Week Four: Work on Your Student Interview/Follow Media Coverage on Ukraine/Watch Joe Murphy Talk

This Week’s Assignment(s): Please view the links in my post as well as the City Tech talk given by NBC Data Editor, Joe  Murphy.  Please also keep working on your student interviews. You should be in contact with your partner by now. A draft of the interview (in any shape or stage of completion) is due by next Wed. (March 9) A final version will be due the following week (March 16). I am not requiring any posts for this week but feel free to comment.

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Hi Student Journalists,

I’m sure you have all been following the unlawful invasion of Urkaine and the horrible suffering and deaths that Ukrainians are now enduring.

This is a tense moment in the world and a challenging event to cover in the media.  Media issues, in fact, surround this event.   As we will be discussing in our class over the next few weeks, the freedom to be an autonomous, Democratic (i.e. “free”) country is directly related to the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, and the right to assemble and protest (all enshrined in the First Amendment of our Constitution).  These are cherished values that have been increasingly under assault in our own country and across the globe.  Putin long began this de-democratization process in his own country and is now forcing tyranny upon Ukraine.

Another issue to consider is the disinformation campaign that Putin has tried to spread about why he is invading Ukraine.  We saw a similar abuse of facts when President Trump was in office, who made “fake news” his specialty (and whose acolytes continue to spread the “big lie” about who really won the election and false information relating to the pandemic).  Alongside Putin’s attempts at fake news, social media in Ukraine (and elsewhere) has helped to spread “the truth” of what’s currently going on

[Watch his video President Zelensky recently shared on social media].

[Watch this “hacking” of a Russian news station to bring Russians the real story of what their leader is up to.]

[Watch this video, now gone viral, of Ukrainian soldiers refusing to surrender a Navy Base.]  

Across the globe, people are rising up (even in Russia) to protest this illegal war in tweets and on the streets.

As a class, let’s also consider how our own media is covering the invasion. In other words, is the fourth estate (as the media is referred to) doing its job to relay information to Americans in an accurate, fair, and meaningful way?  Does it sometime focus on the wrong part of the story? Does it at times spread disinformation? 

Last week, NBC Data Editor Joe Murphy gave a talk at City Tech, in which he spoke about his job as a visual editor and the responsibilities of major news networks.  Here is a “live” digital map he produced to tell the story of the invasion of Ukraine

Please also watch the talk he gave (below), filled with information about what being a professional journalist is all about and the nuts and bolts of “curating” the news using stats, visuals, and clear, crisp writing.

Visualizing Information: A Day in the Life of a Data Journalist

You will need this access passcode: f@zXu#71

The talk is only 20 minutes (followed by Q & A).

Here is what fellow student Schear Munawar had to say about Murphy’s talk:

“This event was very interesting and informative as it covered a lot of topics in a short span of time. I enjoyed being a part of the immersive environment provided. Joe Murphy, an assigning editor at NBC News, talked about his experiences and tasks while working in the field of journalism. The point that interested me from this event was when Joe Murphy described the structure of management and operations of journalism. He speaks of the general manager and so on. I am currently taking a project management class in my senior year of college. In this class, our main focus is to learn the layout, strategies, and stages of projects in order to achieve the specific goals set and to develop strong planning abilities. Thus, I got to explore the ways management works in the world of journalism.  Another engaging topic Joe Murphy mentioned, was about how data journalism enlightens our duties as students, teachers, professional workers etc. It helps us visualize facts in another way.” 

3 Comments

  1. Brandan Ramnandan

    hey my partner still hasn’t responded to me but I have the interview questions ready.

  2. Jenrry Loja

    Ukraine’s coverage leads to the exposure of racism biases in Western media. Russia’s Ukraine invasion had led to exposure in much stark media bias. When an anonymous person hacked the Russian TV broadcast channel it was for the better and the right to do in order to let people know to protect themselves. It was also the right thing to do because it can let people all around the world know what’s going on and each person can contribute and help out one another. What is going on in Ukraine is very bad but as one they will survive together.

    • Mark Noonan

      Thanks for sharing this thoughtful post. Jenrry. Could you explain “the exposure of racism biases” in the media more, however? Perhaps you could upload a more extended discussion on this important topic for our next Post assignment.

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