Convergence & Consolidation in Journalism

Both media convergence and consolidation are happening in today's media field. These have raised both suspicions and praise from the public and the people in the field. They're both not necessarily good for journalism; but they're both happening and there's nothing we can do about it. Convergence and consolidation are results of today's culture and today's mass-media, and the journalism field wouldn't be as effective without them in terms of reaching a broad audience and providing the audience with more news outlets than ever before.

Media convergence is a necessary evil in today’s journalism field. The convergence of different media formats such as television, newspaper and radio provide more than one outlet for news access. This is an advantage for audiences because it allows them to access news through more than one outlet (video, writing, graphics, etc). Convergence is also beneficial for news corporations because it allows the news to reach a broader and larger demographic; allowing more viewers to access information.

Convergence is not all good, however. It contributes to loss of jobs and unemployment in media formats such as newspapers and magazines because of increased technology. Convergence replaces the old, fundamental way of journalism by allowing journalists to easily access information, true or false, instead of going out and getting it straight from the source, themselves. Overall, convergence is good for the journalism field because it provides news corporations with a larger audience and provides audiences with more ways to access news.

Consolidation in the media is leading to a field of oligopolies that overshadow small, local and personal news programs. These massive conglomerates (Time Warner, Disney, etc) are becoming increasingly concerned with profit, rather than the public interest. These corporations are experiencing an increase in control over the media due to the dwindling number of competitors, and this is bad for the public because it can lead to less voices heard, less coverage, less accuracy and less information being provided. Unchecked media consolidation is not good; it leads to a lack of diversity, less local programming and fewer sources for information and news. It could possibly diminish the quality of journalism by no longer carrying out investigative journalism, which is the “watch dog” job of the media.

Consolidation, in any form, leads to lesser-quality work. It switches the gears of the companies from public interest to private profit. It reduces the amount of information available, because when large companies have a hold on information; they can decide what to do with it. Consolidation is good in terms of cost-cutting and cost-effectiveness, but causes adversities in the credibility, reliability and ethics of the journalism field.

Critique

(News article)

This article describes the racial and ethnic diversity in a Pennsylvania school, and attributing these factors to a lot of violence towards Asian children in the school. The article begins with a description of the surrounding area to develop an image of diversity for the readers. The first mistake I noticed was in the second paragraph:

"Inside is a cauldron of cultural discontent that

erupted in violence last month — off-campus and

lunchroom attacks on about 50 Asian students,

injuring 30, primarily at the hands of blacks.

The Asian students, who boycotted classes for more

than a week afterward, say they've endured relentless

bullying by black students while school officials

turned a blind eye to their complaints."

"...primarily at the hands of blacks." This is an inappropriate sentence, especially so early into the story, and especially because of the focus on race and ethnicity in this specific story. The reporter used "Asian" to describe Chinese, Japanese and Korean students, but then used the term "blacks" to describe African-American students. This is an inconsistency in wording and could easily be offensive. This writer should have checked his consistency and language more carefully. The source for this information is a secondhand account and lacks credibility, or so it seems. If the writer had included direct quotes or specific incidents, this source would have been more accountable. However, the writer did attribute the information received to the source (the Asian students), which shows that he (the writer) did pay attention to accuracy. There is no verification to the credibility of the account in the article, even though there may have been verification that the author didn't put into the story. The author makes another language inconsistency mistake in the next paragraph:

"Philadelphia school officials suspended 10 students,

increased police patrols and installed dozens of new

security cameras to watch the halls, where 70 percent

of the students are black and 18 percent Asian."

Again, the author refers to "black" and "Asian", instead of "African American" and "Asian", which could offend people of any color and looks inconsistent. The writer isn't using two parallel words to display equality and non-racism and this could upset readers. This language difference could be viewed as bias or prejudice and unfair.

"The Philadelphia school district acted with

"deliberate indifference" toward the

harassment and failed to prevent the Dec. 3 attacks..."

Again, the author fails to attribute credibility to the source, with no description of the source, no name and no depth into what "deliberate indifference" implies.

"Asian students say black students routinely pelt them with food..."

This sentence is messy and inconsistent, again. The wording isn't very intelligent or precise, either. The constant stress on blaming the black students could be viewed as racism, bias or unfairness and the author should have investigated into whether or not students of other races were harming and terrorizing the Asian students.

The article is a little bit long for the topic, and it gets a little too long towards the end, so the brevity could have been worked on. I followed the story right up until the last couple of paragraphs, where I lost interest in the story. The focus is clear, although some of the information, sources and affiliates are confusing and it was hard to tell how these sources related to the story sometimes. I think the author could have researched the story a little bit more and gone more into depth about the violence, the perpetrators, the victims and the outcome. I felt like the author was a little biased or stereotypical towards the "black students" who "bullied" the Asian students with the unequal wording to describe the races. The author didn't explore the "black students" side of the story; he/she didn't include any quotes from any of the accused, so the story seemed a little on-sided.

However, the story was pretty in-depth with concerns to the Asian students side of the story and the actions of the school and school-board members. The author dug up information and quotes from sources I would not have thought could add much to the story, but they did. The story made sure to mention criminal charges and legal matters so the reader was not left with any questions. Overall, it was a fairly thorough story with a decent length and proper attribution to sources and information.

Photojournalism and doctored photographs

A large practice that has been surrounded by controversy lately is the doctoring and retouching of photographs for magazines, advertisements, newspapers and billboards. Photographs have been doctored, altered and retouched for decades, but with the introduction of new technology over the past decade, it is far easier to dramatically change pictures and more commonly practiced than ever before. These pictures have never been faster or easier to make with relatively cheap Photoshop programs available to everyone.

This photo-editing revolution has some believing it will lead to the “downfall of photojournalism” in the United States. Photojournalists are becoming less credible and the public is losing faith in the accuracy and truth of the news. These doctored photographs are winning the Pulitzer Prize and creating a more competitive and unfair environment in the photojournalism world. Photojournalists are feeling the pressure to produce an above-average photo in order to receive publicity, and, to do this they often resort to doctoring and editing photographs.

In 2007, an Ohio newspaper, The Toledo Blade, received a call about suspicions that they had run an altered news photo on the front page four days earlier. The culprit was the famous Allan Detrich, who had a reputation as a brilliant photojournalist. Detrich was twice named Ohio Photographer of the Year and a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1998. He denied that the photograph he sent to the editor was the photograph he meant to send. He claimed that the altered photograph was for his personal use, and he had mixed up the photos while sending them to the paper. After investigations, 79 of his photographs submitted for publication in early 2007 were found to have been doctored. Detrich admitted to habitually erasing “people, tree limbs, utility poles, electrical wires, light switches and cabinet knobs” from his photographs, as well as adding things like hockey pucks and basketballs into the frame.

Allan Detrich was highly revered and rewarded for his work, but his work was often altered, giving him an unfair advantage with respect to other photojournalists in competition. He is not the only famous journalist to be caught doctoring and altering photographs running in newspapers, on television, in magazines and on billboards. This practice is so commonly used today that it destroys the fundamentals of true, respectable photojournalism.

Doctoring photographs is so easy and so common that there are now professions and organizations completely dedicated to discovering these photos and revealing them. This profession is called “Digital Forensics” and these scientists study the light, depth and pixels of photographs. Doctored photos can be detected by finding spoiled pixel correlations, inconsistent specular highlights and light-source direction, as well as other advanced computer-based techniques.

Why are doctored photographs so bad? Because the public relies on journalists, news anchors, broadcasters and photographers to deliver the truth. With doctored photographs, the credibility and reputation of these sources is at risk. People become increasingly suspicious of news sources as these photos continue to be revealed, and their trust is waiving. The art of photography is at risk because people don’t need to take a perfect picture anymore; they can just doctor it to their pleasure. Photography is an art form, and it needs to remain fair in order to survive. These photographers ultimately do create a better picture, a more newsworthy picture, maybe a picture that will win an award. But the cost of the credibility of the individual photographer and the reputation of the entire journalism field is not worth the rewards reaped for these altered pictures.

Ricchiardi, Sherry. (2007). Distorted Picture. Retrieved from http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4383

Scientific American. (2010). Digital Forensics: Altered Lance Armstrong Photo Explained. Retrieved from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=digital-image-forensics-lance-armstrong

Assignment 1:

1-4 Create a blog entry that discusses a legal or moral issue in journalism. Be sure to cite and link to the articles your use for your entry. Your entry should be between 300-800 words and formatted for online.

CMJ 236

I'm Sasha Kauffman. This is my blog for CMJ 236. I'm a first-year and a communications major but I'm planning on declaring journalism after this semester. I'm obsessed with finding out the truth and discovering how corrupt everything is so I'd like to be an investigative journalist. I love traveling and I want to study abroad next Spring in Australia. I've been writing for my entire life, but I never thought until this past semester that I would do it as a career.