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Reporter involvement: a message to Dan Harris, although it’s not his fault
My fellow journalists called themselves correspondents; I preferred the title of reporter. I wrote what I saw. I took no action – even an opinion is a kind of action. Graham Greene The Quiet AmericanFrom USA Today: More reporters embrace an advocacy roleBy Peter Johnson The “social journalism” that made Oprah Winfrey an international fairy…
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Should news inform or entertain?
Munir Umrani, at the Blogging Journalist, picks up on the debate over news – should it inform or entertain? Let me put that question into a news genre and see if it works… Should sports news entertain and inform – or both? Results, columnists, previews, “exclusives” – match reports and analysis. The genre has it…
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Disease mongering
BRIAN WILLIAMS If you watch this newscast with any frequency, then you’ve seen it – this ad … for a medication for something called restless leg syndrome. A lot of us had frankly never heard of the condition but we figured people must suffer terribly from it for there to be a medication to treat…
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Why The Public Doesn’t Deserve The News
It depends on the habit of attending to and looking into public transactions, and on the degree of information and solid judgment respecting them that exists in the community, whether the conduct of the nation as a nation, both within itself and towards others, shall be selfish, corrupt and tyrannical, or rational and enlightened, just…