The Power of Media Coverage

What would of happened to the Civil Rights Movement without the media coverage?

The media back then and now sets the public agenda. What that means is the media gets to choose what they cover (well those who pay or are in charge of the media do) and this is what the public sees and responds too. The media is not supposed to tell the public what to think but they do tell the public what to think about. Now this relates to the Civil Rights Movement because (in my opinion) without the media covering it, it might not of taken off like it did. This picture was seen by families everywhere because of the media, and this sparked anger and frustration as to how the police were treating African Americans. The coverage of Martin Luther King Jr's speech gave light to the movement as well, broadcasting to people everywhere one of the most quoted speeches in history. 

This may seem obvious but to me it was surprising, past events and history were all affected and influenced by media coverage. The JFK assassination pushed the media to be the main source of news, and the radio station that scared the country into thinking we had a "war of the worlds" made the radio the go to place for tragic events. Media coverage is one of the most important systems this country has, and history has shown that without it, maybe things like the civil rights movement would not have succeeded. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRIF4_WzU1w
http://articles.latimes.com/1987-04-05/news/mn-380_1_civil-rights-movement

Up Front and Close

"You get a front row seat to what most people don't see in journalism."
 -Anonymous

When it comes to journalism, journalists see everything up front and close. You kind of have to be daring, adventurous, and a little crazy! What I have come to understand, when there is something like a natural disaster or intentional disaster, it is a journalists job to get there as soon as possible and get the facts no matter where you are. You always need to be looking for stories and finding news. One of my professors said when he goes out to dinner, he listens to the conversation in the booth over instead of listening to his wife. That is what I call commitment!


"Everyone please remember: it's better to be late and right than early and wrong" -Chris Gayomali

The Boston Marathon bombings was a chaotic time for the country and journalism. We all know the story of the 2 bad men that were falsely accused on the New York Post. These two men obviously had nothing to do with the bombings and ended up suing for "libel, negligent, infliction of emotional distress and privacy invasion."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/06/06/new-york-post-sued-for-libel-over-bag-men-story/

There was also the story of the woman who used fake hospital records to pretend to be a victim with a brain injury... this would of given her the 480,000 she wanted to buy a house. It's a shame people use tragedies like this for personal gain. All over twitter and social media there were fake posts and sites for people to donate money for victims. Although these posts were incredibly wrong, they did notify people of the bombings. 1 of out every 4 Americans got notified about the bombings from social media with 56% of those people being 18-29 young adults. Within 24 hours there were 1.2 million tweets and 1 million posts on Instagram. Social media played a huge role in the covering of this tragedy, whether it was good coverage, that is questionable.


http://nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=102877