History class, meet journalism class

I just finished my term paper for my history class on East-Central Europe. Because our professor suggested we write about something that interested us, I chose to write about the alternative media in opposition to the Soviet-controlled media in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Here's a little summary about what I wrote:

Poland's Solidarity movement in the 1980s promoted freedoms, including free speech, and journalists wrote for a brief period without censorship. Journalists encouraged discussion by inviting people to talk in journals' offices.

Many of the journalists in Hungary during the 1956 uprising were not willing to write against the Soviet Union with their names attached to their ideas, but one man named Miklos Gimes founded the paper, Hungarian Freedom, edited the illegal paper Oktober Huszonhatodika, and founded the Hungarian Democratic Independent Movement. He was arrested that year and executed in 1958.

The Literarni noviny offered people a way to write against the Soviets during Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia. Media executives stepped down and party officials were too preoccupied to fill those positions with journalists in the Communist Party who they trusted, so journalists self-managed themselves for a while. When they were forbidden to write about something, they wrote an article about how and why they were censored.

Eastern Europe had to fight for the fundamental right of freedom of speech that is written into our Bill of Rights. They wrote the facts when the Soviets wanted the journalists to act as public relations people. I think it's about time more people realized how difficult it was for journalists only a few decades ago in Eastern Europe when journalists were supposed to represent an ideology rather than the people.

Another videogame magazine gone

Yesterday I saw a tweet from Game Politics come into my feed about the magazine GamePro. It turns out the magazine is now dead, and not even the website is going to be continued.

I almost laughed when I saw the first comment on Game Politics's article:

"To be fair, I found GamePro to be heavily biased to a point where it seems like the reviews were bought and paid for."

 Well-known videogame blogs such as Kotaku, Destructoid, and 1Up are still going strong from what it looks like. To me, it appears that people trust these independent teams of bloggers writing about videogames than magazine writers at videogame publications. And while that does sadden me as someone who would like to go into working for a videogame magazine (I love pretty layouts of magazines and websites often don't have that), it makes me even more interested in working at a high-profile videogame blog.

My homecoming

As I made the trip back home for Thanksgiving break, my dad enlightened me on what I've missed in Frederick county while I've been gone. Turns out the County Commissioners are doing whatever they want with little regard of how their changes negatively affect our city and county.

The best part is that my parents apparently participated in a protest.

Our city newspaper, like many other newspapers have all sizes, had to let people go. There are fewer people covering these kinds of events beyond the general "He said, she said" reporting. A part of this is a criticism of that paper and a part of it is just the way small town news reporting has become.

I don't know of any bloggers in my hometown that go to these meetings and openly criticize the County Commissioners. I'd certainly like to see a non-traditional journalist challenge my county government, and considering I'm away half of the year, I'm not exactly open for that job.

Drudge fudges facts

When I first went to The Drudge Report, I wanted to gouge my eyes out from the shoddy design. Then I wanted to bang my head against the wall when I saw what Drudge linked to. Now I think I want to gag after reading Drudge's "accurate" original reporting.

In 1999, Drudge claimed to have a world exclusive story about a woman's claim that her child was Bill Clinton's son. Sure, there are sources in his article. Drudge has a loyal readership, people who would willingly believe whatever he writes.

He's one man with no journalism training who links to articles he wants other people to read. In that way, he kind of sounds like a blogger. However, bloggers provide links to sources, proving that what they're reporting is factual.

A timeline shows that Drudge was really pushing this story. I know I recently said that having opinions and biases is a good thing, but I don't believe Drudge is the type of person who can fairly report something while acknowledging that he has a certain political leaning.

Proposed bills against copyright infringement will only hurt innocent sites

Congress is looking into two bills, The Protect IP Act and the Stop Online Privacy Act, that have good intentions behind them, but could bring about significant harm to websites.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced the bill and said it

• Gives the Department of Justice authority to go after a foreign Internet site that the DOJ alleges infringe U.S. property rights. The DOJ can get a court order requiring ISPs to prevent access to the infringing sites, and require payment processors (like credit card companies) and online advertising networks from doing business with such sites; and
• Empower owners of copyrights (and other rights), such as movie studios, to bring actions against any “Internet sites dedicated to infringement,” whether in the U.S. or overseas, and get a court order to stop payment processors (like credit card companies) or online advertising from doing business with such sites.

However, the bill reaches too far and attempts to bypass court orders. Instead of waiting for a judge to rule whether a website is infringing on copyright, websites will be immediately blacklisted when they are suspected. More details by Brian Dengler of Street Fight Mag are here.

Professors have written against the proposed bill, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation made a list of popular and important sites that could be blacklisted under the overarching power of SOPA. Their list includes:

• Etsy
• Flickr
• Vimeo

These sites are about people sharing art they've created. While copyright infringement is still an important issue, can't these politicians think of anything better to do than "Let's just give power to others to shut down websites at will and put off dealing with the core issue"?

Pick at the things you love

Or hate. But I think it's more interesting when people expose flaws in something they love.

Journalism cannot truly be objective. Beginner journalism classes tell student journalists that they must be objective. I've heard it come before things I find more important, such as holding yourself accountable for what you write and minimizing harm. Both freshman and sophomore years, professors told us students in class that we had to be objective. Sometimes I wonder if they want us to be soulless reporters, merely regurgitating "news."

I'm never going to be objective. I am extremely opinionated. I have certain biases, and I'd rather they be in plain view. Someone could most likely figure out my political orientation (or at the very least figure out which side of the spectrum I'm on), my favorite types of videogames, my favorite book series, and a handful of my values just by reading a few things I've written on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or blogs. Will that haunt me in the future? Possibly, but I'd rather be honest to myself and accountable to my values.

Halfway through my sophomore year on winter break, I visited my English teacher from high school. As always, we got into a discussion about politics and journalism. We were discussing objectivity when she said, "Let's say you're assigned to interview Dennis Kucinich. How would you question him compared to a different politician?"

(Here's a hint: I adore him.)

At the time, I was convinced if I were to cover something or someone I loved, I would inherently slant the story. I still believe I would possess that inherent bias, but I think I'd be more likely to critique someone or something I love. Journalism doesn't need blind followers of an idea or a person, but it does need critical thinkers who are motivated to do research. And, most of the time, that motivation stems from being in love with something.

For example, Mayhill Fowler, a citizen journalist for Huffington Post's Off the Bus, was the one who broke the story about Obama's offhand comment about small-town Americans. Fowler was also an Obama supporter. Fowler debated whether she would write the story because she didn't want to hurt Obama's campaign, but in the name of good journalism, she thankfully published it. (Look at me slanting this blog post!)

Fowler even openly reported she was an Obama supporter. Other supporters attacked her for publishing the article. I don't think they realized she was doing journalism--not PR.

It's okay to have opinions. If you don't stand something, you'll fall for anything.

New media expose people's true colors

With Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and who knows what else, readers can get more acquainted with the minds behind the content they're reading. Whether that prompts a reader to continue reading or let it go, I still think it's a good thing that we're able to better know writers and editors. Most of the time it's to support them.

And then, now and then, someone slips.

McKinley Noble, a staff editor at GamePro, made a slip-up yesterday in a tweet. It says:

What does rape have to do with the #TombRaider reboot? Buy the 1st GamePro Quarterly & solve the mystery on page 49.

It turns out that he thought the voice acting was bad.

I like GamePro, and I don't think Noble is an awful guy. I was certainly outraged when I saw his initial tweet, and I--along with several others (both men and women)--demanded an explanation over Twitter. But I do know that his reputation has fallen in my mind. He may be a good editor, but I do not agree with the way he trivializes and jokes to try to make it seem like the rest of us are wrong for not being able to take a joke.

The storm he got last night has faded from the Internet now. I believe this is because videogame magazines are, generally, not read as frequently as other sources for general news. If this guy was a journalist for something like the New York Times or the Washington Post, I'm sure he'd get more than just a stern talking to.