At first blush, journalists using drones to gather information for high-risk or investigative news stories sounds like a good idea.

After all, such unmanned aircraft systems can be sent into dangerous (or geographically challenging) news situations where life and limb might be at risk. An added bonus is that drones are much cheaper to operate than either an airplane or a helicopter, both of which require a pilot, fuel, insurance, regular maintenance and hangar space.

So what’s holding back this new era of journalism? Red tape, in the form of Federal Aviation Administration regulations, as well as state legislatures and local municipalities weighing in on the subject of operating drones in U.S. airspace.

In February 2015, the FAA unveiled a set of proposed rules that classified unmanned aircraft systems as devices weighing more than 0.55 pounds but less than 55 pounds. These same rules restrict the operation of drones to a maximum height of 500 feet off the ground, at a speed of less than 100 mph.

“Technology is advancing at an unprecedented rate, and this milestone allows federal regulations and the use of our national airspace to evolve to safely accommodate innovation,” said U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx at the time.

In December, the FAA began requiring operators of unregistered drones to register their devices. Information on its website noted that “effective Dec. 21, 2015, anyone who owns a small unmanned aircraft of a certain weight must register with the Federal Aviation Administration’s Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) registry before they fly outdoors.”

The deadline for these owners to bring their unregistered drones into compliance with the FAA (and pay the $5 registration fee) was Feb. 19. The Hill’s Keith Laing, in a story posted online Feb. 22, reported that 368,472 drones were registered by midnight Feb. 19, “surpassing the number of airplanes that are on record with the federal government.” Laing’s story can be found online at http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/270297-drone-users-face-fines-jail-time-for-not-registering-devices.

Penalties for flying unregistered drones are steep. The agency’s website notes that “failure to register an aircraft may result in regulatory and criminal sanctions. The FAA may assess civil penalties up to $27,500. Criminal penalties include fines of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment for up to three years.”

But just getting the FAA’s approval may not be enough. Cecilia Kang, a technology regulation reporter for the New York Times, posted a story online Dec. 27 that noted how the FAA’s new regulations are conflicting with even tougher drone laws that have been passed in more than 20 states so far. Kang’s story noted that many of the state-level regulations have placed “tough restrictions on areas to fly and (are) clamping down on the use of drones to snoop on neighbors.” In addition, city councils across the country, including those in the major metropolitan areas of Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami, have approved their own drone laws. Kang’s story can be found online at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/28/technology/faa-drone-laws-start-to-clash-with-stricter-local-rules.html.

In a post from Jan. 24 on the New York Times’ technology blog “Bits,” Kang also provided additional insight on the tug-of-war raging on Capitol Hill to sway lawmakers as legislation wends its way through the halls of Congress. Kang wrote that “lobbyists have scrambled for meetings with officials at the FAA, the White House and a division of NASA that is proposing a drone traffic management system.” Kang’s blog post can be found online at http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/drone-lobbying-turns-to-captiol-hill.

The main problem is that the features making drone usage so attractive to journalists are precisely the ones raising red flags with lawmakers and their constituents.

In an editorial posted online Jan. 9, the editorial board of the New York Times highlighted the American public’s wish for easy-to-understand rules while also adding that “policy makers should not make it so difficult to use drones that they end up limiting the First Amendment rights of filmmakers, activists and journalists.” The editorial, titled “Drone Regulations Should Focus on Safety and Privacy,” noted the double-edged aspect of drone usage this way: “These machines can obviously be put to good use – say, inspecting cellphone towers, shooting movies or compiling multidimensional real estate portfolios. They can also be used to snoop on people and harass them. And they can threaten other aircraft.” The editorial can be found online at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/opinion/sunday/drone-regulations-should-focus-on-safety-and-privacy.html.

Despite the legislative hurdles and privacy concerns, there have been some inroads into drone usage by news organizations. Laing noted in a Dec. 14 story for The Hill that CNN has been tapped by the FAA to be a pioneer of sorts in the deployment of drones to gather information for news stories. The federal agency approved an application from CNN to operate drones “to conduct aerial photography, aerial videography, and closed-set motion picture and television filming.” Laing’s story can be found online at http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/263103-feds-approve-cnn-for-drone-flights.

A couple of final thoughts about the deployment of drones into the ranks of the media come from a story written by Benjamin Mullin, the managing editor of Poynter.org.

Mullin’s story strikes a hopeful note that 2016 could be the year drone reporting finally takes off in this country. He wrote that “it will be a watershed development for American photojournalism writ large, one that will put relatively inexpensive aerial photography, videography and airborne sensors in play for journalists across the United States.”

On the flip side of that optimism, though, Mullin’s story details the trials and tribulations that Matt Waite has endured since founding the “Drone Journalism Lab” at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln more than three years ago. Waite, a professor of practice at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the university, received a cease-and-desist notice from the FAA soon after founding the lab, and the federal agency also shut down a similar operation at the University of Missouri. Those two drone programs, as well as others across the country, have been grounded ever since.

But Mullin noted that, in addition to CNN’s green light to use drones in its newsgathering efforts, “television stations in Cox Media Group, including Atlanta’s WSB, Boston’s WFXT and Orlando’s WFTV have also incorporated drones into their coverage, using them to report on news, weather conditions and feature stories.”

Despite the progress, Waite struck a note of ethical caution regarding drone use by journalists.

“If you wouldn’t do it on the ground, what about a drone makes you think it’s OK?” Waite asked. “And is it the manner in which we violate people’s privacy important, or the fact that it’s been done the important part?”

Mullin’s story can be found online at http://www.poynter.org/2016/why-2016-could-be-a-breakout-year-for-drone-journalism/390386.

JEFFERSON CITY — Scott Faughn and two of his publications, the Missouri Times and SEMO Times, owe more $17,000 on overdue bills for state taxes and commercial printing, according to creditor lawsuits filed recently in Cole County Circuit Court.

Petitions, lawsuits and tax liens show $7,842 is owed to the state of Missouri for taxes, and $9,518 is owed to the Central Missouri Newspapers, Inc. for printing. Some of the unpaid bills go back to 2014.

The largest single bill, $5,304, is owed by the Missouri Times to the Missouri Department of Labor, Division of Employment Security for unpaid unemployment insurance taxes covering the period between April 1, 2014 to June 30, 2015. The agency filed a certificate of assessment of contributions, interest and penalties with the court on Dec. 17, 2015.

“The certificate of assessment of contributions, interest, and penalties is an enforceable tax lien filed in circuit court for failure to file quarterly contribution and wage reports or pay state unemployment taxes when due,” said Lauren Schad, a spokeswoman for the Department of Labor. “When payment is received, the Division of Employment Security will file a satisfaction and release of certificate with the court.”

Central Missouri Newspapers, Inc. is the commercial printing company of the Jefferson City News-Tribune. It filed two petitions on Jan. 21, seeking $4,518 for unpaid bills for production of the Missouri Times between May and October of last year, and $5,000 for unpaid printing bills for the SEMO Times between September and December, 2014. Both petitions name Faughn as the companies’ registered agent. A hearing is schedule for March 30.

Myra Long, comptroller of Central Missouri Newspapers, said Faughn has made some payments.

“He is working with us, but we haven’t wrapped things up officially with the court yet,” Long said. “We will notify the court if he pays up ahead of time.”

Central Missouri Newspapers no longer prints Faughn’s publications. “He’s found a different printer,” Long said.

The Missouri Department of Revenue has filed five separate tax liens totaling $2,538 against the Missouri Times for unpaid withholding taxes beginning in June 2014, and ending in June of last year.

“If they are not paid, the taxpayer receives at least four notices before a lien is filed,” said Michelle Gleba, a spokeswoman for the Department of Revenue. “When a lien is released, a release is filed with the recorder of deeds. When an administrative judgment is satisfied, a satisfaction is filed with the circuit court.”

A reporter attempted to interview Faughn about his companies’ money troubles. The Missouri Times is headquartered at 129 East High St. in Jefferson City. A reporter found Faughn there at the top of a two-story walkup, inside a darkened room resembling a lounge.

Faughn was standing behind a bar in the room with a laptop computer in front of him. Liquor bottles stood on shelves on the wall behind him. Black and white photos of politicians covered the other walls of the room.

Faughn declined a face-to-face interview. He said he would consider written questions sent by email. Questions were emailed March 17. Faughn acknowledged receiving them March 21, but said he could not respond until next week.

Faughn, the former mayor of Poplar Bluff, launched the Missouri Times in 2013 with former Missouri House Speaker Rod Jetton. Faughn was Jetton’s former campaign manager. Jetton has since severed ties with the operation.

In addition to Faughn, the Missouri Times has two employees who put out a weekly tabloid and posts state government information on an Internet web site. Faughn also hosts a weekly Sunday morning television show, This Week in Missouri Politics, on four stations.

Although some members of the Missouri Capitol News Association questioned the editorial independence of the Missouri Times last year, the press group has allocated office and parking spaces for the publication. In 2007, Faughn was convicted by a Cape Girardeau County jury of three counts of felony forgery. In that case, he was accused of forging checks for an account for a highway expansion project.

JEFFERSON CITY — The Missouri Senate has delayed the implementation of a plan to move the press from the floor of the chamber to an upper gallery.

The Associated Press reported cost concerns led to the delay. Rushing to complete construction of a press section in the upper gallery during the upcoming legislative Spring break would have added $44,000 in overtime costs to the project’s estimate of $127,000. As it stands now, the move will be undertaken after legislative adjournment in mid-May.

At the beginning of this session, the Republican-controlled Senate voted to change its rule, effective March 29, removing the press from a 10-seat table on the Senate floor.

“Some of the press violated their code of ethics by tweeting out discussions between senators, and I will not stand for that so they will not be on the floor of the Senate anymore,” said Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard, R-Joplin. He did not elaborate.

Moving the press to the upper gallery will make it more difficult to cover the state Senate, reporters say. Getting pages of amendments will be more of a problem. And since reporters will be one floor above where the senators are located, it will be harder to grab someone to ask a question.

Reporters once covered the House from its floor but Democrats moved them to an upper gallery in the 1960s.

COLUMBIA, Mo. — While the University of Missouri faculty appeared divided over the fate of Melissa Click, the majority of those within the renowned School of Journalism wanted her fired.

“I got emails from her side and a lot against her,” said UM Curator David Steelman in an interview. “The J-school people I heard from were unanimous. They wanted her gone. There was no hesitancy.”

Formerly a little-known communications professor, Internet videos have made Click infamous. They show her screaming at a photographer attempting to take videos of protesting students, and shouting an obscenity at a police officer trying to clear demonstrators from a Columbia street.

Steelman is one of four members of the Board of Curators that voted 4-2 to fire Click following an investigation. “Her actions in October and November are those that directly violate the core values of our university,” said Hank Foley, interim chancellor of the Columbia campus.

Click’s behavior and the official response to it have raised issues regarding the First Amendment, free speech, due process for faculty, and governance of the state’s largest and oldest public university. Click’s defenders say her actions are not much different from what the Board of Curators does to keep reporters at bay while deciding sensitive issues. And many faculty believe if Click’s conduct warranted scrutiny, it should have been handled by a faculty committee, not the Board of Curators.

But the controversy attached to Click is just one of the difficulties facing the four-campus system.

“There are a whole lot of problems out there in addition to Mizzou’s problems,” said Wayne Goode, a former member of the Board of Curators. The unsettled questions facing the university are substantial:

–The university needs a new system president to succeed President Tim Wolfe who abruptly resigned last November amidst turmoil on the Columbia campus. In the meantime, Mike Middleton is serving as interim president.

–The presidential search process could be affected by the fact that there are three vacancies on the nine-member Board of Curators. The Republican head of the state Senate has said Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, should not nominate any new curators this year, leaving it up to the next governor.

–The House has voted to cut $8.7 million from the UM System’s budget. The Columbia Daily Tribune has reported that new pledges and donations to the university fell $6 million in December, and anticipated enrollment may drop by 900 students, which roughly equates to a $20 million loss of tuition revenue.

While the university has less money coming in, it is spending more to rebuild its reputation. A reporter who recently visited the state capital found Middleton on the third floor, huddled with two of the university’s main legislative lobbyists, Martin Oetting and Stephen Knorr. Their job is to keep the university on good terms with the General Assembly.

Also involved in the meeting was Mark Schwartz, who works for Statehouse Strategies, the lobbying firm operated by Andy Blunt. Blunt is the son of U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo, and also the chairman of his father’s re-election campaign this year. The university is paying Andy Blunt $10,000 a month to help patch up the university’s relationship with lawmakers.

Click’s firing should help. Before the curators voted to oust her, 117 lawmakers had signed a letter calling for Click’s dismissal.

THE CURATORS’ INVESTIGATION

The curators suspended Click with pay on Jan. 27 and hired a law firm to investigate what happened on the campus beginning Nov. 9 when Click called for some “muscle” to prevent a videographer from recording the activities of student protesters. Earlier that day, Wolfe and Columbia campus chancellor R. Bowen Loftin had resigned.

The report by the St. Louis-based firm of Bryan Cave found that economic, political and racial forces combined to create the Columbia campus tensions last fall. Graduate students who taught classes were told they couldn’t get health care coverage. African-American students protested during the Homecoming Parade Oct. 10, blocking Wolfe’s car and complaining about racial incidents that had taken place on campus. Later that month they criticized Wolfe for not engaging with them and finally called for his dismissal.

On Nov. 2, a graduate student named Jonathan Butler said he would go on a hunger strike until Wolfe was removed from office. Student protesters, calling themselves Concerned Student 1950, set up a tent camp on the Carnahan Quadrangle that night in support of the hunger strike. Four days later, Wolfe apologized for the unacceptable problem of racism at the university, and he apologized for not engaging with students during the Homecoming Parade protest. On Nov. 7, African American players on the football team announced they would boycott games and practices until Wolfe resigned, and the team’s head coach, Gary Pinkel, supported them. A day later, Wolfe said he hoped all sides could come together, but Butler criticized the statement.

The same day as Wolfe’s statement, a group of graduate students announced a two-day walkout, and faculty members said they would join it. According to the law firm’s investigation, hundreds of African-American alumni announced their support for the protests. Then, to the surprise of the Board of Curators, Wolfe resigned Nov. 9.

“Resigning in the way he did, the university was giving into the protesters,” Steelman said. “I take the protests seriously. It’s part of the college experience. I don’t belittle it. You just can’t give in.”

Goode thought Wolfe was a “very good president,” and had he been on the curators’ board he would have encouraged Wolfe to stay.

“That was a bad move for the university and for him personally,” Goode said. “All that has caused further deterioration of the reputation of the university. But he had good reasons for resigning. There was a real threat facing the campus.” In a letter sent later, Wolfe wrote that he feared the demonstrations could become violent not unlike what happened in Ferguson.

Loftin resigned, too. He had lost faculty support, the deans said they had “no confidence” in him and he had earned Wolfe’s personal animosity.

“A LIFE-CHANGING EVENT”

Melissa Click, 45, had been with the university’s communication’s department since 2003. Last fall, she was an assistant professor seeking tenure. Her husband, Richard Callahan, is a professor in the Religious Studies Department. Click also held a courtesy appointment in the School of Journalism, which meant she served on graduate committees of students seeking master’s and doctoral degrees.

The law firm’s investigation said Click was with her husband and children watching the Homecoming Parade, when about 11 African American students entered the street and blocked Wolfe’s car. According to the report, Click became frustrated by the crowd’s lack of sympathy with the protesters, and she joined the African American protesters in the street. According to the report, Click told the law firm’s investigators in an interview that she argued with a Columbia police officer as he tried to move students out of the street to get the parade moving again. The report also noted a Feb. 13 account in the Columbia Missourian that included police body camera footage of the incident in which Click is reportedly telling a police officer to “get your f—ing hands off me.”

The law firm’s report said Click called her experience that day a “life changing event.” After it, she led a group of faculty who signed a statement supporting the protesting students and condemning racist acts on campus. The report also said that through contacts of her husband’s, she was able to encourage a Los Angeles Times reporter to come to Columbia to cover the protest. The report said Click talked to the reporter, and that the reporter’s story later attributed to Click a statement that Wolfe’s car “bumped into a protester” during the parade.

The report also said Click worked with other members of the faculty in drafting a statement that called for a two-day walkout by faculty, which she posted to a Facebook page she had created called Concerned Faculty 1950. She acknowledged that she did not want to post it to her personal Facebook page because she was in the process of going through tenure review at that time, the report said.

On the morning that Wolfe announced his resignation, journalists converged on the Carnahan Quadrangle to interview and photograph the jubilant protesters. One of the journalists was Tim Tai, a photojournalist student from St. Louis, who was freelancing for ESPN. As Tai attempted to enter the tent city, three MU faculty members were shown either blocking him or interfering with his attempts to take photos. At one point, Tai said he had a First Amendment right to take photos on public property. But the protesters, led by Click, chanted: “Hey, hey, ho, ho, reporters have got to go.” According to the report, Callahan raised his hands to block Tai’s camera lens. The report also said that Janna Basler, director of Greek Life, was among a group of people who formed a ring that pushed Tai back and away from the protesters.

Mark Schierbecker, a history and German student from the St. Louis County suburb of Rock Hill, recorded all of these events in a video that he later posted on You Tube. Accompanying the video, he wrote, “This is what civic-level censorship looks like at a university with the largest and oldest public college of journalism.”

As Basler and others were pushing Tai away, Schierbecker was able to get closer to the encamped protesters. As he approached Click with his camera, she yelled, “No, you need to get out, you need to get out.” Schierbecker replied, “No, I don’t.” At that point, according to the report, Click reached out and physically knocked Schierbecker’s camera ajar. She then walked towards a group of people and began to yell, “Hey who wants to help me get this reporter out of here?” And then, pointing to Schierbecker, Click said, “I need some muscle over here, help me get him out, who’s gonna help me?”

When Schierbecker told her that he had a right to be in a public place, owned by the university, Click said, “I know. That’s a really good one, and I’m a communication faculty and I really get that argument, but you need to go, you need to go, you need to go.” The report said Click continued to block his camera with her hand while she was yelling at him.

AT THE J-SCHOOL: “ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE”

If anything sets the University of Missouri-Columbia apart from other universities, it’s the Journalism School. The school’s reputation draws students from around the world, and the out-of-state tuition they pay goes a long way toward paying the university’s bills. What happened to Tai seemed like biting the hand that feeds you.

According to the report, when Schierbecker’s video went viral on You Tube and Facebook “all hell broke loose” at the Journalism School. Initially many believed Click was a member of the faculty by virtue of her courtesy appointment. Dean David Kurpius said Click’s actions were wrong and it was not her role to exclude the media and journalists from the area of protest. “Nobody should lay hands on a journalist as she did in reaching out and pushing Mark Schierbecker’s camera,” Kurpius said.

Brian Brooks, who retired as the school’s associate dean but who was still an adjunct member of the faculty, filed a harassment complaint with the school’s Title IX enforcement office based on what he saw on the video. Brooks later wrote a letter saying, Click’s actions “constituted a violation of the students’ civil rights because they had every right to be filming in a public place.”

The night of the incident, Mitchell McKinney, chair of the Communications Department, arrived home to find he had received more than 100 emails about Click’s conduct. According to the report, McKinney was not surprised. “She frequently gets upset and she can be loud in stating her opinions to faculty and students,” the report said. McKinney said he had no issue with Click being boisterous and vocal, but that he did not approve of physical intimidation and aggression. His personal reaction to the video was that Click had been wrong, and he put out a statement to that effect. McKinney later told investigators that Click and her allies believed that his statement amounted to throwing Click “under the bus.”

In the days that followed, Click, Basler and Callahan all apologized to Tai and Schierbecker. The Journalism School initiated a procedure to revoke Click’s courtesy appointment, but before that happened, she apologized to the school and resigned from that post. Basler was suspended with pay until January, and received a formal letter of reprimand from her department.

Schierbecker reported to campus police that Click had assaulted him. In January the Columbia city prosecutor charged her with third-degree assault. Under an agreement, if Click complies with community service and gets in no further trouble, no more criminal proceedings will be brought against her.

The university provost issued a formal letter of reprimand to Click. In response, she said she was sorry that her actions had negatively impacted the MU community but that she also believed the wording of the reprimand letter was “too harsh.” In December, about 100 members of the MU faculty signed a letter supporting Click. The Journalism School announced that Tim Tai had been selected as the recipient of the First Amendment Defender Award.

CLICK’S DEFENSE

A Google search for “Melissa Click” generates an image of an angry woman, wearing glasses and shouting directly at the camera that has captured her at an emotional moment. Click hired a public relations firm to change how she appeared to the public, or at least put her actions into context. She agreed to be interviewed, and in mid February she wrote an op-ed column in the Columbia Daily Tribune under the headline: “Actions on Quadrangle Were Spontaneous, Instinctive and Regrettable.”

“I am deeply sorry for the mistakes I made that day and take full responsibility for my words and actions,” Click began. She described the tension percolating on the Carnahan Quadrangle and explained that “hateful and threatening incidents targeting black students” were on the minds of many people in the tent encampment. Click said she was predisposed to protect the encamped students from intruders.

“Unlike the numerous professional journalists I had met that day who introduced themselves with their names and affiliations, he (Schierbecker) introduced himself only as ‘media’,” Click wrote. “I felt concerned about why he was inside the circle when the majority of journalists respected the students’ requests for a few quiet moments.

“My regrettable call for ‘muscle’ was not a call for violence but instead a request for more experienced and taller members from the camp to come to my aid,” she added. “The temporary circle around the students was not intended to silence journalists or infringe on anyone’s rights, only to ask for a few moments of respect and courtesy while the students collected their thoughts.”

Click was given the chance to respond to the curators’ investigation. She said the videos needed to be viewed within the larger context. “While some would judge me by a short portion of videotape, I do not think that this is a fair way to evaluate these events,” she said.

But the videos and the law firm’s investigation were enough for the short-handed Board of Curators. When it issued the announcement that Click was fired, the board’s official statement said: “The board believes that Dr. Click’s conduct was not compatible with university policies and did not meet expectations for a university faculty member. The circumstances surrounding Dr. Click’s behavior, both at a protest in October when she tried to interfere with police officers who were carrying out their duties, and at a rally in November, when she interfered with members of the media and students who were exercising their rights in a public space and called for intimidation against one of our students, we believe demands serious action.

“The board respects Dr. Click’s right to express her views and does not base this decision on her support for students engaged in protest or their views. However, Dr. Click was not entitled to interfere with the rights of others, to confront members of law enforcement or to encourage potential physical intimidation against a student.”

Click has appealed the decision to the board, essentially asking it for reconsideration of its decision.

Faculty discipline is not the curators’ regular job. In fact, it’s hard to recall a time when the appointed stewards of the university interfered in the business of reviewing faculty conduct. The university has a procedure contained in its Collected Rules and Regulations, which have been approved by the curators, and which provide that administrators and faculty committees handle complaints of faculty misconduct. Many who have come to Click’s defense believe her case should have been dealt with through this procedure, rather than the extraordinary method of suspension, investigation and dismissal by the board.

Many faculty members said the curators should have given campus administrators a chance to handle the situation with the rules that were in place. The curators’ firing of Click made it appear as though the curators were caving in to outside pressure, especially from the legislature.

“By flouting the Collected Rules and Regulations of the University, the Board of Curators has caused needless injury to the University of Missouri,” said a statement issued by the MU Faculty Council.

The American Association of University Professors complained that while the curators said Click could appeal their decision to the board, “it has not provided her with a hearing before a faculty body.”

Hans-Joerg Tiede, associate secretary of the AAUP’s Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure and Governance, called on the board to rescind its termination notice and allow Click’s case to be handled according to the university’s rules.

John K. Wilson, an editor of Academe Magazine, which is published by the American Association of University Professors, wrote an opinion piece saying the action taken against Click was a violation of the First Amendment protections of academic freedom.

“The administration routinely keeps the media out of their spaces where they gather to plan strategies dealing with protesters, and a journalist who tried to enter their conference rooms would be quickly arrested,” Wilson wrote. “So why shouldn’t protesters have the same ‘safe spaces’ to privately discuss their plans?”

Wilson noted that Click has acknowledged she was wrong. “I can’t see how such a minor offense would deserve more than public criticism or perhaps a formal reprimand,” Wilson added.

“Let’s imagine that a campus police officer did the exact same actions that Click did, trying to prevent a student from recording the Board of Curators as they walked on campus. Does anyone imagine for a moment that these curators would impose a suspension of the campus cop? Or that prosecutors would file charges? Or that Republican legislators would demand the officer’s dismissal?”

THE STATE OF MIZZOU

In the field of higher education, competitors seem to be hoping to capitalize on MU’s misfortunes. One lawmaker has introduced a bill that would make it easier for Missouri State University in Springfield to offer engineering and doctoral degrees, which are now MU’s exclusive territory. Another has put in legislation making Lincoln University in Jefferson City the state’s “flagship campus.”

There was a time when the university could count on powerful friends in the Legislature to protect its flanks. At one time, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the chairman of the House Budget Committee were both from Columbia and made the university’s welfare a top priority. Those days are gone.

Now, one of the most vocal critics is Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Schaefer is seeking the Republican nomination for state attorney general. “Kurt has a new constituency and the constituency he is playing to is the statewide voters in the Republican primary,” said one former lawmaker.

Schaefer told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Click’s firing is “a step in the right direction.”

According to Steelman, “legislators had lost faith in the university’s ability to govern itself.

“Whether people should be symbols or not, symbols run the world,” Steelman said. “Melissa Click became a symbol that all of the good the university does is being overshadowed. We can do some remarkable things in bio-med, engineering and plant sciences. It doesn’t change the fact that great people are doing great work.”

Goode, who served for many years as a lawmaker in the state House and state Senate, said the Melissa Click issue was just one example of how university problems can be perceived and misunderstood in the Legislature.

“There have always been those in the Legislature, and it’s true to some extent, that the faculty doesn’t work,” Goode said. “They teach a couple of classes a week, and that’s all they do. That point of view has been there a long time.

“But the majority of the faculty work hard, teaching and on research, but the legislators don’t understand that. The Legislature has always had trouble understanding that issue, and when something like this comes up, it’s an opportunity to pile on, and you see that happening.”

While watching Spotlight, one of this year’s Academy Award Best Picture nominees, I cerebrated that the greatest journalist in the history of cinema is neither Charles Foster Kane nor Bob Woodward, but lawyer turned documentarian Frederick Wiseman. Wiseman set out to replicate in the late 20^th century United States what Emile Zola had done to the Second French Empire in the mid-19^th century. The Naturalist novelist Zola wrote a series of twenty novels (Les Rougon-Macquart) that used aesthetic means of storytelling in order to critique the corrupt institutions of Napoleon III’s government.

Each of Zola’s novels grappled with a different institution, set amid a story of a genetically corrupted member of the Lantier family. For example, in La Bête humaine (1890), a train engineer, Jacques murders women when he is sexually attracted to them. At the end of the novel, the reprobate is thrown from the speeding train by his fireman, in retribution for the engineer having slept with his wife.

Set in 1870, the driverless train speeds to the front of the Franco-Prussian War, while drunken soldiers sing, oblivious to both aspects of their imminent doom, at the hands of the train crash, and in the war France is destined to lose. Zola positions the train as a failed ship of state, doomed to crash not only because of Lantier’s debauchery, but also because of the many social institutions (the judiciary, the military, the bourgeoisie) that have allowed him to exist. The very institution of nationalized travel, the train system, the lifeblood of the country, has its arteries clogged.

For his part, Wiseman has spent almost fifty years making similar aesthetic investigations of American institutions, using not the Naturalist novel but the documentary film as his critical tool. The first is the most infamous, Titicut Follies (1967), a scathing indictment of the inhuman care of the criminally insane inmates at the Bridgewater State Hospital. His best film is his second, High School (1968), a damning critique of Northeast High School in Philadelphia, a purportedly successful, “good” school that turns out to be a factory churning through soldiers to fight in the Vietnam War.

Although he has recently slowed his pace, Wiseman has continuously shown the inner workings of crucial yet otherwise understudied institutions that affect our lives in untold ways. Missile (1987) studies in minute detail how soldiers are trained to turn the keys to launch nuclear warheads, and thus dutifully become responsible for global annihilation. That such training works impeccably is what Wiseman, using only direct cinema methods (observing without manipulation in voice-over or music) offers as the central thesis of his films. Wiseman continues to edit his footage aggressively, extracting that which is otherwise hidden about how people do and do not function in organized groups, for example, at the State Legislature (2006) and the Boxing Gym (2010).

I thought about Wiseman the whole time I watched Spotlight, a touted film about a team of journalists investigating for The Boston Globe in 2002 the decades of sex abuse of children by Catholic priests. The film is well worth seeing, full of engaging performances by Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, and John Slattery as the team of journalists breaking the story about the cover-up of the abuse by the Church. Stanley Tucci steals the show as Mitchell Garabedian, a gruff but relentless lawyer working behind the scenes for justice for the victims.

But by no means is Spotlight the great film previous commentators have led you to believe it is. The film, of course, has its heart in the right place. The filmmakers know to indict the individualistic logic of American culture, the typical Hollywood screenplay structure that only emphasizes the culpability of bad individuals in order to celebrate the inherent goodness of most people.

To its credit, Spotlight correctly captures the parochialism of Boston, fundamentally a small town whose inhabitants are affected by what foundational American Studies scholar Perry Miller once termed “the New England Mind,” an isolationism that is cold and indifferent to outsiders. The heroic lawyer Garabedian tells the principal researcher, Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo) that the new editor at the newspaper, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) might be able to bring the story to light because, “It takes an outsider.” The idealized Mike, a passionate crusader for justice, likens the defense of the clergy to the good Germans argument in the wake of World War II. And, most crucially, Baron demands that his reporters “focus on the institution, not the individual.”

Indeed, the magnitude of the abuse, and the multiple mechanisms through which it was covered up, indicate quite clearly that the evil that destroys on a grand scale functions at the sociological, and not the individual, level. However, by celebrating the exquisite skill of the reporters, the film indicts the Catholic Church but only glosses the role of its own institution, journalism, in the cover-up. In the last minutes of the film, the leader of the Spotlight team, Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton) comes to learn that crusaders a decade before had sent him evidence of the scandal. Oblivious to the importance of the story, Robinson allowed a small article to be buried in the Metro section, guaranteeing that it would have no impact whatsoever.

This is where a great film about this story would start, not end. What cognitive frames were in place for Robinson to not even notice that which contradicted the expected? How are such frames created, and how might journalists know how to see through them when incongruous data arrives on their desks?

If anything, Truth (2015), a largely ignored film about journalism released shortly before Spotlight, grapples with this question in a more compelling way. James Vanderbilt’s compelling film studies the failure of journalistic instincts, as Mary Mapes and Dan Rather air a critical story about George W. Bush’s National Guard service on 60 Minutes, partially relying on what would be revealed as forged evidence. While Truth is nowhere near the kind of complex film of the sort that Frederick Wiseman makes, it at least understands that to make an important film about social life, you either need to demonstrate the failures in logic that govern the institution (as does Truth and High School) or document meticulously how a well-functioning institution like the military industrial complex imperils our very existence, as we see in Missile. By never leaving the institution of journalism, Spotlight cannot properly account for the failures in logic of the Catholic Church, nor can it understand that institution’s impressive skill at covering up the truth for decades. These are the gambits Wiseman’s cinema teaches us to demand of a great film that would seek to understand an institution, whether functioning for or against the betterment of our social lives.

Spotlight at least tries to indict the institutional power of the Catholic Church in Boston, but does not even scratch the surface of how and why the industrial practices of journalism have failed us. Even Truth ends up an apology for Mary Mapes and Dan Rather whom the film insists are well-intentioned individuals. We await a truly great film about journalism—Zola-esque in its scope—that would place the institution of newsgathering amid the more general intellectual corruption of American life, a state that has led to a dangerously ill-educated and ill-informed population more concerned with Kim Kardashian than Kim Jong-un.

Book:  Racism in American Popular Media: From Aunt Jemima to the Frito Bandito

Author:  Brian D. Behnken and Gregory D. Smithers

Publisher:  PRAEGER, Santa Barbara

147 pages, $37.

Racial stereotypes are still prevalent in much of the media audiences consume today. Whether indulging in reality television, listening to hip hop music or simply tuning in to political views on immigration policy, negative 19^th and 20^th century caricatures are still being depicted. To introduce readers to some of the key players in the popularization of stereotypes, authors Brian D. Behnken, associate professor from Iowa State University and Gregory D. Smithers, associate professor from Virginia Commonwealth University, who have both authored numerous books on race and racism, compiled a comprehensive introduction to issues that deserve more in-depth coverage.

The authors explore how racial depictions of African Americans, Native Americans, Asians (Chinese & Japanese) and Latino Americans reinforce social hierarchies. These depictions were used to teach adults, and children on how minority groups were to be treated in society. The publishing business, a booming industry in the 19^th and 20th centuries for those who could afford to buy the books at the time, produced overtly racial non-fiction works that “purported to analyze, categorize, and better explain the “scientific” inferiority of black people.” Analyses such as these were compiled in a study by Samuel George Morton who, after long, painstaking hours in the lab measuring skull sizes concluded, “the negro is…the lowest grade of humanity.” What Morton was releasing for his audience of wealthy white people was all the proof needed in Antebellum America to enslave, deride and rape African Americans.

Native Americans in the media were depicted as primitive savages, and some of these images are still alive today. These depictions include being one with nature, getting high on peyote, getting drunk or portrayed as untamable animals set on opposing white civilization. Native Americans were also believed to be a dying race due to the expansion of white civilization. The savage metaphor was useful for framing Native Americans in works of fiction as well as for Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. Latino depictions were often viewed as greasy, lazy, knife wielding thieves who adorned large sombreros. The Frito Bandito (1967) and Speedy Gonzalez (early 1950s) were two depictions that used such stereotypes for corporate gains.

Asians were not excluded from demeaning depictions as The Mysterious Dr. Fu-Manchu (1913) created an intelligent, conniving threat to the white race. Fu-Manchu was famous for mixing potions and conjuring spells to “conquer and breed! Kill the white man and take his women!” Fu-Manchu was in stark contrast to Charlie Chan (1925), who was seen as “effeminate, compliant, and even subservient to white people.” Book, advertising, film and cartoon industries stereotyped these racial groups to validate slavery, capture land and ultimately make a profit. This book thus provides a basic background into these discriminatory images. However, this is done at the detriment of not having a complete historical analysis of stereotypes, the people who carried them out and the social implications inherent in minstrelsy.

The Mammy stereotype, depicted on the book’s cover, is one that has been in countless books, shows on television, films and even in American kitchens. Aunt Jemima, Hattie McDaniel’s “Mammy” and Mammy Two-Shoes from Tom and Jerry are the predominant focus of African-American depictions throughout the book. Uncle Tom (the faithful servant) and Pickaninny children (or little Negro children) were also discussed on several occasions. The remaining stereotypes, the Buck (African-American male savage), the Coon (lazy African-American male) the Jezebel (hyper-sexualized African-American woman) and the Tragic Mulattoe (mixed breed male/female, normally black and white) are mentioned only in passing, leaving the reader to wonder about the importance and reasons they became popular to portray.

The act of black, brown, red, and yellow face minstrelsy have a long history in which white actors would portray different racial groups by painting their skin different colors and adopting broken English to be seen as believable to white audiences. Such minstrel depictions were often used to “instruct audiences as to how they should regard nonwhite people or to reinforce pre-existing racial prejudices.” The authors mention that actors such as Anna May Wong (Daughter of the Dragon, 1931) and Lincoln Theodore Monroe (Stepin Fetchit) would portray minstrel versions of themselves when given the opportunity. Seldom do the authors touch on why those actors were only afforded those roles.

The detail in analysis of media content gives descriptions that enable readers to visualize each scene. Speedy Gonzales (1955) depicts a group of mice waiting at a fence guarded by Sylvester the cat. The mice know they would be killed if they attempt to cross the fence so they wait for Speedy Gonzales to zip past the guard and arrive with the cheese. Upon arrival from the cheese factory Speedy tells them in broken English “Dere is plentee more where dis cheese it come from.” This scene is then broken down to represent a real-world situation in reference to immigration. The mice waiting at the gate represent Mexicans who are attempting to cross the border and Sylvester the cat is the border patrol. Examples such as these are replete and provide a societal context audiences do not often consider while consuming media.

To end their introduction into the world of institutionalized racism the authors touch on a few activist groups that have been pivotal in combating racist images in the media. Groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Involvement of Mexican-Americans in Gainful Endeavors (IMAGE) and the National Mexiacan-American Anti-Defamation Committee (NMAADC), were noted for counteracting the works of D. W. Griffith, and Frito Lay’s Frito Bandito. Sports teams such as the Kansas City Chiefs and Cleveland Indians were included to bring attention to some of the stereotypical images Native Americans still face.

Racism in American Popular Media is a solid introductory text for readers interested in a brief history of racialized media portrayals from the past two centuries. The authors cover a lot in this book As a result it leaves more to be desired. With the exclusion of the foreword, introduction and notes, the book is only 125 pages in length. Within those pages readers are subject to long descriptions that can be reduced to a few key quotes. The authors were very thorough in their scene descriptions, however with such a limited space, there are plenty of other options available to fill these pages. One topic could be the limitations of actors in maligned races to play stereotyped versions of themselves, and the impact it had on the way they saw themselves. If scholars new to the topic of racialized images in the media want a quick introduction, this book may appeal to them, however scholars serious in the topic should look elsewhere.

The presidential primary debates have been big business this election cycle. Viewership records have been set for Fox News (24 million viewers), CNN (23 million), CNBC (14 million) and Fox Business (13.5 million), destroying old marks across the board. Viewers also have begun live-tweeting the broadcasts in record numbers, a practice sometimes called second screening.

This seems inevitable, and may be innocuous. So voters are scrolling through their Twitter timelines as politicians recite practiced lines. Is this just extra fluff on top of a largely low-substance diet of political news and entertainment? Communication technology researchers are trying to find out.

First, the good news. Second screening may prompt viewers to more closely analyze the information candidates present by way of what’s known as central route processing, according to J. Brian Houston of the University of Missouri. Because they are more actively engaged, these plugged-in voters often apply greater scrutiny to the claims being bandied about by presidential hopefuls and also-rans.

Second screeners, who are by definition already online, are also more likely to proceed with donations, petitions and other forms of engagement with the democratic process, to the relief of every civics teacher. According to a study led by Homero Gil de Zuniga of the University of Vienna’s Media Innovation Lab, the second screen can act as a bridge from television viewing to concrete involvement.

As with any technology, second screening can also play to people’s baser instincts. According the University of Tennessee’s Jaclyn Cameron, those following simultaneous reactions to live events are more likely to see performances, and their “winner,” in the same terms as the hivemind. Exposure to an echo chamber may prevent second screeners from speaking out about their opinion even if they are not swept up in the tide.

Following the live-stream of Twitter reactions also draws people’s attention to nonverbal communication rather than the verbal combat on the less-small screen, according to a study by the University of Wisconsin’s Dhavan Shah. Shah’s team merged a shot-by-shot analysis of the 2012 first presidential debate, in terms of President Obama and Mitt Romney’s body language and oratory, with real-time measures of the reaction on Twitter. The findings show second screening may put the public in the un-evolved position of choosing their leaders on pre-verbal indicators of ability.

The phenomenon can be seen as amplifying the big shift from radio to TV. The first televised presidential debate in 1960 pitted a tan, well-rested Kennedy against a sickly Nixon, and the influence of image in campaigns has been growing ever since. Color, HD and other broadcast advances have made optics more of a king-maker than ever.

When following online, Shah’s research suggests viewers may be even more likely to be swept up in physical performances.

Twitter may also exacerbate the problems commonly associated with mainstream news’ campaign coverage. While traditional news is more likely to cover the issues raised in the debate, Kyle Heim of Seton Hall found that the Twitter stream is dominated by meta-coverage — comments about the moderators, the staging and other superficial details.

Second screeners may come away even more cynical, especially if they employ Twitter as their first screen in lieu of witnessing an event. The 140-character limit of tweets makes substantive coverage more difficult, a fact that Heim says strengthens the need for traditional editorial gatekeeping.

Still, there’s hope the critical tone that pervades viewers’ Twitter commentary may be heard, and used to improve a debate format with which few are satisfied.

Storm chasers are a unique group of individuals who spend most springs driving across the most rural areas of the country in search of severe weather. The mentalities of such people driving thousands of miles and spending hundreds of dollars to see a phenomenon that may literally last seconds would have many people questioning their sanity. Most chasers say their passion to see such amazing weather is what fuels these quests, although a certain level of insanity plays a role.

While storm chasers come from a variety of backgrounds, all are weather geeks. A few have degrees in meteorology or atmospheric science, but most are weather geeks with cars. Their reasoning for being out is what separates them from others. Some are out doing scientific research, others are out for public safety, a few take groups of people out on “tours”, but many simply want to fulfill their desire to see the weather.

Even with the recent decline in gas prices, storm chasing remains an expensive activity. The costs of logging thousands of road miles and living out of hotels leads many to narrowing their ventures to a few weeks a year. Many take personal vacation time to make a set trip in hopes of seeing whatever they can within their allotted window of time. However, there are a few who offset those costs by selling videos to news organizations. While most will never make a living shooting weather video, many are able to recoup most of the costs, where breaking even is considered the goal.

As the popularity of storm chasing has increased, so has the number of people shooting weather video. The market has been flooded with imagery of severe weather and as a result has increased competition and driven down the price of those videos. Ten years ago, a good tornado video would easily net a thousand dollars per network whereas now that same video may only net one-third of that. Even as the quality of video has increased, the price continues to decline.

For chasers to be successful, they need to utilize the services of a video broker, someone who can do the legwork to sell the video while the chaser is in the field. A broker is usually responsible for notifying the networks of the incoming video and handles any licensing paperwork for a sale. To the broker, those chasers are called “stringers” or “freelance” video shooters. Once those stringers shoot the video, they edit it into a several-minute package and send the video over the Internet to the broker, and the broker handles the rest.

As a comparison, the movie “Night Crawler” follows an independent videographer or stringer working to sell footage to a local news station. In the movie, the pressure to make the sales is escalated when the station pushes the stringers by threatening them with the loss of their contract. While the real life weather stringers are not faking scenes, as in Night Crawler, they face an escalating need to get better, more dramatic video as storm chasers put themselves in dangerous situations to shoot high-quality video.

With the storm-chaser market flooded, competition can make selling video very difficult. While the sheer number of chasers on a single event can make the field difficult enough for any one chaser to make a sale, the other storm chasers aren’t the biggest source of competition. The general public, most of whom are unaware that their video can be worth money, will hand over their video to see their name on TV. That free video, regardless of quality, will more times than not get the airtime over any video that would cost the network a couple hundred dollars.

To stay ahead of that competition, storm chasers have pushed the safety envelope, often putting themselves closer to danger to get more extreme video footage. This has led to numerous incidents in recent years from chasers taking direct hits from tornadoes to causing auto accidents. As a result, the extreme chaser video has taken over the general market for storm video and led to criticism.

Over the last few years, extreme videos have aired publically, often sold to networks and aired to millions. These videos depict incidents of dangerous and questionable tactics by chasers. This has included dramatic footage taken of tornadoes yards away. In other cases, chasers have shown themselves taking dangerous risks such as hiding under overpasses or breaking traffic laws.

Storm chasers have a certain level of experience, usually much more so than members of the general public viewing these videos. Chasers are equipped with computers, mobile radar and various other tools that help them navigate severe weather. They also have experience and enough knowledge to make some of the calls they do. The public does not see this, but only the extreme video showing a chaser staying safe from a tornado. Without that context, it leads viewers to think they, too, can safely be close to tornadoes.

The catch-phrase these days is “saving lives,” which many chasers claim they are doing. Yet they will willingly release video that demonstrates unsafe or questionable behavior, which the public digests and sometimes imitates, unaware of the danger. As a result, members of the public continue to perform unsafe practices for the sake of better video. And the problem is compounded when such video is what producers seek.

Thus, chasers likely will continue to unknowingly endanger the public by showing these extreme encounters because that’s what gets on TV. Unfortunately, safe behavior simply cannot compete in today’s infotainment marketplace.

(Photo by Tony Laubach)

JEFFERSON CITY, MO. – In 1974, the Missouri Egg Producers Association put a hard-boiled egg on the desk of each member of the state Senate as a gift.

The morning the eggs appeared, before the session began, two senators played catch with one in the rear of the chamber. An egg smashed against a marble wall.

A St. Louis Globe-Democrat reporter wrote an account of the incident, which appeared in the newspaper the next morning. One senator angered by the story walked to the Senate press table and smashed an egg down to let his feelings be known.

But the Senate did not throw the press out.

A few years later, when Sen. Nelson Tinnin, a Democrat from Hornersville, fell asleep in his chair, a United Press International reporter wrote a story about it. Tinnin was upset and kicked the reporter in the buttocks the next time the two were together. That prompted some wags to refer to Tinnin as “the booter from the Bootheel.”

But they did not throw the press off the Senate floor.

Last week it seemed that the Missouri senators’ patience with the public disclosure of their antics was exhausted. As the 2016 session began, the Republican-controlled Senate adopted a new rule: Effective March 29 reporters would no longer be able to witness what’s happening from a 10-seat table on the Senate floor. Instead, the press would be moved to a place in the upper gallery.

“Some of the press violated their code of ethics by tweeting out discussions between senators, and I will not stand for that so they will not be on the floor of the Senate anymore,” said Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard, R-Joplin.

Sen. Jill Schupp, a Democrat from St. Louis County, said she liked having the press close by.

“Anything they hear they’re entitled to tweet,” Schupp said. “This is a public spot.”

“Not necessarily,” Richard replied. “Not a private conversation between senators on debate and on issues, and I think that’s a violation.”

Richard did not elaborate as to what tweeted conversation caused the problem. A request to interview Richard for this story was referred to one of the Senate’s communications people, who said Richard was done talking about it and was too busy to be interviewed.

But the Associated Press reported that Richard’s predecessor, Tom Dempsey, was upset in 2014 because a reporter had sent out a twitter message disclosing that Dempsey had ordered the Senate’s presiding officer to restore order in the chamber. According to the AP, Dempsey’s chief of staff at the time said Dempsey had presumed his instructions were a private conversation. Dempsey, a Republican from St. Charles, resigned his seat last year to become a lobbyist.

Why had it taken so long, from 2014 until now, for the Senate to make this move? Some long time Senate observers said that since veterans like Virginia Young, chief of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch bureau, and Bob Priddy, long-time news director of the Missourinet, had recently retired, there were fewer journalists steeped in tradition who would stand up to oppose the move. Since the new capital building opened in 1919, reporters have been covering the Senate from the table on the floor of the chamber.

Priddy, in a personal blogpost earlier this week, said moving the press amounted to “pettiness.”

“The Senate is doing nothing to keep members from getting text messages on their cell phones from lobbyists in the halls who often tell them how to answer questions or what their positions should be during discussions of bills,” Priddy wrote. “Reporters are not welcome physically in the Senate chamber. But the virtual presence of special interests gets a pass.”

Coverage Obstacle

Moving the reporters from the floor to the gallery is a lot like shifting from a box seat to the bleachers. You’re still able to see the game but you might miss interesting details.

Alex Stuckey, who covers the legislature for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, said the view of some senators’ desks may be obscured from the seats in the proposed new press section.

“I think it will make it more difficult to see who’s talking and that may make it more difficult to follow what’s going on,” Stuckey said.

Getting pages of amendments, which can come fast and furious during a Senate floor session, will be more of a problem. And since reporters will be one floor above where the senators are located, it will be harder to grab someone to ask a question.

Senators will like that. Many of them came over from the House, and that’s how it works there. Reporters once covered the House from its floor but Democrats moved them to an upper gallery in the 1960s.

The public couldn’t care less where reporters sit to cover Senate happenings. The senators know they won’t hear complaints from their constituents. But the Senate’s 26-4 vote to eject the press is the latest in a long series of developments limiting public contact with their elected representatives as well as the media’s opportunity to report on what they are doing.

Missouri’s open meetings law says: “It is the public policy of this state that meetings, records, votes, actions and deliberations of public governmental bodies be open to the public unless otherwise provided by law.” But that doesn’t prevent elected officials from erecting filters to screen what’s going on.

During budget negotiations between the House and Senate, when five members of one body horse trade with five from the other, the negotiating appears in the open. But people in the audience can’t hear what’s happening because all the lawmakers sit at a table and whisper to one another.

Senate committees hold open sessions. But more than once in recent years, chairmen have limited how television cameras may record the events.

Architects under lawmakers’ direction have played their role in limiting access to government officials. A few years ago, the Senate erected glass partitions around its chamber to keep the public at bay. People can come in only by invitation of the senators.

Attendance at Senate committee functions has been limited by the construction of smaller meeting rooms cutting down the numbers who can attend. The legislature now has fewer night committee meetings, meaning that if someone from a distance wants to come and comment on a bill, they have to take a day off of work to do so. As a result paid lobbyists provide most of the input on what’s being considered in Jefferson City.

When Priddy became news director of the Missourinet in 1975, senators were readily accessible, could be interviewed on the spot and were game to give answers. There were no hired spokesmen then to run interference.

Now the Senate has an elaborate communications operation with people hired year-round for a session that lasts five months. The majority Republican caucus has a communications director, Lauren Hieger, who is paid $67,500 annually. The minority Democratic contingent has a similar position occupied by Charles Hatcher, whose annual salary is $78,124. In addition, there are five “public information specialists” on the Senate payroll collecting a total of $177,610 per year.

At the beginning of this legislative session, Hieger sent a message to the capital press corps asking its members to wait before pestering them with questions.

“I have also had a request from many senators that they have some time upon adjournment before giving interviews,” Hieger wrote. “To help them with that request, I ask that if you have a specific senator you would like to interview to either let me, Charles Hatcher, or his or her staff member know.”

In his blog comment on Hieger’s message, Priddy wrote: “Who needs some partisan functionary to tell them a reporter wants to ask a question?”

Author’s note: Terry Ganey covered the Missouri Legislature for 35 years for the Associated Press, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Columbia Daily Tribune.

The headline on the story written by Keith Wagstaff and posted online Oct. 1 at the website www.nbcnews.com couldn’t be any clearer: “FAA Misses Deadline for Creating Drone Regulations.”

With all the intricacies of the drone debate swirling through the media, this should come as no surprise to anyone who’s followed this issue. But the news poses a serious obstacle for student journalists and media professionals who want to incorporate this new technology into modern newsgathering.

In 2012, Congress issued an edict to the Federal Aviation Administration to incorporate unmanned aircraft systems, also known by the acronym UAS, into the national airspace. The FAA had a deadline of Sept. 30, 2015 to get that done, but that deadline has flown past with no definite date to replace it.

On the day of the original FAA deadline, a coalition of 29 different organizations sent a letter to Michael Huerta, the FAA’s administrator, urging the agency “to use all available means to finalize the small UAS rules immediately without any further delays and move ahead with the nest regulatory steps on the path for integrating all UAS into the NAS (National Airspace System).”

Wagstaff noted in his story that an unnamed FAA spokesman told NBC News “our main, overriding goal is safety,” and that final rules for drone operators should be in place by “late next spring.”

In a related development, the FAA convened a four-day “UAS Registration Task Force” beginning Nov. 3 to focus on the following questions regarding the registration of drones weighing less than 55 pounds:

• How do we make registration as easy as possible for consumers while providing accountability?
• What products should we exclude from registration based on weight, speed, altitude and flying time?
• What information should we collect during the registration process, and what should we do with the data?
• Should every unmanned aircraft sold have its own serial number, or another way to tie particular aircraft to a particular user?
• Should the process include a formal education component before an aircraft can be registered?
• Should registration be retroactive and apply to unmanned aircraft that are now in the system?
• Should there be an age requirement for registration?

In his opening statement to the task force members, Huerta noted that “we’re working on a tight timetable – Secretary Fox (U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Fox) has set a deadline of Nov. 20 for the task force to complete its recommendations. This reflects the urgency of the task at hand.”

Meanwhile, some institutions of higher learning are doing their best to educate student journalists and other media professionals about the regulatory dos and don’ts regarding drones.

In a memo distributed Oct. 30, Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s interim vice chancellor for research, Jim Garvey, addressed the topic of “Use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems.” In the memo, Garvey wrote that “the use of any Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs), often called drones, by public entities such as SIUC is strictly prohibited by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) without the proper FAA approvals.” That means that employees and students of the university can’t operate drones on SIU Carbondale property, nor can they fly them “while serving as a representative of SIUC off campus.”

Garvey noted that drones will still be allowed to operate on campus “in indoor spaces under some circumstances. However, this will require coordination with University Risk Management.” He added that the university “will pursue the appropriate approvals with the FAA as quickly as possible and develop a process by which SIUC students and employees may use UASs with the proper training and within the compliance metrics set by the university to meet FAA rules. We anticipate that this process will be in place by spring 2016.”

At the University of Missouri, a story written by Scott Pham and posted online Aug. 21 noted that the Missouri Drone Journalism Program would be spending the fall semester “researching and applying for a COA” (certificate of authorization) after receiving a letter from the FAA ordering the program to cease all outdoor flight until it obtained one.

As Pham noted, “We intend to apply for a COA and we have no reason to think we will be denied. But it will significantly change the way we act as a program.”

At Rend Lake College, a two-year institution located in Ina, Illinois, that is part of the Illinois Community College System, plans are in place to offer courses that will help students obtain a UAS operators certificate.

In a press release issued Oct. 27 by the college (www.rlc.edu/pressroom/all-news-articles/5786-unmanned-aircraft-systems-certificate-coming-spring-2016), UAS instructor Chris Edwards said that the certificate program “should give students who pass the exam the ability to work with the UAS in the national airspace for profit.”

The release notes that “to become a certified UAS instructor, students must pass a criminal background check, be 17 years of age, pass an aeronautical knowledge test, and be vetted by the Transportation Security Administration.”

“This is going to be the next big thing in technology,” Edwards said. “The possibilities are almost endless. I see this becoming a field with high growth potential.”

Information found on the website of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (www.auvsi.org) agrees with Edwards. It notes that the drone industry could lead to the creation of 100,000 jobs by the year 2025, with an estimated economic impact of $82 billion.

But that economic impact is not what concerns the FAA bigwigs. In his Nov. 3 remarks to the FAA task force members, Huerta noted that “by some estimates, 700,000 new aircraft could be in the homes of consumers by the end of the year. This means unmanned aircraft could soon far outnumber manned aircraft operating in our nation’s airspace. … Integrating unmanned aircraft into our nation’s airspace is a big job, and it’s one the FAA is determined to get right.”

Jesse Singal is a senior editor at New York Magazine, where he runs The Science of Us, a website about the science of human behavior. He wrote a series of articles about the Michael LaCour scandal as it unfolded.

A former science writer, Sharon Dunwoody is Evjue-Bascom Professor Emerita in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has taught science journalism and science communication in the school for more than 30 years.

Alex Berezow is the founding editor of RealClearScience. A member of the USA Today Board of Contributors, his work also regularly appears in the Economist. He holds a Ph.D. in microbiology.

Former GJR managing editor Ben Lyons recently asked each about their outlook on social science reporting today. What follows are his questions and their responses.

Q: I’m interested in where you see the state of social science reporting in general. What about its future?

JS: The future is bright, I hope! The good news is that people do seem to have an appetite for distillations of this sort of research, which can only be a good thing for society. The bad news is that a lot of that journalism isn’t fantastic, and that university press shops often distribute misleading press releases that overstate studies’ findings. All we can do is hope is that social-science journalism continue to replenish itself with talented young people who are fascinated by human nature and willing to report on it with nuance — and not fall for splashy findings that don’t hold up.

SD: A growing number of communicators/journalists see the social sciences as fertile ground for reporting, so I believe this arena will continue to expand over time.  Some reasons for that:

• Managing the major issues of the day calls for a deep understanding of human nature and behavior. For example, doing something about a warming globe is a human problem, not a technological one.  So increasing numbers of people, policy makers among them, express a need for information about behavior.  That makes social science research newsworthy.  As a result, some social scientists — such as Dan Kahan and Anthony Leiserowitz at Yale or Daniel Kahneman at Princeton — are approaching “visible scientist” status.
• Editors and others who make news decisions have, for decades, privileged stories about social science research. Studies that examine coverage of science in the media typically find that the most popular “genre” is social science.  Systematic study of human beings is compelling to, well, other human beings.
• There are always a few highly visible social science journalists and other types of communicators who keep this kind of research on the public agenda. Among the current crop are Radio Lab and NPR’s Shankar Vedantam. Even columns like the NYT’s “The Upshot” delve regularly into social science topics.

AB: Science journalism, in general, isn’t sufficiently skeptical. (And by “skeptical,” I don’t mean a connotation as in “climate skeptic,” but as in proper scientific skepticism.) We need to see more questions being asked like, “Are the appropriate methods being used to address the questions the researchers are seeking to answer?” “Do the conclusions go beyond what the data says?” “What does the rest of the literature say on this topic?” I think if journalists took the time to investigate these questions, we would see far less hype and far less inaccurate science reporting.

Social science (particularly psychology) gets a lot of coverage by journalists because it’s click-baity and easy to write about. Toss in the problems I mentioned above, and you’ve got a recipe for substandard reportage. I think it’s fair to say there’s a lot of room for improvement in social science reporting.

The future for science journalism appears bright because many practicing scientists and researchers (or at least people who were trained in science) choose to write. They can apply their expertise and analyze new research in ways that many journalists simply cannot. One of the things on which RealClearScience prides itself is a staff that is entirely trained in the hard sciences.

Q: Do you think the Michael LaCour scandal reflected anything about the public climate surrounding social science research today? Or alternately, what might the LaCour scandal say about the relationships among social science, the media and the public?

JS: It’s all really, really complicated. There are countless problems in social science right now in terms of statistical trickery on the part of researchers, the proliferation of not-amazing journals, and so on. These are conversations that need to occur within the social science.

One interesting aspect is the ease with which notable findings quickly filter down to the media, and therefore to everyone else. So many major publications covered the LaCour findings. On paper, this is a good thing — more people should know about the social sciences. But it also compounds the damage when something like this occurs.

SD: I think the LaCour scandal blew right over the heads of most Americans.  The incident certainly fits within the larger arena of scientific fraud — a topic that does get an increasing amount of public attention — but I suspect that it will have little influence on public perceptions of social science research.  Those perceptions are not all that positive, by the way.

AB: There’s always a temptation to make a name for oneself, be it in the hard sciences or soft sciences. I think this is particularly true for fields that receive a lot of press coverage — usually fields that are trendy, politically sensitive, or competitive. Stem cell research, for instance, is all three, and it has had a lot of high-profile problems with fraud. Psychology also has quite a bit of fraud. I think the LaCour scandal simply reminds us of the fallibility of mankind. Researchers are people too, and they face the same temptations as everybody else.

Q: Outing scientific fraud obviously strengthens science. But outright fraud is, to our knowledge, extremely rare. Do you feel any tension in the media amplifying public skepticism of all scientific findings in doing so?

JS: Nope. I edit a website about social science — clearly I think there’s value in the enterprise overall, and that the world would be a better place if people took a more “scientific approach” — basically just shorthand for evidence-based approaches — to various problems. I think the LaCour scandal is a fascinating one and a pretty amazing story so far, and that there’s value in uncovering the details. The only people who are going to come away from this thinking that the proper response is to distrust science qua science were already predisposed to that position anyway.

SD: There is always a risk in highlighting the aberrant.  I do worry that audiences will use anecdotal information to make inferences about scientists in general. I think someone needs to write about this in “The Upshot”!

AB: Yes, there is some tension. On the one hand, we need to report instances of fraud, but on the other hand, there is the possibility that over-reporting will cause the public to think that fraud is rampant in science — which then undermines hot-button discussions on vaccines, GMOs, nuclear power, climate change, evolution, etc. Those issues are hard enough to talk about without also having to address overblown concerns over fraud.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – At the world’s oldest journalism school, the professors for the most part are long on academic credentials but short on in-the-trenches reporting experience.

Still, the University of Missouri School of Journalism prides itself on offering “real world” opportunities for its budding journalists. It’s called “the Missouri method” which combines “a strong liberal arts education with unique hands-on training in professional media.”

Tim Tai, a photojournalist student from St. Louis, got a real education this week when protestors and some faculty members blocked his attempt to cover the demonstrators’ tent city on the Carnahan Quadrangle. Freelancing for ESPN, Tai was trying to document what was happening after the departures of two top administrators in the wake of racist events on the campus.

The story of how the football team’s boycott led to the departures of the UM System President Timothy Wolfe and MU Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin made national news. But it was the sidebar about what happened to Tai and another student that rang alarm bells in the School of Journalism.

In a video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRlRAyulN4o three MU faculty members are shown with the protestors who were blocking Tai’s attempt to photograph the protestors’ movement known as Concerned Student 1950. While Tai points out he has a First Amendment right to do his job on the quadrangle’s public property, protestors chant: “Hey, hey, ho, ho, reporters have got to go.” The three faculty members were later identified as Melissa Click, a communications professor, Richard Callahan, chairman of the Religious Studies Department, and Janna Basler, director of Greek Life.

Mark Schierbecker, a history and German student from the St. Louis County suburb of Rock Hill, recorded the video. When he posted it on You Tube, he wrote, “This is what civic-level censorship looks like at a university with the largest and oldest public college of journalism.” The video shows Basler pushing Tai, Callahan raising his hands to block the photographer’s field of vision, and Click confronting Schierbecker and calling for “muscle” to help remove him from the tent city.

If anything sets the University of Missouri-Columbia apart from other universities, it’s the Journalism School. The school’s reputation draws students from around the world, and the out-of-state tuition they pay goes a long way toward paying the university’s bills. What happened to Tai seemed like biting the hand that feeds you.

Brian Brooks, who retired as the school’s associate dean but who is still an adjunct member of the faculty, filed a harassment complaint with the school’s Title IX enforcement office based on what he saw on the video. “Dr. Click and her accomplice may also be guilty of battery as our student on one or two occasions protested being pushed by the two women,” Brooks wrote in an email.

State Sen. Kurt Schaefer, who as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee butters the university’s bread, has called for the firing of Click and Basler for violating the school’s code of conduct. The Republican from Columbia said what the two women had done amounted to at least third-degree assault.

Click has since apologized and resigned her courtesy appointment at the Journalism School, although she remains on the faculty of the Communications Department. Basler has apologized, too, and according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, she has been placed on administrative leave.

Even before the confrontation between the photographer and the protestors, there were indications that media coverage on the campus was unwelcome. Matt Sanders, the city editor of the Columbia Daily Tribune, wrote this week, “The protest leaders were loudly telling students, in front of reporters, not to speak to reporters. Reporters have an agenda and don’t care about their movement, they said. The message was loud and clear—they saw us as their enemies.”

What happened to Tai was “a teaching moment” for journalism students. In the real world they can expect to be unwelcomed—or even despised–observers documenting events. Just ask Paul Hampel, a highly-regarded, 30-year veteran reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who was beaten, bloodied and robbed while covering the anniversary events in Ferguson in August. Hampel was taking photos and videos of break-ins before he was attacked.

Hampel, 54, who colleagues said put his heart and a young person’s enthusiasm into every story, was placed on medical leave suffering head and other injuries. Last month he resigned from the newspaper. On Oct. 12 he began work as a legislative analyst in St. Louis County government.

Author’s note:  Terry Ganey has a master’s degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism where he has been an adjunct instructor.