According to the Center for Media Literacy, there are five core concepts that must be understood in order to be media literate. These concepts are: 1. All media messages are constructed. That is simple enough to understand. The messages were not born, they did not grow. Someone had an idea and created a message that […]
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According to medialit.org, there are five key questions that a viewer must keep in mind when evaluating any media. The five key questions are: 1. Who created this message? If someone is watching a television advertisement, the company responsible for creating that message is evident. When watching a movie, a viewer can […]
Reporters traveling with military units did not start with the Iraq War. One of the first reporters who traveled with and reported about the military unity he was with was Richard Harding Davis. Richard Harding Davis had his first reporting job when he was working for the Philadelphia Record. His stories were those we would consider investigative […]
Reporting is more than rewriting off the internet
Posted by: bellen | October 27, 2010 | No Comment |Reporting has come a long way since America and England were connected by a telegraph cable. Before that time, newspaper publishers had to wait for the mail to arrive with the news. Often, they would print stories that were little more than idle gossip. Unfortunately, some of those stories were false resulting in a public […]
We all make mistakes. Sometimes we can correct them and sometimes we can’t. Those who work in journalism have to correct their mistakes. If they don’t correct their mistakes they run the risk of losing their credibility. A journalist with no credibility is quickly unemployed. There are those who say that there is no such […]
We know why it is important to be literate. People who know how to read can learn about the world. They understand that the marks on the paper have meaning. What is media literacy? We don’t need to know how to read to be able to watch television. Going online requires reading. Is that all […]
Near vs. Minnesota – how censorship was banned in America
Posted by: bellen | September 29, 2010 | No Comment |The Saturday Press was established in 1927 in Minneapolis by Jay Near and Howard Guilford. The Saturday Press wrote stories which claimed that there were ties between organized crime, the police and city officials. Every issue in the Saturday Press attacked some aspect of the government in Minneapolis, especially the city and county officials. When […]
Tags: bellen, Ellen Black, first amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, Press freedom
Where would the first amendment be without John Peter Zenger?
Posted by: bellen | September 22, 2010 | No Comment |There is no free society without a free press. Why were James Madison and George Mason adamant that freedom of the press was necessary in the newly formed America? They may have remembered the trial of John Peter Zenger. John Peter Zenger was a German immigrant who was a printer. He supported himself mainly by […]
Tags: bellen, Ellen Black, John Peter Zenger, Press freedom, reporters, reporting
Nobody gets their information from newspapers anymore. Right? Newspapers are dying and no one cares because everyone gets their information online. That is the conventional wisdom. It is not the whole truth because not everyone gets their information online. They either do not have access to the internet or they prefer newspapers. Newspapers are accessible everywhere. Anyone […]