Journalism and American Democracy

America is founded on the notion that we are a free nation, extending and promoting “Liberty and Justice for All”.  If you grew up in this country, you have known this since the kindergarten days when you place your hand over your heart and pledge allegiance to the flag and the great country for which it stands.

History shows us that “freedom” is a relative term, even in this country which takes so much pride in that ideal.  Those who live here, even today, are not free to be or choose the same things as the privileged, dominant white society of America.  Inequalities still wrench at the edges of the American tapestry, distorting the beauty that could be.

This sounds idealistic, and I don’t mean for it to.  But I do hope to demonstrate the issues that minority groups in this country deal with on a daily basis – exclusion, oppression, racism – I could go on.

According to Pamela Newkirk in “The Minority Press: Pleading Our Own Cause”, minority newspapers arose out of a great need for accurate, fair representation in the public sphere.  The press was, and arguably remains, dominated by white society.  The radical minority newspapers that were born of the Civil War, such as Freedom’s Journal, were just a precursor for modern adaptations of this remaining need for minority representation, such as BET and Telemundo.

The minority newspaper that I examined was the Lawndale News, “Chicagoland’s Largest Hispanic Bilingual Newspaper”, which features articles in columns side-by-side both in English and Spanish.  The newspaper obviously came about where there was a need for it.  Chicago’s Latino population is ever-growing, and at a very fast pace.  The need for minority representation pervades the community, ad this is a viable source for news that covers issues differently than mainstream media.

Although many argue that minority papers serve to further divide minority groups in this country, I believe that until we reach full integration in the mainstream media, the call for minority press will remain.

http://www.lawndalenews.com/

Using the iPad this semester has revolutionized the way that I interact with social media, technology, the Internet and the news. I have become an informed citizen, motivated to stay updated on the important events happening in America and around the world. While I know the ambition to get involved with the news comes in part from my interest in the topics we discuss in class, I think the deciding factor was the iPad, which offered convenience and ease to consume news within my daily schedule. As David Carr said in the Page One documentary, we now have the ability to get updated on the news in the time it takes to wait in line for a cup of coffee. I use the iPad to check Twitter, Flipboard, and The New York Times regularly, if not constantly, throughout the day.

Not only has the news become an integral part of my daily routine, but the iPad has also changed the way that I do homework. Having the ability to open, download, read, annotate, save, and refer back to articles on a single device is great for an American Studies student, who has no shortage of reading assignments. I bring the iPad with me everywhere and love that everything I need is stored in one place.

Over the semester, I have been no stranger to other students making fun of me for having an iPad. The frequent response I get when students find out the University provided iPads to our class is: what? Why? Okay, it’s super convenient. That’s great. But why? Why did the Notre Dame sink money into giving the newest gadget to a group of journalism students? The undeniable fact is that iPads, or tablets in general, represent the future of how the public is going to obtain news. As we have studied this semester, print journalism is gradually fading out and tablets embody the technology that will replace it. Though many people remain sentimental and long for the old ways of doing things, as we saw with Kathleen Parkers anti-Twitter speech, technology is advancing quickly. As students with an interest in entering the journalism field, our futures depend on our ability to stay updated on the technology with which our stories will be made available to the public. I feel that, as journalists, we were given a great opportunity to embrace technology this semester; we created intellectual Twitter feeds, set up personal blogs, observed the way that other journalists embrace social media (Brian Stelter, anyone?) and familiarized ourselves with the growing world of online news.  The opportunity to use the iPad put us ahead of the game in the journalism world. Because of the familiarity I have gained with the technology, I know I am better prepared to work as a journalist because I have a better handle on where the future of news is heading.

So, while the iPad has done great things to change my life this semester, it has also been hard at work changing the way that the media operates in America.  Though it is sad to say goodbiPad, I know that this is not the last I will see of tablet technology, and the iPad will grow to be a widespread fixture in the lives of many Americans quite soon.

I have opinions, lots of them, on all sorts of things, from why Brazilian industrialization is lagging behind its predicted standards to how the game went last Saturday. I like talking, debating, and expressing these opinions, and this is why columnists always confound me. The fact there is a market for people to state their opinions, whereby you have no recourse or action but to take it in, has always struck me as odd. I have always wondered if people adopt the opinions themselves, thus surrendering part of their thinking to another, or if they do so to test their own thoughts on the matter against someone who, at least in theory, is seasoned. The latter I can at least partially understand, for in theory these are wise people, but the former seems undue surrender to me.

To extend this to a discussion of news generally, opinion pieces are pure interpretation. While they may contain facts, their purpose is not to provide those facts but opinions and analyses. This, I believe, places them squarely outside the definition of news, but that does not make them worthless. Analysis can serve as a textbook and whetstone, allowing people to see how analysis is done, see conclusions others draw, and finally to test their opinions against it and thus become sharper and more aware of a wider variety of thoughts. While one’s opinion must remain one’s own unless they wish to surrender sovereignty to some figure, whether politician or prophet or columnist, the opinions of a person who never contacts opposing thoughts becomes inbred in its ignorance.

As to the actual columns here, they’re interesting and right of center, but in general that seems a relatively safe position. Perhaps that is why they are popular, through mass appeal. After all, mildly conservative opinions are less likely to offend than mildly liberal ones, for while mild liberal ones call for small changes mildly conservative ones usually call for none. This is perhaps best exemplified in “The Principle at Stake at Notre Dame” where she basically avoids condemning abortion despite leaning that direction, and even in the end states she supports, to some degree, the current form it is in. I do not mean to say this is gutless, strong moderates have their own temptations to fight and their own deeply held belief, but it makes me wonder if we’re a right of center nation.

Since receiving an iPad for our class, my relationship with the news has undoubtedly changed. Admittedly, I was skeptical whether I would notice any difference at all – after all, isn’t an iPad basically just a stripped-down version of my computer with a touch screen? Regardless, I think it does make some difference. I definitely feel more ‘connected’ to the news – I’m much more inclined to pull out the iPad for a few minutes and flip through some news stories than I am to surf the web on my computer and go looking for them. Part of this may be my affinity for the pleasing esthetics of certain news apps such as Flipboard or NPR. The sleek look they have/their presentation of the news makes it more appealing (and isn’t presentation everything?), whether or not I’m consciously interested in seeking the news. The actual layout of the device may compel me to engage with the news as well. Having an app right on the home screen, where I can connect with one click, simplifies the process immensely, whereas I would have to navigate through a myriad of web sites on my computer to retrieve the same information. However, aside from the sleek design and functionality of the device, I have to admit that part of my new level of participation is the expectation of my participation in the class. In other words, I am well aware that someone else paid for me to have this device, and now they expect me to use it. Were this sense of obligation not a factor, I am not sure that I would be as active on my iPad…well, aside from Angry Birds. I do appreciate having a piece of technology that allows me to quickly and easily call up information from around the world almost instantly; it certainly makes you feel ‘in the know’. However, I’m still inclined to question whether this level of ‘connectedness’ is a good thing. At what point does it switch from staying informed to becoming too time-consuming? What sorts of effects could these devices have on other types of media? Do those effects even matter? By communicating in cyberspace via sites like Twitter, are we hindering our own ability to think/talk/analyze at length and at a deeper level? I doubt we’ll solve these questions in our class alone, but I suspect it won’t be too much longer before society begins to answer some of them. Hopefully we’ll be comfortable with the answers we find.