Monday January 3, 2011-photos and new project

Assignment: due Thursday 6 January at the close of class. Please send them, so I can collect them in the drop box. Any not received by that time will be considered late at the going rate of 10 points off per day. Your own obituary. Minimum 500 words.

ALSO: at the end of this blog is a copy of the crime terms handout. You will have a quiz on these words this Friday 7 January.
The end of the year brings the usual round-ups of summaries: films, music, exhibits, photos, and passings. Start out by taking a look at some of the significant public people who have died this year: http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/gallery?section=news/entertainment&id=7202445&photo=11
Use about 20 minutes of class time- ON THIS! These are people whose lives have made an impact in the fields of music, film, politics, journalism and literature. Their work will continue to resonate. How many of these folks are familiar to you?
Moving on… Those starting out as reporters often view obituary writing with disdain. After all, they say, an obit is by its very nature old news, the story of a life already lived.
But experienced journalists know that obits are some of the most self-fulfilling articles to write, for they allow the writer an opportunity to chronicle a human life from beginning to closure, and in doing so to find themes and deeper meaning beyond the simple retelling of events. As well, remember that obituaries are about people, and isn't writing about people what makes journalism so interesting in the first place? Writing your own obituary could grow out of – or in to – a personal memoir.
Now before you begin to write your own, read through the following two examples. Note the word choice, any euphemisms, imagery, how facts are presented, reflective observations and quotes. Heads up: on your mid-term you will need to answer a couple of questions about each of these.

Richard Holbrooke was a patriot who was prepared to be ruthless in what he saw as his nation's interest. Photograph: Rafiq Maqbool/AP
Richard Holbrooke, who has died aged 69 after suffering a ruptured aorta, was not the most universally beloved, but was certainly one of the ablest, the most admired and the most effective of American diplomats. He is one of the few of that profession in the past 40 years who can be compared with the giants of the "founding generation" of American hegemony, such as Dean Acheson and George Kennan.
Holbrooke was tough as well as exceptionally bright. He was a loyal, liberal Democrat, but also a patriot who was prepared to be ruthless in what he saw as his nation's interest. To his friends, he was kind and charming, but he could be abrasive: no doubt that characteristic helped prevent him becoming secretary of state on two occasions, under Bill Clinton and again when Barack Obama became president.
He held almost every other important job in the international service of the US. He was ambassador to the United Nations, where he dealt with the vexed problem of America's debts to the organisation, and to Germany. He was the only person in history to be assistant secretary of state – the key level in routine diplomacy – in two regions of the world, Europe and Asia. He distinguished himself as an investment banker, a magazine editor, a charity executive and an author, but he will be remembered most of all for his success in negotiating an end to the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina at an Ohio airbase, and for his part in the American intervention in Kosovo. At the time of his death, he was Obama's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke, generally known as Dick, was born in Manhattan. Though his parents were ethnic Jews, they had little sense of Jewish identity, and were atheists. His father, Dan, had been born in Warsaw of Russian-Jewish parents and in the 1930s came to the US, where he was a successful medical doctor. Dick's mother was the former Trudi Moos, a potter. She had first gone to Argentina as a refugee from Germany before moving to the US.
Dick was educated at Scarsdale high school, in New York's affluent Westchester county suburb, one of the most academically successful secondary schools in the US. His best friend there was David Rusk, son of Dean Rusk, later secretary of state to Presidents John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Dick's own father died when he was 15, and he went on to Brown University, the Ivy League college in Rhode Island. Graduating in 1962, he was influenced by Kennedy's call to young Americans to serve the nation.
Holbrooke joined the foreign service, and in 1963 was sent as a civilian official to Vietnam, where he was one of a talented cohort of young men who were to become leaders in American diplomacy, including John Negroponte, George W Bush's ambassador to Iraq and deputy secretary of state; Les Aspin, a future congressman and secretary of defence; and Anthony Lake, who became Clinton's national security adviser. Holbrooke worked for the infamous Robert Komer, who earned the sobriquet "Blowtorch Bob" for his work in the Phoenix "strategic hamlets" programme of forced resettlement.
Once back in Washington in 1966, Holbrooke worked for two years in the White House under Johnson, and then at the state department, where he was a junior member of the delegation to the fruitless initial peace talks with North Vietnam in Paris. He also wrote one volume of the famous Pentagon Papers, the government's secret history of its involvement in Vietnam, subsequently leaked to the New York Times and the Washington Post by Daniel Ellsberg. In 1970, probably aware that his Vietnam service might not be universally admired, Holbrooke asked to be sent to Morocco as director of the Peace Corps there.
By 1972, Holbrooke was ready for a change. He became the first editor of the magazine Foreign Policy, created as a less stuffy competitor to the august Foreign Affairs. He also worked for Newsweek magazine. In 1976, he went to work for Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia, who was beginning his campaign for president and badly needed some foreign policy expertise.
When Carter became president, in 1977, Holbrooke became his assistant secretary of state for Asian affairs. He was charged by critics with protecting the Indonesian president, Suharto, from criticism by American human rights advocates over East Timor, but his most important work lay in completing the shift in American diplomatic relations from Taiwan to the People's Republic of China, formally recognised by the US from the start of 1979.
After the Republican Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, Holbrooke went to Wall Street. He became a consultant to, and later managing director of, the investment banker Lehman Brothers. At the same time he took on a good deal of pro bono work for the Carnegie Commission and other foundations interested in foreign policy. When Clinton became president in 1993, he appointed Holbrooke as his ambassador to Germany, where he initiated the important German-American institution, the American Academy in Berlin.
After a year in Berlin, he was brought back to Washington as assistant secretary of state for European affairs, and became passionately committed to the search for peace in the former Yugoslavia. He achieved a close relationship with the Serbian president, Slobodan Miloševic as well as with the equally intransigent Croatian leader, Franjo Tudman. He invited them and the Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic to an isolated airbase near Dayton, Ohio, where in a brilliant display of "parallel diplomacy", negotiating separately with all parties, he achieved the accords that ended the fighting in Bosnia by devising a federal structure to accommodate Bosnian Serbs on the one hand, and Croatians and Muslims on the other. In order to do so he was willing to threaten Miloševic that the US would bomb his headquarters. He maintained that the Serbs had experienced nothing but military success, and would not come to the table unless they feared American military power.
With the concluding of the Dayton Peace Agreement on Bosnia-Herzegovina in November 1995, Holbrooke then announced that he had to go and get married. This was the third such occasion, his marriages to Larrine Sullivan, a lawyer, and Blythe Babyak, a television producer, having ended in divorce. His new bride was the television journalist Kati Marton, daughter of the Associated Press's White House correspondent, Endre Marton, and previously the wife of the television anchor Peter Jennings. Marton had been brought up as a Roman Catholic, but discovered that her grandparents were Jews and had died in Auschwitz.
Holbrooke resigned from government because he wanted to move back to New York with Kati, and went to work for Credit Suisse First Boston. The bank allowed him to act as President Clinton's representative, first to Cyprus in 1997, and later to Kosovo, where atrocities had been committed by Serbs on the Albanian majority. Extremely tough discussions followed, and when it proved impossible to reach agreement he lobbied within government for air strikes on Serbia. To give Miloševic a last chance of a negotiated settlement, he went to Belgrade for talks in the presidential palace. But no breakthrough was forthcoming, and so shortly afterwards Nato began the bombing campaign of March-June 1999 that resulted in Serbia's capitulation.
The following August, Holbrooke returned to public service as US ambassador to the UN. It had taken more than a year for his appointment to be confirmed, in part because he was accused of lobbying for Credit Suisse First Boston when engaged on government business. However, once he had been sworn in, he negotiated a crucial deal with the 188 other member nations. The US would pay its $900m debt, accumulated since President Reagan's attack on the UN, and in return dues were redistributed so that the US share was reduced.
After the Republicans won the 2000 presidential election and George W Bush became president, Holbrooke went back once again to the private sector, becoming a director of Human Genome Sciences, Inc. He also founded and remained president of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/Aids, whose activity was subsequently extended to deal with tuberculosis and malaria: it was an extremely effective NGO linking such powerful corporations as Coca-Cola, L'Oréal, Chevron and many more.
In 2009, President Obama made Hillary Clinton, whom Holbrooke had supported in her presidential campaign, secretary of state, while Holbrooke became his envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan; she acknowledged her friend's "ability to shoulder the most vexing and difficult challenges".
Holbrooke's incandescent confrontations with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, became legendary. On 21 August 2009, Holbrooke accused Karzai to his face of having rigged the Afghan elections. Though officials denied details of the showdown, it is clear that Holbrooke's relation with Karzai broke down totally in a shouting match.
Subsequently his influence waned. He was deeply committed to improving relations with Pakistan, which he saw as the key to the Afghan situation. But when floods devastated Pakistan last July, he insisted that relief must come as the first priority, ahead of putting pressure on the Pakistan government to do more to root out jihadis from its tribal area, the policy issue on which he had put maximum pressure before the humanitarian issue arose.
Last Friday, at a meeting with secretary of state Clinton, he fell ill. After he arrived at George Washington University hospital, Washington, he underwent prolonged surgery, and remained in a critical condition till his death.
He is survived by Kati, his two sons, David and Anthony, from his first marriage, and his brother, Andrew.
SECOND OBITUARY TO READ




Billy Taylor, Jazz Pianist, Dies at 89 from The New York Times by Sara Krulwich
Billy Taylor, a pianist and composer who was also an eloquent spokesman and advocate for jazz as well as a familiar presence for many years on television and radio, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 89 and lived in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. The cause was heart failure, said his daughter, Kim Taylor-Thompson.
Dr. Taylor, as he preferred to be called (he earned a doctorate in music education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1975), was a living refutation of the stereotype of jazz musicians as unschooled, unsophisticated and inarticulate, an image that was prevalent when he began his career in the 1940s, and that he did as much as any other musician to erase.
Dr. Taylor probably had a higher profile on television than any other jazz musician of his generation. He had a long run as a cultural correspondent on the CBS News program “Sunday Morning” and was the musical director of David Frost’s syndicated nighttime talk show from 1969 to 1972.
Well educated and well spoken, he came across, Ben Ratliff wrote in The New York Times in a review of a 1996 nightclub performance, as “a genial professor,” which he was: he taught jazz courses at Long Island University, the Manhattan School of Music and elsewhere. But he was also a compelling performer and a master of the difficult art of making jazz accessible without watering it down.
His “greatest asset,” Mr. Ratliff wrote, “is a sense of jazz as entertainment, and he’s not going to be obscure about it.”
A pianist with impeccable technique and an elegant, almost self-effacing style, Dr. Taylor worked with some of the biggest names in jazz early in his career and later led a trio that worked regularly in New York nightclubs and recorded many albums. But he left his mark on jazz less as a musician than as a proselytizer, spreading the gospel of jazz as a serious art form in high school and college lectures, on radio and television, on government panels and foundation boards.
He also helped bring jazz to predominantly black neighborhoods with Jazzmobile, an organization he founded in 1965 to present free outdoor concerts by nationally known musicians at street corners and housing projects throughout New York City.
“I knew that jazz was not as familiar to young blacks as James Brown and the soul thing,” he told Barbara Campbell of The Times in 1971. “If you say to a young guy in Harlem, Duke Ellington is great, he’s going to be skeptical until he has seen him on 127th Street.”
William Edward Taylor Jr. was born in Greenville, N.C., on July 24, 1921, and grew up in Washington. His father, William, was a dentist; his mother, Antoinette, was a schoolteacher. He had his first piano lesson at 7 and later studied music at what is now Virginia State University. Shortly after moving to New York in 1943 — within two days of his arrival, he later recalled — he began working with the tenor saxophonist Ben Webster at the Three Deuces on 52nd Street, and he remained a fixture on that celebrated nightclub row for many years.
Dr. Taylor had the technique, the knowledge and the temperament to straddle the old and the new; his adaptability made him a popular sideman with both swing and bebop musicians and led to his being hired in 1949 as the house pianist at Birdland.
In 1951 he formed his own trio, which was soon working at clubs like the Copacabana in New York and the London House in Chicago. Within a few years he was lecturing about jazz at music schools and writing articles about it for DownBeat, Saturday Review and other publications. He later had a long-running concert-lecture series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
He also became one of the few jazz musicians to establish a successful separate career in radio and television. In 1958 he was the musical director of an NBC television show, “The Subject Is Jazz.” A year later the Harlem radio station WLIB hired him as a disc jockey; in 1962 he moved to WNEW, but he returned to WLIB in 1964 as both disc jockey and program director, and remained in those positions until 1969. He was later a founding partner of Inner City Broadcasting, which bought WLIB in 1971.
Commercial radio became increasingly inhospitable to jazz in the 1960s, but Dr. Taylor found a home at National Public Radio, where he was a familiar voice for more than two decades, first as host of “Jazz Alive” in the late ’70s and most recently on “Billy Taylor’s Jazz at the Kennedy Center.” That series, on which he introduced live performances and interviewed the performers, made its debut in the fall of 1994 and remained in production until the fall of 2002.
In 1968 Dr. Taylor was appointed to New York City’s new Cultural Council, along with Leonard Bernstein, Richard Rodgers and other prominent figures in the arts. He later held similar positions on both the state and federal level and until recently was an adviser to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.
In 1980 he was a member of an advisory panel that called for greater support for jazz from the National Endowment for the Arts. Many of the panel’s proposals were eventually enacted, and Dr. Taylor became a beneficiary of the endowment in 1988, when he received a $20,000 Jazz Masters award. He was also given a National Medal of Arts in 1992.
Dr. Taylor wrote more than 300 compositions. They ranged in scope and style from “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free,” a simple 16-bar gospel tune written with Dick Dallas that became one of the unofficial anthems of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, to the ambitious “Suite for Jazz Piano and Orchestra” (1973).
In addition to his daughter, Dr. Taylor is survived by his wife, Theodora. A son, Duane, died in 1988.
As much energy as his other activities required, Dr. Taylor never lost his enthusiasm for performing — or his frustration with audiences that, as he saw it, missed the point. “Most people say, ‘Hey, let’s go to the nightclub and have a few drinks, and maybe we’ll even listen to the music,’ ” he once said. “It’s a lack of understanding of the musicians and of the discipline involved.
“This is not to say that playing jazz is all frowning and no fun at all. But because you make it look easy doesn’t mean you didn’t spend eight hours a day practicing the piano.”

Below is a copy of the crime terms handout from class. Your quiz is this Friday 7 January. simple matching.

A guide to crime in the AP Stylebook
People are arrested on suspicion of committing a crime. In some states, the district attorney decides whether enough evidence exists to charge a suspect with a crime. If someone is arrested on a charge of murder, be sure the district attorney has charged the suspect. Otherwise, you'll be talking about libel to the suspect’s lawyer. This is a distinction from the AP Stylebook, which suggests the wording “arrested on a charge of.” This may be legal in some states, but not all. “Arrested on suspicion of” avoids the issue of whether someone has been charged with a crime.
Assault: Technically, an assault is the threat of violence, such as pointing a gun at someone or yelling “I’m gonna kill you!”
Assault and battery: When someone is actually touched by the assaulter or his agent (stick,knife, gun, etc.), battery has occurred.
Burglary: Entering a building (but not necessarily breaking in) with the intent to commit a crime is burglary. Even if the criminal is scared out of the house before swiping the jewels, the crook has committed burglary. However, if you mistake someone else’s house for your own – perhaps you are too drunk or tired to tell the difference – you have not committed burglary.
Larceny (legal term for stealing and theft): This is the wrongful taking of property.
Robbery: Used in a legal sense, it is the use of violence or threat in committing larceny. “Giveme your money or I'll shoot” is a threat to a bank teller. If I brandish a gun when I take your wallet, I am using the threat of violence. If I throw you against a wall when I take your wallet, I am using violence. Used in commonly accepted broader sense, it means to plunder, which means a house can be robbed when a person is not present. You rob a person or house, but you steal the jewels or money.
Theft: Larceny without threat or violence is theft.
Homicide: This is the legal term for slaying or killing.
Murder: Malicious, premeditated homicide is murder. Unless police say premeditation was involved, don’t say a victim was murdered until someone is convicted in court. Instead, say the victim was killed or slain.
Manslaughter: This is homicide without malice or premeditation.
Assassin: A politically motivated killer is an assassin.
Killer: This is a generic term for anyone who kills with a motive of any kind.
Murderer: Someone who is convicted of murder in a court of law.
– Compiled by Dr. Deborah Gump, Ohio University (gump@ohio.edu)

Monday, December 14

All editorials and news articles due to me by tomorrow (Wednesday)!! My e-mail is meghan.kazer@gmail.com. Thank you for a great semester!! I'll miss you all!!

Monday, December 13

Happy Monday! If I have not received your editorials I need them TODAY! I have begun to read them and you did a great job!

For the next few days, you are going to be writing another news article, much like you did at the beginning of the year. Use today to begin brainstorming ideas - what is going on around the school? Around the community? You may write about anything. Remember, while you were subjective in your editorials, news articles are objective. Remember the lead: include the who, what when, where, and why towards the beginning of your article, adhering to the inverted pyramid structure. Ideally, I'd like you to include quotes, so if you have a classmate you can interview, or anyone else around the school who you could speak to during the day, that would be great. These should be between 400 and 50o words - only one this time, though! Due on Wednesday...my last day. Thank you for a great 4 weeks!!

Let me know if you have any questions!

Tuesday, December 7

Today you will begin writing your own editorials. Remember, editorials are more subjective than the typical objective news articles. They state an opinion, but back that opinion up with research, facts, support, etc. I have included some information below on what to consider when writing an editorial. Much like the examples you read yesterday, you will be writing two editorials (one for each side of the issue). Each must be 450-500 words and you should do some sufficient research on the topic you choose. You will turn in final copies on Friday. I have listed several options you may choose from below. If you would strongly prefer to pursue a different topic, please run it by me. As always, let me know if you have any questions!

Editorial writing:

The purpose of most editorials is to influence people's actions or opinions.

Use personal opinion. The main difference between an editorial and a news story is that there is room to try to persuade readers with your personal opinion. This should be done in a rational manner, as with a standard news story, and with attributed sources if needed. It is not enough to state your opinion on a news story, but rather to use your opinion to guide interpretation of the story.

Use persuasive language. Persuasive writing is one of the key elements of a good editorial. Using clear, active language in your writing is far more persuasive than a weak narrative that rambles. Get to the point.

Get your facts straight. While there is a limited protection afforded by opinion pieces, there is still a chance of your piece being construed as libel. If you are discussing people or businesses in your editorial, be sure that all facts are correct and are attributed. If you are writing negative opinions about people or businesses, be sure to begin by stating that it is your opinion. Opinions can be neither proved nor disproved, and will not be construed as libel unless there is an obvious component of malice to them. For this reason, never name call.

Your editorial will include an introduction, the reaction (your opinion), the details, and the conclusion (solutions). Keep in mind the thesis statements with supporting details you wrote yesterday. How did the writer set up his/her argument and how did he/she use facts and/or research to support that argument?

Please choose one of the following options. Complete the necessary research on your topic before beginning your point-counterpoint editorials.

1. American involvement in Afghanistan

2. Decriminalizing drugs

3. Vaccinations

4. Extending the school year/day

5. Should pro athletes have a salary cap?

6. School uniforms

Monday, December 6

New Topic: Editorials

We are going to be moving into editorials and editorial writing. An editorial contains a distinctive point of view and is a way for a reporter to get his/her own personal opinion into a story, rather than the objective approach used with other newspaper stories. Editorials can be powerful because they often affect public opinion about a new policy, a project or program, etc. Newspapers and newsmagazines tend to run editorials on a regular schedule, whether daily or two to three times per week. These are normally written by the staff reporters, though community leaders or experts in certain fields are occasionally invited to craft an editorial, which we will see in the editorials we read today. When I was on my high school newspaper, the editors would have a meeting each month to decide what we wanted to write about for the next issue. Several staff members would write an op-ed for each edition. It was a great way to get your voice out about issues going on in the school, the town, or even the country. Editorials serve several functions, which are listed below. As you read the editorials today, think about which functions each serve.

Functions of Editorials:

-To Explain: a new policy or rule may need to be explained to readers. This

explanation how this new policy will affect the public.

-To Persuade: an editorial may attempt to direct its readers to a specific point of view – the editorial may support or refute a topic. While taking a certain stance, this point of view is backed up with fact.

-To Answer: an editorial might serve the purpose of answering criticism or defending a particular point of view with supporting facts and details.

-To Warn: upcoming concerns may be written about to warn readers. Ex. Driver safety in the winter.

-To Criticize: sometimes the actions of others are criticized in a thoughtful and constructive manner. However, writers need to make sure they have done the research and have their facts straight before proceeding with the story. Criticism should also be balanced with suggested solutions or alternative courses of action.

-To Praise: offering a congratulations for a job well done – people or groups can be the subject of an editorial.

-To Entertain: some editorials are playful and do not take strong punches at the opposite side. They are meant to provide humor and cover non-serious issues.

-To Lead: can lead the way to positive social change by bringing public issues to light and gathering support where it is needed.

Below are two pairs of editorials, representing both sides of an issue. (I tried to pick interesting, relevant issues that you would enjoy reading about). Please read all four. When you have finished reading, write a thesis statement for each piece. What was the overall argument? Include bullets of the points used to support that thesis. What facts/statistics were used? What comments were made supporting the argument? What point was the writer trying to make? Please turn this in at the end of class. Starting tomorrow, you will begin writing your own point-counterpoint editorials, so keep in mind how the writer gets his/her point across and what techniques he/she uses to set up and support the argument.

Have fun!

Our view on child obesity: In this toy story, San Francisco bars Happy Meal treats

USA Today 11/8/10

Amid all the Election Day hoopla, you might have missed last Tuesday's action in San Francisco: The Board of Supervisors moved to end a scourge on the American food landscape. Consumers call them Happy Meals. On a preliminary 8-3 vote, enough to override a threatened veto by the mayor, the supervisors prohibited restaurants from giving away toys with meals that don't meet certain nutritional standards for calories, sodium and fat. A final vote is scheduled for today.

Now, there's no doubt that too much fast food is bad for children. A study out Monday from Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity found that just 12 out of the 3,039 meals available at fast-food chains were considered a healthy choice for preschoolers, and only 15 satisfied the requirements for older kids. That's inexcusable.

But banning toy giveaways in meals that don't measure up to government-approved standards, as California's Santa Clara County has done and San Francisco is moving to do, is just another ineffective, quick fix attempt to solve the complex problem of child obesity.

For one thing, the "food justice" agenda, as supporters call it with a straight face, doesn't pass the logic test: Customers pack fast-food restaurants because they offer convenient, cheap and tasty (if unhealthy) food. Parents won't stop being pressed for time and money, or stop taking their kids to McDonald's, because harmless trinkets are harder to get.

More broadly, the toy bill is exactly the kind of invasive, nanny-state government intervention sure to infuriate many citizens. What's the next target? Sugary cereals that include a toy or stickers in the package? Sodas that offer discounts on amusement parks? Unless San Francisco plans to prohibit these, too, restaurants are being unfairly singled out.

Of course, none of this is to say that fast-food establishments shouldn't offer more healthy alternatives, or to deny that child obesity is a crisis. Nearly a third of kids in America are overweight or obese. Over the past three decades, child obesity rates have roughly tripled, putting more kids at risk for diabetes and cardiovascular problems.

There are a number of promising approaches to this legitimate health emergency that don't involve aggravating parents or depriving children of toys. These include making school lunches healthier and encouraging schools to offer more physical education. In low-income neighborhoods, where obesity tends to be more prevalent, efforts are underway to attract more supermarkets that offer fresh produce, and to build more playgrounds and ball fields to encourage outdoor activity.

Because junk food has been shown to have addictive qualities, information and education are keys to changing attitudes and behaviors, just as with the campaign against smoking. The new national health care law requires large restaurant chains to include calorie counts on menus. That's a sensible way to ensure parents can make informed choices about the meals their children eat — including opting to trade the fries for fruit, or soda for milk. The key is making menu items' nutritional content transparent to consumers. What they decide to do with that information should be their choice, not the government's.

As with other issues, San Francisco might think it's ahead of the times. But its heavy-handed approach is more likely to make kids unhappy than it is to make them skinny.

Opposing view on child obesity: Put kids' health first

USA Today 11/8/10

By Eric Mar

On Nov. 2, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors passed a common sense ordinance. The Healthy Meals Incentive ordinance does just what it says — it incentivizes restaurants to provide healthier options. Kids' meals must meet basic nutritional standards in order for restaurants to use toy-giveaways.

I proposed this ordinance, because my city is like so many others across the country: One in three kids are at risk in their lifetime for type 2 diabetes and other conditions due to poor diet. Communities of color and low-income families are disproportionately affected. Our doctors' offices and pediatric clinics are increasingly overwhelmed with the needs of younger patients. Childhood obesity rates have tripled in the 30 years since the introduction of the Happy Meal.

San Francisco is at the forefront of programs to promote physical activity, healthier school lunches and nutrition education. Yet, even as these programs make measured progress, each year, the fast-food industry sells more than a billion junk food meals to kids under 12 on the wings of toy giveaways.

In neighborhoods across the country from southeast San Francisco to east Los Angeles, to urban cities like Detroit and Newark, residents are living in food deserts, where fast-food restaurants far outnumber supermarkets and access to healthy food is scarce.

Dollars spent on junk foods dwarf what our city can spend on education. McDonald's says kids' meals are healthy. Are apple slices dipped in sugary caramel sauce healthy? A parent shouldn't need a graduate degree in nutrition to decide. Mom and Dad should be able to trust that food sold to their kids is healthy.

From the Institute of Medicine to the World Health Organization, we know that reducing the consumption of junk food by kids could spare the health of millions and save billions of dollars to our overstrapped public health system. That's why pediatricians, educators, parents, community health advocates and thousands of individuals lined up to support this ordinance.

As the California Restaurant Association says, this epidemic requires a "broad societal response." We agree. From Mom to McDonald's, everyone must do their part.

After all, parental responsibility does not preclude corporate accountability.

San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar sponsored the Healthy Meals Incentive ordinance.

Our view on security vs. privacy: Critics bash airport scans, but what's their alternative?

USA Today 11/16/10

If anyone wondered about the limits of public tolerance for the increasingly unpleasant airport screening experience, the answer is being provided by the reaction to newly installed body scanners and newly aggressive pat-downs offered as an alternative.

This week alone, New Jersey's Legislature passed a resolution saying the scans violate a citizen's right against unreasonable searches. John Tyner, a California traveler who sought a pat-down instead of a scan and then told airport security, "If you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested," became an Internet sensation.

And in the most ambitious and irresponsible protest, two grass-roots groups started the call for fliers to "opt out" of scans and insist on public pat-downs on Nov. 24, the day before Thanksgiving. That's about the worst idea since somebody suggested, "Let's change the formula for Coke." It threatens to create even bigger bottlenecks on what's one of the year's busiest travel days.

More broadly, there's a gaping hole in the critics' logic: None has offered an effective alternative. The body scanners can detect objects that metal detectors miss, such as plastic firearms, ceramic knives and, yes, possibly explosives hidden in a person's underwear — the kind carried by the failed Christmas Day bomber last year. The unspoken conclusion of the critics' thinking is that the government should possess technology that can detect hidden weapons, but not use it because of public squeamishness. Imagine the outcry if a bomber managed to board a plane and bring it down.

In fact, despite the critics' overwrought charges, they are a vocal minority. In a CBS News poll last week, 81% of those surveyed said airports should use full-body X-ray machines. The scanners' invasive aspects have been toned down considerably. Software obscures images of body parts. Individuals can't be identified. The operator who sees the image is in another room.

This is not to say there aren't valid questions about the machines or that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) can't improve this process. While the Food and Drug Administration has assured the public that the scanners do not pose a health risk, a few scientists question that assertion and have called for more study. Given the millions of people who will pass through these devices, that's a good idea.

More urgently, the government should take heed of the hundreds of travelers who have complained about rude, curt or obnoxious treatment by TSA workers, particularly during pat-downs. Such treatment is inexcusable, and screeners need to be told pronto that unpleasant pat-downs aren't meant to coerce passengers into using the machines.

The government and airlines should do everything they can to make the process less infuriating without compromising safety. This includes reviewing existing policies that have piled up in response to particular plots. Is it still necessary for everybody to take off their shoes? Is 3.4 ounces still the right limit for carry-on liquids? Is it necessary to clog checkpoints by giving fliers big financial incentives to avoid checking their luggage? And is there room for more common sense in the whole process?

As another holiday travel season approaches, airport screening might finally be reaching a tipping point. But before a vocal minority forces the issue, everyone needs to calm down and remember that the security-line indignities are a necessary byproduct of an era in which terrorists remain fixated on blowing jetliners out of the sky.

Opposing view on security vs. privacy: Honor basic human dignity

USA Today 11/16/10

By James Babb and George Donnelly

We Won't Fly urges air travelers to say "I opt out" of TSA abuse on Nov. 24. Travelers should opt out of full-body scanners not only to protect their health and privacy, but to protest the Transportation Security Administration's demeaning new security theater. We can ensure passenger safety without making nude images of our children or groping our grandmas.

For this, TSA Administrator John Pistole accuses us of being "irresponsible."

The TSA and the Homeland Security Department, however, are the irresponsible parties. They have deployed untested technology that biochemist Michael Love says "statistically someone is going to get skin cancer from."

They did not properly educate the flying public about their new intrusive security regimen. Passengers thrust into these new procedures report cases of trauma, including flashbacks for rape victims and feelings of humiliation. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, a political appointee, irresponsibly misled the nation in a USA TODAY Forum piece Monday, saying the scanners were safe and the genital probings were discrete. They are neither.

Homeland Security has suckered Americans into a false sense of security with scanners of dubious value. It remains to be seen whether they even detect the threat presented by last December's underwear bomber.

Rafi Sela, a leading Israeli airport security expert, recently told the Canadian government: "I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747." Is that the security you were expecting, America?

National Opt Out Day is of vital importance to the nation, despite the risk of flight delays. The traveling public urgently requires education on these new intrusive TSA procedures, education that the TSA has neglected.

Individuals need to be warned of the radiation dangers. Parents need to be aware of the emotional trauma their children may be subjected to from TSA "bad touches."

Air travelers are clamoring for someone to stand up and demand that their basic human dignity be honored. As parents, we have a sacred responsibility to our children to keep air travel safe, trauma-free and respectful of individual liberty. The only irresponsible action would be for us to continue doing nothing at all.

James Babb and George Donnelly, who live in the Philadelphia area, are co-founders of the grass-roots group We Won't Fly.

Friday, December 3

Happy Friday!! Read the following information to see what we are doing in class...

As we saw in Shattered Glass, there are many ethical decisions a reporter and editor must weigh and ultimately make in a given story. Many of you were surprised something more serious didn’t happen to Glass legally. This is partly due to the fact that his stories were fabricated; he did not harm any individual, as these individuals were frequently false.

When discussing media ethics, one must consider the most common legal pitfalls, which include:

Libel: Injury to reputation. False words, pictures, or cartoons that expose a person to public hatred, shame, disgrace or ridicule or induce an ill opinion of a person are libelous.

Obscenity: Another form of unprotected speech. Generally defined as something that by community standards arouses sexual desire, depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

Slander: The utterance of a falsehood that damages another’s reputation. Spoken defamation (as opposed to libel, which is printed).

Not every unethical behavior is legally forbidden, even if it is injurious (such in the case of Stephen Glass' stories). The basic ethical issues that usually arise in journalism include:

1. The importance of getting more than one source; the importance of using only information that is “on the record.”
2. The question of whether it is ethical to use the names of juveniles who have committed a crime.
3. The ethical question of when something is an invasion of privacy; the question of when a photo, or whether that photo should be published.
4. The question of whether to print unsigned letters to the editor; the importance of having a letter to the editor policy established. The responsibility of the publication for everything it prints.
5. The issue of using anonymous sources.
6. The issue of conflict of interest.
7. The importance of getting both sides of an issue.

Today you will think through 11 different ethical situations that I have provided, all of which take place in a high school newspaper setting. Using the information above, you will work with a partner in making a final ethical decision. You will see just how tricky this can be. Write your answers to these questions on a separate piece of paper. I will collect these at the end of class.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Thursday, December 2

After seeing that there was a 60 Minutes interview with the real Stephen Glass included on our DVD, I thought we would watch the ten-minute clip. Stephen tells the audience exactly what happened and why, and the real Chuck Lane is also interviewed about the deception. After watching this segment, you'll complete two activities regarding the movie, but more so, regarding the editorial process. I have hard copies of the assignments, but have also posted them below. You will be fact-checking several excerpts from Stephen's other articles, as well as putting yourself in the position of the editor.

I am also including a fun little activity, which you may do in place of one of the others. It is a news brief that is filled with false information. Your job is to fact-check the piece. You may use the Internet to look up businesses, maps, directories, etc. I've included the brief below:

How many mistakes can you find in this news brief?

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Thursday, December 2, 2010) – Scoffing at superstition, protesters gathered outside the Taft Building today to oppose pending federal legislation that would impose new restrictions on SUVs. Blocking the intersection at Constitution and Independence Avenues with an assortment of supersize vehicles - Escapades, Grand Tetons, Liberatos - the gruop called attention to its cause with horn blasts and car alarms that echoed among the cherry trees that line the Mall. Alerted in advance, D.C. police soon dispersed the protesters with help from Anacostia Wrecker Service and other local towing companies, restoring the scene to tranquility and traffic.

Link to the 60 Minutes interview if you would like to check it out: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/07/60minutes/main552819.shtml

The Editorial Process

We saw Stephen Glass get away with reporting fiction as fact in the film, Shattered Glass. As Glass said in the movie, although there is a rigorous fact-checking system, there is a loop-hole. Oftentimes, a reporter’s notes are the only source to check fact against. Thus, fabricated notes could cause for an untrue story to be printed.

Suppose you had been a fact-checker at The New Republic. Do you think you would have caught Glass’ deceptions? Here are three excerpts from articles Glass wrote for the magazine. Read each one and underline the details that you think need independent verification. In the space provided, explain how you would go about uncovering the real facts.

1. One Chicago-area school for Santas featured a 144-page textbook that provided instruction on everything from going to the bathroom in a Santa suit to rules on how to touch children.

2. Western Union now has a “Stop the Cassini” hotline, 1-888-no-cassini, which forwards anti-Cassini telegrams to the White House for $10 a pop…and Las Vegas is even taking bets on whether the satellite will malfunction. The approximate odds before lift-off: 1 in 70.

3. Take Joel Carni, whose family business, Four Acres, is one of the nation’s largest political novelty manufacturers. This summer, stores will be hit with Carni’s newest project, the Monicondom.

Editorial Standards

During his time at The New Republic, Stephen Glass worked under the editors of Michael Kelly and Charles (Chuck) Lane. As portrayed in the film, Glass and Kelly differ in the ways they provide editorial support to their writers. To gauge this difference, and to learn something about your own editorial philosophy, take a look at the episodes from Shattered Glass described below. For each episode, explain why you agree or disagree with the editor’s actions, and if you disagree, explain what you would have done.

1. When Kelly receives a letter charging that Glass fabricated his account of a hotel room orgy during a young conservatives convention, he asks Glass to gather his notes so they can respond. When he learns that Glass did misreport one detail – there was no mini-bar in the room, just a rented mini-fridge, according to Glass – Kelly sends him home, satisfied that the story is solid. But once Glass is gone, Kelly calls the hotel to confirm that guests can rent a mini-fridge as Glass has claimed.

2. When the publisher forces everyone on staff to circle every comma in the last issue, so he can point out what he believes are mistakes, Kelly confronts him. “These people…deserve our thanks, not another one of your world-famous tantrums,” he tells the publisher. “I would resign before I’d allow you to bully them like that again.” Then, hanging up the phone, Kelly announces, “The Great Comma Debate is history.”

3. After Lane and Glass spend hours in a conference call with Forbes, during which the facts in Glass’ computer hacker story become steadily more and more dubious, Lane sends Glass back to his office and calls the Forbes editor privately to ask that they spare his reporter. “You guys have discovered something that a troubled 25-year-old has done,” he says. “He could be very hurt by what you guys publish.” But when asked if he still stands by the story, Lane answers, off the record, “I’m looking into it…”

4. Finally convinced that Glass faked every shred of evidence for the facts he reported in his computer hacker story, Lane finds himself confronted by other staff members who feel it would be wrong to fire him. “He doctored his notes,” Lane tells them, “He lied to his editor.” But when they insist that Glass only lied out of panic and needs help, Lane backs down. Instead of firing him, he suspends Glass for two years.”

Wednesday, December 1

Here is a photo of the real Stephen Glass. After he was fired from The New Republic, Glass went on to receive a law degree from Georgetown University. He then moved to New York City, where it is believed he is a paralegal. After his departure from the magazine, Glass stayed away from the journalism community. In 2003, he published an "auto-biography" titled, The Fabulist, which recounted his scandal.

Today we will be finishing up the movie, Shattered Glass. Since each class has reached a different point in the movie, we will all begin an activity tomorrow. Today, after the movie, you will write (or type) a 250-word response, in which you will answer the following...

-What were your initial reactions to the movie?

-Which elements of the Code of Ethics were present? Which were broken? What ethical decisions had to be made? Explain.

-What would you have done if you were Chuck Lane (the editor)?

-Why is it important to have a Code of Ethics?

Turn these into me by the end of class.

Happy Wednesday!