[EDITORIAL] When Fellow Journalists Become News

Reporters and video journalists enter danger every day of the week. War zones in Iraq and Syria. Covering the drug wars in Mexico. In Third World countries where governments see the news media and reporters as threats to their power and murder them in cold blood.

But a shopping center in Moneta, doing a live television interview with a local chamber of commerce official?

That’s not supposed to be the case. Community journalism is all about covering city councils or boards of supervisors or school boards. Features on the 108-year-old Sunday School teacher. Profiles of World War II veterans. And, yes, cute puppy and kitten stories from the local humane society.

But sadly ... shockingly ... that’s not what happened Wednesday morning. WDBJ reporter Alison Parker was interviewing Vicki Gardner, president of the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce, as cameraman Adam Ward filmed. Suddenly, shots rang out. Parker screams; the camera drops to the ground; and viewers next see a shocked anchor back in the studio.

Parker, 24, was a native of Martinsville who had moved back to the area to work for the Roanoke station as a morning reporter. In the last several months, she’d been dating a fellow reporter, and they had been talking about marriage. Ward, 27, was a graduate of Virginia Tech and an avid Hokie. He was engaged to a producer at the station who was in the control booth back in Roanoke as images of the shooting came in. Gardner, a long-time booster of the Smith Mountain Lake business community, underwent surgery for gunshot wounds at a Roanoke hospital and was in stable condition Wednesday afternoon.

This world is crazy and upside down some days. Police officers aren’t supposed to get gunned down when they pull over a speeder on a desolate highway. A teacher and her classroom of first-graders aren’t supposed to be massacred at their desks. And community broadcast journalists doing a story about a local chamber of commerce’s efforts to boost local businesses aren’t supposed to be shot to death, live on the air.

Our thoughts and our prayers are with the families and friends of Parker and Adams; we also wish Gardner a speedy recovery. And our thoughts are with our colleagues at WDBJ as they deal with the loss of their friends and co-workers while simultaneously reporting the international news story they find themselves at the center of.

Peace be with you.

Via: The News and Advance

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[VIDEO] Is Jorge Ramos a journalist or an attention whore masquerading as one?

What, exactly, is a journalist? The cynical among us (read: every comment to the posts on journalism that I write) would say that a journalist is a leftwing hack that advocates for the left-of-center causes and attacks Republicans at every opportunity. And, why not say that? Modern journalism is exactly that, you know.

But, let us take the curious case of Jorge Ramos, a man who stood up, out of turn, at a Trump press conference and attempted to lecture Trump on immigration issues before being removed. Ramos went all over the place saying that, as a journalist, he had rights that were violated by Trump. Is this true? Did Ramos get mistreated by the big bad Trump?

Of course not.

What is a journalist? He or she is a human being whose job is to report the news. It is commonly accepted that journalists are to strictly report the news and not be the news, which is the very first rule Ramos broke. And he knew he was going to be the news. It’s what he wanted. His goal was to get kicked out, and by God, Trump said “Go back to Univision,” and tossed Ramos out like he was a raging alcoholic at a bar around closing time. Good for Trump for doing so, and even better for Trump to be the bigger man and let Ramos back in.

A journalist asks the tough questions. They pursue the truth. They seek information beneficial to the public. Ramos had one goal: Get on camera to attack Trump. His “question,” if indeed you could call some sort of hybrid rant/lecture/screed such, was nothing more than the publicity stunt of a man who pretends to be a journalist while pursuing a spotlight to demand that people who violate the law to be in this country be treated as citizens (sorry, Lefties! They aren’t citizens!). There is no reason to think that anything he did was journalistic in any regard.

Had it been any one else, I’d be livid that a man who wants to be president of the United States would kick out a journalist. Especially Trump, who has at times seemed to be able to dish it, but not take it. After all, he has every right to remove a journalist because it is his event, but to seek to dodge questions by barring journalists from participating shows weakness. However, the man he had removed was a man who contributes nothing to journalism. He is an attention whore of the highest caliber and seeks only his own glory in front of the camera.

Ramos is absolutely no journalist, and to act as though he is some sort of martyr because Trump was mean and kicked him out (never mind that he let him back in later and lost yet another exchange) is an insult to the people who are journalists, who know how to do their jobs.

Via: RED STATE

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Feds Spend $150K to 'Embed' Russian Journalists in U.S. Newsrooms

Even as diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Russia remain decidedly chilly over the Ukrainian conflict, the State Department is reaching out to "up-and-coming" Russian journalists. A recent $150,000 grant offering from the U.S. embassy in Moscow seeks to establish a program to give Russian journalists an "intensive professional exchange experience in American newsrooms," plus "cultural experiences that allow them to learn more about the United States in general."

Although the program is tentatively named the "Russian Journalist Exchange Program," it involves only the placement of Russian journalists in American newsrooms and not vice versa. Although the State Department wishes to focus on relatively new journalists who are "showing promise" in their careers, grant recipients are reminded that "[e]very effort should be made to attract a large and diverse participant pool, including persons with disabilities, minorities, a balanced mix of male and female participants, etc." Grant recipients will carry out recruitment, but the U.S. embassy in Moscow reserves the right of final approval of all participants, as well as approval of the U.S. newsrooms where the visiting journalists will be working.

In addition to being "embedded" for a minimum a two-weeks in "reputable American newsrooms," participants are to be housed with American families to enhance their cultural experiences. While the Russians are expected to "work alongside American reporters" and interact with host families to get "a first-hand view of American family life with all its diversity," the State Department doesn't want the visitors to get too comfortable. Grant recipients are reminded they are not only responsible for arranging an American work, cultural, and family-life experience for the journalists, but also for "ensuring their return to Russia." All participating journalists must "[c]ommit to returning to Russian Federation after completion of the program."

However, the State Department has plans for a continuing relationship with the Russian journalists who participate in the program. One of the elements required of grant recipients is to "plan for post-program participant engagement that includes an outline of any proposed follow-on activities or initiatives and an articulated plan for utilizing Department of State and other alumni tools and social media outlets to provide continued support to program alumni." [emphasis added] A post-program evaluation is also desired using a now-familiar State Department metric: "The more that outcomes are “SMART” (specific, measurable, attainable, results-oriented, and placed in a reasonable timeframe, the easier it will be to conduct the evaluation."

Development of the program, recruitment of participants (both Russian journalists and American news organizations), and selection of host families is expected to take until March 2016. The actual exchange experiences are then to take place from March through August 2016.

Via: The Weekly Standard

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Limbaugh: How Were Journalists the Last People to Figure Out How Bad Obamacare Was?

With the Obamacare rollout becoming a trainwreck of sorts, even the liberal media can’t sugarcoat things, but what Rush Limbaugh wanted to know on Friday was why the journalists ended up being the last people to realize just how big of a disaster the health care law would end up being.

He cited recent reporting being done at CBS that appears to strike a tone of disappointment and shock that the health care law isn’t going as planned. Limbaugh was amazed that journalists ended up being reactive to the disaster of Obamacare instead of being active in warning people what was coming.

Limbaugh argued that government inefficiency and ineptitude is “the standard, day-to-day operation of a government-run entity” and the media should have anticipated it, but instead “they are now the last to figure all of this out.”

He sniped at liberals for being “surprised” at people looking at ways to get around the wall they’ve built up, and said the way Obamacare is angering and upsetting people is “undermining the very foundation of Obamacare, all of which was predictable.”

Listen to the audio below, via The Rush Limbaugh Show:

Via: Mediaite.com

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REPORT: OBAMA BRINGS CHILLING EFFECT ON JOURNALISM

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. government's aggressive prosecution of leaks and efforts to control information are having a chilling effect on journalists and government whistle-blowers, according to a report released Thursday on U.S. press freedoms under the Obama administration.

The Committee to Protect Journalists conducted its first examination of U.S. press freedoms amid the Obama administration's unprecedented number of prosecutions of government sources and seizures of journalists' records. Usually the group focuses on advocating for press freedoms abroad.

Leonard Downie Jr., a former executive editor of The Washington Post, wrote the 30-page analysis entitled "The Obama Administration and the Press." The report notes President Barack Obama came into office pledging an open, transparent government after criticizing the Bush administration's secrecy, "but he has fallen short of his promise."

"In the Obama administration's Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press," wrote Downie, now a journalism professor at Arizona State University. "The administration's war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I've seen since the Nixon administration, when I was one of the editors involved in The Washington Post's investigation of Watergate."

Downie interviewed numerous reporters and editors, including a top editor at The Associated Press, following revelations this year that the government secretly seized records for telephone lines and switchboards used by more than 100 AP journalists. Downie also interviewed journalists whose sources have been prosecuted on felony charges.

Via: AP

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Defining 'journalist'is a slippery slope. Journalism is an act defined by the doing, not place of employment

A number of years ago, my wife found herself in a fender-bender. Nobody was hurt, thank goodness, but the accident was serious enough to require the filing of a police report. Over the next day or two, our phone rang nonstop: Personal-injury lawyers had grabbed hold of the information and pounced.

Brrring! Hello. Wanna sue? No. Click.

It was an obnoxious and annoying ordeal.

So I understand why Michigan legislators are trying to prevent the ambulance chasers from enjoying easy access to similar data. These are the lawyers who give the rest a bad name: I picture them as vultures, circling document centers, swooping down and carrying away information in their grasping talons.

But Lansing is going about it the wrong way.

Last week, a bipartisan majority on the House Judiciary Committee approved House Bill 4770, which seeks to define the word “journalist.” The goal is to distinguish between those who should see accident records immediately (vehicle owners, prosecutors, journalists, etc.) and those who shouldn’t (the vulture-lawyers).

Journalists, of course, ought to have access to public documents. The proposed legislation, sponsored by Ellen Cogen Lipton, D-Huntington Woods, recognizes this. Unfortunately, it also comes dangerously close to the licensing of reporters.

This is a rotten idea, and liberal societies like our own abandoned it long ago.

Via: Detroit News

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15 Journalists Join Obama Administration Since 2009

The news that Time magazine editor Richard Stengel is leaving his post to become the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs prompted Atlantic Wire reporterElspeth Reeve to examine how many reporters had left their jobs for positions in PresidentBarack Obama’s administration. It turns out that quite a few journalists have found second careers working for the president. 

“But it is the latest example in a growing trend of the White House reaching out to hire journalists. According to one count, at least 15 journalists have joined the Obama administration since 2009.,” writes The Daily Beast’s Ben Jacobs.

RELATED: Obama Addresses DOJ Leak Investigations: ‘Journalists Should Not Be At Legal Risk For Doing Their Jobs’

Stengel joins high-profile figures in the Obama administration who once served as reporters like White House Press Sec. Jay Carney and former senior advisor to Obama, David Axelrod. But lesser-known figures in the administration like former Washington Post reporters Douglas Frantz and Shailagh Murray, former CBS and ABC News reporter Linda Douglass, and former Associated Press andBoston Globe reporter Glen Johnson also once reported on their current employer.

“Yet hiring journalists isn’t an Obama innovation,” Jacobs concludes. He notes that Abraham Lincolnand George W. Bush also plucked promising reporters from their careers for positions in their administrations.

Via: Mediaite.com

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