EOTO #3- Reaction Post

Woodward and Bernstein: Trailblazers who expose

Ever since watching a movie about the Watergate scandal last year in one of my classes, my ears always perk up every time I hear this shocking event mentioned. 

The same happened in class as an EOTO #3 was being presented about Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who were the young journalists behind the unveiling of Nixon's involvement in the Watergate scandal. What I found to be most interesting about this presentation was all that these journalists did after they broke the Watergate story because in the movie I had watched, there was nothing told about the lasting impressions that Woodward and Bernstein would make on journalism and the fear they would ignite into politicians and party members who were afraid of being exposed.

First, they exposed former President Richard Nixon in their book "All the President's Men," where they covered all of the truth that the people involved in the Watergate scandal tried to hide. The reports that they used to create this book won Woodward and Bernstein a Pulitzer Prize, which would not be the only one that Woodward won. As Marissa explained in her presentation, Woodward has written over a dozen books, which discuss Watergate and other topics regarding U.S. presidents. Woodward has been extremely successful after having 10 of his articles receive Pulitzer Prizes for National Reporting.

Bernstein has also had immense success since they broke open the Watergate scandal in the early 70s. Woodward and Bernstein have co-authored books with one another and carry out their friendship in the form of editing one another's books. Bernstein proves that he is not concerned about protecting people's feelings and only cares about revealing the truth when he wrote "Loyalties: A Son's Memoir." This book revealed the shocking information that his parents worked so hard to hide: their affiliation with the Communist Party of America. John Edgar Hoover, an American law-enforcement administrator who would become the first director of the FBI, couldn't find solid evidence to pin his parents down as party members.

Both Bernstein and Woodward have proven to society that they are the best of the best when it comes to getting to the bottom of scandals and situations. They stuck it to the man and essentially forced a U.S. president to resign because he couldn't hide from the evidence that they brought to light. As I mentioned, Bernstein exposed his parents and showed that his loyalties are for the greater good of the public. Even though they were his parents, their secrets and lies had to be exposed because ethically he had to dismiss his relationship with them and report on them as if they were strangers. He couldn't show bias or a hidden agenda when providing these facts and he is a great role model for future journalists. 

Now, I more fully understand the importance of giving the public the facts, even when it can damage at home life or other relationships. Bernstein impresses me even more as a journalist because he wasn't afraid of the consequences and simply prioritized his job values, which were providing the truth no matter what. If he didn't put himself out there in this manner and publish what he knew was true, his reputation could be very different, if news broke that he had held on to this information solely to protect his parents.

Aside from Bernstein providing me with the lesson that you must put your personal opinions and connections aside when reporting, Woodward taught me that you must be fearless when exposing people in power. After the Watergate scandal, Woodward came at former President Bill Clinton and exposed his administration for their failed economic investments. Clinton admitted that he was extremely intimidated by Woodward and said that his book called "The Agenda" tore his guts out. 

Woodward continues to expose presidents for their wrongdoings and the risks they put on the American people, with his most recent book "Fear," covering former President Donald Trump's time in the White House and his takes on foreign affairs. Woodward has targeted these presidents and has exposed them for misleading the country when our country has been in the highest climaxes of turmoil. 

This takes a superior level of confidence, hard work and a drive to give the public the truth. Many people have tried to knock Woodward down and find inconsistencies within his work, but he prides himself on journalistic truth and prioritizes the people's right to know. I have been inspired to expose the wrongdoings in the sports world and work towards being the best of the best at doing so because Woodward has taught me that you are pretty much untouchable and do society a great service when you provide the truth for all to see.

Woodward and Bernstein were true trailblazers in the journalism industry, and without them many of us would still be left in the dark and would be unsure of who to blame or punish for numerous issues in this country. Without them as inspiration to journalists, our world would look a lot different and people in power would be fearless and think that they could get away with anything.

Blog #5

Question everything: The lessons learned from "Shock and Awe"

As the public sits and watches in horror as the U.S. continues to involve itself in foreign affairs, it makes you ask if this is right and why we continue to add fuel to the fire and risk more lives? 

Unfortunately, when we watched the movie "Shock and Awe" in class, I couldn't help but notice that the U.S. was repeating history in a sense. In the movie, writers at Knight-Ridder are brave enough to question why the government was so quick to invade Iraq after 9/11. 9/11 was a tragic event and still evokes American citizens to be fearful that our country will go under attack again. However, even with this fear, it does not give the government the power to place blame and attack countries and individuals without proof.

The writers at Knight-Ridder understood and sensed a shift in blame from Afghanistan to Iraq, but little evidence was provided to explain why former President George W. Bush wanted to attack Iraq. The former president was scared that the rest of the world would identify America as weak and exploit us even more than the terrorist group al-Qaeda already had. Therefore, during his State of the Union speech on January 29, 2002, Bush said "I will not wait on events while dangers gather. I will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons."

This approach to war led to many Americans and the writers at Knight-Ridder to be a little worried and unsure of their leader's decision-making. It was really startling to see how Bush and his administration painted Iraq as the bad guy and how much of the press were willing to mislead the American people with this information. So many individuals from both sides of the war lost their lives and others at home had to deal with the grief and mourning of these loved ones.

As a future journalist, it made me angry that Knight-Ridder's publication wouldn't run its stories exposing the government's opinions of Iraq and the lack of justification to invade because if they had, maybe more journalists and American citizens would have come to their senses and started questioning the decision to go to war a lot faster. It also aggravated me how we saw so many other highly regarded publications trusting the information the government was feeding them and hardly checking the information at all. If it wasn't for Knight-Ridder exposing the government for its lies and false information, who knows how much destruction would have been caused and how many more lives would have been affected. 

Not enough people are questioning why we keep giving weapons and money to fund the war in Ukraine and the war in the Middle East, and I am afraid that history will repeat itself. We don't have enough journalists who are providing us with factual information about these wars and many journalists are blindly justifying the funding that we provide.

I understand that tensions were extremely high after 9/11 and that they are immensely high right now, but that is no excuse for journalists to allow themselves to have the government manipulate them and publish false narratives. As a student studying journalism, I have been taught the importance of checking sources and investigating before publishing. It is shocking to me how many journalists set these principles aside when the government tries to enforce an agenda on the American people. 

If anything, it is even more important to double check your sources and provide the truth when tensions are so high. If good journalistic principles are not put into place, people are led blindly to believing one part of the story, leading to people making poor decisions and many more lives being put at risk. In intense situations, like war, people can't go back and fix their mistakes. The implications of war are permanent, and without journalists like those at Knight-Ridder, asking the hard-hitting questions and exposing wrongdoings, the government will be able to enforce its hidden agenda and affect the lives of many in the nation and abroad.

I'm not blind to the risks that journalists take when they go against the government and other people in power, but I don't think that we can give journalists the pass. They still need to be held to the highest degrees of standards, and they cannot be threatened by the power of others and ignore the issues at hand. It is scary that people go to extreme measures to hold power and dominance, but as a future journalist, I have learned from this movie and from other examples that I have learned about in classes, that the journalists who take the most risks and expose issues for the greater good are the ones who come out on top and are remembered as heroes.

It was extremely hard for these investigative journalists in the movie to get the information they needed to expose the former president. They were talking to individuals that were risking their careers as well, and I don't think that I can write this blog post without acknowledging and praising those whistleblowers in society who help make this kind of journalism possible. Between the whistleblowers and journalists, so many risks are taken, but without them, who knows where society would be today. These journalists and whistleblowers intimidate people in power and sometimes influence them to be more truthful because at times the people in power would rather be honest instead of being exposed as liars.

The government has and will continue to silence journalists and others who try to feed important information to these journalists. My biggest takeaway from watching "Shock and Awe," was that as a future journalist, I must value giving members of society nothing but the truth and must question everything!

The world continues to get crazier, and conflict is on the rise. As I step into the huge responsibility of being a journalist, I will certainly look back at how the members of Knight-Ridder handled themselves and at how they prevented so much destruction by putting their careers and lives on the line, instead of turning their cheeks like so many scared journalists did.

I hope that I can provide society with great pieces of journalism that touch peoples' hearts and expose the wrongdoings of individuals so that they cannot go on power trips and disregard everyone's wellbeing for their own selfish benefits.

EOTO #3- Journo Hero

Howard Cosell: A loved and hated man

Howard Cosell was a legend in the sports broadcasting world, for good and bad reasons, but nobody can deny that he influenced the way that commentators strive to broadcast.

Cosell was born on March 25, 1918, in Winston-Salem, but grew up in Brooklyn. With his time in New York, he got his law degree at New York University after passing the bar exam in 1941. He used his law degree to represent entertainment and sports figures. Cosell continued his law practice, while adding a new profession notch to his belt. In 1953, he became the host of a radio show, which included Little League baseball players asking questions to Major League Baseball sensations. 

In 1958, Cosell left his practice and began his career as a full-time sports broadcaster. Amongst his various careers surrounding sports, Cosell became most controversial during his time as a sports broadcaster where he was known for being very blunt and opinionated. Cosell said, "I've been called arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff. And, of course, I am." 

He put himself on the map with a few standpoints that were much different than those around him in his profession and in society itself. 

He's known as being the first person to support boxer Muhammad Ali after he was stripped of his heavyweight title due to his refusal to be drafted into the army for religious reasons. He also supported sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith at the 1968 summer Olympic Games after they raised their fists into Black-power salutes at their medal ceremony in Mexico City. Cosell wasn't afraid to discuss social issues, which is what made him so different from any broadcaster at the time, since many did not believe in Cosell's motto: "I'm just telling it like it is."

Cosell was a commentator for Monday Night Football and made his mark once again due to the colliding personalities of himself and former football players Frank Gifford and "Dandy" Don Meredith. Cosell was very critical and insulting when it came to his view on former players entering the broadcasting career due to their fame from playing. Therefore, he wasn't always the friendliest to these ex-pros, and he was especially critical of Meredith's laid-back approach to broadcasting. 

Much of the public either hated or loved Cosell, but either way the public was captivated by his opinions and wanted to see what he would say next. As a result, Monday Night Football was a humongous success and was listed as the No. 1 rated program a lot in the weekly Nielsen ratings.

In 1980, Cosell was credited with letting many Americans know about the death of Beatles' legend John Lennon, after he announced on a Monday Night Football broadcast that the star had been shot and killed. 

Cosell left his impact on Monday Night Football by coining the phrase "He could... go all... the way!", and many broadcasters have used this phrase in their commentating. Along with this phrase that occurred during kickoffs, he was credited too for popularizing the term "nachos" with his time on MNF. Nachos were born in Texas and oddly enough, during a broadcast of MNF Cosell was given a plate and introduced them to his listeners across the country and incorporated the word as an adjective for describing plays. Such as, "That was a nacho run!"

Cosell was extremely influential in growing the prominence of prime-time football programs and in the food industry, but he began his decline in 1982.

Two years after announcing Lennon's death, Cosell stopped commentating on boxing matches after a very brutal match between Larry Holmes and Tex Cobb. Shortly after, in 1983, his controversy peaked when he referred to Washington Redskins' football player Alvin Garrett as a "little monkey." Many viewed this comment as being racist, even though Garrett announced that he didn't find the comment to be demeaning.

Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson and Muhammad Ali provided support for Cosell, but the opinions of others, like the Rev. Joseph Lowery, were too overwhelming and Cosell left MNF at the end of 1983. Cosell tried to explain that he was referring to Garrett's stature, which was on the shorter side, and there is video evidence of Cosell calling Mike Adamle a "little monkey" as well. Both players were short for the NFL, but this benefited Cosell's argument that his comment wasn't racially motivated because he called them the same term even though they were different races. 

Nonetheless, he moved on from MNF and published his book in 1985 called I Never Played the Game. This book included many insults about some of his former colleagues at ABC and resulted in the network getting rid of his SportsBeat program. SportsBeat was a television series hosted by Cosell, where he would interview sports figures and get to the bottom of the hard-hitting questions circling around the sports industry. After his time on television came to a close, he returned to radio until he retired in 1992. Six months before he retired he had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in his chest. His health was declining, and he passed away at 77 on April 23, 1995, due to a cardiac embolism.

Cosell dominated the sports broadcasting game when he entered it in the mid-1950s, with his hard-hitting opinions and fearlessness to express them. He was critical of the sports he commentated on and was not afraid to call athletes, coaches and colleagues out. Commentators typically stuck to just discussing the game at hand, but Cosell made his mark by showing viewers his viewpoints on situations and by investigating situations that were going on relating to sports.

The New York Times explained Cosell's effect on the sports broadcasting world: "He entered sports broadcasting in the mid-1950s, when the predominant style was unabashed adulation, [and] offered a brassy counterpoint that was first ridiculed, then copied until it became the dominant note of sports broadcasting."

Some of Cosell's recognitions included TV Guide naming him The All-Time Best Sportscaster in its issue celebrating 40 years of television, his induction into the Television Academy Hall of Fame and his ranking of No. 47 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time in 1996. He posthumously won a Sports Emmy in 1995, which was the Lifetime Achievement Award.

As I pursue a career in sports, I will remember that it pays off to be opinionated, to be confident and to bring something to the table that differentiates me from other sports journalists.

Blog #4

"Good Night, and Good Luck" reaction post

Watching "Good Night, and Good Luck" has led me to realize that journalists must continue to expose our government for wrong doings as it still tries to control what the media says about it and about the situations that it gets itself into.

"Good Night, and Good Luck" covered the tension between journalist Edward R. Murrow and Senator McCarthy of Wisconsin, with Murrow exposing McCarthy for his improper accusations against people for their association with Communism. This was a huge step in the right direction, to stop much of the division in the country at the time and to stop the horrors that people faced with the fear of Russia invading.

At the time citizens were fearful of one another and struggled to trust others in society. They especially feared the government because Senator McCarthy accused individuals of being disloyal to the government. McCarthy wreaked havoc upon the American people from 1949 to 1957 as he used his power in government to ruin peoples' reputations and livelihoods. He misused his powers "as chair of the Senate Committee on Government Operations and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations," and would interrogate people publicly without having any real evidence. This resulted in people losing their jobs and others viewing them differently because they never had the opportunity to defend themselves.

Due to McCarthy's reputation, many journalists and citizens were fearful to stand up to him. They were unsure of what he would do to them because he stopped at no lengths to take anyone down who threatened his power and disagreed with the government. This fear that was created during the 1940s and 1950s would be under the term chilling effect. A chilling effect is essentially when numerous individuals feel obstructed or discouraged to perform their natural and legal rights by the threat of legal sanction. When citizens and journalists were scared to express their actual feelings about McCarthy, they self-censored themselves. As the American people feared being publicly humiliated and under intense heat from McCarthy, he was capable of wrongfully taking advantage of many people throughout his years in the Senate.

I found Murrow's actions at CBS to be extremely heroic because he was finally able to direct attention towards McCarthy's inappropriate power trip.

Without Murrow calling out McCarthy, who knows how many other people he would have ruined. My biggest takeaway from the movie was that you can't be afraid to take risks as a journalist, even if that means possibly getting in trouble with the government.

It is a journalist's job to find the truth and provide the truth to the public. Journalists are not tied to the government at all, and therefore, are required to expose the government's wrongdoing if they are aware of them. Up until Murrow took the risk to expose McCarthy, the journalists at the time were doing a disservice to the public. They knew that what McCarthy was doing was wrong but feared that they would lose their livelihoods and preferred not to say anything as a result. After learning about the destruction that the government can cause in this movie and in society currently, I have learned that as a future journalist, I must put my fears aside and prioritize serving the public to the best of my ability.

The government should provide journalists with insight, but they shouldn't coerce and threaten journalists to cover stories with a certain agenda. The government isn't perfect in the slightest, and journalists cannot look the other way, or else the government will take advantage of the public, who are unaware of the secrets and lies surrounding the government's business.

Our country has been heavily divided for years, as seen during the Red Scare and during the outbreak of Covid-19.

The uncertainty and fear circling around society in the 40s and 50s is much like the atmosphere during quarantine because nobody knew what to believe, and people trying to speak out against the government's decisions were being silenced. The issues from Covid are still being tackled today, as seen in the Supreme Court case Murthy v. Missouri.

This case also demonstrates a chilling effect created from the government, as many individuals claim that government officials censored certain opinions that went against theirs, especially those that went against how the government was handling the pandemic. 

The plaintiffs were fearful of what power the government held over them because the government took advantage of their power and forced social media platforms to censor these individuals' content. They wanted the content to be hidden from the public because it went against what the government believed and could possibly sway the public to not believe in what the government was saying or doing. The government wants to always stay in power and have people fully believing in them, but these plaintiffs threatened the reputation of the government. The government felt the need to involve social media platforms and threaten them as well because much was at stake with people dying every day, and they couldn't afford to have the public lose trust in them at the peak of a crisis.

I would consider the era during the Red Scare and the current era we are in to be called the terror on journalism. 

This era does not seem to be ending anytime soon because the government will always feel the need to insert themselves where they don't belong. Journalists need to continue to fight back and be brave when it comes to confronting the government because tensions escalate with more and more issues coming about every day. If the public is unaware of the wrong doings of the government, no change will be made when it is needed. 

It is scary to think that the terror on journalism, where journalists are under constant threat to have their lives ruined continues, but I now understand the importance of speaking out. As seen in the film, all it takes is one person or organization to take on the government and make the public aware of what is going on. This is essential to make sure that the government and the way the country is ran does not become too out of control and one sided. We need people to hold others accountable or havoc will reign supreme.

I hope that down the line, I can be one of these people who speaks out fearlessly and shows the public that not everything is what they were originally told.

EOTO #2- Reaction Post

Women in journalism: The potential never ends

As an aspiring female sports journalists, I was most intrigued with the EOTO that discussed women in journalism. I had never heard of stunt reporting or stunt girls before, which seems shameful since these women got the ball rolling for future females in this field.

For those like me who didn't know much about the start of female journalism, I'll start off with two definitions. First off, stunt reporting started in the 1880s and 1890s, where female journalists would go undercover into certain establishments and report on the experiences of being on the inside for the newspapers that they were working for. 

These women were labeled as stunt girls, even though they were investigative journalists like men. They got this title due to the societal belief that women who did this work and who were considered brave and independent were unusual and rare.

Spotlighting Nellie Bly was a great idea for this presentation because she is a very well-known stunt girl whose stories covered numerous issues that were occurring at the time. It was refreshing to see a woman creating strong works of journalism, especially with so many women getting pushed to the sideline to do "female" topics like fashion and gossip, instead of more important topics like hard news and social action. 

Bly and other stunt girls demonstrated that women could write these types of stories and showed that they had the grit and determination to tackle big issues in society through writing.

Bly, whose real name was Elizabeth Cochrane, had the urge to promote activism coursing through her veins. Her career began in 1885 after she wrote a disapproving email to the editor of the Pittsburgh Dispatch on an article called "What Girls are Good For."

She began working for this newspaper and wrote articles about Pittsburgh women's working conditions, conditions in the slums and other similar topics. One of her notable works of journalism for this paper was Six Months in Mexico where she frequently sent back reports about the condition of the poor and official corruption in Mexico.

After angering Mexican officials, she left the paper and moved on to writing for the New York World. She turned heads with her compilation of reports called Ten Days in a Mad House, which covered her time in the insane asylum on Blackwell's Island. She explained the conditions and how the patients were treated in the asylum which caused a grand-jury investigation and helped to improve patient care.

She continued to expose other institutions for their wrongdoings, but what I find most impressive is the fact that she showed zero fear when writing these kinds of articles. This kind of journalism is risky because these articles can ruin people's careers, reputations and lives. Even if the articles are factual people negatively affected will come after you.

Investigative journalists receive a lot of hate, and I'm sure it was even more difficult for women like Bly because women weren't always taken seriously when not discussing topics like fashion, makeup, celebrities and gossip. Unfortunately, this still happens, especially in sports broadcasting.

I'm working on a final paper for my sports and communication class, which discuss the inequality that female sports reporters face. Much like many women at the time were forced to cover female related topics, sports reporters have faced only being sideline reporters due to their appearance and the assumed belief that women aren't as knowledgeable about sports. 

It's disappointing and discouraging that there is little faith in female reporting across multiple genres. However, after learning about Bly in this EOTO, I hope that I can showcase that women are capable of covering sports and other hard-hitting topics in my future career.