Thursday, September 25, 2014

A couple of thoughts from the first few weeks of class

This is my blog for COM 510: Professional Seminar, my first grad class in the communication studies master's program at Shippensburg University. I'm looking forward to reacquainting myself with and learning more about the communications profession, though I am less enamored of the idea of writing this blog. (I also didn't like it when the publisher of the newspaper I worked for 20 years ago decreed one day that all the reporters were to write weekly columns. But I guess I digress.)

We talked one night about the resignation of investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson from CBS News and some other recent, high-profile departures from national media organizations. Some left quietly; others, like Attkisson, made some noise. Then there is this video that CNN Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins made after losing her job. She is critical of CNN to a degree, questioning its decision to cut back on national affairs coverage, but also expresses her thanks for the opportunity she had with the network. The video has gotten more than 295,000 views on YouTube; I think it's great.






We also have had some discussion on how news coverage has changed over the years, most especially with the advent of 24-hour cable news channels and, later, social media. The desire to be first with a story, whether or not you have the facts right, and the need to fill every hour of every day with something at least resembling news have taken journalism down a road to a place from which it may not return. As Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel note in the first book we're reading, "(W)hile technology has created an unprecedented free flow of information and opinion, shrinking newsrooms have also meant a decline in accountability journalism. ... In the end, the question is this: Can journalism sustain in the twenty-first century the purpose that forged it in the three and a half centuries that came before?"

I don't know if Ryan Schuessler is sure that it can. His blog post, "I will not be returning to Ferguson," is thought provoking. A freelance journalist, he was in Ferguson, Missouri, in mid-August covering the killing of Michael Brown and its aftermath for Al Jazeera America. What began as national coverage of a tragic event quickly became a media circus, one that disgusted Schuessler to the point where he told his employer he was leaving.


"The behavior and number of journalists there is so appalling that I cannot in good conscience continue to be part of the spectacle," he wrote on Aug. 21, nearly two weeks after Brown was shot by a police officer. He highlights some of the most egregious behavior he said he witnessed, including another reporter who told Schuessler that he came to Ferguson as a "networking opportunity" and later asked Schuessler to take a photo of him with CNN's Anderson Cooper.


"We should all be ashamed, and I cannot do it anymore," he concluded. "I am thankful for my gracious editors who understand that."


I hope you'll take a minute to read it and let me know what you think:


http://ryanschuessler.com/2014/08/21/i-will-not-be-returning-to-ferguson/