Category: Media

Benjamin Israel remembered

Media
by Charles L. Klotzer

By CHARLES KLOTZER / Benjamin Israel, 65, died Monday after a lengthy period of ill health. There will be no funeral for Mr. Israel, who donated his body “ to serve science after death.” A memorial service is scheduled Saturday between noon and 1 p.m. at the St. Louis Art Museum in the East Building in a private room of the Panoroma Restaurant. His wife of 25 years, Virginia, said she “Just lost my boy friend.” “He wanted to be an agent for social change,” she said, “whether it was leafleting or campaigning for one of his many causes.” Don Corrigan, a professor at Webster University, called Mr. Israel, “A fellow of integrity that few of us can match.” Mr. Israel was immersed in local and national media, and he had a deep knowledge of African-American history. For years, he was a frequent contributor to the former St. Louis Journalism Review and to Gateway Journalism Review.

Michel Martin to discuss Ferguson coverage

Media
by Compiled for GJR

“Ferguson and the media” will be the topic discussed at a Journalism Review event March 19 hosted by veteran broadcast journalist Michel Martin. Martin has reported for the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and was host of NPR’s “Tell Me More.” She recently has reported on voting rights and racial justice issues. The Thursday night dinner and program will be from 6 to 10 p.m. at Edward Jones Inc.’s corporate headquarters at 12555 Manchester Road and I-270. Cost is $150 per person. It will be the Fourth Annual First Amendment Celebration sponsored by the Gateway Journalism Review, successor to the St. Louis Journalism Review. To attend, call Sherida Evans at 618-453-3262; or email Sherida @ siu.edu. USPS: Sherida Evans, Mailcode 6601, School of Journalism, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, Il. 62901

STL station apps come up short during snow storm

Media
by Tripp Frohlichstein

by TRIPP FROHLICHSTEIN / The local news stations are always encouraging us viewers to check the web or their apps for the latest weather forecast. Unfortunately, it is sometimes bad advice from Channels 2 (KTVI) and 4 (KMOV). Channel 5 (KSDK) seems to be much better at actually providing later information. The absence of weather forecast updates at both Channels 2 and 4 is noticeable and was particularly obvious during the first big snow storm of the season Valentine Day weekend.

Washington déjà vu: ‘Hearts and Minds’ rears its head again

Media
by George Salamon

By GEORGE SALAMON / President Obama was unaware of or undeterred by that warning when in a February 18 Los Angeles Times op-ed piece he wrote: “Our campaign to prevent people around the world from being radicalized to violence is ultimately a battle for hearts and minds.” To many American journalists and their audiences the campaign’s more immediate strategy was not voiced in his remarks: stopping ISIS and other jihadist organizations and individuals from killing people around the world. Many had hoped to discover it. Moreover, the administration is faring badly in the media battle against the terrorist organization ISIS, particularly in the social media. The task of leading our battle was handed to CSCC, the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications. This bureaucratic entity has not found ways to compete with the gruesomely bloody materials released by ISIS that immediately go viral. The suggestion that CSCC should expose the nihilistic destructiveness through competitively vivid releases has not yet been acted upon. Our Department of State wallows in goody-two-shoe mini-lectures as responses as well. A day before his op-ed appeared, Department of State spokesperson Marie Harf insisted that a short-term strategy would not prevent the radicalization to violence the president hopes to thwart. Instead, she proposed that “we have to combat the conditions that can lead people to turn to extremism. “We can’t kill every terrorist around the world, nor should we try. How do you get at the root causes of this?…It’s really the smart way to combat it.”

‘Citizenfour’ is an Oscar favorite. Does it deserve it?

Media
by Richard Dudman

By RICHARD DUDMAN / “Citizenfour,” a film by Laura Poitras telling in glowing terms how she helped Edward Snowden publish thousands of secret documents about widespread government surveillance of U.S. citizens, is considered a shoo-in for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars on Sunday. The award seems inevitable, since Poitras and others associated with the Snowden disclosures have already won many honors including Pulitzer Prizes, the George Polk Awards in Journalism, the I.F. Stone Award, and just last week a praiseful treatment in a New York Times forum moderated by David Carr, who uncharacteristically went along with the crowd and joined in extolling the Snowden theft. Nonetheless, the case can be made that the earlier honors were mistaken and that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would do well to break ranks and drop the Poitras film from this year’s Oscars.