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AEJMC Reporter
- NPPA Announces Campaign to Protest Jailed Reporter
The National Press Photographers Association announced a campaign protesting the detention of Joshua Wolf, a freelance journalist who was jailed this week after refusing to turn over to a federal grand jury an unaired video of a demonstration in San Francisco.
Tony Overman, president of the NPPA, stood in a conference room at the Marriott Hotel holding his notebook, camera card and pen.
“These are my tools…to do my job as a journalist,” he said.
Leaders from various journalism organizations were present, saying the ruling disregarded a journalist’s ability to guard confidential sources and unpublished material.Overman, pointing to his “tools,” said his job as a journalist was being compromised to become an aid for the government.
“They want the journalist to do the job for them,” he said. “This has a chilling effect on First Amendment rights.”
“This is an attempt by the federal government to make journalists an arm of law enforcement,” said David E. Carlson, president of the Society of Professional Journalists. He said this would not help the federal government in the long run, because journalists will naturally lose the public’s trust all together.
The ruling took place as journalism and mass communication educators met at the AEJMC Convention, which the speakers found to be ironic.
“As we have been convening here at this convention, the courts have been moving forward,” said Frank Fee, Jr., a member of the Professional Freedom and Responsibility Standing Committee of the AEJMC.
“The timing proved to be interesting,” Overman agreed.
The speakers, who also mentioned the cases of San Francisco Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada who reported on grand jury findings in the BALCO investigation and of former New York Times Reporter Judith Miller, stressed the importance of a free press in the country.
“The key to a free society is a free flow of information,” said Julianne Newton, editor of Visual Communication Quarterly and associate professor in visual communication at the University of Oregon.
Newton said confidential sources are sometimes the only way to provide information to the public, and the legal system should not dare to violate a journalist’s right to use these sources.
“Don’t mess with the press,” she said with a determined look on her face.
There is presently no shield law protecting journalists at the federal level. Overman said the Joshua Wolf case should not have gone to the federal government in the first place.
“Such crimes would be a violation of state law,” Overman said.
One message was obvious during the press conference: Each speaker demanded Wolf be released from prison immediately.
The NPPA donated $500 to the Wolf case, and SPJ contributed $1000 with more on its way, according to Carlson.
“I suspect that we’ll be making a considerably larger donation to the Joshua Wolf case,” Carlson said.
Fee noted, however, that journalists have been put in similar positions in the past.
“While we have seen a number of these cases pop up … it is not something that is new,” Fee said. “This is a fight that has been going on for a long, long time.”
He said that journalists act as the watchdog and worried about the consequences that could arise when this role becomes blurred.
“We have at times forgotten that we have a watchdog role to play,” Fee said. “If we are an arm of the government, where is the watchdog role going to go?”
- Finding Citizen Journalism's Place
Wikipedia’s quick rise as a popular site for research and information has many concerned. The site has become a source of news for many, including students, bothering teachers and sparking a conversation about its role at a panel on Saturday.
The panel, “Blogs & Wikis: Creating a Convergent Global Village and Citizen Journalism: Global Initiatives, Local Reverberations,” discussed such sites as Wikipedia and the growing popularity of sites that allow regular people to play the role of “journalist.”It was sponsored by the International Communication Division and Civic and Citizen Journalism Interest Group.
A wiki is a site where “anybody who signs up or registers [with the website] can contribute and change not only what’s up [on the site] but anyone else’s work as well as their own,” explained Mike Yamamoto, executive editor of CNET News.com.The most popular wiki site is Wikipeida, an online encyclopedia with articles that anyone can edit.
Joining Yamamoto on the panel were Clyde Bentley, associate professor at the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia, and Barbara Iverson, professor of journalism at the School of Media Arts at Columbia College in Chicago.Janet Kolodzy, associate professor in the journalism department at Emerson College, moderated the discussion.
When it comes to quality and accuracy, Yamamoto says it requires passion on the part of those who monitor the wiki. He believes that Wikipedia is in good hands.
“A successful wiki or a type of project like that depends on self policing by the people who participate,” Yamomoto said. “Wikipedia is fantastic for that.”
As such sites continue to become more mainstream, the stability and future of journalism comes into question. Some say the future of news could be reported primarily by the public but Kolodzy disagrees.
During the discussion she pointed to a comment by a frequent contributor to the site, WikiNews, which is affiliated with Wikipedia but primary offers current events articles.“I’m discovering that this journalism thing is really hard,” Kolodzy said quoting the contributor. She explained that the contributor stopped posting on the site because it was consuming too much of his life.
Kolodzy believes that citizen journalism will therefore be “complementary and supplementary” to traditional journalism, not replace it.
Part of the task to find citizen journalism’s place is up to those in journalism education. At his university, Bentley has taken one of the first steps.
The school has created a site of community journalism where stories online are contributed by people in the area.On Saturdays, some of the best content is put in their community journalism newspaper. The paper has a unique approach to bylines for those who submit stories.
“Every byline on [the paper] says ‘Shared by’ and that’s the key,” said Bentley. “Six days a week we publish a newspaper, one day a week [the community] publishes a paper.”
As the session continued, the issue of breaking news came up. The panelists compared whether a traditional media or citizen journalism source would be the better place for incoming details on a developing story.“WikiNews, I think, is going to prove to be better for the kind of context,” an online user would want on a story, Iverson said. It would not be ideal for the latest information on “ a breaking story.”
Bentley clarified what he thinks is the public’s place in reporting news.
“Citizen Journalism, by and large, is going to do a poorer job on the actual international [story],” he said. “Than they are on local [news].”
Panelists also added that the blogsphere and sites with citizen journalism are dependent in part on established news organizations for their own coverage.What bloggers and citizen journalists write about generally comes from traditional news media sources, they said.
When addressing the credibility of citizen journalism sites, even those on the panel who were advocates, cautioned against relying on one source for news and information.
“Would you trust one person to tell you everything you ever needed to know about San Francisco?” Kolodzy asked. “No, of course not”
“It’s another tool but it’s a tool that needs to be used responsibly,” Yamamoto said.
- Professors Tackle Sensitive Issues in Classroom
Professors and audience members shared personal stories in an intimate discussion about the challenges of teaching courses on race, gender, and sexual orientation in the media.
Dana Rosengard, professor at the University of Oklahoma, moderated a panel of speakers featuring Dwight Brooks, associate professor at the University of Georgia, Donna Rouner, professor at Colorado State University, Sharon Bramlett-Solomon, associate professor at Arizona State University, and Laura Castaneda, assistant professor at the University of Southern California.
Rouner, who teaches a course on LGBT issues, has been working on approaches to better engage students in classes.
“When there’s a grade percentage for participation, students begin to tell stories about themselves,” said Rouner. “The problem arises when a student of a social group wants to be invisible. The university classroom is not always the most ideal place to reveal personal information.”
Rouner explained how she has dealt with this issue by redefining class participation. By allowing students to talk with her during office hours or turn in a list of questions and comments anonymously, she offers alternatives that allow students to earn credit.
Rouner sets ground rules for class discussion that establishes whether or not students should challenge each o