Obama goes to Dover to salute fallen soldiers

Right after President Obama was elected Defense Secetary Robert Gates lifted the ban on news coverage of soldiers' remains. Last night President Obama went to Dover to salute the fallen soldiers coming back from war. The ban allows family members to decide whether they do or do no want coverage. I think that it is very important for the press to be given the option to report the deaths of soldiers at war and when their remains return home. There is SO much press on the war; the bombings and the operations but for years it seemed as though we were sending young people over there and where did they end up? We would hear about a number of soldiers dying during a mission but as disturbing as this sounds, these reports became redundant and desensitizing to viewers that those numbers and that report was actually a group of human Americans. The reporting was never complete. In order to remain completely truthful reporters should be allowed to cover the tragedies of war even on the American side.

The picture of Obama saluting a soldier in Dover last night brought up controversy over whether it was a just a photo-op. How could someone even think that? As the President of the United States I would think it was his responsibility to show respect for the soldiers that were lost at war and to remind the United States that it is losing some of it's best.

Kate Sheppard discusses making it in Independent Media

Yesterday Kate Sheppard, an Ithaca College alum, visited our Independent Media class to talk about life after graduation and making it in the world of independent media. Sheppard graduated from Ithaca College in 2006. Since then she has been writing for various online independent news outlets including, The Nation and Grist. She has also written for The Guardian, which I think is amazing considering she is only 25. Sheppard mentioned a few important ways to get noticed in journalism:

1. Gain a presence on the internet. Is very important for young journalists to be able to Google your name and get results with your work or blogs.

2. BLOG. Its one way to practice writing and craft your skill while also getting your work out there. You knows who will stumble upon your blog.

3. Develop a special interest. Having a "speciality" or "niche" will set you apart from other aspiring journalists.

4. Network with people. Find out who accepts or reads pitches at a publication. Keep in contact with people you meet even if you don't think they may have anything to do with what you want to do. You never know.

5. Be persistent. Craft your pitches and be aggressive about getting them out there. Eventually, people will be contacting you, instead of you trying to chase down jobs.

The PRC waves a white flag

This is old news but I revisited the issue after reading the article "Don't stamp out brainy mags" published by the Boston Globe in April 2007. Back in 2007 The Postal Regulatory Commission proposed a way to raise postal fees but in a way that was fair to everyone. Time Warner, which owns...well pretty much EVERYTHING, proposed a more complex system for raising fees. At first the PRC wasn't going to accept Time Warner's suggested plan because it was obviously going to benefit large publishers over small ones. The PRC has always stood for being fair on their pricing because mailing something shouldn't be something only rich people can afford.

The Los Angeles Times said back in 2007 that the proposed increase in fees by the PRC's plan would be about 12%. Time Warner's plan would decrease fees for larger publishers because of the way large corporations mail out their subscriptions and would increase fees for smaller publications from about 15% and up to 30%. Essentially the Time Warner plan would reward those that have huge subscription rates and then cut out the smaller subscribed magazines. Meaning, reward the mainstream media and punish the independent and extreme media. Isn't that a little like taking away the rights of free speech?

I also just saw Micheal Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story the other day and reading about what happened in 2007 with the PRC and Time Warner made me think about how capitalism really does run our country. Why was Time Warner allowed to overrule the Postal Regulatory Commission, a federal committee instilled in our governmental system for the good of the country? Money.

Does big money=big infulence?

Last year, media critic Jack Shafer wrote concerns about the investigative journalism website, ProPublica. The website was founded by Herbert and Marion Sandler, billionaires that promised to provide the foundation journalism outlet with $10 million dollars every year. Shafer questioned how the Sandlers can donnate so much money without infulencing what is being reported on. The two have spent millions on politics, all in favor of the democratic party. Shafer wrote that ProPublica says they intend to remain unbiased but what happens if the investigative reporting turns on the democratic party? What if the Sandlers do not like what is being reported...given their polictical stances. Will they continue to support ProPublica with millions then?

As of right now, ProPublica has extensive coverage on major issues like health care reform, the licensing of California nurses, the stimulus and gas drilling. The articles seem to be neutral but there are many nice pictures of Obama and as of now, no articles that really question the white house. It worries me when a news outlet relies too heavily on one source for money. The Sandlers may not be a major corporation but they still have the big money and I am sure they would not like it if ProPublica decided to do a investigative report on their lives. But as a news outlet, ProPublica should have the right to do an report on the corporation, foundation or any other financial source that supports them, without being censored. Realistically, that will never happen. No entity that is supplying millions or billions of dollars will allow it. In order to remain relatively safe news outlets should have many different sources for money. That way it wouldn't be such a blow if one pulls out because they are unhappy with the content nor will the content start to be driven by the funders.

Shafer thinks that the Sandlers should have donated the money and then resigned from being able to make decisions about ProPublica. That way the money could keep flowing but the content would not be guided by the funders. I think ProPublica will be interesting to keep a check on over the next few years. Will the big money influence the content?

Left, Right, Center?

Mark Finkelstein visited the Independent Media class yesterday and shared some of his conservative views on the Fox News vs. the White House and what it is like to be a republican in liberal Ithaca, NY. As Finkelstein began talking about certain journalists and broadcast news outlets we quickly discovered that his views of what was leftist and what was rightest was different from some of the people in the class.

Jeff Cohen drew a scale of what he thought was left and right and the mainstream media outlets fell in the center but leaned more to the right. Finkelstein disagreed with this scale and said that MSNBC was much more liberal than Cohen believed. How do we establish what is right, left or center if everyone has a different opinion on this? When I was talking to my father the other day about some of Obama's policies he thought that Obama was very liberal but I believed he was too moderate. The United States has always been diverse in their political views but it seems that lately there has been a debate between the left vs. right, yet many other degrees of the scale are left out of mainstream media.

I decided to test my own political stance by taking the Political Compass test at http://www.politicalcompass.org/test.

This is what the website bases their left and right sides on:

This is how I was placed on the scale:

Now this is just an Internet test but they do base their questions around historical

political figure's stances. It is just interesting to see where you fall on the scale.

I wonder where Fox News would fall? Maybe they would have to change their motto from

"Fair and Balanced" to "Conservative and Critical" (or conservative and crazy).

At least, they would be honest about where they stand on things.

Where do you fall? Do you think mainstream media provides an outlet for all sides of the scale?