The journalism of April 19, 20 years ago--part 1

The entire state knows what tomorrow is. Here, on the campus of Oklahoma Christian University, American flags.

(The following will be some of the first part of my presentation on a panel discussion at UCO Monday, commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.)

"A thunderous bomb blast rocked Oklahoma City on Wednesday, ripping a huge slice from a federal building and killing at least 150 to 200 people, many of them children."
--Steve Lackmeyer and David Zizzo, The Oklahoman, April 20, 1995
 
Twenty years ago tomorrow, I was sitting in my UCO office on the phone with a graduate working at the Tulsa World, and the window rattled violently. I hung up, wondering. There was one TV in the building in another chair's office and we gathered to watch an aerial shot of smoke rising from a  building. I frankly didn't know what the building was, even when identified. 
We didn't go downtown much in those days. It was mainly offices in nondescript buildings.
What followed in days, weeks and months emphasized the functions and role of the media in our state in a way rarely seen. The bombing of the Murrah federal building killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.
I was a part time copy editor at The Oklahoman at nights, so I saw first hand how those journalists worked,  as well as studying other newspapers in the state.
There are two parts to my comments--briefly dealing with national media, and then focusing on Oklahoma newspapers, which I consider more important.
The bad side of journalism showed up almost immediately on national TV, and then spread to respected national newspapers. Within hours of the explosion, one network and then another were quoting unnamed sources or so-called experts that the bombing "has all the earmarks of Mideast terrorism."  
Any journalist knows "Mideast" is a fearful American euphemism for Muslims or Arabic-looking individuals.  The next day, Connie Chung in town for CBS said the same thing.
Locally and nationally the profiling went on, locally and nationally. A Jordanian-
American and citizen of Oklahoma City had the misfortune of traveling that day from OKC to Jordan. He was stopped in Chicago and then in London grilled for six hours, saying he was going to be arrested for the bombing. Ibraham Ahmad was terrified, and obviously later cleared.
Almost nobody in the media seemed to think that the bombing was the work of right wing American  terrorists, or link it to  the Waco debacle two years earlier.
One more story about Chung, CBS' bright rising star and co-anchor. She drew local resentment with all her star power and special treatment. When she asked the OKC fire chief it he thought OKC could handle the crisis,  it was viewed here as an outsider's condescending put down. The eruption that followed bombarded CBS with protests, and while the network tried to clarify or apologize, it didn't work. Chung was demoted the next month and left the network.(Next--Oklahoma newspapers tell the story.) 

Quotes to think about, "piss" and "stupider"

Two quotes by friends caught my eye this week, and made me think. I think they will you too.
Fellow blogger and friend Alan Bates of Tulsa, a natural gas professional, amazes me with his blog, Yogi'sDen. I envy his consistency in publishing and his many varied interests. We also share a New Mexico background. Check out Yogi'sDen for photography, and lots of interesting content. I appreciate that he rarely delves into politics.
 His headline on a post this week grabbed my attention:
"A piss poor job of it."
Now you just have to read something like that, and I began scanning his comments, which were all about the oil and gas industry and the falling gasoline prices. Having often thrown sarcastic barbs at the energy companies, I loved and laughed at his conclusion: 
"I am starting to hear again the old saw about how the energy companies control the price of oil and natural gas and products such as gasoline.  All I have to say is that if that is true then:

"We are doing a piss poor job of it."

The second quote came from my friend and former student Heide Brandes @HeideWrites on twitter. Her blog is http://www.heidewrites.com/ This energetic woman is making a living as a freelance writer, and as a professional belly dancer.
We were taking recently, and she was commenting on how intolerant the country has become. Essentially she was  exasperated and worried because people of different political views won't even listen to those who differed with them, or even consider that there might be more than one view possible. 
Discussing media (Having been attacked on social media for just writing for Reuters about an event someone didn't like) and social media, she said something about there being no room for compromise but outright hate--not just in Congress, but on the Internet. She said  adults ought to be mature enough to at least be polite and listen, but it's getting rarer.
Her comment:

"It's amazing, with more information out there, we're becoming stupider."

#clarkclass--twittermania at UCO

Twitter for Journalists has launched again. The students are awash in assignments, but thankful there's no "written" textbook. In this new age, all you need is online.

If you care to "read" along, here were some of the assignments for tomorrow:

1. Check twitterholic.com to see who's popular
2. Study twellow.com for categories of tweeters and to find two potential professional tweets to follow and interview
3. Check out @MikeSherman, sports editor at The Oklahoman, and come with two potential questions for him tomorrow. He speaks to us Wednesday
4. Reading assignment: http://www.statisticbrain.com/twitter-statistics/
5. Reading assignment: http://blog.bufferapp.com/social-media-in-2013-user-demographics-for-twitter-facebook-pinterest-and-instagram
6. Reading assignment: Ethics: http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/07/rethinking-journalism-ethics-objectivity-in-the-age-of-social-media208

Turning the world upside down, questions on media

One of the joys of teaching upper level students is being able cause them to think, to be aware of the differences in the world, by asking questions centered around what we used to call "current events." So it is with my International Media class, where 24 students have to adopt a country and present to the rest of the class how its media reflects the culture and government.
Before then we concentrate on how press systems differ, and the only textbook is the New York Times, which we get free every day. It's full of items that show the interaction of media and every day international life.

This map of the world turned "upside down," (which is ridiculous since there is no up or down in space, but only how we're trained to look at it) formed questions for discussions about Eurocentric, ethnocentric, xenophobic," etc. last week. 
I've created a blog for the class, Clarkinternational where assignments are made, and students respond. Tomorrow's assignments  are all questions about two events--the U.S. security leaks, and the Syria crisis.
One post is "Authoritarian government in the U.S? and it asks this question: "Why is this American journalist, Barrett Brown,  in jail? Jailed Texas journalist Is it justified? Does this make the U.S. government authoritarian in spite of the First Amendment? Comment today."
The other post, "Syria and international media"  asks three questions: Find two sources today about the impact of international media on the crisis in Syria, and post below.  Why is President Obama using TV?TV and foreign policy . Why are journalists being kidnapped in Syria? Kidnapped journalists .
By the way, I think you'd be interested in some of the countries we'll hear presentations on, in addition to all the English-speaking countries, there will be Japan, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Mozambique, Bhutan, Kenya, and others.

Oh, I give in to old-fashioned learning too. Students have to identify most of the countries in the world, continent by content, on blank maps I give them. It's called "geography." We can't have "globalization," if we don't know where England is.

So what do you think?

Tornadoes and media critics

Disasters, whether natural like our tornadoes and hurricanes like Sandy, or man-made, like Newtown, 911, or the OKC bombing, cause an eruption of instant and continuing media coverage. And immediately also, a deluge of media criticism.
That's how it should be.
My students, and social media like Facebook, are almost instantly alive with discussions, mostly negative, with how media, especially TV, is covering what has happened. It is the most likely lightning rod, though increased use of social media, especially twitter, also comes under attack, usually for inaccuracy and insensitively.
I'm no exception, and two days after the tornadoes simply could not watch. I'm usually ranting and raving about broadcast peoples use of words, like "violent tornado." (Ever see a non-violent tornado?) And I cringe even more as the event wears on about interviewing little children, and asking parents stupid questions with no regard for their situation. The demands of the minute-to-minute news cycle is much to blame of course, and in disasters, much early information becomes inaccurate because of the chaos involved. It's not a lot different than pre-digital times, only in much more quantity and much more obvious.

We're all media critics

Much of this comes from my association and work with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma http://dartcenter.org/ which tries to train journalists on how to work with victims and to help journalists with PTSD. This relationship began following the OKC bombing when we received a grant to start a Victims and Media course at UCO. It continues today. And we've held workshops to help journalists as well. Check out their site. The Moore tornado is at the toe of their page.
So I'm super sensitive, but contrary to much media criticism today, mine is not politically oriented. Following disasters like ours, politics have no place, and everybody in the state knows it, I hope.
That's why I could praise a national Fox news journalist Shepard Smith, for his solemn, calming narrative about the tragedy the first and second day. No hyperbole, no yucky emotions or trite sayings. Good journalism always stands out.
I also continue to contend  that local newspapers are critical to  coverage in these times. I see that in Oklahoma this week, saw it in New Orleans in Katrina, after 911, in OKC after the bombing, and in many other places. They give people a source, an assurance that there is still a normal world, a standard of hope and humanity that victims can cling to in their devastated communities.
So while we're all media critics, and  usually negative, tragedies like this bring out the best in journalism as well.

Public polling pointers

    Because of their polling, Mitt Romney, his family and campaign people were confident of victory and then literally stunned and shell-shocked as the election night results rolled in and they lost to Baarak Obama. 

http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/110597/exclusive-the-polls-made-mitt-romney-think-hed-win#

    This link explains why they were so wrong. What they really needed was this Prof’s Primer on Polling, especially this editor’s checklist for evaluating polling, or any research.

Americans are justifiably suspicious of polling, and not just for political reasons. Some of the fault lies with newspapers and broadcast which have reported off-beat “research” to try to snag audience. Yesterday I referred to USA Today once carrying a Women’s Day’s poll of its readers wouldn’t marry the same man is just one example. The poll was loaded with faults, and the media failed to point them out. Then Fox broadcast picked up the myth in September and continued with it. Carl Rove's meltdown on Fox on calling Ohio for Obama on election night is typical of the consequences of ignorance. Be suspicious, but understand the facts.

   So here is this editor’s checklist for evaluating polls. I think this should also be every American’s checklist too.

• Who sponsored the polling? Is there a conflict of interest?  Political polling is especially suspect if it’s loaded with distrust for the other side. Beware any polling done by a PR firm for a client. I understand the Republicans with their distrust of the so-called “liberal media” wanting to conduct their own polls.  But they fell victim to the same faults they suspected from the other side.
• Who was included in the polling? If you poll certain age groups or geographic areas or don’t reach likely voters, you’re results will not be valid. See number three.
• How were the people chosen? Was it a true “random” sample? If not the results will be skewed (as with Romney’s polling).
• How many people were in the sample? If the poll has fewer than 1,100 respondents, your margin of error is going to be more than three percent.
• What was the response rate? If your sample was 1,000 and only 400 answered, you get results like the Women’s Day article which threw out more than it counted. Don’t seriously consider any response rate less than 60 percent.
• How accurate are the results? Always compute the margin of error—it results ware within it, then “it’s too close to call.”
• Who were the interviewers? Were they professionally trained and neutral? If not, prejudice, inflection of the voice and other factors can affect results.
• How was the polling conducted? Robo-call? In person? If it was a call in or send in, the results are worthless because they’re not random.
• When was the poll conducted? Results can change overnight.
• What were the actual questions asked? Wording can influence results, and can lead to opposite results on the same matter, depending on wording.
• Are the results cause and effect or just correlation? I saw a headlined story once: “Want to live a longer life? Marry yourself a younger wife.” The poll found that men with younger wives lived longer. But—this might not be cause and effect because there are many other factors involved—health, wealth, etc. 
• Does the headline match the polling results? 

   If you’re an American and can’t answer these questions satisfactorily, you shouldn’t believe the results. If your newspaper or broadcast or online source doesn't answer the questions for you, you should be very skeptical. 

    A few of the faults of the Women’s Day poll and article: 1. It’s not random for all women in America, only subscribers. 2. Women’s Day has more than one million subscribers. About 100,000 responded. 3. The results were clipped out of the magazine and sent in (pre-Internet). 4. Once the magazine got the results, some of them were not counted. 

   So, a responsible newspaper  or news outlet reporting polling results should include an explanatory item with every story. It should be written along these lines:

“The Daily Geezer poll of 1,200 registered voters in Geezer County was conducted Oct. 31, 2012, and asked two questions: ‘Will you vote Nov. 6?’ and ‘Which presidential candidate will you vote for?’ The results have a margin of error of plus and minus three percent."

   A final note: Newspapers, broadcast and other news sources have an obligation to explain this to you. If they don't, they're not being responsible. If they report frivolous poll results to get your attention, it should tell you they're a frivolous news source.

The Tides of March...

...have pulled me home, from literally half a world away in India the last week of February.

It was a whirlwind, and my travel journal and note pad are full of scribbled impressions and thoughts and facts recorded. And my cell phone and camera have video and still photos to go with some of the writing.

I add this disclaimer. I visited only Chennai, formerly Madras, on the southeastern coast. What I saw and experienced was overwhelming, but I know it was only a tiny glimpse of civilizations and cultures much older than mine, in a democracy much younger. So my perspectives and conclusions are limited by my journalistic training and senses. No more could I fully understand and comprehend the vastness of India's population and history and geography from this visit than an Indian visiting Oklahoma City could understand and comprehend  the vastness of America's geography and history and much smaller population.

But still, impressions of small realities hint at larger truths and realities, just as impressionistic painting hints at them.

For the record, I went there, thanks to UCO and the College of Liberal Arts, to attend an International Symposium on Globalization in Media and Information Technology at SRM University. I was the guest of the journalism and mass communication department faculty and students, and presented part of my paper--The Effects of Information Technology on Newspapers in a Small State in the U.S.A." and chaired a panel on "The effects of social media, twitter and whatnot." I was one of about 10 faculty members and media professionals involved--from India, London, Singapore and the U.S., and we had from about 150-800 students in the audience in the two day-event.

I learned much technologically and about media in other countries, but more from the people and the experience.

Those impressions, like dabs of color in a Monet painting, will follow in pages of my "India journal."

From a rooftop in Mali

From a rooftop in Mali, this is Terry Clark reporting….

I visited this West African country in March three years ago with professors and other journalists from Oklahoma State who received a U.S. State Department grant, titled “Nurturing the Fourth Estate.” It was designed to help develop the media in this stable, Muslim democracy. They needed an old newspaperman to go along, and I’m doubly qualified.

I think we did that, but I learned far more about journalism than I ever tried to teach.

Yes, I did sit on a rooftop and receive the gift of a lifetime from our guide and interpreter Mr. Assoumane Maiga (now a doctoral student at Oklahoma State University)—a communal meal on a pallet with live African music as the sun went down in the dusty sub-Saharan sky.

I made my first venture into broadcast journalism, using a video camera to record sights and sounds and people. I used a digital SLR and a point-and-shoot to capture some unbelievable images and memories. I kept a daily journal, by hand, that numbers almost 100 pages for 10 days.

I came back with renewed inspiration, actually proud to be a journalist in the real sense of the word--keeping a daily journal and discovering much about journalism and freedom and a special people, and telling the stories to others, with purpose.

And I learned that Mali’s media can teach American media many things that we’ve pretty much lost or forgotten.

For the record, Mali is immensely poor and dirty. Literacy is only about 30 percent. Lifespan averages 48 years. Eleven million people eke out a living in a country twice the size of Texas. Half the population is under 14, and intestinal diseases and malaria kill half the children.

But I saw happy people, I saw people wearing bright-colored clothes, I saw people who had nothing and yet had everything. I didn’t see malnutrition—many eat fresh vegetables and fruit every day, though many have only a porridge called Toh. I saw no lazy people—people who work harder than we imagine, and who still smile and laugh and play and love family—people who have hope. I saw imaginative people who create paintings, and sculpture and jewelry and carvings and fantastically colored dyed cloth. I saw people who like Americans, and people who remember living under a dictatorship 16 years ago, and who treasure freedom. 

I saw people where the term “no sweat” has probably never been heard—When we were there, the daytime temperature hovered around 100 degrees, and dust hung in the air. But the hot season hadn’t arrived. April and May will set in and the temp will rise to over 120. Rain won’t come until June when the cotton and other crops can be planted.

The people are suspicious of concentrated power, just like Americans were when we gained freedom from the British. They’ve decentralized and have set up a true federal system—like we used to have. Asked if they got together on national holidays to sing songs, march and so forth, they responded that they wouldn’t tolerate mandatory group activities. I wondered what they’d think of our “Pledge of Allegiance” in schools. The main native language, Bambara, means “I refuse submission.” The people are literally “jealous” of their freedom.

That’s only a portion of what I saw and experienced and tasted.

Now some notes from my journal on the media.

The main media in Mali is FM radio, because of the illiteracy. In their federal system they’ve split the country into more than 200 communes (don’t think Communist. It’s a French word—the official language in this former colony—for community). Each commune is allotted three radio stations, and most of them, with only about 40 or 50-kilometer ranges, devote most of the programming to educational material on health, disease, agriculture, women’s issues, etc. In all media, including newspapers, there’s almost no advertising. I though advertising was essential to a free press. Not so. Our adverting for the most part seeks brand recognition and tries to create “ need.” In Mali, there is need everywhere. Accordingly, most media are run on shoestrings, and pay is low.  Newspapers use the official French language, and circulations—because of the low literacy rate, are low. Largest is about 17,000 in the capital city of Bamako, population over one million.

But everywhere we visited, we found passion for journalism and its role, including the national TV station.

For instance, one newspaper is named for the date –March 26, 1991--of the overthrow of the dictatorship: 26MARS. It put out a special edition the week we were there, dedicated to keeping the freedom and the memory of dictatorship alive, commemorating those who died in the revolution 16 years ago. The country lowers the flag to half staff to remember the martyrs, and the people treasure their freedom. Journalists, especially with the radio stations and the newspapers, repeatedly referred to the revolution, and it fills them with a purpose to serve the people and maintain freedom.

Mali media have clear purpose. At one radio station, the passionate female owner said, “The Antenna is our weapon. We are the voice of the voiceless.”  Asked if they play music—and many do—one journalist told us, “When all Malians have enough to eat, then we’ll play music.”

In fact, the radios and newspapers remind me of what community newspapers were 100 years ago in this state and country—multiple voices, lower circulations, depending on subscribers and local support for existence. They’re also partisan in many cases, just like American and Oklahoman newspapers were when they chose names like The Waurika Democrat or the Cherokee Republican.

Their constitution guarantees freedom of opinion and expression, “with respect to law.” But there is a very strict libel law. We asked several journalists if they’d been harassed or put in jail, and the response was often, “Of course.” While uncommon, it happens and they view that as part of their job.

Ask them their purpose and they’ll say it is to help the people of the country and maintain their freedom. They speak of  “mobilization” of the electorate. Note in my journal after one such visit:

“The media have a passion and purpose for what journalism is supposed to be. In America, the purpose of most media seems to be to make money and satisfy stockholders. It’s not an accident that we refer to our media as “markets.” Theirs are “voices.”

Over and over again, we heard that the biggest need of journalism was more training. Interesting note: They linked more training for journalists to increasing journalism ethics. They also attributed declining newspaper circulation to a lack of ethics and people losing respect for journalism. One said that if we expected people to respect our ethics, we had to make sure they understood what we cover and why.

“America, are you listening?” I wrote.

I have guarded against trying to glamorize or romanticize this country  and people. There are so many problems there. But getting past those, these people, their rich cultures  and their media inspire with passion and example and hard work. This short report doesn’t even begin to address the issues and lessons, from a rooftop in Mali to a computer in Oklahoma.

Vive Mali!