Round table

ver the past few months in this class, there were many instances with the timelines of the history of Journalism that correlate to how the new age of journalism is today. 

For starters, in 1939 during the war in Europe, FM radio was introduced to the public. This was a huge difference and impact for music and radio in general as FM radio spread way farther across the country and with its change in hertz, it made the music that was played on the radio sound a lot better at night  than AM radio music that would be played in the morning. 

This correlates with the modern day because of the fact that AM and FM radio are still around in the modern day with radios within cars playing in the morning, afternoon, and night.

The printing press truly paved the way for the process of fast printing within the modern era and the quick spread of newspapers. Back in the 18th and 19th century, people used to use the printing press to release newspapers that wouldn’t be available to the public until a week later. However, when the  printing process got faster, newspapers started to spread across the area faster and got to the public in a matter of a day. 

In the modern era, news is everywhere and can be accessed anytime through apps on cellular devices and television as well with numerous news stations providing many stories available at their disposal. 

One thing that has shocked me with the growth of journalism was the amount of sub genres that formed throughout the eras like photojournalism, sports journalism, gossip journalism, and many others that came after the dawn of those types of journalism. Nowadays, more and more types of journalism are being introduced and spread across the entire country, sparking many more journalists to voice their opinions on that certain sub-genre of journalism.

EOTO #3 Reaction

When witnessing  presentations for journo heroes, Howard Cosell was the most interesting  out of all of them.

Born in Winston Salem,N.C on March 25, 1918 Cosell’s successful lifestyle was just beginning. Though he was born in North Carolina, Cosell and his family moved and grew up in Brooklyn, New York and had a little start with his career as a broadcaster. Before he became a broadcaster, Cosell earned a law degree at New York University in 1941.

Within his law practice, he spoke on behalf of sports and entertainment figures and in 1953 Cosell became the host of a radio show with little league players asking questions to Major league players. After a few years, he left his practice for law and started his career as a sports broadcaster. 

Cosell’s motive to quote “Tell it like it is” caused a lot of controversy and criticism from many people but basked in the attention he got and welcomed it. Throughout his career, he was described as arrogant,pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, and a show off. With this, Cosell was regarded  as the most loved and hated broadcaster on tv. 

One of the things he was well known for is defending professional boxer Muhammad Ali for getting his heavyweight title taken away for not enlisting in the army for religious reasons. He fought and supported the black power salutes from John Carlos and Tommie at the 1968 Summer Olympics.

The main thing Cosell was known for however was being not only a broadcaster for boxing but the most well known broadcast position he had was being a part of Monday Night Football in 1970.

While he was broadcasting Monday Night Football in 1980, he found out that Beatles legend John Lennon was killed and no one else knew until he announced it with a heavy heart on live television that shocked the world.This event as a whole it got Cosell very popular and well known when it came to tv broadcasting and got him a lot of viewers for Monday Night Football. 

During his long and successful run, Cosell worked with Frank Gifford and Don Meredith which created a big three for the ages during the 1970’s and 80’s.

In 1982 after a tragic boxing bout between Larry Homes and Tex Cobb, Cosell refused to cover anymore boxing matches and stuck with MNF. Except the controversy got worse the year after on MNF when Cosell called wide receiver Alvin Garrett a “Little Monkey” during a broadcast. Cosell in no way meant to racially profile Garrett but everyone else thought of it that way and criticized him for it. With this in his mind, it caused him to leave MNF to relieve the sting of the controversy  he had from there in late 1983.  

In 1985, Cosell wrote his book “I Never Played The Game” reflecting on his career being on tv, and included some of his associates on ABC. Also, ABC dropped Cosell’s Sportsbeat program ending his appearance on tv as a whole.

In 1992, Cosell retired from broadcasting after receiving surgery for removing a cancerous tumor. Within that same year received a Sports Emmy for outstanding achievement and solidified himself as one of the best Broadcasters of all time.  

EOTO 2 Reaction

Disinformation and Misinformation

Harry’s presentation on dis and misinformation really interested me and hooked me in to learn more about it. According to the APA, it describes the difference of mis and disinformation by stating, “Misinformation is false or inaccurate information—getting the facts wrong. Disinformation is false information which is deliberately intended to mislead—intentionally misstating the facts.”Mis and Disinformation in news has been around in news as early as the 1890’s and has become more common in today’s modern era of journalism and pop culture.

Misinformation in the media has been a longing issue when it comes to things like Politics and pop culture as a whole as well. For example in 2016, there was a spreading rumor about Hillary Clinton and one of her associates being a part of a sex ring which caused a mass social media outbreak during the election. “ The hashtag #pizzagate went viral as thousands of accounts tweeted “evidence” both for and against the story. Many of these tweets originated outside of the United States, with disproportionately large clusters coming from the Czech Republic, Cyprus and Vietnam. Shortly after the election, this fictitious online tale made a sinister cross-over into the physical world, as one of the story’s followers, Edgar Welch, drove to Washington with an assault rifle. He entered the pizzeria, demanding to see the basement (the building does not have one) and fired off three shots. What began as online disinformation had taken a terrible turn (Fisher, Cox and Hermann 2016).” 

Disinformation occurs almost every single day when it comes to social media or magazines and different celebrities of the modern era and the drama that comes with them and their so-called superstar status lifestyle. It can mainly be seen within stores with magazines with wild titles expressing fake stories about different celebrities and their love life, family life, etc making it more exaggerated than it already is. 

These types of popularity contests depict and break down the view of the celebrity in a positive or negative light just to receive sales for their newspaper or social media gig.

Mis and Disinformation exhibits the immaturity of many journalists and news reporters because they are itching to get a rise or kick out of  the public and get the speculation to rise and spread across the entire country. With this , it can spark more and more unnecessary rumors to spread and get to the point where the celebrity themself can get in the mix and speak on the rumors and issues regarding the writings and news stories written about them within the contents of different magazines. 

As the years go by, Mis and Disinformation has been around for years and years and has been an issue since newspapers were introduced. With the modern era, more people are more attached to an eye popping title than the actual truth and it is truly very sad to see.

EOTO 3: Bernard Shaw

                                                        The Exciting Life of Bernard Shaw 

Bernard Shaw was known as one of the biggest innovators for CNN and Television Journalism as a whole.

Born May 22,1940 in Chicago, IL , Shaw was interested in journalism at a very young age. As a child, he used to watch the Television broadcasts of famous journalist Edward R. Morrow who inspired him to become a journalist when he got older. Throughout his teenage years he had been an avid reader of newspapers  and got involved with his high school paper to grow deeper into the scene of journalism. Adding on, he read over the school announcements for his high school through their public address system. 

In 1959 after finishing high school, Shaw enlisted into the U.S Marine Corp and was a member for four years until 1963. While he was a part of the Marines, Shaw met Walter Cronkite; a CBS correspondent and told him he was going to be working alongside him in the future after his time with the marines.

In 1964, a year after he stopped serving in the Marines, he enrolled in the University of Illinois and began to work as a radio news reporter and TV news writer. Furthermore, the Westinghouse Broadcast Corporation offered him to cover a story for the White House. Shaw was a radio news writer and radio news reporter until 1968 and took a leave until 1971 when he became a reporter for CBS. 

Shaw became well-known very fast while working for CBS that in 1974, he was offered a promotion to become a correspondent for CBS but declined and joined ABC as a Latin correspondent in 1977. As he was working for ABC, he wrote stories on things like the Jonestown incident in Guyana and interviewed Fidel Castro who was a Cuban president. After his voyage, he returned to Washington D.C. in 1979 to cover a story about Capitol Hill and the hostage crisis in Iran.

At the start of the decade in 1980, Shaw helped launch CNN and became the head anchor for the news station as a whole. He made ground-breaking impacts for the company by moderating a presidential debate in 1988 and covering the protest of Chinese students at Tiananmen Square in 1989. Within the early 90’s, Shaw covered stories within big events like the U.S. bombing of Iraq in 1991 being one of many. After many years of being within the field of journalism, Shaw retired in 2001 with a whole line of success in his belt..Shaw won numerous awards after his retirement including, the  Foster Peabody Award (1990), the University of Missouri’s Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism (1992), and the Congress of Racial Equality’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Award for Outstanding Achievement (1993)Unfortunately ,Bernard Shaw passed away in 2022 due to pneumonia but will be remembered as one of the most influential TV journalists of all time.

The Thing About Goodnight and, Good Luck

"Hidden Opportunities"

Goodnight and Good Luck showed the disagreement and dysfunctionality of the 

Government and Journalists in the News. Throughout this movie, CBS Journalists specifically Edward R. Morrow was committed to taking down Senator Joseph R. McCarthy for a foolhardy campaign to root communists in the United States.

Throughout history, journalists did not get much love when it came to gaining information to write about, especially when they tried to get it from the government. It seemed like every time when a journalist makes a thoughtful statement about the government , the government would  try to censor the news station in any way possible. That was the case for the CBS news station when trying to expose Senator McCarthy for being a communist secretly while being a part of the U.S  government. 

Edward Morrow was the only journalist that was truly confident enough to go against the government while everyone just watched him in fear and disbelief.The other journalists were scared because of the idea of Chilling effect where the government would try to take journalists out because they expose something about the government that they don’t wanna be spread to the public.However, Edward Morrow didn’t care about the chilling effect and went against the government and Senator McCarthy for being communist which lead to Senator McCarthy to accuse Morrow being a communist.

I thought it was really interesting how Edward Morrow used Senator McCarthy’s words against him in 1954 with the help of his coworkers Joe Wershba, Don Hewitt and Fred Friendly to record him speaking on the matter as they were still trying to avoid the chilling effect from the government. 

Adding on, I thought it was wild how much effort the CBS journalists did to get Senator McCarthy out of office as with McCarthy also trying to shut down CBS for running their mouths a little too much about his personal business. 

This issue of chilling effect is shown within the modern day like when the Covid-19 pandemic became serious in 2020. Many doctors made claims and statements talking about the pandemic not being as big of a threat as the government claims it is and journalists started spreading the information around within the media. When the government got word of what was going on, they immediately went after the doctors and journalists and shut down their claims.

The government really is greedy when it comes to making Americans follow claims knowing good and well that most of the information could be falsely interpreted or could be over exaggerated. They also love to hide information for some reason implying that there could be some groundbreaking discoveries that could be hidden from the world right now that would probably break down the government all together if journalists got a hold of what the government was hiding. 

All in all, “Goodnight and Good Luck” opened my eyes to realize that there are many troubles when it comes to journalism and getting information out to the public. It taught me that even though someone is trying to censor you from bringing out information that you have, you are not obligated to listen to them because it’s your story for the media and its what you make of it that counts. 

The Evolution of Music Journalism

 The Evolution of Music Journalism

    The idea of Music Journalism revolves around covering concerts, new song releases, Artist profiles, and reporting on the whole music industry as a whole. Music Journalism was founded by and was first published by journalists Breitkopf and Hartel in 1798.They both created the first ever music periodical in Germany called "Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung" which is "General Music Newspaper" in English. This exclusively set the template for the future of Music Journalism as a whole all over the world. 

    As the years went by, music journalism grew with it. In the 1960's, it brought a great variety of new music like Jazz, Rock, and Pop  especially with the popularity of The Beatles. This new era brought more and more music news writers like Robert Shelton, Richard Goldstein, and Chris Welch who lead the way. Lester Bangs covered underground music and grew to be a major influence for Rock music .With the expansion of music genres,  many different music journalists completed  within the niches of different sub-genres of music. 

    Popular magazines like Time, Rolling Stone, and Sunday New York Times gave way and opportunity for rock writers to express their passion for rock music and inform the readers about the newest releases from the rock genre.With the growth of Rock as a genre, numerous rock books were made exclusively for public fancy and the use of a new sub section of music journalism; Rock Journalism.

 First introduced by Paul Williams in 1966, with his short- term newspaper "Crawdaddy!" It paved a pathway for numerous other Rock music journalists to write their own stories regarding different varieties of Rock. This sub genre of journalism grew to become a pop- culture phenomenon and grew to be the most well known and popular genre of music journalism as Rock evolved. Famous journalist Lester Bangs revolutionized the entire sub genre by studying underground rock music and writing about lesser known rock bands until he was given the opportunity to write for Rolling Stone.

    Heading into the 70's and 80's , music journalists focused even more upon pop, R&B, and other music  genres featured within more and more magazines as they got more popular. Artists like Stevie Wonder, Bob Marley, ABBA, Marvin Gaye, and Michael Jackson were seen on the covers of different music magazines like Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy, Billboard, and Mojo. With this, music was starting to rise and grow into a new era sparking more ideas for music journalists to write about. Rock was still a popular genre during the 70's and 80's and popular artists were still featured in numerous magazines, but they were getting less and less recognition because rock was getting less and less popular.

    When the 21st century dawned, Technology provided a huge leg up for music journalists everywhere now being able to spread their newspaper stories about music online. As technology advanced to where it is now, more and more Music Journalists could spread all of their informative articles and news across social media platforms to music fans that are eager to know about new artists, song releases, or music genres as a whole.

EOTO#1: Fredrick Douglass' North Star

 The Fredrick Douglass' North Star

The North Star newspaper founded by slave abolitionist Frederick Douglas and first published on December 3, 1847. The main objective for this newspaper business was to support against slavery and speak upon the idea of it becoming abolished. Its motto? “Right is of no sex- Truth is of no color-God is the Father of us all and we are brethren.” The name The North Star referred to the star that escaped slaves saw in the sky to guide them away from slavery and more towards freedom. Not only did Douglas write about the abolishment of slavery, he also fought and wrote for the rights of women during many issues of his newspapers .Within his first ever issue of The North Star he explained the reasons for making a black owned newspaper business and spoke upon the idea that he doesn’t want to seem ungrateful to abolitionist and friend William Lloyd Garrison who was also in the making of his own antislavery paper called The Liberator.

The North Star was published weekly, four pages long, and sold within the price of $2 per year to over 4,000 people in the U.S., Europe, and the West Indies. One out of the four pages were mainly focused on current abolitionist issues with an occasional forum by Douglass talking about the discrimination in American society. These forums would be called “The Den of Villainy” and would appear within the beginning of Douglass’s newspapers.  Adding on, Douglass would express his emotions upon his outlook on what Americans around the country claim to be their Christian beliefs and the blasphemy and discrimination he would see.

Though successful with getting the issues out, Douglass did not really have that much financial success with the birth of The North Star. Douglass receive extra funds from lectures he would have and mortgaged his own house to be able to keep the flame of his newspaper business alive. Furthermore, the financial struggles caused Douglass to merge his own newspaper with the Liberty Party Paper published by abolitionist Gerrit Smith and changed the name of his newspaper from The North Star to Fredrick Douglass’ Paper. Even though he changed his newspaper’s name, it was still very consistent with sales and appearance as a whole. Many other abolitionists came to the aid of Douglass with his paper such as Martin Delany, white abolitionist Julia Griffiths, escaped slave Harriet Jacobs, and author Charles Dickens.

Unfortunately, in November of 1859, The Frederick Douglass Paper was discontinued because of Douglass leaving the states for a lecture tour in England. While in England, Douglass avoided arrest back in the states for being associated with the assault on the federal armory in Virginia led By John Brown. However, When John Brown was arrested for his assault, Letters from Frederick Douglas were found within searching Brown’s possessions. Douglass was not supportive of Brown but he knew not to be in the states because he knew that Brown wouldn’t get a fair trial. With that, Douglass left the United States for 6 months.