Professor bellows "Woo-Hoo"

Professor bellows "Woo-Hoo"

Political Panel a roaring success

This past Wednesday the U-Mass Amherst journalism department hosted a public lecture. The lecture covered the ever changing use of multimedia journalism in another ever changing realm: politics. The panel discussed how this new feature of reporting has led to a tendency for a national narrative to surround the political scene. This lecture attempted to explain why that was, and to give advice on the future of political journalism.

Mary Carey, U-Mass professor and political reporter for the Daily Hampshire Gazette was the first speaker to discuss the national narrative. Carey said “I want to talk about sort of the national narrative you know. I think you hear people talking a lot more, people are saying well the narrative was that Hilary {Clinton} was unbeatable. Then all of a sudden Obama came out of nowhere and Hillary was nose diving real bad.”

When host and U-Mass professor Steve Fox commented that the national narrative is often responsible for several mistake predictions USA Today’s national political correspondent Jill Lawrence explained why that was the case. Lawrence said “I think we get in trouble when we made predictions. The national narrative comes from the fact that we are reading the same tea leaves.”

The third panelist deputy publisher of Governing magazine, Mark Stencel commented that the national narrative is hard to keep a hold on. Stencel said “It is an endless treadmill to face the narrative, it is exhausting. The phrase you always hear is feeding the beast you know that kind of thing.”

Host Steve Fox enthusiastically introduced the three guest speakers to the captivated audience. Fox said “I feel like it’s my birthday, Christmas…everything wrapped into one. I get to just talk politics with these guys. We spent lunch talking politics. We hung out in my office for the past couple of hours talking politics and we get another 90 minutes of politics. Yes, I’m very excited here.”

The lecture was a complete success, and if you don’t believe me, would you believe U-Mass professor B.J. Roche? Either way this is what she said “Two things really thrilled me about this afternoon. One was I though it was a terrific line up of speakers and had very exciting and interesting things that they were talking about. Also, what I got a really big kick out of was that all of the students were either taking pictures of it, or video taping it, or taping it on their audio thing. I’m really thrilled that the students are going “all in” on the multimedia track. Hiring Steve Fox was the one of the best things we’ve ever done. We are a super happening department right now, and believe me a few years ago we were not.”

Blogger Response #7

The blog that I am commenting on right now is entitled Clinton Foundation Received $500,000 From Wal-Mart. The story talks about how Wal-Mart gave Bill Clinton’s global foundation a half a million dollars. The blog contains a link to the Wal-Mart Press release which was announced in New Orleans. It might have been announced there to highlight the fact that Wal-Mart gave a lot of money in hurricane relief to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The blog highlights the Clinton’s business relationship with Wal-Mart which Senator Clinton has been avoiding. Senator Clinton was a member of Wal-Mart’s Board of Directors as she served a six-year term. Mrs. Clinton was the company’s first-ever female board member. The blog has a link to a very interesting article of the New York Times. This article suggests that Sam Walton’s wife Helen was a factor in the decision to have a female board member. The article also shows that as a board member Clinton was determined to suggest that Wal-Mart get more females in management. The article also made comments that Clinton did not try to stop Wal-Mart from its anti-union labor policies.

These anti-labor policies have traditionally made Wal-Mart an enemy of the Democratic Party. It is because of this that Senator Clinton is trying to avoid talking about the six years she spent on Wal-Mart’s Board of Directors. This large donation is bringing the question up again, but it was noted that Clinton returned a $5,000 donation to her campaign by Wal-Mart in 2005.

The blog also has an article showing Bill Clinton praising Wal-Mart for its recent involvement in the fight against Global Warming. The environment is another topic that has made Wal-Mart an enemy of the Democratic Party, but not the Clintons. The question is being asked: Is the Clinton’s personal and business relationship with Wal-Mart clouding their judgment and is Wal-Mart giving money just to curry favor with the hopeful presidential candidate? The blog contains a quote from a Wal-Mart watch dog company called Wake-up Wal-Mart, their spokesperson Meghan Scott said "It follows in Wal-Mart's recent attempts to make themselves look like a responsible corporation with their environmental efforts, and then you have Lee Scott who is announcing at meetings that Wal-Mart is not sure when they will reduce their emissions," said Meghan Scott, a spokesperson for Wake-up Wal-Mart, a watchdog group for the organization. "It is important to look at two things; whether their press releases turn into action, or whether it is simply an attempt to curry favor."

Blogger Response #6

The blog that I am discussing right now is entitled “DNC Web Ad: McCain in Lockstep with Bush” and it can be found here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/18/dnc-web-ad-mccain-in-loc_n_92065.html . The blog talks about a new web-video posted by the Democratic National Convention. The video’s message is very clear: a McCain presidency is literally a third term for George W. Bush. The blog has the video in its entirety which is very helpful. I didn’t have to go to YouTube to access its video. I don’t think the blogger has to worry about the video being pulled because I don’t see any copyright infringement occurring. While looking for my SNL video I saw a lot of YouTube broken links because NBC Universal forced YouTube to pull some video clips.

The video shows how some of John McCain’s speeches mirror that of words said by George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. All of the audio and video clips relate to the war in Iraq, and in general the war on Terror. There is a mixture of audio with photographs of the person speaking and normal video with audio.

Early in the republican debates there were no references to George W. Bush. Now that Bush has endorsed McCain the flood gates have been opened. This video is trying to make John McCain’s approval rating to be just as low as the Presidents. The DNC is doing this while Clinton and Obama are still fighting to become the democratic presidential candidate. The fact that the republican race finished early is proving to be helpful to the DNC. The DNC can attack McCain openly whereas McCain would have to attack both Clinton and Obama. It’s like Germany in World War I trying to fight to wars on the Eastern and Western fronts.

The blog ends with McCain’s own words: If the Country doesn’t think the war was worth the risk then he won’t be President. The video ends with the message “after five years, we don’t need a third Bush Term. Bush & McCain: Wrong Then, Wrong Now.”

Interesting Interview with Comedy Legend George Carlin

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/01/george-carlin-reads-more-_n_89179.html

This is a link to a Huffington Post interview with George Carlin. Carlin talks about his new stand up special, "It's Bad For Ya" and about the blogs that he reads. He also talks about his favorite political humorists. I just thought everybody would find it interesting, so have a look if you want to.

Blogger Response #5

The blog I am commenting on is entitled Obama Aides: VP Talk is a Ruse, and it was posted on March 10^th. It can be found at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/10/obama-aides-vp-talk-is-a_n_90825.html.

As the title suggests the blog is about Hilary Clinton suggesting that Barack Obama would be a good vice presidential running mate in November. Obama blasted this report by asking it he wasn’t ready to be the President how could he be ready to be the Vice President? If Clinton were to be incapacitated Obama would assume the office. The blog has some of his aides mirroring what he has said in various speeches since Clinton made that comment.

Susan Rice said that “the Clinton camp is trying to suggest that Sen. Obama is not ready to be commander in chief, they are touting him as a potential a running mate, which puts him a heartbeat away. He is not going to be a running mate. He is going to be commander in chief."

It is also suggested in this blog that as President Obama would be able to get more people to recruit for all branches of the armed services. Obama is leading in the youth demographics who also make up a majority of the people being recruited to fight in Iraq. This makes sense because not only does the youth trust him Obama has promised to be out of Iraq. So, the people who get recruited could be being signed up for other postings in a post-Iraq war scenario. In my opinion they would most likely be deployed to find Osama Bin Laden and win the war in Afghanistan. The blog questions whether or not Clinton would redeploy combat troops because they said that Clinton hasn’t said anything definitive.

Another part of the blog was a response to the Clinton had about the call at 3am in the morning. Rice says that she doesn’t believe Clinton is qualified to answer the call just because she was first lady. Handling a critical situation is a lot different than watching somebody else handle it. Rice who is a former Clinton aid added : "We continue to ask the question as to what exactly is the experience that Sen. Clinton can point to that indicates that she has had real crisis management experience? And when asked that question we get 20 seconds of silence.”

This Sam Stein Blog was very text heavy, and didn’t have a video unlike that last one I reported on. I was somewhat disappointed with the lack of convergence on this blog, but it still was loaded with useful quotes. It would have been better to hear what Rice was saying instead of reading it, but it was still effective.