Walter Cronkite: A Witness to History

On Friday night, July 17th,2009 legendary CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite died after a long illness at the age of 92. In a world without the Internet and a 24-hour news cycle, Americans trusted Cronkite to provide the news every evening for 19 years. A 1972 poll showed that Mr. Cronkite was more trusted than the president, the vice president, members of Congress, and other prominent journalists.

He reported many events including bombing in World War II, The Nuremberg Trials, combat in Vietnam War, the death of JFK, Watergate, and the Iran Hostage Crisis as well as the extensive TV coverage of the U.S. Space Shuttle and American's landing on the moon.

Since his passing, a number of high-ranking politicians, including President Obama, as well as a number of top television executives and prominent journalists released statements praising Cronkite and his incredible career.

Obama said, "His rich baritone reached millions of living rooms every night, and in an industry of icons, Walter set the standard by which all others have been judged. But Walter was always more than just an anchor. He was family. He invited us to believe in him, and he never let us down."

When Cronkite first started his career as a journalist, it seemed an unlikely fit. He was named host of "You Are There" in which key moments of history were recreated by actors. Cronkite was depicted on camera interviewing "Joan of Arc" or "Sigmund Freud." But somehow, he managed to make it believable. Cronkite's achievements were remarkable for a man whose beginnings were anything but remarkable.

While Cronkite kept a lower profile in his later years, he did make a significant contribution to the "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric" with his voice being used during the opening of the broadcast since its debut in 2006. This bridged generations and signified the newscast’s strong link to its storied past.

As Cronkite said on March 6, 1981, concluding his final broadcast as anchorman: "Old anchormen, you see, don't fade away, they just keep coming back for more. And that's the way it is."

What a remarkable journalist. He was one America could trust, rely on, and look up to...which says a lot about a journalist. He stayed calm while always maintaining his integrity. He will forever be remembered.

Teton Dam Disaster Media Coverage

The Teton Flood Museum is an extensive collection of flood memorabilia including but not limited to films, photos, and other items related to the Teton Dam disaster that occured on June 5, 1976. There are also many pioneer relics, depicting the lives of early pioneers, an Idaho opal/agate collection, North American animal head collection, World War I and II items and...what I liked viewing most were some of the first film cameras, radios and even the second television that was ever in Rexburg!
It was so interesting to see these displays of antique technology but also to see how the media, 30 some years ago captured and handled the Teton Dam disaster.

The Local media first appeared at the site just a few hours after the dam had collapsed. They were right there to document what was going on and to inform those who were still in their houses, to evacuate. In the museum there is a video you can watch of the media's coverage of this devastating disaster. The communities immediately downstream, Rexburg, Wilford, Sugar City, Salem, and Hibbard, suffered horribly. Thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed. One estimate placed damage to Rexburg, population 10,000, at 80 percent of existing structures. Thousands of livestock were lost and fertile farm land was demolished! The 1970's video covers victims' individual stories as well as the reconstruction and rebuilding of each of the towns. The Teton Dam disaster is able to leave a legacy behind because of this media coverage and the complete capturing of the tragic event. Although, the museum theater itself only holds a small amount of people you can purchase the video through Time and watch it and broadcast it to whomever you would like. I really enjoyed going to this museum and learning more about the History of Rexburg as well as the history of our media technology and to see how far we have come in the way of production, style and editing.

How to Save an Amsterdam Movie Theater? With Web Video, of Course

The ingenious idea of "taking web films to big screen" was conceived when Dagan Cohen, head of the creative department at DraftFCB, met Barbara Wijn, managing director of De Uitkijk in Amsterdam. She told Dagan she had a very difficult time keeping the cinema afloat because of the cinema's practically invisible location and being in the heart of Amsterdam, it was hard for her to compete with all those huge comfy cinemas that have popped up all over town...and although De Uitkijk focuses on art-house movies, thus attracting a very specific crowd, people are spoiled nowadays and don't like cramped cinemas with crappy chairs anymore.

The solution to the problem is a unique form and mixing of content that has created a whole new reason to visit De Uitkijk. The (online) members of Upload Cinema are asked to submit online videos, based on a monthly theme, that are freely accessible on the internet.

The editorial staff then select the best films. The result is an art-house-worthy compilation of extremely diverse stuff that is only matched by the theme, shown on the first Monday of every month. In June, for example, the theme was "messing with the brand." It brought together the best unauthorized, banned and spoofed advertising on the web. The concept is so successful that art house cinema's all over the world have requested to adopt the format!

The reason why Upload Cinema is truly creative is that it merges two domains that usually lie miles apart from each other. Upload Cinema has been completely innovative by bringing the two together producing an entirely new form of quality content that is happening to work for anyone who accidentally stumbles upon it. Very cool...I would totally attend one of these movie experiences!

The Youtube Presidency

As of November 14, 2008 Barack Obama has been implimenting videos online to inform the American public of topics from the beginning of his campaign to the now weekly Democratic addresses. The addresses, typically four minutes long, are turned into YouTube videos and posted on WhiteHouse.gov.

"This is just one of many ways that he will communicate directly with the American people and make the White House and the political process more transparent," says spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

President Obama is using these more mainstream ways to communicate with the American people who would not otherwise be informed, people like college aged students who are not watching the news or reading newspapers.

This online presence of White House Admin has not only been utilized by President Obama but also by President Bush. Bush updated online information on WhiteHouse.govduring his presidency, which offers RSS feeds, podcasts and videos of press briefings. The site's Ask the White House page has featured regular online chats dating back to 2003, and President Bush hosted one in January after a Middle Eastern trip.

So what's next from the Obama White House? A behind-the-scenes online video exclusive of the State of the Union Address? A text message reminding us to turn in our taxes? Who knows...

A Look Back on How People Look Forward

It is dangerous to make predictions for the future of media.

In 1913, Lee DeForest sold the stock of his Radio Telephone Company by making a prediction that, “It would be possible to transmit the human voice across the Atlantic before many years".

In 1946, Darryl Zanuck predicted, “Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night”.

Boy were they wrong.

The question now is, is the internet the new media landscape for the future or will it be something completely new? We need not be naive to the new innovations and break through inventions that may spark a completely new way of producing and consuming media.

It is important to learn the basic foundations of technologies of the media in which new technologies will be based off of because only new innovations and inventions will tell where the media will be in the future.

The Leading Media Technologies or
The Basis of New Technologies are as follows:
-Satellite
-Fiber Optics
-Digital Coding
-Microprocessor
-Wireless

Can You Still Be Productive With Old Technology?

The answer to that is simply, No...you just can't be. Just as you would not want to take a rickety and rusty old car onto the interstate you would not want to go back to the early format and software of computers. It just isn't going to cut it...but we will get into that later.

Ideally professionals in the communications and technology businesses are here to make sure that users get their jobs done more efficiently. That means they need to be able to cover all of the bases when it comes to the basic needs of the end user.

When PC's first came our many of the functions that we take for granted today like video, email and Instant Messaging were either just beginning or didn't exist. Computers did simple things like replace typewriters with word processing and calculators with spreadsheets. Today, PCs are complete communication tools and users do multiple things at the same time.

The bare bone minimum things a computer has to do today include:

• Email
• Word Processing
• Spreadsheets
• Databases
• Web surfing
• Audio/video playback
• IM

That means you can probably rule out any of the 8 bit machines of the first microcomputer era. the first Apples and computers that came out in the 80's might be able to do a few of the things on the list, but they’re too antiquated to do much more than be tasked with simple single things. Even if you move into the early 16-bit PC era, anything DOS based is also pretty much useless today. Again, you might be able to use it to do half the things on the list, but that’s about it.

So as for software and machines between 1970's and early 1990's, the problem is that work and the expectations now are changed radically different. Users access multiple data formats with different applications running simultaneously. It would be torture to get anything done on a DOS machine today.

Surviving The Crossover Into Mass Culture

In the past year, Facebook has evolved from being an essential element of a student's life to becoming a mainstay of mainstream culture and the most popular website in Canada! In reading this article at CBC News I learned that Facebook is a disruptive forcen, in that it changes our ability to use and understand the internet in interactive ways that only a small minority have used before now. No longer limited to academic environments, can Facebook survive the crossover into mass culture and the pressures of commercialization?

1. Already, many people are using Facebook more often than e-mail as a primary means of communicating with friends and contacts online. With Facebook playing the role of a visual phone book, some people who have resisted signing up find that it can be the easiest — and at times only — means of reaching people.

2. An integral ingredient to this ongoing success and staying power lies in Facebook's decision to open up its social networking platform to developers in a way that is free to use and relatively flexible. Lately, Facebook has gone through some updates with their security and privacy controls.

To quickly explain what Facebook has up to in developing a better site, think about how you currently can set your privacy controls. Each control is in a different location, and therefore could be easy to miss. (In other words you don’t have privacy).

The new privacy update will gather the controls to one location and allow you to specifically modify whom you send status updates to as you send them. As you are changed over to the new privacy settings, Facebook will provide you with a transition tool to help out.

The transition tool notifies you of your current settings and allows you to change them before copying them over to the new privacy page.

3. The rapid growth of Facebook is comparable to the emergence of Google from a student project at Stanford to becoming the dominant search engine and largest media company in the world. Even though the utility of a search engine is perhaps more evident than that of a social-media platform, the power of collaboration and the strength of social networking are such that the potential of Facebook should not be underestimated.

Facebook is a disruptive force, in that it changes our ability to use and understand the internet in interactive ways that only a small minority have used before now. There are still many questions to whether this type of communications power, now in the hands of so many regular people, will emerge as a complete new way to utilize and employ the internet in our business, communication and social needs.

In The Public Eye

Once you become rich and famous you are going to have to learn to deal with the paparazzi. The paparazzi are determined and very good at what they do so there are many instances where you will have to grin and bear it. The paparazzi simply put treats people as commodities. These opportunists make money at the expense of others’ privacy and happiness. Love them or hate them, what would celebrity magazines do without them? The paparazzi supply celebrity-hungry fans with photographic reference of all the highs and lows of politicians, actors, actresses, singers, athletes and other personalities.

At first blush, there seems to be little downside to high salaries, fabulous parties and millions of people knowing your name, but in truth, celebrity exposure can cause a great deal of damage if it isn't handled properly. Many celebrities are unable to engage in basic tasks without being mobbed, and gossip columns and paparazzi can intrude upon their lives to the point of breaking the law. While there are a number of upsides to fame, celebrities need to find ways of coping with public life if they hope to persevere. So how does a celebrity deal with public life?

Well, every celebrity is an individual, and each one deals with public life differently. The need to acknowledge the reality of their condition is paramount, as is the ability to strike a balance that reduces the stress and anxiety it may cause. We've all seen examples of what can happen when a celebrity can't handle exposure: drug and alcohol addiction, public outbursts, and an overall deterioration (which ironically feeds the very attention that is contributing to the problem in the first place). The key to survival lies in understanding boundaries, setting firm lines and knowing where and when to behave in a public forum.

Invasion of Privacy?

In this image made available Tuesday Oct. 2, 2007, from evidence presented at the inquest into the death of Diana Princes of Wales and Dodi Al Fayed. The head of Diana Princess of Wales, in the rear seat, her bodyguard Trevor Rees left, and driver Henri Paul are seen shortly before the car crash that killed Diana, her companion Dodi Fayed and the driver in Paris Aug. 31, 1997.

The deaths of Princess Diana, her companion Dodi Fayed and their driver, Henri Paul, on that tragic night of August 31, 1997 were, after six months and almost 250 witnesses, found to be caused by the gross negligence of their speeding driver and pursuing paparazzi. Because the accident happened in France, no British charges could be laid against the photographers.

Nine were charged with manslaughter in France, but the charges were thrown out in 2002. Three photographers, Jacques Langevin, Christian Martinez and Fabrice Chassery, were convicted of invasion of privacy for taking pictures of the couple and were each fined one euro in 2006.

Although Princess Di used publicity for her causes, she often appealed to the press to give her and her family space to live.Princess Di was used to being the most photographed woman in the world, but her linking up with Dodi al Fayed had thrown the scavengers of celebrity into a heightened state of alert. They wanted pictures that would pay and they would stop at nothing to get them.

If there is any doubt that the world of photography had gone insane, moments after Princess Di had been pronounced dead, the dilemma facing some British publishers was what to do about the pictures taken that fateful night. The National Enquirer's Coz said he would not purchase any such photos, in an effort "to send a message." Someone may well publish a picture from the tunnel, and to keep blood off its hands, the public must avert its eyes. We can blame the press only if we stop watching.

Media Censorship and a Free Press in America

"No government ought to be without censors & where the press is free, no one ever will."

-Thomas Jefferson

Since this country was founded, we have had a set of unalienable rights that our constitution guarantees us to as Americans. One of the most important rights that is mentioned in our constitution is the right to free speech. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” These are the exact words used by our country’s forefathers when they made these amendments in the late 1700’s. Movies, books, music, thoughts, ideas, and literature are all things that have been censored in this country. Censorship exists to some extent in all modern countries, including the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.

The U.S. Government has the ablility to censor anything that poses a threat to National Security, Military Operations and war, or that poses a "clear and present danger."

All are under the influences of censorship when they post their findings and opinions into the mass media. According to Peter Phillips, Director of Project Censored, Media corporations have been undergoing a massive merging and buy-out process that is realigning our sources of information in America. Conglomeration changes traditional media corporate cultures. Values such as freedom of information and belief in the responsibility of keeping the public informed are adjusted to reflect policies created by bottom-line oriented CEOs.

Media owners and managers are motivated to please advertisers and upper middle class readers and viewers. Journalists and editors are not immune from management influence. Journalists want to see their stories approved for print or broadcast, and editors come to know the limits of their freedom to diverge from the bottom line view of owners and managers. The results are an expansion of entertainment news, infomercials, and synergistic news- all aimed at increased profit taking. For example in 1997, the new CEO of the Los Angeles Times found it necessary to assign a business manager to each section of the newspaper in order to insure that a proper profit-oriented product was developed and to help maintain a corporate climate that reflected the management desires of the board of directors.

Keeping democracy safe in America requires an informed electorate and a strong watchdog press. But major media today are tending to favor news stories on sex scandals, celebrity events, and crime, leaving less or little room for analytical news on important social issues. If privately owned commercial media will not meet the task of keeping democracy safe, then it is time for a strong public supported national news system.