The story was so big in fact that the Fox News channel, owned by Murdoch, could not look away. As The New York Times reported:

At the same time Anderson Cooper on CNN was reporting on fires breaking out in the streets from incendiary devices, Fox News had continuing coverage of the press event surrounding The Daily, including a speech by Mr. Murdoch and editors of the online paper, as well as demonstrations of what the paper would look like on iPads.

It is fair to say that the unleashing of The Daily is news, but worthy of uninterrupted coverage on a far less than light news day it is not. The Daily deserves our attention if for no other reason than that it tests out the viability of paid-for journalism online in a market still flush, if floundering, with free material. The Murdochian self-congratulation that characterized Fox’s coverage (the chyron read: “‘THE DAILY’ USES iPAD TECH TO RE-IMAGINE NEWS EXPERIENCE”), however, forgets that the News Corporation invented neither online news nor the iPad.

 It will be interesting to see where this application goes, but it is just that—an application. And while we’re at it, let’s call the news on Fox this past Wednesday what it was as well: an ad.

-Sarah Brown

So, what is news literacy? It’s the ability to think critically about the news, and the way you find out about what is reported in the world around you. It helps you form your own opinions, and become a more active media consumer. Instead of believing whatever a news outlet tells you, you’ll be thinking for yourself about how, why and where you get the news that shapes your life and your everyday decisions. Download Check out the news! for free today, and you’ll never see news in quite the same way again.

Sean Hannity

I’m guessing most of you heard on the news this morning that CNN anchor Lou Dobbs resigned as of last night, after much controversy over his remarks about the validity of President Obama’s birth certificate.  Also last night, Sean Hannity apologized to viewers for splicing footage from two different political rallies to make one appear larger, and acknowledged that Jon Stewart was right.  What is going on?

These incidents strike me as a possible indication that we are becoming more news literate. I do believe that as far as television news is concerned, the line between journalism and editorializing seems to have blurred. I’m happy that people are asking questions, and they are asking them loudly enough that networks have no choice but to respond. I applaud CNN for its choice to remove a pundit masquerading as a reporter, and though Sean Hannity may continue to carry that mantle, I applaud him for apologizing. I have no more or less respect for his work, but it takes a lot for people to admit they were wrong, and perhaps even more so when such an admission takes place in front of audience of millions. The news frequently gets things wrong, and it frequently oversteps the boundaries of strict journalism, but it is not often that the people involved make such public apologies. (Even retractions are typically found only in fine print.) It makes me proud that the notion of news reporting as fallible is catching on.

Meanwhile, we have not heard the last from either Lou Dobbs or Sean Hannity, and we will certainly continue to hear irresponsible reporting and poorly-argued editorials. News literacy continues to be of key importance in a media-saturated environment; simply removing someone doesn’t make us more literate. But it does provide a strong example to back up what we at The LAMP say often: When we demand smarter media, the media producers will respond. After all, the best argument for removing Lou Dobbs, at least from a CNN perspective, is the ratings drop.

–Emily Long

Tina Fey and Seth Myers picket at Rockefeller Center.

November 5, 2007 marked the first day of a strike by the Writers Guild of America-West and WGA-East which lasted one hundred days. The main issue was the compensation received by writers, which was meager when compared with large studio profits, and also how writers were to be compensated for reality and online content. The WGA strike is significant for many reasons: It was a clear turning point in the business of digital media, cost Hollywood billions of dollars, and drew attention to the plight of thousands of people working behind the scenes of media which most of us take for granted as being free (not to mention illegally downloadable). On February 26, 2008, a new contract was ratified by the union, and writers went back to work with new rights and protections. However, that contract is up in 2011, and a lot can happen between now and then in the world of media and entertainment. The issue will linger as long as we have an Internet, but the WGA strike  represented the arguably first big shot across the bow of the online media business.

On November 13, 1969, United States Vice President Spiro Agnew gave a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, accusing the nation’s television networks of using bias and distortion in their reporting. He further urged viewers to “register their complaints on bias through mail to the networks and phone calls to local stations.” Agnew lamented that the media was dictated by a small group of men, informing the opinions of an estimated 40 millions Americans who watched the nightly news, and who had recently seen several newsmen harshly critique President Nixon’s November 3 speech on Vietnam minutes after it was delivered. Forty years later, this event is especially significant amid the conflict between Barack Obama’s White House and Roger Ailes’ Fox News, with White House Communications Director Anita Dunn saying that the Administration is “not going to legitimize them as a news organization.” Then, as now, the White House was trying to define the meaning and purpose of news, and possibly reign in an independent and free press. In both cases, it seems, the Presidents might have been wishing that Americans were just a little more news literate.

The Hollywood Ten with their lawyers

November 25, 1947: A group of ten screenwriters and directors, known collectively as “The Hollywood Ten” are fired from their jobs in the first systemic Hollywood blacklist. Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner, Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott and Dalton Trumbo were all held in contempt of court one day prior for refusing to testify before the House of Un-American Activities (HUAC). Ultimately, 41 artists were called to testify, and over 320 people were eventually added to the blacklist that kept them from working in Hollywood. HUAC feared that these artists were  Communists, imbuing their work with propaganda designed to recruit members to the Communist Party. Those who refused to “name names” of anyone they knew who might be a Communist were added to the list, leaving many prominent voices silent, livelihoods destroyed and promising careers cut short. Those who did testify were despised by many of Hollywood’s elite, including Elia Kazan, who, when honored with the 1999 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences, was met with protest; many Oscar attendees refused to stand when he took the podium to accept the award. The blacklisting of the Hollywood 10 was a pivotal moment in American cinematic history, both acknowledging and condemning the power of film.

When we arrived at the obligatory Q&A portion of the presentation, I raised my hand and asked if, among the various public awareness campaigns planned, they had anything in place to address misinformation from the media. The response was essentially that they have a PR department.

Really? That’s it?

When the H1N1 virus first broke last spring, the media descended on the story with zeal. Of course, it is part of the job of news media to keep us informed, but what happened last spring went far beyond adequate coverage, both in the volume of stories reported and the level of drama within them.  As reported by the Pew Center for Excellence in Journalism, 31% of the news stories sampled in the week of April 27-May 3 were about the H1N1 virus–as PEJ further points out, this was the same week in which Barack Obama reached the 100-day mark of his presidency, Arlen Spector switched party affiliations and Chrysler declared bankruptcy. By April 26, before nearly one-third of the media was devoted to the flu, traffic to cdc.gov spiked a whopping 442%. Extensive coverage is no doubt a product of a 24-hour news cycle with space to fill, but as previously stated, there was plenty of other news in the spring that perhaps deserved more coverage and analysis.

With so much media coverage, it can be even more difficult than usual to determine what to trust. It would behoove the DOH not only to send messages about how to avoid or vaccinate against the flu, but to establish themselves as the definitive first source of information for New York residents. I know that this is partly the point of their public awareness campaigns, and that the DOH is not a news outlet (maybe they should be?), but they should be prepared to deal with misinformation and help people cut through the noise to get them through to what they need to know.

–D.C. Vito

Early Swanson TV dinner ad

September 10, 1953:

Swanson sells TV dinners. Why is this a big deal for media? For one thing, TV dinners mostly came into being because of, well…TV. By this time, television had become a mainstay for Americans, who were constant viewers of new shows like “I Love Lucy” and “The Bob Hope Show.” It makes sense that people would want a way to come home from work, relax, catch their favorite TV shows and eat dinner at the same time–with no cooking or cleaning to get in the way. The timing was also perfect because Swanson found itself with 520,000 pounds of turkey, and lacked the warehouse space to store it. Packing it up, freezing it and shipping it out was the solution, and dinner has never been quite the same since. Now, eating in front of the TV is cited as one reason why it can be the most harmful passive activity.

Fala and FDR

September 23, 1944 and 1952:

On this date in 1944, Franklin Roosevelt delivered his “Fala speech” as a response to Republican attacks being made against him at the time. A rumor had been going around that Roosevelt’s beloved Scottish Terrier, Fala, had been left behind when FDR was visiting the Aleutian Islands, and that the distraught president had sent a destroyer to retrieve the dog at great cost to taxpayers. While campaigning for the 1944 election, Roosevelt invoked the story during a speech made at a campaign fundraising dinner, saying, “These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala…I think I have a right to resent, to object, to libelous statements about my dog.” This speech was later known as the “Fala speech,” and humanized Roosevelt while making Republican attackers appear desperate and strained.

Nixon and Checkers

Exactly eight years later in 1952, inspired by the Fala speech, Richard Nixon (who was then a US Senator and the Republican nominee for Vice President) delivered his famous “Checkers speech.” Nixon had been accused of misusing money from a fund which had been set up to reimburse the candidate for his campaign expenses, and answered the accusations with a radio and television address defending himself. He mentioned that there was one gift he would not give back, and that was the black and white cocker spaniel sent by an admirer in Texas, which his daughter named Checkers. After the address, Nixon received an outpouring of support from the public, and he remained on the ticket despite the scandal. The Checkers speech was one of the first times television was used by a politician to appeal directly to voters on an emotional level, endowing him with an image as a man of the people.

And who knows? Perhaps on the 65th anniversary of the Fala speech, we’ll get an update on Bo Obama.

“Over the past few months, two things have become clear about the fight for health insurance reform:

1. Our opponents will create and spread outrageous lies to try to stop President Obama from creating real change.
2. We just can’t count on the media to debunk them.

As President Obama described recently:

“If somebody puts out misinformation… then the way the news report comes across is, ‘Today, such-and-such accused President Obama of putting forward death panels. The White House responded that that wasn’t true.’ And then they go on to the next story. And what they don’t say is, ‘In fact, it isn’t true.’” “

The email then goes on to ask for money to combat the smears by staffing phone banks, canvassing door-to-door and running counterattack ads. All well and good; this is the equivalent of donating to any other public awareness campaign.

But what Obama is really asking for in this email is media literacy. He’s pointing out that just as the media isn’t ending the story with “It isn’t true,” neither are media consumers thinking critically and asking whether the claim is true or false. Instead, they’re absorbing the first part of the story in which some impassioned politican makes inflammatory accusations, or protestors are shown carrying pickets depicting Obama with a Hitler mustache.

The administration is not happy that so many people are so willing to swallow whatever hype the media feeds them, and with good reason. But, this is what happens in a media illiterate society, not to mention one that is in the midst of a polarizing debate on how to spend taxpayer dollars and restructure one-sixth of our country’s economy in a recession. Short term, as far as Obama is concerned, the solution is to throw money into a counter-campaign. The long-term answer is to fund and mandate media literacy in our school curriculums and communities. How about if the Obama administration starts raising money for that?

–Emily Long