And on that note…

So here I am, doing the last blog of Communications 311 and finishing up “count down” class no. 5.

With only four more Simpson classes to go, I am beginning to look ahead. The short-term future calls for finishing my course work and two writing portfolios in time to graduate in May 2009.

What about after that accomplishment? What have I learned and what will I do with a Journalism and Mass Communication degree from Simpson College?

I have long been a journal-er, documenting two pregnancies, a summer communal-living situation and other life-changing events. Every year on my birthday, I try to find a quiet place so I can look back over the year and ponder the future in my personal journal. But that’s personal writing.

In previous jobs, I wrote speeches for corporate leaders, press releases and newsletter articles and did final reviews of letters going to customers from my direct reports. In my current job, I’m a technical writer/editor. Often I have to put together an e-mail message that will go to anywhere from 25 to around 20,000 people in the matter of minutes. I also am writing more feature stories and managing scheduling for our homepage that those 20,000 people see first thing every morning. But that’s business writing.

I look at journalism as something distinctly different from personal writing and somewhat different from (although also somewhat similar to) business writing.

While I am capable of writing without my own personal voice, I think my writing is better when I can bring a personal aspect to it. From the first “review” I wrote about a basketball game in the fourth grade, through my personal journals, and to the pieces I put together for each of my parent’s funerals, writing was something I just did. When my sister read the life overview I did for our father’s funeral, she said to me, “You should be a writer.”

I think that was the first time I truly considered the possibility of writing professionally. It was also just before I started classes at Simpson to finish my bachelor’s degree and when I declared my major, it just felt “right.”

What I am considering now is how I can use the knowledge and skills I have learned through this degree program. I can certainly use it in my present job – but can I use it to a greater extent, perhaps in freelance writing?

I don’t think I want to face daily deadlines as a reporter for the Des Moines Register, although I’m sure that would be great experience. And sometimes, as in John Carlson’s article in Saturday’s Register titled “Professors at U of I paid well for doing nothing”, I cheer when a journalist “nails” a story – that’s when I ardently wish I could write so effectively and powerfully.

My dream career would be writing freelance articles about my passions: gardening, travel and faith. Because I am a woman of faith, I get a kick out of seeing and experiencing those instances, large and small, that make us wonder if things are just “coincidental” or how God is working in our lives.

For example, the very next day after we discussed them in class, I received an e-mail asking me to write cutlines for some photos for an article in our corporate magazine. A week before, I wouldn’t have fully known what a cutline was, let alone how it should be written!

So, I believe God has blessed me with being able to study journalism at Simpson. I’m not sure what he has in mind for me, personally or professionally, as a writer/journalist.

But I’m keeping my eyes - and my faith – open.

Thanks to each of my classmates for sharing your thoughts and writings with me – you have been fun and inspirational.

Thanks to you, Brian, for once again showing me how much I still have to learn!

The balancing act

In the Aug.10, 2008, Des Moines Sunday Register there was an article by Rekha Basu about the postings on the Register’s Web site.

According to the article, there are 22,000 “members” registered to post comments online. On their Website, there’s a convenient tab to sign up for membership and start blogging your heart out.

But the focus of the article is not on hearts – it’s about some of the wicked tongues of bloggers.

The headline (four columns wide) reads, “Spewing venom” with the cut line “Does online anonymity enhance valuable forum, or encourage posts that are rude, crude, hateful?”

Because the Register allows anonymous posting, they receive a lot of hateful, hurtful blogs. People feel free to trounce other people’s feelings, ethnicity, actions and pretty much anything else they care to “flame”.

After giving a few examples, Basu refers to the Register’s online code which “doesn’t allow obscenity, profanity or libelous statements, sexually explicit or crude comments about someone, threats or suggestions of violence. It forbids derogatory terms about a group and crude remarks about a child.”

The Register is currently receiving more than 2,000 posts each day and the staff can’t keep watch over that volume – they must be alerted to infractions of the rules.

So Basu, trying to understand the motivation of these flamers, queried them on her blog. The enlightening answers were:
* It’s fun to push people’s buttons.
* It’s fun to torment strangers – and this “fun” is called “lulz” because they enjoy making people
lose their cool.
* They like people to disagree with them so they can argue with those who disagree.

The main questions raised in the article are whether the good of posting (allowing an open forum) outweighs the bad (flaming) and what should/could be done to prevent the bad posts.

After presenting several possible approaches, Basu goes with “gradually start requiring people to provide their names.”

I guess that’s a start, but it seems like sort of a Band-Aid approach. Maybe the real issue should be addressed – why so many people believe freedom of speech means they can spew that venom with no accountability.

If our courts require an accused person be allowed to face their accusers, why aren’t flamers forced to face those they’ve so badly burned?

What is Rush Limbaugh?

An article in the Aug. 10, 2008, Sunday Des Moines Register had the headline, “20 years later, Limbaugh is still on top.”

The article, by Chuck Raasch, a political editor for Gannett News Service, seems to indicate Raasch has high respect for Rush Limbaugh, the controversial conservative radio personality.

Now, I must admit I have only listened to Limbaugh’s radio show a couple of times as I realized he’s not my cup of tea. My husband used to listen to him quite often which spurred many “discussions” around our house which usually started with him spewing forth verbiage I knew wasn’t his own. The discussion usually really got going when I inevitably said, “You’ve been listening to Rush again, haven’t you?”

The article stated, “Twenty years into what is still the most listened-to political talk show, Limbaugh still enrages, entertains and – here come the e-mail – enlightens.”

So, the question popped into my mind: what exactly is Rush Limbaugh?

Is he a political expert, a shock-jock or just a guy with a high opinion of himself and a low opinion of women?

Is he a journalist?

At this point, I conducted a limited, unscientific query – I asked my husband, “What is Rush Limbaugh?”

Still wary of Rush Limbaugh discussions, my husband carefully said, “He’s kind of a political commentator.”

I think that might be a more accurate statement than one quoted in the article from Talkers magazine publisher Michael Harrison: “Rush Limbaugh has been the leading political talk show host in America, and talk radio has been one of the leading forces in American politics…Limbaugh is to talk radio what Elvis Presley was to rock ‘n’roll.”

At least no one is calling him a journalist.

In high-resolution detail

The title of the Aug. 8 Des Moines Register (page 10A) article was “Remote-control warriors feel stress of battle, too” and it caught my eye as I was flipping through the paper.

As I started reading the article, I wondered why in the world I hadn’t heard or read anything about the information in any other journalistic forum.

With a dateline of March Air Reserve Base, Calif., it started out setting the scene of Air National Guardsmen who are based in California but feel the same battle stress as the war-front soldiers serving in Iraq.

Why so?

Because, while operating Predator drones via remote control, they watch the people they are killing die and often – at military command – the cameras stay at the kill site, assessing damage "in high-resolution detail."

This makes death much more up-close and personal than flying over and dropping bombs on a kill zone. It has resulted in the military's use of psychologists, psychiatrists and chaplains to help these soldiers face their own very intense versions of battlefield stress.

The article says, “Working in air-conditioned trailers, Predator pilots observe the field of battle through a bank of video screens and kill enemy fighters with a few computerized keystrokes. Then, after their shifts are over, they drive home and sleep in their own beds.”

Citing “that whiplash transition”, one Predator pilot described, “It is quite different, going from potentially shooting a missile, then going to your kid’s soccer game.”

Indeed some of the “pilots” and “sensor operators”, many as young as 18, have trouble leaving the images behind after they have killed people, watched them die and hung around via video cameras to see the death and damage…”in high-resolution detail.”

According to military sources quoted in the article, everyone knows the lethal nature of the “jobs” when they go into them.

But can 18-year olds, even those who grew up playing violent video games, truly understand what they will see and what the emotional and psychological repercussions will be when they realize this is not a game and they must watch another human being die as a direct result of their actions…”in high-resolution detail.”

The old warrior, William Tecumseh Sherman, said, “War is hell.”

Today, war technology is hell…”in high-resolution detail.”

Social Media

I’m wondering if any of the companies you work for are practicing “social media” or open messaging via responses to articles or blogs or any other form of interactive communication?

Here are some specific questions I have:
Is your system completely “open” – anything goes and can be posted?
Is your system monitored and censored in any way?
How is your system monitored? Who monitors it?
How has social media been beneficial to your company?
What positive and negative experiences have resulted for your company from social media?
Does your company leadership practice social media in any form?

I hear more and more companies are utilizing an open form of communication such as social media allows. I also hear the corporate world is unsure how to ensure it has a positive impact on communication and disgruntled employees don’t use it for airing their complaints.

Scribbleofthought asks “When does Freedom of Speech cross the line?” She says, “What I don't understand is why people feel the need to become disrespectful or even hurtful in their posts.”

What if that happens in the corporate world?

Does anyone have any thoughts on how to balance open communication with the need to maintain a respectful, effective corporate communication atmosphere?

News via cell phones

I just read Kelly Smith’s blog: Another Option For Getting Our News. In it, Kelly talks about the unfolding technology of receiving news via our cell phones. Like Kelly, I prefer to physically open a traditional newspaper – although I am getting more used to reading news online, thanks to this class!

However, the State of the News Media 2008: An Annual Report On American Journalism, says, “Audiences are moving toward information on demand, to media platforms and outlets that can tell them what they want to know when they want to know it.”

This conjures up scenes of panic from the 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds when many listeners were convinced New York was under a real attack by extraterrestrial aliens.

How much more quickly could a widespread hoax be perpetrated by “news” sent to millions of cell phones?

The world today is a more sophisticated, discriminating audience that is less susceptible such a possibility - right?

Scary food for thought…is the technology advancing faster than security features that would prevent such an occurrence?

Does religion have a place in the presidential race?

On a Christian radio station, I recently heard presidential candidates Obama and McCain are scheduled for back-to-back interviews about their religious faith later this month.

Unfortunately, I could not find anything about this on Google so I can’t share any details.

But the blurb I heard prompted some thoughts about religion and the presidential race.

It seems like the little I’ve heard about faith in this race has been negative such as:

- Obama’s former minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, swearing and slamming America that led to
Obama’s break with the man who had been his pastor for years.

- Rev. Jesse Jackson’s embarrassing “open mike” statements about Obama that required not
one, but two apologies from Jackson. (What’s with these prominent figures forgetting they are
wired with microphones lately?)

- During the primaries Mitt Romney had to address the issue of his membership in the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church.

- E-mail grapevine messages declared Obama was secretly a Muslim, including one photo I saw
of Obama, Sen. Clinton and Sen. McCain on a stage during the national anthem – Obama
didn’t have his hand over his heart. This created the double whammy for Obama: he’s
possibly a Muslim and refuses to show patriotism, according to the e-mail.

With these incidents in mind, one can understand the reluctance on the part of the media to run articles about religion and the presidential race.

But doesn’t something as important as a candidate’s religious beliefs deserve some attention?

According to an article titled Faith in America: The Philanthropic Context by Dr. Susan Raymond (March 2006), 82% of Americans believe in God.

Have we become so accustomed to the concept of the separation of church and state that discussions of faith are regarded as taboo or "politically incorrect"?

Looking at a 16-month timeframe during the primaries, from January 2007 through April 2008, the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life tracked coverage of religion. Their findings were “…despite the attention paid to Obama’s former pastor, questions about McCain’s relationship with his party’s conservative religious base, interest in Mitt Romney’s membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the surprisingly strong campaign of former Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee, only 2% of the campaign stories directly focused on religion.”

The comments on this information included the point that even when religion was covered, the stories were about the strategic campaign use of religion rather than religion itself.

For those of us for who believe faith shapes values, a candidate’s religious beliefs are of interest to a greater degree than the media’s gingerly coverage.