rnalism on Campus
I’m not saying I’m an expert on the subject, but I’ve lived enough to know that journalism in America is really not what it could be. All the major papers work within the system and hardly dare to go outside of it. Informing the people means nothing next to profit margins that need to increase.
So what if Britney Spears or Pamela Anderson Lee married a dirtbag? I don’t care. Does anyone else care? All guys care about is seeing Britney Spears and Pamela Anderson Lee; all girls care about is modeling themselves after one of them. If I am generalizing, I apologize, but I am not guilty of anything mainstream press is not: viewers catch a glimpse of two planes smashing into the World Trade Center and another into the Pentagon, they hear it had to do with some guys from the Middle East, and suddenly, every Middle Easterner/Muslim/Arab (they’re all the same thing in the minds of many Americans), is an enemy terrorist.
We still support Israel, of course. Why is this? Well, I don’t remember reading too many pro-Palestine articles in too many American news outlets that point out actions of injustice committed by Israelis. In fact, I don’t remember reading any article or seeing any television news story that fairly presented both sides of this deeply-rooted conflict.
I’ve heard plenty about suicide bombers, however.
Some of us still adore President Bush, and why shouldn’t we? He has the FOX Network on his side, which has sucked us in with “eye-candy” programming such as American Idol (a show I used to watch I’ll admit) in an ingenious attempt to get us to stay tuned for FOX News and the ranting of Bill O’Reilly. I don’t want to be too hard on Bill; I’m a big fan of loofas myself, but, unlike Bill, I couldn’t harass a young woman and get away with it, nor could I get away with spreading such harshly narrowminded, bully-pulpit rhetoric to millions of viewers and pretending to be moral.
The degradation of journalism could not be more evident in what is occurring right here on campus. Nathan Burchfiel is quickly becoming the campus’s very own version of a young Rupert Murdoch (I only hope Nathan will marry a nice socialist chick and change his ideology). Nathan has instituted a new addition to his paper, The Terrapin Times, called “?Diamond Watch Special Reports.” Despite being a victim of The Diamondback’s unexplained refusal to stand up for its reporters both personally and publically, I am appalled by Nathan’s attacks on the campus’s only daily news outlet. Not only does Nathan not present news, he prides himself in finding bias in people who work their butts off to present the news that he’s not presenting. He hides his attack strategy behind some mirage of an “anti-bias” journalistic, Mosaic-sounding law that he himself does not follow in order to disguise his conservative agenda – go ahead and Google “Nathan Burchfiel” and look over what you find.
In a story in the February issue headlined “Kerry’s Lost Cause Big Story for DBK,” he or one of his writers talks about how The Diamondback focused primarily on Senator Kerry despite Bush’s victory in the last presidential election. It mentions some mysterious data that showed that Bush was becoming more popular in the heavily Democratic state of Maryland, referring to it simply as “other polling data that showed Bush was gaining ground with college students.” Now I’m not denying that Dubya could have gained some ground at the time of the election, but how much? It could have been a 1% increase in the polls – is that something The Diamondback would waste its time reporting on? I worked for The Diamondback during that time, and none of my bright ideas had any chance of going to press because of the election, and The Terrapin Times wants some obscure data to find its way in there just because it says it should?
In the same article, we have a prime example of generalization – only this time it’s by fault of the reader – whoever wrote this “?Diamond Watch Special” in The Terrapin Times (disguising himself for a good reason). The writer said a Diamondback article that mentioned the forward momentum of the GOP also explained the importance of minority voting, and then the implication is made that this reporting favors Kerry because “many ?minorities vote for Democrats.” Had the writer have bothered to read the article, he or she would have noticed that it covers an event involving the Black Student Union and the Latino Student Union – two minority groups. Just because the writer’s Republican pals didn’t hold their own event, does not mean he or she can claim bias for The Diamondback’s coverage of a non-Republican event.
Also note: the reporter in Boston who covered the campaign’s name is Michael Hoffman, not Matt Hoffman, as the writer says it is, and he was an editor, not just a reporter (as was Jaime Malarkey).
The writer of this article apparently is a selective reader as well. Two November 3 articles published in The Diamondback, one entitled “DEADLOCK,” and another entitled “Optimistic future for GOP” show the clout of Bush supporters and the Republican party. The latter was written by my friends Jared Favole and Laurie Au – the writer takes the trouble to name Jared (quite unnecessarily I’ll add) because of yet another story he doesn’t like. Did the writer ever think that maybe “the October 22 article portrayed Kerry campaigners as victims of Bush supporters” because they actually were victimized to some degree, making for a good story? The writer is discreetly questioning Favole’s and Byron ?Mac Farlane’s credibility, along with the credibility of any other Democratic campaigner who was actually present during the Kerry campaigning, without any foundation (I can be fair in assuming the writer of this article did not come along on the campaign rides).
I don’t understand the writer’s complaint about the “story of Harvard students calling pupils in swing states to get out the ?sic vote for Kerry” by Michael Hoffman and Scott Goldstein. Would the writer have preferred that Hoffman and Goldstein take a road trip to Texas during midterms to interview sweaty cowboys who support Bush?
I’ll move on to the complaint about The Diamondback’s “coverage centered on the confusion about how Bush could have won and the distress of students over Kerry’s loss.” It was confusing that Bush won given the fact that he has led the nation into a second Vietnam. It is confusing that the president of the greatest nation in the world is an inarticulate C-student who had failed in just about every venture in his pre-presidential life.
Then, the writer goes so far as to criticize The Diamondback for “refusing to follow FOX News and NBC.” Are you kidding me? Was this writer not alive during the last election when Bush’s own cousin prematurely (and falsely) called the election in favor of Bush as part of the FOX Network’s “Fair and Balanced” election coverage? I don’t think I’m being wishful in thinking The Diamondback gives better news than the FOX Network – news from word-of-mouth is more reliable than FOX News.
Finally, I’ll focus on the writer’s attack on Jaime Malarkey. My problem is not with the writer’s criticism of Malarkey for one-sided reporting, it’s with the writer’s use of her thefacebook.com profile to discredit her. Why does it matter if she calls herself a conservative and “slams” President Bush? If the writer is all about discovering bias in reporting, then why would the writer care what personal ideology it comes from as long as it’s there? The writer is implying that it was wrong of her to say she is a conservative and report against Bush, but since when is that the issue at hand? The “?Diamond Watch” proclaims to be on the lookout for biased reporters – not hypocrites.
Now, let’s turn out attention to the box in the bottom right-hand corner of page 6 of The Terrapin Times. Upon reading the headline, I cringed because my own thefacebook.com profile had been used to make me appear biased – God forbid! Such horror! This is the same online social-bridging service that lets you create groups such as “Jewish Girls Rock My Socks” and represent yourself with a picture of someone that isn’t even you. You can also lie about whatever you want: age, interests, sex, political philosophy – anything! I have to hand it to those reporters from The Terrapin Times; they really know how to surf the web and find quality information. I don’t know about the tight-butt world they’re living in, but I don’t think a renowned reporter from the Baltimore Sun is going to be fired because his or her thefacebook.com profile says “liberal.”
Don’t even get me started on page 7, which screams homophobia and hypocrisy. I don’t care if Megan Watzin did write an “incomplete report,” that doesn’t change the fact that she actually does a little thing called journalism and goes out and gets the news (and not the spin) – when one of The Terrapin Times writers does that, I’ll retract my criticism.
I’m glad the Collegiate Network likes your paper, Burchfiel, because I sure don’t..
An Anonymous “Liberal”
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