The State of Play and the Pulitzer Prize.
The State of Play has A list actors playing roles that represent journalists in a time of a top story scandal. A journalist is friends with the person who is a part of a recent death of a lady he had an affair with. The journalist had a choice to protect his friendship and run a story, or help his friend out. This kind of protection is rare in today's society due to newspapers wanting to be the first to publish a story in competition towards other news companies or for money. Exploiting a story on a friend is seen a lot today and the implications for loosing a close friend are not thought about.
A photojournalist was on the scene of a hostage in a small town in Pennsylvania. The scene was dangerous and graphic and he snapped photos, documenting every moment. Well, almost every moment. He put his camera down when a little girl, wounded badly from her father, walked out of the front door. He could not capture a picture of this girl because it was just to horrible. Journalists have the opportunity to capture these moments, but photos are there forever. There is no need for the public eye to see the face of a little girl who was abused. There are some boundaries that a photographer should have. A photographer can take photos that still tell a great story without hurting their audience. Visuals can make a lasting impression on someone, even if they were not there at the time. It is important for a photographer to protect the viewers.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Coding
New York Times
By Scott Shane
The adult sons of Osama bin Laden have lashed out at President Obama over their father’s death, accusing the United States of violating its basic legal principles by killing an unarmed man, shooting his family members and disposing of his body in the sea.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Thoughts on "All the President's Men"
The Watergate scandal was reenacted in the movie "All the President's Men" and a lot of what happened behind the scenes was told through the story. There are two new reporters in the movie that were put in charge of finding out if the scandal is really true or not and dug through paperwork in secret in order to find any evidence of truth. They were caught when they assumed one of the investigators in the scandal inferred they were right by staying silent. The government raged about the false information that the Washington Post publicized. These reporters frustrated their bosses, but they stood by their story believing it to be true regardless of what the government said.
In desperation to find facts about this scandal, these two reporters used different ways to get information out of people. Near the end of the movie, after an investigator on the story told one of the reporters that he could not share anything with him, he thought of a different method that would allow him to get the answer he was looking for. He asked him to stay silent if the story was true and since the investigator did not hang up and chose to stay on the line in silence, the reporter ran with that and shared with his boss that a legitimate source stated that the information was in fact true.
These techniques are looked down upon in journalism and reporting. Even though they felt in their hearts that the story was true, the only way to know for sure is to have hard evidence. Sources have to speak clearly and be quoted correctly. When people questioned the story, they went straight to the source where he was able to protect himself and deny that he said anything. The reporters had no proof that their story was right. It is vital to find legitimate facts because the general public wants the truth. They were lucky that the story ended up being right but in the mean time, the public questioned their accuracy.
Reporters need to be careful of how they find their information. If there are no documents to prove a story or a statement that quote someone accurately, then people are going to reject the story and deem it to be false. This movie displayed how desperate news companies can be to be the first to share a breaking story, but it also shows how necessary it is to give out information that is backed in evidence that can be proven to make the story true.
In desperation to find facts about this scandal, these two reporters used different ways to get information out of people. Near the end of the movie, after an investigator on the story told one of the reporters that he could not share anything with him, he thought of a different method that would allow him to get the answer he was looking for. He asked him to stay silent if the story was true and since the investigator did not hang up and chose to stay on the line in silence, the reporter ran with that and shared with his boss that a legitimate source stated that the information was in fact true.
These techniques are looked down upon in journalism and reporting. Even though they felt in their hearts that the story was true, the only way to know for sure is to have hard evidence. Sources have to speak clearly and be quoted correctly. When people questioned the story, they went straight to the source where he was able to protect himself and deny that he said anything. The reporters had no proof that their story was right. It is vital to find legitimate facts because the general public wants the truth. They were lucky that the story ended up being right but in the mean time, the public questioned their accuracy.
Reporters need to be careful of how they find their information. If there are no documents to prove a story or a statement that quote someone accurately, then people are going to reject the story and deem it to be false. This movie displayed how desperate news companies can be to be the first to share a breaking story, but it also shows how necessary it is to give out information that is backed in evidence that can be proven to make the story true.
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