The omnipresent sound of music

There are two recent trends in journalism that I find increasingly annoying. I dislike most first-person reporting. Sure, when a journalist has a connection to his or her story there is a legitimate reason for an occasional “I,” “we” or “us,” but for the vast majority of cases, I’m interested in what journalists have to report, rather than learning about their connection to or interest in the topic. (And I say this with the full knowledge that I have started my own book review in this issue with a first-person example! Sigh…)The second trend that irks me is that of National Public Radio, which since early this century has been increasingly fixated on music.

Has the Christian Science Monitor changed for the better?

As the Christian Science Monitor enters its fourth year as a “Web-first” operation, it seems an appropriate time to see where the news product now stands.

After about 100 years of publication, the Monitor indeed has changed. Once considered by most media experts to be an elite print daily newspaper, it’s a bit unclear whether it still is a newspaper, or rather a weekly print magazine with daily online trappings. And can such a bifurcated product, with a niche all its own, still be considered “elite,” when it has no real products with which it might be compared?

Teaching Media Ethics — West Meets East

So, what’s it like to teach in China — especially to teach Western Mass Media Ethics? If I had 100 yuan (about $15.60) every time I heard that question during the past five months, I could comfortably retire — at least in Beijing, where noodle dishes and taxis are very affordable.

While I’m now back at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, I spent last fall semester in Beijing at the University of International Business and Economics teaching not only ethics but also basic Western-style reporting and a graduate seminar on how Hollywood depicts journalists. In addition, I gave a series of lectures to the entire UIBE community and at other universities in and around Beijing and consulted on research projects with a variety of Chinese scholars. It was my first time teaching in China, and the first time any of my students (all of whom spoke English) had an American professor.

Walls, However Great, Don’t Work

In a world of an increasingly omnipresent media, denial is becoming an endangered species. But not in China, where media censorship is increasingly omnipresent.

In an attempt to strengthen its great Internet firewall, China is requiring those using microblogs, China’s Twitter-like websites, to register their real names. According to recent Reuters reports, Chinese authorities have accused microbloggers of spreading “unfounded rumors and vulgarities,” online content unacceptable to the ruling Communist Party.

The curtain falls on another campus newspaper

Late in the 20th century college newspapers seemed to be weathering the newspaper industry’s financial downturn better than most professional dailies. That’s no longer the case.

The latest college paper to make death-rattle headlines is the Daily Illini at the University of Illinois in Champaign where movie critic alum Roger Ebert is helping raise money for the paper where he got his start.