Category: Media

Column on White House drone memo draws reader response

By Media

On March 27, reader Laurance Strait replied to a Feb. 8 column by Gateway Journalism Review publisher William H. Freivogel with this email: “The reason civil libertarians and others are upset with Obama’s novel extra-judicial killing doctrine in part is in how it has been applied. Your characterization would be more persuasive to me if sitting in a café having breakfast didn’t count as being an ‘imminent threat’ that is ‘in the battlefield.’ As those facts are rather well known, I don’t really know how to read this post as anything but intentionally Orwellian.”

AEJMC releases statement on leak prosecutions

By Media,

The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) is committed to freedom of speech and the press in the United States and abroad. AEJMC believes that this commitment must include a free exchange of information and ideas, even some information that the U.S. government considers or wishes to be “secret.” The Pentagon Papers, Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair and the existence of clandestine CIA prisons are examples in which secret government information was leaked to, and publicized, by the news media. In these and in many other cases, the dissemination of secret information served a greater good to American society by informing the public and by allowing for a needed debate on the ethics of secret government policies and covert actions. We believe that a democracy shrouded in secrecy encourages corruption, and we agree, as Justice Louis D. Brandeis of the U.S. Supreme Court said, “sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

Media bungle Steubenville rape trial verdict coverage

By Media,

“You think you could tell a rapist to stop doing what he’s doing? Do you, really? And he’s going to listen to an ad campaign to stop?” At the end of a heated exchange over guns and personal safety for women on his Fox News program, Sean Hannity asked that of his guest, Democratic strategist Zerlina Maxwell. During the segment, Maxwell suggested that the best way to stop rape was to teach young men not to rape, rather than to arm all women. Hannity’s statement reveals a telling blind spot. He inhabits a world in which there is no rape culture, only rapists, who are criminals.

GJR readers weigh in on online comments for news articles

By Media

Thanks to everyone who participated in Gateway Journalism Review’s survey about online comments for news articles. The first question in the survey asked, “Should news organizations ask for comments about online stories?” and 81.8 percent of the respondents said yes. For this question, one respondent wrote: “I don’t know that they should necessarily solicit comments, but I like the option to comment if I so desire. I often find that the comments, particularly on controversial subjects, to be as interesting and illuminating – if not more so – than the original article.”

Tinker encourages high school students to take a stand

By Media, ,

“Stand up. Speak out.” Those were words of advice from Mary Beth Tinker to more than 600 St. Louis area high school students. Tinker, who was a defendant in the landmark First Amendment case of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, was the keynote speaker at the Sponsors of School Publications of Greater St. Louis Spring Conference at Webster University March 11.