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About Me
- Rob
- is an outdoor writer who has worked for newspapers in Montana, Arizona, California and Idaho. He moved to Hamilton, Mont. in 1992, where he won his first Montana Newspaper Association Award for outdoor writing while working at the Ravalli Republic newspaper. After working in Arizona (where he edited the state's top outdoors section at the Arizona Daily Sun in Flagstaff) and Idaho, he returned to Montana in 2006. He has worked in journalism as a writer, editor and professor for more than 20 years. He teaches journalism at Flathead Valley Community College and previously taught at Northern Arizona and Idaho State universities.
I personally think with how touchy this subject seems to be to our military, that although it is in fact a great story, the media should stop covering it. By the personality of this man, the media coverage is only giving him more power to think that he is doing something right or important. I see this as a selfish act. However, if it is to be covered, the story should be documented only to certain people and only with interview,no pictures or videos what so ever.
ReplyDelete(it didn't seem to show up the first time.. try again for round two....)
ReplyDeleteThough the media has a huge part in this, I also believe there is another group of people that could have more of an impact on the idea of what we report in our country. When it comes to viewers vs. reporters, viewers are a much larger group of people and ultimately the group of people that reporters are "working for". We as an audience decide what it is we care about in day to day situations and what we want to pay for and read about or watch as "news" in our lives. As we all have busy lives, hearing about current events is not all of our day, only part of it and so we often get very condensed stories of huge events that are happening in our nation and around the world. In situations like the Mr. Jones burning the Korans I believe the amount that the public, and our higher officials, fed into the frenzy and attention that was generated had a huge impact on the story itself. Obviously if our president and the secretary of state are calling this guy up personally we as citizens are hungry to know what is going on. I believe situations like this should be clearly looked at first by the reporters to gauge the ethical and moral issues surrounding it. As an audience we are in charge of NOT BUYING INTO IT, much like it is our responsiblity to STOP BUYING people magazine if we don't want celebrities thinking they are better, or we want to know all about our life. Yes, the reporters physically put it out there and make it available, but there are a lot of things that are available in this world that we chose not to partake in. One could get Meth easily in Montana, though an average, hard-working citizens who has goals would (hopefully) chose not to. Though reporters do have to uphold a certain responsibility. In this situation it is likely that by chosing to report on it the entire ordeal was made much larger than it would have ever been previously. When deciding what to report reporters and journalists must keep in mind our countries well being, specifically in situations when it comes to other countries being involved and people possibly being offended and reacting in a way that could hurt our nation (such as this event). Ultimately I think it lands in both the hands of the journalists for smart, empathetic decisions as well as us as an audience to demand that certain trivial events not be published as to feed a fire that seems uneccesary. Honestly, in my opinion Mr. Jones seems to be someone who fed greatly off of the attention that he received due to this entire event, but not someone who genuinely wanted to present his feelings about the Koran and the Mosque building.
This dude is clearly off his rocker. In earlier articles he was accused of torture, and possibly brain washing I believe. Giving the guy the spot light is EXACTLY what he wants! We're only feeding his appetite, and ambitions. He's realizing that he can actually become a news story and not just apart of the fringe. I agree that to some extent the actions should be reported, but the way to go about it is the wrong way. Yea it's Jones doing the actions, and spear heading this, but I would (personally) go from the consequence angle for the story.
ReplyDeleteI honestly feel that this story should stop being covered. For one it is past September 11 and the guy is obviously not very serious about this threat. If he was, there would have been an action put forth a long time ago. I agree with Aly that by putting him in the media spotlight he is getting exactly what he wants. In order for him to stop his antics we must stop reading the stories and stop covering him. He isn't going to do any of these acts, and it is a pointless story. In a few weeks this guy will be like Joe the plumber or the Obama girl and not really be talked about anymore.
ReplyDeleteMontana Ziglar
I wonder if this guy is a phenomena of the modern news media and the insatiable beast that is the 24-hour news cycle? If you're a news director at CNN or Fox or MSNBC you're always on the prowl for new news for the top of the hour. Is it possible that there isn't enough real news to meet demand, so we broadcast/publish the rantings of every nut who has a soap box to stand on?
ReplyDeleteIn the past this guy would have likely been ignored. Today, the guy is surrounded by reporters. But try to find in-depth reporting anywhere in television news these days. PBS and maybe C-SPAN is it.
Across the board, in politics, sports, etc. we've gotten to a point where anyone can make news just because of the volume of news that can be covered by the advancements in technology. Giving people like this a chance to spew their opinions no matter what
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