Free expression or animal rights?

The First Amendment is the foundation of an open society. Two of the five protections guaranteed by the First Amendment -- freedom of speech and freedom of the press -- help ensure that we provide citizens with a "marketplace of ideas" free from censorship. Yet the right to free expression often comes into conflict with other rights, especially when it infringes on the safety or morality of others. Yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre, for example, is not protected by the First Amendment. Neither is child pornography or material that is considered obscene in nature. This is why the First Amendment is not just a static document that was written by our forefathers over 200 years ago. Because society and technology change and evolve, the First Amendment is continually challenged by cases that need to be interpreted by the courts.

Click here to read about a First Amendment case that is currently before the Supreme Court. You be the judge.

Convergence journalism

"Convergence journalism" is a new type of journalism that combines various forms of media (writing, video, photos, and more) to create a larger journalistic project. The web is an ideal platform for convergence journalism, and papers like The Washington Post are moving toward multimedia presentations. More newspapers are discovering that it's not enough to simply put the exact same content from their paper on the web. Their product on the web has to offer something different than their paper product -- something of real value. 
                                                                                                                                                
For a good example of convergence journalism, click here to read an article from The Washington Post about the recession's impact on a Midwestern family.

After reading, share some of your immediate reaction -- either about the story itself or about its presentation. Do you think this story has more of an impact reading it online than it would in a traditional newspaper? Why? Do the photos, for example, make you feel more or less sympathetic toward this family?

Citizen journalism: A good thing?

These days, anyone can post anything on the Internet. This amazing information revolution has enabled us to have incredible opportunities and resources at our fingertips, but it has also spawned problematic trends. How, for example, do we sift through it all? How will young people, in particular, know the difference between legitimate news sources and biased or unsupported propaganda? There's a lot of garbage out there.

Does the world still need professionally trained journalists? You betcha. While it's wonderful that anyone can snap pictures of breaking news, for example, and post them on the web, it would be foolish or even dangerous to abandon journalism's watchdog role to the bloggers and citizen journalists of the world. Read these two articles from Time magazine to consider two different viewpoints.


Click here to read "It's all about us". Then click here to read "Enough about you".

 

Photos courtesy of Time magazine.

Can newspapers survive?

Are newspapers a dying breed? It would seem so. As we've discussed in class and as chapter 4 in your textbook points out, traditional newspapers are fighting to survive and scrambling to adjust to new technology and a new generation of readers who are more likely to get their news from an iPod or cell phone.

On the other hand, journalism itself isn't dying. Only its mode of delivery is changing and adapting. Click here to read a recent Time magazine article about the closing of The Ann Arbor News. It's not just the story of another newspaper closing its doors. What makes The Ann Arbor News story unique is that, unlike many other newspapers, The A2 News was not forced to stop its presses. Instead, it deliberately shut down so that it could launch a new online model. What do you think of its decision?