CLOTHING QUESTIONS - ASK THEM!

The search for bodies in the clothing industry should not stop with a collapsed factory in Bangladesh.   The real bodies local reporters should be searching for are the corporate executives of the GAP and Walmart and JC Penney and all the other clothing merchandisers able to sell clothes at a remarkably low price because of employes who work distressingly long hours for depressingly low wages.

Local reporters should be asking the executives a simple question:   what specific steps has the executive taken in the past two years to improve the working conditions of garment workers in the third world?  And thanks to technology, there's no cost for the video interview.  Just use skype.   And if the corporate executive won't talk, report it.

I had read about clothing factories, but it wasn't until I watched one overpacked truckful of workers after another turning into a garment plant in Phnom Penh, Cambodia  that I gained an actual sense of the human cost of a $9 shirt.   We can buy cheap clothes here because our corporations have them made in conditions that would never be tolerated in this country or Europe.

I got a chance to see how the workers live.   Take a look.   It's ten to a room.

Working conditions for the people who make our clothes should be a story for reporters in every market in the country.   Read the label.    Reporters in every market should be contacting the corporate officials and asking what they are doing about working conditions.   Do they approve?   Is paying women next to nothing to work long hours ok?   What's their position?   Take a look at how employees  commute to work in Cambodia.  Riding on the roof of a van is not a safety violation.  Do corporate executives bringing home healthy bonuses care at all about the humans who make the clothes? 

 

To produce stories that matter, reporters need to ask questions that make a difference.

The collapse of the clothing factory in Bangladesh is a classic example of an important reporting opportunity missed by local TV reporters.  When journalism fails, bad things happen.

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Local TV Fails to Question U. S. Senators

Ever since Sandy Hook, gun regulation has been a major issue.   So how have local TV reporters questioned their U.S. Senators on their positions on background checks, assault weapons, high capacity magazines?   A spot check today by student journalists in my computer-assisted reporting class indicates local TV news doesn't seem to care what their Senators think.

President Obama complained Senators could not give him a reason for voting no.   Had Senators explained their positions on gun regulation in the weeks leading up to the vote to TV reporters in their home state?   Had their local TV reporters bothered to ask?   My students contacted 16 stations across the country focusing on Senators who voted NO.   The result:  14 of 16 stations (88%) said their reporters had never interviewed their U.S. Senator on the issue of gun regulation.

Stations Doing No Interviews

KTVA	Anchorage
WSB	Atlanta
KVVU	Las Vegas
WALB	Albany
KOTV	Tulsa
KOCO	Oklahoma City
KFYR	Bismark
KSNT	Topeka
KPAX	Missoula
LEX18	Lexington
WMUR	Manchester
KNXV	Phoenix
WIS	Columbia
KLAS	Las vegas

Stations That Had Interviewed Their Senators

KTVB	Boise
KLKN	Lincoln

Why do you suppose the idea of operating in the public's interest appears to have evaporated from so many local stations?     It's easy to understand what the Pew Research confirms, that viewers are going away.   There's no reason to watch.   When journalism fails, bad things happen.   And when there's no journalism worth watching on local television,  audience will continue to dwindle and TVstations will lose the one thing they care about:  revenue.

                   Students in Kent State University's Computer-Assisted Reporting Class

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All Torture is Local

The standards of any organization come from the top.   If Rupert wanted Newscorp to have high ethical standards, it would have had them.   It didn't and paid the price.   If Penn State wanted high ethical standards, it would have had them.  It didn't, and boys being sexually abused paid the price.

For any nation, the same is true.   Standards come from the top.

Following 911, the United States changed its national standards when it decided torture was ok.
As a 577 page independent nonpartison report found, the problem didn't stem from a rogue soldier or two but from a policy from the top that approved torture.

In his opinion piece in the Washington Post, former ambassador Thomas Pickering writes a single sentence that should make any reporter in any market see an instant story and an instant question that needs to be asked.

Pickering writes:  "By authorizing and permitting torture in response to a global terrorist threat, U.S. leaders committed a grave error that has undermined our values, principles and moral stature; eroded our global influence; and placed our soldiers, diplomats and intelligence officers in even greater jeopardy."

The instant question is for the reporter's local member of Congress and for the reporter's U.S. Senators:  do we need further investigation and more transparency in how the United States utilized torture or not?    What is the member's position on torture?

In a democracy, it's essential not to sanitize violations of international law or to cover up unacceptable behavior with semantics.   As Pickering writes,  "First and foremost, Americans need to confront the truth. Let’s stop resorting to euphemisms and call “enhanced interrogation techniques” — including but not limited to waterboarding — what they actually are: torture. Torturing detainees flies in the face of principles and practices established in the founding of our republic, and it violates U.S. law and international treaties to which we are a party. "

Does your member of Congress favor or oppose torture?   Does your member of Congress favor or oppose transparency?   

Why aren't local news organizations asking those questions of their members of Congress?  All politics is local.  It's the responsibility of the press to hold politicians accountable.   Why aren't news organizations doing that?  

As Pickering says, "Too much information about the abuse of detainees remains hidden from the American people." 

When journalism fails, bad things happen.  Torture is a bad thing. 

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ACCURATE quotes providing INACCURATE information

When Louisville guard Kevin Ware broke his leg on national television, one question most wouldn't have thought of is who pays for the medical bills?  A university official quickly pointed out to reporters that Ware and Ware's family would have no medical bills.

In a story in USA Today, the NCAA followed up.    Here's the quote from the USA Today story:

"Student-athletes must have insurance covering athletic-related injuries to practice and compete, per rules adopted by NCAA institutions – and in most cases colleges and universities provide that coverage," NCAA spokesperson Stacey Osburn said by email.

I expect the USA Today reporter is quoting Ms. Osburn accurately.   And if a student has no insurance and wants to buy a policy, most universities will provide a policy that can be purchased at the student's expense.   Who pays?  What Stacey Osburn says, that in MOST cases it is the university that provides coverage, is contradicted by what my student reporters have found.   Students in my computer-assisted reporting class contacted every university in the Mid-American Conference and in each case found that it is the student's insurance that provides the primary coverage.

Across the country, that's also what the National College Players Association has found.  Its president Ramogi Huma has excellent advice for both parents and any student athlete being recruited by a university to avoid running into an incredibly expensive medical bill surprise.  

In this day and age of instant online communication where every college athletic program has a website, Huma's organization has made an incredibly sensible suggestion:  put the the athletic department's medical payment policy online so student athletes and their parents know what it is.   Well click and listen to how universities responded.

Ramogi Huma asks an excellent question reporters should be asking universities to answer.   How do universities have the money to pay coaches millions of dollars and don't have money to pay for a college athlete's medical expenses?

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The REAL March Madness: Universities that aren't

There's a major team missing from this year's tournament for a simple reason:  the players so great on the court are pretty lousy in the classroom.   The Huskies of the University of Connecticut have to watch instead of play in the tournament because they didn't meet NCAA academic standards.   And in a piece to USA Today, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has a suggestion:  punish the coaches.

Wrong challenge.   The problem isn't the coach.   It's the university.

Punish the provost.   Punish the university president.

Every university should take this challenge posed by a former university provost, Jon Ericson, the founder of the Drake Group.   The Drake Group is concerned with academic integrity.   The question reporters should be asking their university presidents and provosts is why aren't they?

Both political parties claim university education is crucially important.   So ask your members of Congress if they believe it's good education policy for the highest paid public employee in state after state to be either a football coach or a basketball coach?  Do your members of Congress agree its good education policy for universities to have easy-A courses to keep athletes eligible?    Do they agree with Jon Ericson's challenge?  What's your governor think?   Is the governor truly concerned about education, or is your governor just another pom pom waver who doesn't want to lift the hood on the troubled engine of higher education?

By the way, considering how much time players spend on the road during the season and the tournament, how are they able to miss so many classes and still get good grades?   How many sports reporters have done that story?

I Couldn't Believe It

One of my students in my Advanced Broadcast News Reporting class came in with an incredibly sad admission the other day.   He said he didn't often watch the local news.  That's not the sad admission.   The sad admission is what he found when he did watch.   He turned on to watch the news and found no news.

"There was nothing there," he said.  

"They spent 15 minutes on the weather," adding the obvious, "Yes, it's Ohio and it snows in the winter, so what?"

He was amazed there was no news on the newscast.

I asked, "why would you watch?"

"I wouldn't" he replied.

Question:  why don't corporate owners understand that?  There's no reason to watch the news when there is no news on the newscast.  

The student wasn't talking about a small market with no staff, he was talking about Cleveland.

It's not the internet that is killing the local TV news business.   It's management.

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To stop losing audience: TRY REPORTING

What a surprise.   As the Pew Research Center reports, fewer people watch local TV news.   Pew finds only 28% of adults under 30 are regular news viewers.

Why should they watch?   To see who got shot?  To get a weather forecast they can get instantly on their iPhone?

Why would anyone go to the news store when there is no news?

A truly disturbing finder in this year's State of the Media Report is how the national press has increasingly turned into human microphone stands.   In examining the presidential campaign, Pew reports that campaign reporters were "acting primarily as megaphones, rather than as investigators."

For local TV the solution is not difficult, but it will take a commitment from management.  

Management must direct its news staff to report, to ask questions, to go after records.  Quality journalism takes time.  You can't build an audience with a live shot.  Management needs to hire first-rate reporters and give them the support to do what they're supposed to do.   In short, management needs to make the decision to put news in a newscast.   That can't be done if your staff consists of human microphone stands instead of journalists.

To build a local news audience, do news that matters not blather that doesn't.  

(Hint for the television station GM:  check the budget and staffing for your computer-assisted reporting unit.)

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CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP - THE MEDIA BIRD

Check the job ads on MediaBistro and students can find a fabulous internship possibility.   Some lucky intern has the chance to work with the cheapest schmuck in the country.   This guy wants an intern for 6 months for a minimum of 20 hours a week in New York City.  The pay?   ZERO.   Take a look at what this guy wants:

YOU'RE THE PERFECT INTERN FOR ME IF YOU:
(You do not need all these skills to qualify but a guy can dream, can't he?)
Do what you say you're going to do, when you say you're going to do it.
You have a great attitude all the time no matter what.
You are a work-a-holic.
You feel like you just need a break.
You are interested in being introduced to important people in the media, business world, literary and publishing world and from time to time celebrities.
You are passionate about marketing, publicity, editing, writing or business.
You need something great on your resume.
You need a letter of recommendation.
You're willing to commit to at least 6 months. You are willing to commit to at least 20 hours a week.
You have access to your own computer and broadband internet.
You are well-versed in Word and/or Excel.
You don't mind doing hours of mindless data entry but are willing to also interact, engage and collaborate.
You have excellent grammar and spelling.
You love to write.
You are interested in meeting literary agents, magazine and newspaper editors.
You know how to edit audio or video.
You are great at answering the phone and have a gift for gab and putting people at ease.
You meet deadlines without any excuses. If I hear how someone cat, dog or grandma died one more time, I think I'm going to throw up.
- See more at: http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser-jobs/jobview.asp?joid=146671&page=1#sthash.mUgPrtXX.dpuf

In addition Mr. Truly Impressed With Himself says, "This is not a free slave internship. This is an opportunity to work with a mentor who is willing and able to teach you all I know."

This man who loves his own talent wants the potential intern to know, "People pay me big bucks to teach them how to do this and you'll get it all for free so that you can take the knowledge with you, whether you are hired as a full-time assistant or you work elsewhere, forever." Do you think this guy gives lessons on how to be cheap?  

Who is this person?   We can only guess.   Here's what the ad says.  "I'm a published author (Warner Books) and media personality who owns a social media and PR firm for authors, experts and celebrities. We have a small virtual staff of 10 but looking to grow. Although the corporation is based in New York, we all work from virtual offices around the country. - See more at: http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser-jobs/jobview.asp joid=146671&page=1#sthash.mUgPrtXX.dpuf"

Never has going to school been more costly; never have students been graduating with more debt; never have students been under more pressure to find work.   And this published author and media personality can't come up with a few bucks for an intern?   

If anyone knows who this guy is, go throw a pie in his face.    

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National Apology Day

The other night, Rachel Maddow devoted her show to reporting on a book every voting citizen should read:  Hubris - The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the the Iraq War.   David Corn and Michael Isikoff do a superb job of disaster-response journalism.   And that's the problem.

It's not until the disaster hits that reporters start asking questions that should have been asked long before the disaster.   This country had a war in Iraq for one primary reason:  journalism failed. The press played cheerleader.

We need to add a national holiday, National Apology Day.  It's the day the press apologizes to the American public for failing to do its job.

Our financial crisis is another example.   The press played cheerleader.  What do you think will be the consequences of dismantling the financial controls put in place following the Great Depression?  Is there any reason to believe eliminating those controls will somehow cause the financial industry to act responsibly and in the best interest of society?  What do you think will be the consequences of making it perfectly legal to securitize tens of thousands of liars loans? Where was the press asking the questions that needed to be asked?

Remember the hearings held on the Gulf Oil Spill?  Congressman Ed Markey grilled BP executives on the company's emergency response plans, response plans that called for saving walruses.   Just imagine if reporters, recognizing there are two major industries in the the Gulf - oil and tourism - had asked a basic question:  what happens if there's a spill?   Reporters doing what reporters are supposed to do would have found those emergency response plans.  They would have reported that BP was planning to save a species that has not been present in the Gulf for three million years.  Reporters would have had a great story, one that could have prevented a disaster and Congress would have done necessary oversight.

Remember the Presidential Debates?   Not a single question about climate change.  Insurance companies believe in science; so should journalists.

Remember Jim Tressel, the football coach who arrived at Ohio State with a history of NCAA violations at his previous job at YSU?   There was no more obvious story for any sports reporter.   What would Tressel's first annual performance review show?   You guessed it.  He was in violation again.   Did the local reporters, excuse me - I mean cheerleaders - report that?  Of course not.   When Tressel resigned, his performance evaluations showed multiple violations.  Those evaluations, all of which are public record, had never been disturbed by a reporter.   Ohio State told me nobody had ever requested them, a fact confirmed by the editor of the Columbus Dispatch. When I questioned the paper's lack of reporting,  editor Ben Marrison wrote to me:  "Our research indicates none of the approximately 600 journalists credentialed to cover Ohio State football requested Jim Tressel's evaluations.   In hindsight, I wish the Dispatch would have, as they would have led to some good stories."  Duh!

On National Apology Day, Ben Marrison can join the heads of CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX the NEW YORK TIMES and the WASHINGTON POST.  From college scandals to financial security to national security, when journalism fails, bad things happen.

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The One-Question Story Waiting to be Told

Doug Brown - a grad student at Kent State and a former student in my computer-assisted reporting class - has done some excellent reporting for Deadspin.   His report on the track coach at the University of Toledo  details a man who appears to have spent a career sexually harassing his female athletes.

A comparison between Doug's report and that in the Toledo Blade is a worthwhile editorial exercise.   Doug reports in detail on Coach Kevin Hadsell.   The Blade either hadn't done nearly as much reporting and therefore didn't have as much material or it intentionally minimized the behavior of a coach no responsible program would want anywhere near a woman's team or behind the wheel with a load of student athletes.

But there's one direct question that needs to be answered by the University of Toledo.   What steps is it taking to encourage other victims to come forward (and will some of those victims say they reported problems to university officials who did nothing)?   Whatever the answer, it's a story.

I'm sure Doug will be asking the question.   What about the Blade?  

One reason we see so many scandals in college athletics is because the press fails to do its job.   Too often, the local press doesn't report; it plays cheerleader.   When it comes to college athletics, in many newsrooms reporters don't even control their own story.  As sports commentator Bruce Hooley explains, the team decides.

Actual reporters, reporters like Doug Brown, don't play that game.   Reporters like Doug Brown follow the information and ask the questions that need to be asked.     With all the problems in college athletics, it's time local sports reporters put down their pom poms and pick up their pens.

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The Danger of a Sanitized Press & Sanitized Education

Citizens of Iran know about American foreign policy because they experienced it first hand.   When the leader of the country wanted to nationalize the oil fields and share the wealth with the Iranian people, the United States did not want that.   The CIA orchestrated a coup, overthrew the government, installed a ruthless dictator whose secret police tortured, imprisoned or killed political opponents.   How would you feel about a country that did that to your country?

Is that in your child's American history textbook?

In more recent American history, America uses drones to kill people in countries with which we are not at war.   People in other countries know that because the press there reports it.   Here?

Every U.S. Citizen should read an excellent piece in the Guardian.

US media yet again conceals newsworthy government secrets.

I gave my students an article from the New Republic by Spencer Ackerman and John B. Judis that reviews how the American people were lied to about the threat posed by Iraq.   It's another article that's a worthwhile read for any citizen.   From a let's be honest with the American people before deciding to go to war, a poignant paragraph is this:

Yet there was no consensus within the American intelligence community that Saddam   represented such a grave and imminent threat. Rather, interviews with current and former intelligence officials and other experts reveal that the Bush administration culled from U.S. intelligence those assessments that supported its position and omitted those that did not. The administration ignored, and even suppressed, disagreement within the intelligence agencies and pressured the CIA to reaffirm its preferred version of the Iraqi threat. Similarly, it stonewalled, and sought to discredit, international weapons inspectors when their findings threatened to undermine the case for war.

Going to war is serious.  It costs billions of dollars, thousands of lives.   I asked my students to read the article and to answer a couple questions.   What did they learn from it?   How had the war been discussed in their high school civics, social studies, government classes?  Here are few comments:

Student:  In my high school, the decision to invade Iraq was not a topic that was discussed very thoroughly. It was sort of brushed over, and not much else was said about it. I learned more from this article about the decision than I ever did in high school.

Student:  The decision to invade Iraq wasn’t discussed much in my high school. If it ever came up, it usually was the students doing most of the talking. Teachers almost always remained quiet.

Student:  In my high school it was barely discussed to be honest. Our teachers told us that we went to war because of 9/11 and to find WMD’s and Saddam Hussein but never really going into detail. They taught us that Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan had a bunch of terrorist organizations and that we had to eradicate them from those countries. Once it was revealed that no one could find any WMD’s I don’t remember discussing it at all. I don’t know whether it was to protect us or just keep us from asking too many questions, but the War in Iraq wasn’t really talked about unless someone from my town died as a result, and that’s pretty sad if you ask me.

Student:  In my high school, my class and I honestly never talked about the decision to invade Iraq.  

Student:  The decision to invade Iraq was not discussed at all in any of my high school classes.

Student:  To be honest, I do not recall any discussion of the Iraq war in my classes. If it was discussed, there were no questions raised and teachers did not show opposition. This is the first time I have questioned why it was started.

 

Teaching a sanitized version of American history/foreign policy does not serve our democracy.   Neither does sanitized reporting.   If you're an American citizen and wish to be informed about what your country is doing, it's probably wise to check the Guardian, Al Jazeera and the BBC.   

Had we had reporters instead of cheerleaders, there wouldn't have been a war in Iraq.   And to have a thoughtful, meaningful discussion about utilizing drones to kill enemies that only the government knows, it's essential to have reporting, not cheerleading.

When journalism fails, bad things happen.

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