The Public Editor

You can reach me at jeremybw1@gmail.com I encourage you to contact me with any questions, criticisms or suggestions you have.

On Monday, the Tufts Daily led with an article detailing an incident in which a student allegedly assaulted members of the Korean Student Association (KSA) with racial slurs and, eventually, physical violence. The name of the student was withheld, and he was referred to throughout as simply “the freshman”. His identity, at least for now and for most, remains a secret. Before I explore the Daily’s choice to grant him this anonymity, I want to pose a question: why do such bias incidents seem to capture the campus’ imagination, spur action and inflame opinions?

As of the time of my writing this, there are 94 comments on the article on the Daily’s website. I think this deluge occurs because bias incidents speak to students' beliefs about the character of the Tufts community, about the contours that delimit it and the fractures that run through it. Often these bias incidents puncture their nassumptions about what type of mutually supportive community they live in.

In the aftermath of someone hurling racial invectives or a publication printing something similarly offensive, people seem to scramble for justifications and answers. They seek an explanation and a name for whatever person, organization or pathology has led to an expression of prejudice that seems so unsettlingly at odds with their essential values. Clearly this is larger than just “the freshman”, and can be abstracted and applied to the broader questions of community, inclusiveness and justice. How do campus publications sift through the anger and the hurt to mediate these issues?

Objectivity does not exist, and I have no doubt that some Daily people had the same visceral reaction to the incident when reporting and editing the incident as other students did while reading about it on page one. But the ethical constraints of journalism enjoin them to refrain from vilifying or passing judgment so they are able to present the most accurate and comprehensive picture possible. Beyond its editorial page, the Daily should neither prosecute nor defend “the freshman”; its job is to present the available evidence, give voice to the witnesses, and let the student body act as a jury. Facts are presented and sources are quoted not tendentiously, but so that students can make up their own minds.

Editor-in-chief Evans Clinchy spoke to this in a letter published on Monday that discussed the Daily’s assiduous attempts to convey “exactly what we believe happened”. Note the use of the word “believed”, because there is always an element of interpretation involved in reporting: the preconceptions of the reporter, the various (and sometimes contradictory) versions offered by sources, and the omissions which limited page space necessitates all equivocate the final product. To the Daily’s credit, they held off until they were “confident that we had the whole story.”

As far as I can tell, the Daily strove to capture the whole story. Ben Gittleson quotes several different KSA members, allowing them to articulate both the chronology of the incident and their shocked reactions. And despite “the freshman’s” seemingly despicable actions he too is given a chance to defend himself. He receives ample room to present his perspective, although the fact that he communicated on the record with the Daily through a written statement suggests that he wanted to carefully control his response, rather than submit to a reporter’s direct questioning. This detracts from his credibility, though I doubt many people buy his story; after all, it is his word against that of a group of people who were, allegedly unlike him, sober at the time.

Many of the comments on the Daily’s website fault the Daily for juxtaposing “the freshman’s” version with that of Korean students. These critics accuse the Daily of lending validity to an explanation - “the freshman’s” -- that in their eyes is totally apocryphal. I understand that people are looking for vindication and probably a redress of grievances, but the Daily’s business is not to condemn “the freshman”, no matter how evident his guilt may be to some. Journalists must remain disinterested - despite being members of the community on which they report - for otherwise they risk capitulating their status as reliable purveyors of information.

As to extending anonymity to “the freshman,” Gittleson explained to me that after carefully discussing the situation, the managing board decided to keep “the freshman” anonymous largely because the administration has yet to take any action against him. Printing “the freshman’s” name would prematurely establish his guilt and potentially expose him to opprobrium of Tufts’ “small and insular” community, Gittleson told me.

If “the freshman” were a public figure - an administrator or an elected official like a TCU Senator - the standard would be different. By putting themselves in a position where they are fixed in the campus’ consciousness, such people agree to higher standards of accountability. Their actions merit more intense scrutiny and their names are a matter of public record. Those are the terms of the contract they have entered into with a student body that they are committed to serving.

But “the freshman” is not a public figure, so the Daily must uphold his right to privacy and to a fair and thorough analysis of whether the allegations against are true or false. If and when his identity becomes public knowledge, his reputation will probably be irredeemably damaged. For most people who read the article in the Daily is clearly deserving of such stigmatization. But this is for the readers to conclude. The Daily cannot risk printing inaccurate or false information, no matter how troubling event is for writers on a personal level.

The world turns, and another spring is upon us. The seemingly interminable Boston winter is giving way at last to warmer weather, and as the ice recedes Tufts students’ thoughts increasingly turn to that annual fixture on the Tufts social calendar: Spring Fling.

Every year, April’s approach gives rise to widespread speculation about who will be performing at Spring Fling. Inevitably a few apocryphal suggestions get repeated enough that some students become convinced that David Bowie or someone similarly out of Tufts’ price range will be playing on the Hill. When a more accurate picture emerges, it is usually because the Tufts Daily breaks the news.

This can be a contentious move on the Daily’s part when the students on Concert Board, who do the work of choosing and booking the bands, feel that the Daily is pre-empting their right to announce the bands themselves. So reporters typically have to circumvent the Concert Board to determine the Spring Fling acts. This year, Matt Skibinski followed a Last.fm post listing rapper Asher Roth and Tufts band the Gentlemen’s Bet as performers. He posted the information on the Hill, the Daily’s blog for campus news, and sent out a Twitter feed. He updated the blog a few days later once a press spokesperson for Roth confirmed the show.

Despite complaints members of the Concert Board may raise, I think the staff of the Daily is simply doing their job in this situation. As an organization, the Concert Board’s function is to help select musical acts and facilitate the logistical aspects of a concert; as an organization, the Daily’s function is to report news that is relevant to Tufts students in a timely fashion. The information about who will play Spring Fling is not personal - its release would not be inimical to anyone’s reputation and would not put anyone in harm’s way - so it seems that the Daily’s ethical obligation to inform overrides any ethical obligation to give the Concert Board priority in releasing the information.

The Daily’s situation is different from that of most professional newspapers because the Daily has a monopoly on developing news on campus. Whereas major metropolitan newspapers are competing with other newspapers to be the first to break a given story, the closest thing to a rival for the Daily is the Tufts Observer, whose weekly news cycle and newsmagazine format makes for less time-sensitive content.

Still, there is an analogous set of concerns for the Daily’s writers and editors to bear in mind. Within the race to turn a story around, speed must be weighed against accuracy; I would hope that getting the story right is valued above getting the story first. But as the Internet accelerates the rate at which news is reported, with that photo of Michael Phelps hitting a bong only a click away regardless of the publication that is carrying the story, I fear that small errors or unverified information which would usually be filtered out through a longer process of editorial review could get lost in the scramble.

Again, although the Daily’s situation is different, there are certainly situations in which the editorial board has to make a decision about what is or is not ready for the next day’s paper. Last semester, I was working on a piece about some Tufts students who faced expulsion because of allegations of drug dealing. Although both the administration
and the TUPD had been tight-lipped so far, we suspected that an official press release was forthcoming.

Journalism is often referred to as the first draft of history, and if you are the first to set down a description of an event this lends some measure of credibility to your version (just ask Al Gore). Fearing that we would cede this authority, my editor asked if I could produce a shorter piece with only the bare facts. I had my reservations about how well sourced and thoroughly fact-checked my information was but I wrote up what I had, and the next day we led with the story.

As it turns out, I got several things wrong. The next day we ran a correction and the full story, but the damage was done. The Daily’s reliability was weakened and we had unjustly printed misinformation about the accused students. These were not the types of errors that a copy editor can catch. They were based on my own negligence and the fact that we were simply too hasty.

Skibinski wisely established the tenuousness of his sources in his initial post about Asher Roth and the Gentlemen’s Bet, writing that the information was “according to an unconfirmed Last.fm post” and giving the caveat “if the posting is correct” before continuing. He followed up on it by getting confirmation from someone with more than hearsay knowledge of the situation.

The repercussions of printing inaccurate information vary from situation to situation, but the underlying ethical considerations remain the same. The media’s paramount task is to inform. If in their haste to get the story journalists disseminate information that is imprecise or just plain wrong, they have fundamentally undercut this project.

TCU Senate treasurer Matt Shapanka has clarified that his use of the term "status quo" in describing the budgetary outlook for student publications means that they will not receive less money in 2010 than in 2009. Shapanka notes that the Senate's budget comes from the Student Activities Fee which is a component of tuition, rather than deriving from investments or business ventures or anything else susceptible to shifting markets. Because of this, the amount of money the Senate has to work with is insulated from economic turbulence, and they are able to ensure generally consistent funding from one year to the next.

Obviously publications that rely on the Senate, rather than purely on ad revenue, will be more shielded from economic anemia than their counterparts in professional journalism. I suppose my concern would have been better couched in relation to potential publications that may not be able obtain funding to get off the ground. Also, nascent publications such as Roundtable (which I believe only published once last semester) will have to continue to put out issues with a rarity that does not bode well for building steady readership. Still, I appreciate that the Senate is doing all they can to ensure publications will not see funding reductions, something for which I am sure campus editors are grateful.

These are dark days for the newspaper business. Newsrooms are shedding jobs by the hundreds; major metropolitan newspapers such as the Philadelphia Inquirer have cut their foreign desks (according to the New Republic only four U.S. newspapers now have one); and whole sections are vanishing, evidenced by the Boston Globe’s recent decision to do away with its weekly stand-alone Health/Science section.

Essentially, newspapers have become obsolete. More than anything they have been undercut by the Internet, whose proffered plethora of free information makes paying for a newspaper simply unnecessary for most people. As circulation declines, advertisers - who historically have been the main bastion of newspaper revenue - are beginning to take their services elsewhere.

Perhaps newspapers will formulate a brilliant and forward-looking business model for the twenty-first century. Perhaps they will simply become an anachronistic curiosity, or perhaps they will go the way of the evening edition and disappear altogether. Whatever happens, Tufts is not an island and student publications are struggling with how to sustain content as wallets everywhere tighten up.

Tufts Daily’s editor-in-chief Evans Clinchy’s Feb. 23 editorial, entitled “Cutting Back”, spoke to the spirit of the times. Clinchy writes that “We’re cutting the little things here and there — a comic strip today, a sports article tomorrow and so on — to make ends meet.” Clinchy also underscores the migration of content from printed pages to the Daily’s website, a move he correctly identifies as paralleling “the way of the future in journalism”.

The Daily, as Clinchy is careful to mention, is the Tufts’ only fully self-sufficient student publication. That means that they don’t show up in the expenditures column for the TCU Senate’s budget. This allows the Daily to ensure absolute autonomy, precluding the possibility of the administration exercising any sort of editorial review.

Financial struggles are nothing new for the Daily, Clinchy told me, noting, “We’ve always had to make these difficult calls”. The price of refusing the administration’s largesse is a perennial balancing act, as the paper’s staff tries to maximize content while remaining fiscally stable. As advertisers become increasingly stingy and rising paper prices push up the cost of printing, the Daily will have to reserve larger portions of space for ads and drop down from 16 to 12 pages more frequently, according to Clinchy.

“Cutting content is a last resort,” Managing Editor Sarah Butrymowicz told me, an assurance that Clinchy echoed. Butrymowicz added that the Daily is trying to forestall taking on additional debt “to make it easier on future generations.”

The Daily aside, Tufts features a multitude of campus publications that do rely on a flow of money from the university’s coffers to stay afloat. The administration has already staked out its position in regards to the financial crisis’ impact on the hill: offering the financial aegis to allow students to remain at Tufts is the preeminent concern, followed by retention of quality faculty.

So in the interest of balancing the budget, cutbacks are coming. Any campus editor has to be warily scrutinizing the horizon for the specter of curtailed funding, something that will necessitate tough choices about content and visual quality. Additional pages or more professional-looking glossy material cost money, and editors are going to have to make some tough decisions about what aspects of their respective publications are ultimately expendable.

“A couple magazines or newspapers may have to sacrifice an issue here or there,” TCU Treasurer Matt Shapanka told me. “We’re not forcing them to, we’re not asking them to accept a reduction in quality. At the very least, we’re trying to maintain the status quo.”

Michael Snyder, editor-in-chief of the Tufts Observer, told me that he is “not concerned” about appreciably diminished scope or quality of content. He noted that the magazine’s level of funding is not a constant but fluctuates from year to year, which has always forced the Observer to adjust accordingly. He said the Observer may be forced to reduce the length of some issues but will continue to put out the same number per year.

Shapanka’s use of the term “status quo” is telling. What constitutes the status quo? I would be shocked if campus fixtures such as the Observer, the Public Journal or the Zamboni ceased to exist. But less established media would seem to be more susceptible to potential future rounds of cutbacks.

Of course, the Internet has a role to play in all of this. By bolstering its website’s content, the Daily can avoid having to omit stories or attenuate coverage when financial constraints limit the amount of available page space. The growing number of blogs on the Daily’s website speaks to the advent of the Internet, particularly in expanding the news cycle beyond the timeline of a publishing schedule to allow for a far more flexible (and often more demanding) timeframe for coverage. The small litany of user comments appended to numerous Daily articles online tells me readers are attuned to the switch.

But the stakes are not the same for publications such as the Zamboni or the Public Journal, whose focus on students actually picking up an issue and leafing through is evidenced by the fact that these publications’ websites stop at offering PDFs of back issues. Onyx, Tufts’ black literary magazine, is still basically in the planning stages with its website. Such publications rely on the availability of physical copies - and I fear that as financial woes intensify, these issues could become thinner and more infrequent.

The Observer has begun running a column entitled "Going Green" whose author -- a self-avowed "pothead and legalization advocate" who writes under the pseudonym of Reggie Hubbard -- discusses marijuana use amongst Tufts students and relates it back to efforts to decriminalize the substance.

Tufts students are no strangers to marijuana. Some may abstain completely, but I would guess the majority have taken or will take a hit at some point during their time as Jumbos. So "Hubbard's" column will undoubtedly generate a decent amount of interest, especially as he offers to extend anonymity to anyone wishing to share anecdotes or musings about their own usage for inclusion in his column.

My question is: should the Observer be granting Hubbard anonymity and regularly allotting him page space? Sex columns seem to be a perennial fixture for the Daily, so campus publications already habitually broach topics that would be considered taboo dinner table conversation. But marijuana is illegal, regardless of its prevalence on campus (I know that Massachusetts has decriminalized it, I'm speaking in a broader sense). So could this be seen as an endorsment by the Observer of something that is against the law? Or is it a fair representation of the types of issues that are of importance to Tufts students?

What do you think?

Jeremy,
I think the Observer is making a poor decision with the Hubbard column. I do not think it is an endorsement of smoking marijuana, but I also do not think the column deserves page space in such a respected publication. I understand that the Observer tries to appeal to a wide audience of readers, but what purpose does the column serve? It would make more sense to me if Hubbard wrote about actual news events such as viable marijuana legalization campaigns or legitimate actions by state governments to decriminalize the drug. This does not seem to be Hubbard's intent and as such, I do not think the Observer should continue the "Going Green" column.

-Caleb

Let's keep the conversation going. As always, we invite students to voice their opinions here as well.

Alex,

In response to your observation that "there are many, many drugs that are perfectly legal (and socially sanctioned) and a lot more destructive than cannabis sativa, most notably Nicotiana (tobacco) and the perfectly acceptable liquors, spirits and booze.", this is true. And I understand that part of Hubbard's object is to question the underlying motivations for the laws that leave marijuana illegal and alcohol - with all its pernicious side effects of violence and injury - legal. This is what Caleb drew attention to when he suggested that Hubbard's column focus on news developments in the legalization debate.

Still, an opinion column is allowed to depart from the obligation to find a news peg somewhat, and I think the various Tufts columns collectively offer a cross-section of what is on the minds of Tufts students (even if it's sensational sex columns that frankly don't offer many helpful or useful tips). And I suspect many people share Alex and Reggie's beliefs about how our legal system codifies a hierarchy of which substances are and are not acceptable. I see a disjunction in President Obama's very candid admission about past encounters with weed ("The point was to inhale. That was the point.") and the overblown criticisms of Michael Phelps for taking a puff after having won seven Olympic gold medals. It seems like marijuana usage has become more acceptable and mainstream, and perhaps Hubbard is in touch with the spirit of the times in this sense.

But as I wrote in an earlier post, a publication should never take granting anonymity lightly. I understand that the Observer is trying to protect Hubbard because his reputation in the eyes of future employers or professors could be badly damaged, but at what cost to the Observer's credibility? If they are seen to be sponsoring candid debate, that's all well and good, but I fear some people may view them as a typically liberal college rag granting amnesty to a pothead.

-Jeremy

Jeremy,
I agree that the issue of anonymity should not be taken lightly. The New York Times Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, addressed this very issue here. He brings up the point that "readers hate anonymous sources because they cannot judge the sources’ credibility for themselves." I think this is the problem the Observer faces with the Hubbard column. Why should we listen to what Hubbard has to say? You bring up the fact that maybe "Hubbard is in touch with the spirit of the times," but we will never really know this so long as Hubbard remains anonymous.

-Caleb

We're hosting an event this Wednesday to kickoff the Public Editor program. Alicia Shepard, the ombudsman (read: the Jeremy) for NPR, will be coming to speak at a lunch event we've put together. She keeps a neat blog here and ought to be a very compelling speaker. Plus there's free food! Here's the info:

Who Watches the Watchmen? Contemporary issues in Journalism Wednesday 2/25, 12-1:30 pm Sophia Gordon Multipurpose Room

And the TuftsLife write up:

Come celebrate the launch of the Tufts Public Editor program with National Public Radio's ombudsman Alicia C. Shepard! Food will be served.

The Media Advocacy Board at Tufts University is proud to announce the rollout of our Public Editor program, one of the the first at an undergraduate university in the country. Tufts' new Public Editor will serve as an ombudsman, offering a regular critique and commentary on student media issues.

Jeremy White, a senior at Tufts will be Tufts' first Public Editor. You can find his blog and regular column at http://ase.tufts.edu/publiceditor.

To celebrate the Public Editor program's launch, Alicia C. Shepard, the ombudsman for National Public Radio, will be at Tufts to speak on issues in journalistic ethics on Wednesday, February 25. Please join us at noon in the Sophia Gordon multipurpose room for a lecture and refreshments.

Last week, the Tufts Observer ran a cover story about student veterans at Tufts, for which the magazine's cover displayed a cluster of dog tags. I couldn't help noticing that some issues of the Observer disappeared and returned with the dog tags blacked out. I suspected foul play, so I contacted the Editor in Chief of the Observer, Michael Snyder.

Turns out this was an act of self-censorship on Snyder's part. He told me in an e-mail that he intentionally obscured the information displayed on the tags so that the identity of the tags' owner could remain a secret. This was additionally important because the tags were those of a student in the Reserve Office Training Corps, whereas the story concerned students who have already served and can now claim the title of war veterans. This disjunction between the image on the cover and the content of the piece could be misleading to students who took the time to scrutinize the cover closely enough.

It's not necessary to analyze Snyder's decision too deeply. He characterized the event as a "hiccup between our software and the publisher", wherein the decision to blur parts of the cover with Photoshop didn't translate. However, this does provide a sort of example of providing anonymity to sources.

Reporters generally grant a source the right to be referenced without being named only if the source requests it. Usually, this means the source needs to be sufficiently crucial to the story that the reporter is willing to extend anonymity in order to ensure the source's voice remains in the piece. The reporter's reluctance here arises because an anonymous source is by its nature less verifiable than an explicitly named one, which means it can appear to carry less credibility. Extenuating circumstances -- for example, if the source is breaking with his or her organization's policy by speaking openly to the press -- can also shape the reporter's decision.

The ROTC student whose identity was displayed on the tags requested anonymity because of concerns that his information would be broadcast across campus. The fact that the student is not quoted or referenced in the story diminishes the burden of proving he merits anonymity. An image evoking students in the military was sufficient regardless of whose tags they were, so it's not really important to affix a name to them. If the student was offering an opinion or making a statement within the framework of the story itself, that would be different. In this case, Snyder's decision was an easy one, and the correct one.

Last week, junior Alice Tomic wrote an op-ed taking the Tufts Daily to task for what she saw as overly sympathetic bias in coverage of street artist Shephard Fairey, whose mural now adorns the wall outside of Jumbo Express. What caught my eye in the piece was a sentence decrying a "lack of professional journalism when it comes to Barack Obama" on campus.

The phrase was something of a non-sequitor, coming early in the piece and lacking any sort of substantiation. Still, Tomic’s assertion about a sort of liberal adulation of Obama in campus media - what she described in an e-mail to me as a “warm fuzzy glow of excitement surrounding his presidency” - deserves to be examined.

Certainly, the excitement surrounding Obama’s election is palpable, especially on a campus whose student population, and likely whose faculty, skews towards the liberal. Anyone who was on the Hill amidst the surging throngs of ebullient students the night that Obama was elected can testify to that.

The question, then, is to the extent to which this feeling has seeped into campus coverage of the Obama presidency. For this analysis I will consider the Tufts Daily and the Tufts Observer, both of which seek to be objective news outlets. The actions of the federal government usually fall outside the purview of Tufts media. For the Daily, news coverage has therefore been largely limited to the inauguration and the election.

The Daily seems to have remained objective in this regard. The Nov. 5 edition restricted itself to the returns and voter reactions. Rob Silverblatt’s coverage of Obama’s inauguration address was well written but seemed a little lacking in sources who found the speech somewhat mediocre; mostly, his quotes are pretty positive.This may simply reflect the reality of the situation, as the student body would seem predisposed to approve of a speech that critizicized the Bush administration, urged a reformulated foreign policy and promised a renewed emphasis on civil liberties.

The Observer has a little more flexibility because of its weekly format, which necessarily shifts its content from hard news to wider-ranging features. The Observer is freed from the obligation to report foremost timely news pertaining to Tufts, a constraint that governs how the Daily allocates limited page space. The Observer is able to stray farther from Medford without worrying about the Tufts-centric events it has failed to mention. This can be problematic if it dislocates a specific target of coverage - what is known as the “news peg” - something that can dilute the article’s focus and open up avenues for the writer to slant his or her angle.

The Observer seems to have avoided this pitfall, offering analysis instead of opinion. For example, the Dec. 8 piece “What comes after W?” cooly dissects how Obama will move forward with Middle East policy without praising or criticizing, noting that “no amount of campaign promises will relieve the incoming administration of the current environment overseas”. The feature “The Path to A Vote,” examining the factors precipitating three students casting their ballots, does a good job of balancing arguments for who would do the best job of leading America.

The Observer’s editorial board has a policy of not endorsing candidates for president, and its Nov. 3 editorial continued this tradition, closing with the ambivalent phrase, “Will either man be able to make good on his promise come January? We’ll see.” A Nov. 3 opinion piece is similarly noncommital, closing with the lines, “If McCain is elected, we are fucked. If Obama’s our Messiah, call me an athiest.” Hardly a starry-eyed endorsment of either candidate.

The Daily has the greatest opportunity to analyze the fledgling administration within the confines of the editorial page. Although a search through the editorial archives confirms a generally supportive tone for Obama, the object of an editorial page is to espouse a specific opinion. If the editorial staff of the Daily is consistent in approving of Obama’s decisions, this is within their rights and affirms the function of an editorial page to take a stance. In this case, I imagine their stance resonates with the beliefs of the majority of their readership.

I also notice a good amount that the pieces eschew any sort of myopic dogmatism. For example, a Jan. 22 editorial entitled “Millions Worldwide Hang Hopes on Obama” tempers excitement with sober assessments such as: “everyone, American or not, needs to understand that President Obama will do what he can, but he may not be able to do everything.” Similarly, an editorial congratulating the president for his decision to issue an executive order closing Guantanamo Bay assesses what other measures Obama needs to undertake, rather than gloating or falling back on empty triumphalism.

Overall, it seems that both publications have done a good job of remaining fair and impartial. If editorials tend to approve of Obama’s decisions - however circumspectly - this should come as no surprise. I'm not saying that either publication has done a perfect job, because invariably personal assumptions and preferences manifest themselves in subtle ways such as page layout and the wording of headlines. But generally speaking, Obama-related news coverage in the Observer and the Daily has been balanced, informative and pertinent to Tufts.

You can contact the Public Editor at jeremybw1@gmail.com

Selling News by the Slice

Here is an op-ed in The New York Times on February 10th about micropayments for newspapers. Written by the founding editor for Slate magazine, the piece brings up an interesting point about making users pay to access news media online. Similar to the way that iTunes makes you pay to download songs, online newspapers are looking to charge readers to access their online content. In an age where the declining economy has forced many print newspapers to switch to a cheaper online format, the issue raised over micropayments is that readers will not start paying for something they got for free before.

Let's say the Tufts Daily started charging students $2 a month to read articles on their website. Would you pay for it?

Check out The New York Times blog, The Opinionator, for more on the issue of micropayments.

Current TV on Censorship

Here is a clip from Current TV about censorship in the Brazilian media. Current TV is a TV channel and website started by Al Gore where users can submit short "pods" or homemade news stories. As with all media, it is important to look critically at what is being said and written. The public editor position was established for this very purpose. This clip brings up very controversial issues, but it will be interesting to see what people think about it.

The New York Times: "Ex-Journalists' New Jobs Fuel Debate on Favoritism"

I've included a link to a February 2nd article in The New York Times about journalists on the payroll of the Obama administration. The article talks about how Democrats have been criticized for their favorable coverage in the media recently and how having former journalists within the new administration creates a interesting connection between the White House and the media.

- Caleb