BY SCOTT LAMBERT / Whistleblowers, leakers, and a battle between the working press and the government. James Goodale’s “Fighting for the Press: The Inside Story of the Pentagon Papers and Other Battles” tells a story that has just as much importance today as it did in 1972, when the battle for press freedom reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
Media coverage of NBA free agent Jason Collins’ announcement that he is gay led to a number of revelations about the state of media and stories about the LGBT community. It also led to some fascinating coverage. Two particular pieces from two ends of the media spectrum provided teachable lessons for working journalists at every level. Howard Kurtz, former Washington Post media critic, host of CNN’s “Reliable Sources” and former media critic for the website www.thedailybeast.com, reminded journalists at all levels how to stand up and be responsible for a mistake.
“Twister” was released in 1996. The movie about storm chasers and a tornado-filled day in Oklahoma set off a craze of storm chasers and television shows about tornado chasers. Oklahoma weatherman Gary England played a bit role in the movie and performed a key role in the expansion of Oklahoma’s weather coverage. “I came here…
Sometimes a story just follows you. On May 30 the Oklahoma City Daily Oklahoman ran a story about ESPN’s broadcast team of Mike Breen, Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson discussing the accusations from Oklahoma Thunder basketball fans of bias in calling the NBA playoff series between Oklahoma City and Dallas.
It was a typical media story covering a common problem — sports fans seeing bias everywhere.
What was so interesting about the story was its source. After all, the Daily Oklahoman faces some of the harshest calls of bias from one of the most ardent groups of fans — Oklahoma State University football fans — of any newspaper in the country.