being treated, two of the nurses caring for him were infected with the disease, however they were treated successfully and declared safe.

When all of this started happening just over a month ago, every news media website, TV station, radio station, you name it, was reporting about it.

It was everywhere.

Naturally, people took to social media, especially Twitter and Facebook, to spread the news and their feelings of terror. This only made the problem seem worse.

Pretty soon, Ebola was “the new plague” and people across the nation were terrified of catching it and ran the other way as soon as someone coughed or sneezed by them!

This fear was only worsened by the media exacerbating the issue and making it seem like Ebola was an airborne virus that one could catch at any moment, when in fact Ebola can only be transmitted through bodily fluids, blood and objects such as needles.

If the media hadn’t blown the Ebola issue way out of proportion and shared more of the facts with people before alerting everyone to take precautions, it wouldn’t have become such a huge issue.

But never fear! It appears the last known case of Ebola in the United States was just cured last night in NYC and our country is safe once more. That is, until the news media find another disease with which to scare everyone.

‘Nightcrawler’ focuses on local TV news

Posted on November 8, 2014 by Shawna Khalafi

By SHAWNA KHALAFI

In the new film “Nightcrawler,” Jake Gyllenhaal plays a freelance videographer journalist who lives by the motto: “It bleeds, it leads.”

The filmmakers, Dan and Tony Gilroy, have said in interviews that their purpose behind making this movie was not simply to entertain, but rather to force people to consider and acknowledge what news media has become in the digital age.

Dan Gilroy was critical about local news.

“(Local news) is all about selling the statistically disproved narrative that urban crime is creeping into the suburbs. To spread fear and grab viewers. They package it all like news, but it comes out as a narrative to spread fear,” he stated.

Gilroy also stressed the idea that filmmakers, just like journalists, serve as a bridge between true news and the public. As this bridge, journalists must evaluate every piece of information that is presented to them and judge it based on validity and urgency before releasing it to public knowledge.

“The facility and ease with which these images are now coming at us, we have to decide on a minute-by-minute basis what we let in and what we don’t,” Gilroy said. “The viewers are the users of the images that get shown on TV. We are part of that system; whatever is being fed to us, and we consume it like fast food, keeps coming because we seem to demand it.”

Although many people may agree with this assumption about news media, it is also important to acknowledge the audience of the film and recognize their motivations for watching it in the first place.

Since this particular movie contains a lot of violence, one could that the graphic content is what draws viewers, and not the exposure of news media and journalism truths. This fact will also be important to considers when reviewing the reasons for the successes and/or failures of the movie.

Movie Pilot’s Lisa Carol Fremont argues: “We are a society weaned on and fattened up by rubbernecking journalism and worse than that, we are complicit in it. Lou (Gyllenhaal’s character) is just another cog in this giant machine that seems to celebrate real life violence, heartache and human ugliness.”

Fremont agrees with the notion that “Nightcrawler” as a film isn’t so much a reflection of the news industry as it is on the audience and its escalating taste for thrill and violence.

DIGITAL NEWS REPORTING

Journalism and Media Management Department, School of Communication, University of Miami

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