Good Sense--Hopefully It's Common

Lately, I've noticed that people in the United States treat everything like a spectator sport. I had the opportunity to attend the BYU-Florida football game. From my seat I could hear the angry, frustrated responses to fumbles, scores for the other team, etc. Now we've all been frustrated at a game, or sat by extremely displeased football fans who shout out what the players on the field should have done, or didn't do right. My high school history teacher called it armchair quarterbacking. I don't recall being so engulfed by fans hating on their own team. Except in politics.
Instances like Joe Wilson shouting "you lie" in President Obama's speech, or the outrage at the president's school broadcast telling kids to stay in school, have been displays of disproportionate hatred. There was a time when the president was supported, regardless of whether the people voted for him or for his opponent.
The above are recent events, but past presidents have had similar reactions. President George W. Bush, for example, was publicly hated. I cannot tell you how many conversations I hear that criticize President Bush personally, unrelated to decisions he made in office -- I mean below-the-belt insults that went after his accent, or his grammar (I even had a friend curse him repeatedly during the early election process before his first term in office). I cannot tell you how disgusting it is to hear people still grumbling about how Senator Al Gore should have won, eight, even nine years after the election. Being that bitter about the way things happened is ridiculous; if you want the system to be changed, then do it through the system; being bitter isn't going to change policy.
The first president I remember was hated on as well. And I think the trend of unreasonable attacks really took off during his presidency. President Bill Clinton was attacked vehemently, so much so that he got impeached. Of course having an affair is not right. Lying under oath about it was doubly not right. The outcry from these things was merited, to some extent. But in reviewing the situation, and age-old question comes to mind: do the means justify the ends? Several presidents have had affairs, and have not been impeached for it. It goes under the category of 'personal life,' and not under 'oath of office.' Of course there's the argument of broken trust. If he lied under oath about an affair, would he lie under oath about other things? Possibly. But it's arguable that the people who most vehemently propagated the cause of impeachment just used the affair as an excuse to kick the president out of office. And that's where I come to distrust this method of hatred.
Have you ever heard the idea that anger blocks out reasoned thought? That's what I think the effect is of this spreading bitterness. People aren't able to see past the apparent faults to what may be the motive behind the message. Everyone has a reason to speak their mind, from the proverbial little kid who wants a cookie and tells his or her mommy that cookies are healthy, to the official who wants to win an election, or the writer who wants to sway opinion. Perhaps it would be easier to see motives and act according to one's best knowledge if anger and bitterness is rethought and held back for the sake of reasoning.
And this is where my argument gets tricky. I don't believe it's good to listen to people like Glenn Beck, who yell at the top of their lungs and shut out fair debate. If an argument is so high-stakes that he, or anyone else, can't let it be said, it implies that he can't capably rebut it on his own radio talk show, where his opinion can be said unfettered. A radio talk show, in my opinion, should be about talking things out, exploring the details and letting ideas and opinions form and change to reflect the most reasonable conclusion. I don't trust people that won't let the facts stand on their own. I don't think anyone else should, either.

Journalism: the political yo-yo

It surprises me how much public opinion of journalism changes, and how the trends seem to bounce back and forth between opposite sides of the ideological spectrum. Reading over the assigned ER readings, it appears difficult to try to categorize time periods into unified views of free speech. And well it should: with the broad spectrum of people, there are doubtless many points of view. The overall theme seems to be a bouncing-back of ideologies from censorship to free speech and back again, with changing rationales for the reasoning behind it. This pattern leads me to believe that it will continue, and in new and interesting ways. Since the internet has blossomed, censorship laws and possibilities of communication have grown in size and diversity. Government authorities have had to adapt to the capabilities of internet communication, adjusting censorship policies and tenets as twittering of news from other countries, as well as the transmission of ideas, have taken ahold of the internet. Those who deal with free speech issues will have to come up with new reasons for restricting or not restricting media flow. My dearest wish sometimes is to make all this fluctuation stop, and have absolute definitions of things like free speech (and which political party is completely right). Unfortunately, like most idealist dreams, this will remain unfulfilled(unless some scientist brings Martin Luther King, Jr. back from the dead to rally the masses and change things).

What is journalism? Who is a journalist?

Journalism is the product of a journalist. A journalist is someone who researches and reports, writes and edits. He or she is the insider who brings hidden things to view. Despite personal opinions, the writer attempts to present a balanced view of a situation. In writing, the thesis is defined and backed with specific and related concrete detail from both points of view. Commentary and opinion are minimized. It is the journalist’s job to make extracted information interesting to the audience, and let the audience decide for itself what its opinion is.

Journalism, however, is not neutral. It is biased by nature, and as such must be read with a critical eye. It is compiled and sold to the general public in order to educate and to sway opinion. Journalism is a written form of media, a branch of the business that appeals to the educated and those who seek knowledge. In order for it to thrive, it must appeal to its audience. It must adapt to the environment, and compete in areas that may threaten its popularity, and even its existence.

But is journalism relevant to today’s society? Is it limited to hard copy or does it encompass the internet as well? If it is only on paper, it may not survive the culture it depends on and supports. Transferring from newspaper stands to websites may be necessary to adapt to a changing world. After all, written history had to adapt when the printing press was invented. Information sharing was no longer limited to monks in monasteries copying books for the nobles. Journalism was born from the increased accessibility of the printed word. Now that print decreases, journalism must adapt. Freedom of the press no longer means exactly what it did when the Constitution of the United States included the clause in its time-worn document. The press has become even more public, as anyone with access to a computer and the internet can post information, true and false, and opinions can be shared by commenting on someone else’s work, at little or no cost to the people involved.

So the question is, can journalism survive when so many people can share information and ideas without spending as much as they did when journals were popular?