CommLine Online: Nov. 6, 2007
The electronic newsletter of the USC Annenberg School for Communication
Dean Ernest J. Wilson III leads an examination of the intersection between propaganda, politics, truth and the media at a New York conference marking the 60th anniversary of the publication of "Politics and the English Language," the landmark essay by George Orwell (pictured).
The Nov. 7 conference There You Go Again: Orwell Comes to America is organized in partnership with journalism schools at Columbia University and UC Berkeley. The program features three panels and will be held at the New York Public Library.
Dean Wilson chairs the panel "Solutions: The Future Political Landscape." Speakers include Federal Communications Commission member Michael Copps, broadcast journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Talking Points Memo publisher and founder Josh Marshall, and New York Times chief television critic Alessandra Stanley.
"The pervasive use of propaganda and "spin" continues to dominate much of our national dialogue," says Wilson. "New technologies have only provided new tools to be used by some for disinformation. This conference provides an important opportunity to explore and assess political dialogue in a rapidly changing media landscape on the eve of our next Presidential election."
Orwell's prescience is also explored in a new book published in conjunction with the conference. What Orwell Didn’t Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics (Public Affairs, 2007) features essays by Geoffrey Cowan, University Professor, dean emeritus and director of the Center on Communication Leadership, and Martin Kaplan, holder of the Lear Chair in Entertainment, Media and Society and director of the Norman Lear Center.
Conference details
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William F. Baker, Ph.D., chief executive officer of Educational Broadcasting Corporation – which operates WLIW and WNET, the nation’s most-watched public television station and largest producer of cultural and arts programming – will deliver the third annual James L. Loper Lecture in Public Service Broadcasting on Monday, Nov. 12, 2007 at 11:30 a.m. at USC’s Davidson Conference Center, 3415 S. Figueroa Street in Los Angeles.
The Loper Lecture, named in honor of communication professor James L. Loper, was established by the USC Annenberg School for Communication in 2005 to bring industry leaders together to assess the state of public service broadcasting and chart a course for the future. The event is open for coverage and is free and open to the public. Lunch will be served.
To reserve a spot or for more information, visit http://annenberg.usc.edu/loper.
Baker’s career spans four decades, during which he has played a leading role in helping to shape American broadcasting in both the commercial and public sectors. He has headed Educational Broadcasting Corporation since 1987 and remains a well-known advocate for the educational potential of television. Previously he was president of Westinghouse Television, Inc. and chairman of Group W Satellite Communications. During his 10 years at Westinghouse, five cable networks were launched, including the Disney Channel and the Discovery Channel. He also introduced Oprah Winfrey as a talk-show host. He is a member of Broadcasting & Cable’s Hall of Fame.
“It will be interesting to hear why someone who was very successful at Westinghouse chose to move to public broadcasting,” Loper said. “I have admired Dr. Baker for years, and I expect his remarks about programming and the current state of public broadcasting to be very inspirational.”
Loper spent almost 20 years in various positions at KCET, the Los Angeles public television station, including vice president and general manager, and president and CEO. He was the founding chairman of the board of the Public Broadcasting Service and served three terms as PBS chairman during its formative years. He has been a visiting scholar and executive in residence at USC Annenberg since retiring as executive director of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 1999.
“The future is very uncertain for all broadcasting, particularly for public broadcasting, with the fragmentation of the audience due to the proliferation of cable television, personal devices such as iPods, texting, etc., which sap away part of the audience,” says Loper. “We hope the lecture series increases awareness of public broadcasting and the issues it faces.”
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Award-winning student television magazine IMPACT is now available on USC's new YouTube channel, along with lectures, admissions videos and other Annenberg-related media. USC's channel features subscriptions to lectures and different schools, including Annenberg, whose page houses the IMPACT videos and other videos. Current IMPACT videos about competitive cheerleading, ferrets, and fire play can be viewed, as well as USC Annenberg videos on admissions and recent lectures.
“In addition to opening up the traditional classroom experience through the application of state-of-the-art technology tools, we also are using online technologies to expand learning opportunities for students and others both on campus and around the globe,” said Suh-Pyng Ku, USC’s chief technology officer for enhanced learning. “The enormous reach and power of YouTube will help us connect with people who may not be aware of USC’s remarkable breadth of programs, from the arts to the sciences and social sciences. We see this as an important outreach opportunity for the university.”
Said Katharine Harrington, dean of admission and financial aid: “USC on YouTube offers an opportunity for our schools and departments to connect directly with millions of potential students and their parents. By its nature – allowing people to share original videos – it will create a vital and engaging portrait of the hundreds of programs and individuals who make up this university.
“We are very excited about the potential of this new channel to attract and engage a wide variety of people in the fabric of life at USC.”
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Journalists, lawyers and free speech advocates - including featured speakers Stuart Taylor of Newsweek and Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker - gathered at USC from Oct. 25-26 to discuss First Amendment topics such as government secrecy, cameras in courtrooms and secret police
The Free Speech and Open Government Assembly showcased seminars and panels that celebrated free speech and resistance to excessive government secrecy from Oct. 25-26.
Featured speaker Jeffrey Toobin, author, New Yorker magazine staff writer and CNN legal consultant, presented on "The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court." He tracked the Supreme Court since the 1980s looking at the personal lives and personalities of the justices and how these are manifested in the Court. The ruling on the 2000 election case Bush v. Gore was just one instance where this has been evident.
"Was the decision the judges' choices for who should win? I can't prove it for certain," Toobin said when asked whether Bush v. Gore was influenced by individual political leanings. He went on to say that the hasty manner of the decision and its application of the Equal Protection Clause support the case that personal political preferences were a factor.
Presenting his 2007 book at USC’s Davidson Center, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, journalist and lawyer Stuart Taylor, Jr. questioned the ethical conduct of those who covered the lacrosse players' initial charges, subsequent trial and final exoneration. He blamed the absence of self-regulation by the journalists involved and the conduct of the university officers who allowed the allegations against the athletes to spin out of control – but he also pointed to the aggressive activity of round-the-clock news outlets, many of whom look for ways to perpetuate a story that has not merited such coverage.
“I think the 24-hour news cycle has an automatic ratcheting-up effect on every level,” he said. “[The journalists] get the credence because they get out on television and are given that credibility.”
Taylor also claimed that the racial climate at Duke led to a reverse-discrimination effect, where “privileged white males” were unfairly targeted because of their race. These actions, he said, led journalists to jump on the story in ways that were unethical.
A panel on "National Security and Government Secrecy," moderated by Harold Fuson, addressed recent wiretapping issues. The discussion focused on the problems and reasons for the National Security Agency's electronic surveillance program. Panelists John Sims, professor of national security law at University of the Pacific, Kevin Bankston, an attorney at Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Scott Armstrong, a former Washington Post reporter, noted that while mass acquisitions of data by the NSA are troublesome, current law has not caught up to changes in telecommunications. However, the Bush administration's method for warrantless surveillance is not necessarily going to be effective in catching terrorists.
"Because (the NSA) have chosen to not deal with the courts (when it comes to acquiring intelligence) they are dealing with a very small tool set. Real security threats require more than a phone tap and video recorder," Sims said.
The Assembly brought together the best and brightest of law, journalism and public policy. Included in the Assembly were forums on social networking, national security secrecy, immigration reporting, cameras in the courtroom, tribal secrecy, access to police records — and more, all featuring leading lawyers, journalists, new media mavens, policy wonks and other experts.
Please explore the Assembly program for more information about the event.
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Assembly Program
By Jonathan Arkin
USC Annenberg alumna Alexis Bergen returned to USC on Oct. 18 to speak with a group of students about her work as communications manager at Nestle USA.
Bergen
described her work as a public relations and media person at the Nestle Corporation, which is well-known primarily as a manufacturer of candy and dairy products worldwide. She also brought samples of Nestle chocolate products to her afternoon audience. “Please, take candy,” she said, as multiple bags of treats made their way around the room.
She told the current Annenberg students about an increasingly common phenomenon at large corporations; namely, that companies are relying on meticulously prepared industrial data dissemination to ensure that both the outside and inside worlds get accurate news, if any, about a particular unit of a company’s operations. Nestle University, as it is called at her company, is largely an e-learning function that informs employees in this manner “making sure they have all the information, that they know where to go.”
One byproduct of this educational effort, she said, is information for the outsider directly available to the layman via the internet – a function of the public relations department at companies like Nestle; at her company, for example, there might be a larger percentage of food-related information available. Bergen described such efforts, which could include posting recipes and product information online. “Letting food editors know about our product,” she said. Other methods of getting information out via the P.R. machine, she said, included the more traditional avenues of using newsletters, posters and memos. Within the company, she said, information provided by public relations personnel is greatly appreciated by workers and executives alike, as it promotes a vested interest in the company’s success.
“Employees are more interested in the company because they work there,” she said. “They want to know how the company is socially responsible, how money is growing.”
But Bergen was quick to point out that a public relations officer often takes on the role of running interference, an example of crisis communication.
“[Our external public relations manager]’s job is to keep Nestle out of the paper,” she said. “Just [a] kind of management, giving people the right information.”
Bergen also described her years as a student and employee at USC, lauding the Annenberg faculty and her fellow students as inspirational in her academic and professional development.
“I worked full-time at USC,” she said. “I took one class per semester. It took me two and a half years. I loved working for USC.”
Is grad school necessary?
“I don’t think it’s necessary,” she said. “But it helps a lot. I got to a point where I said, ‘I want to learn more.’ I think everyone gets to that point. My advice? Don’t go directly into graduate school. Work first. I wouldn’t advise [going directly from undergraduate into graduate school] for public relations. Get an internship first.
That’s how I got my job, through the USC Annenberg network. That’s how I got every single one of my jobs. I got a job working for someone who used to work for me here at USC.”
When asked if it was feasible to expect a top-notch job straight out of baccalaureate studies, she repeated her admonition.
“Do internships,” she said. “Getting a degree from USC means a lot. But do internships. I think the Trojan network is strong. If I get a call from someone from USC or BU [Boston University, her other alma mater], I’ll talk to you.”
“Annenberg students are really top-notch,” she added.
As the event was held as a conversation, many questions were asked about the future that awaits students graduating from USC Annenberg. The talk again returned to the subject on many students’ minds: internships.
“What makes a great intern?” she said. “Someone who wants to learn as much as they can…who asks a lot of questions, even if it has nothing to do with what they do. Those who treat it as the best way to learn really do well.”
With all the internships out there available to Annenberg graduates, Bergen suggested a little detective work.
“There are websites you can go to find out about internships,” she said. “You can figure out what you don’t like/”
On the classes she took while at USC, Bergen raved about her experiences, and singled out a few standout instructors: “I really liked it,” she said, describing her Communication Policy class in particular. “Tracy Westen is the professor. He is a First Amendment specialist. He creates models, we have to study the case law around an issue. We all had to take on our roles and that was really helpful. It’s really, really helpful.”
On Rebecca Weintraub, who teaches an online communication class, Bergen pointed out that she was grateful for the opportunity the class offered – the fact that she was forced to interact. “I’m a big fan of [Weintraub’s]. And [professor] Michael Cody. He’s a nut. He’s really cool.”
“We’ve been trying to get her here for a long time,” said director of career development Tim Burgess, who hosted the event.
By Sharon Fain
Elizabeth Currid
, assistant professor at the USC School of Policy, Planning and Development, presented her findings for her new book titled The Warhol Economy: How Fashion, Art and Music Drive New York City to a packed a room on Nov. 5. Using Warhol as an evocative figure, she described how he embodied the principles of the cultural economy because understood the commoditization culture and the importance of a social scene. These principles evidenced in Warhol, she found, are essential to keeping LA and New York global hubs for cultural production. "The work of cultural industries is done in a social setting," Currid said.
It was in these social settings—bars, night clubs, gallery openings, hip restaurants—that Currid conducted her research, looking at how "weak ties" translated into networks for cultural production. The vibrant social scenes of Los Angeles and New York are often more business than they are pleasure. "Your social life determines your work life and vice versa," Currid noted.
Central to the Warhol economy is the notion that place is extremely important—formal and informal places (such as fashion week, art shows, and industry parties), as well as geographic location. The possibilities of people "making it" in a creative industry become incredibly small when they do not live in a cultural hub. Currid explained that "ad hoc exchanges [that are key to obtaining work] don't happen when you are not geographically close."
When asked how one might replicate the cultural success of these cities she said that it was important to create places for artistic and creative people to hang out and socialize. However, she noted that creating policy that would foster these environments becomes tricky.
Currid teaches courses in economic development and urban policy and planning. Her research involves economic development, with particular focus on the artistic and cultural economy, and the importance of social networks, nightlife, and innovation in urban economic growth.
By Jonathan Arkin
Kevin Sites, best known for his reporting from war zones as well as his online Yahoo! Blog contributions, joined journalism professor Bryce Nelson Oct. 30 at USC for “Sojo,” Yahoo!’s Blogger and Multimedia International War Reporter, a discussion presented as part of Annenberg’s How Journalists Work series. Sites, who also signed copies of his book In the Hot Zone, presented In the Hot Zone: One Man, One Year, Twenty Wars.
In the Hot Zone covered Sites’ extensive work reporting from the front lines of the world’s wars – and he has also been the subject of a documentary titled A World of Conflict, about his work in the Hot Zone project. At the Annenberg discussion, Sites showed a clip from the documentary and discussed these and other projects currently occupying his time.
“Violence can be so isolating,” Sites said, referring to his narrative focus on the people who are often left behind to rebuild their lives, homes, families and communities after the front lines have advanced or receded. “But it’s not my misery. It’s their misery. I’m just visiting.”
After screening the documentary, Sites asked those in the room what struck them the most. A student pointed out that the faces of those featured in the brief clip were the most moving.
“The faces – that’s what I wanted you to see,” said Sites, referring to the human element in both the video and his broadcasting and blogging work in war zones. “What I wanted was a more human approach. Reporting for the internet, online, the issues don’t mean anything unless you can comment on the stories. The people…are those you all can identify with being students. And a life-changing experience is not always a life-ending experience. They live. They live it every day, they experience it every day. They deserve to have their stories told. It wasn’t an experiment. My goal was that some kind of truth would emerge in covering conflict…cumulatively.”
Conflict is so ubiquitous and news-friendly, Sites added, that there are rarely shortages in manpower – as young journalists flock to cover such events and make their mark writing about battles and explosions. Sites admitted that early on, starting out as “a traditional journalist,” he relied too heavily on the traditional angle of objectifying victims of war.
“My thesis is this,” he said. “War poses as conflict, war poses as fighting, war poses as armies…all the things we think about war. What I would pose to you is that this is myth. War’s defining feature is collateral damage. The destruction that goes on for generations.”
In contributing to his online blog, Sites said that he would write during the day and blog at night, adding video and pictures he would take himself – until his video camera was stolen for a crucial period of time in Afghanistan. He added, however, that having a production staff, would only slow him down. The “sojo,” or solo journalist, is then more flexible to control the content and dissemination of his material.
“There is a sense of dialogue,’ Sites said, “a sense of covering things differently in multi-dimensions, delivering it online, to come to it whenever you want.”
The resulting marriage of text and image, Sites says, fully “maximizes the use of media” while allowing him to catch the nuances of a story via text and being “able to provide texture that online journalism actively allows us to use, allowing me to see the power of the internet, looking at the strengths of the medium involved, to combine and to report in three dimensions rather than one.”
Sites again warned the Annenberg audience about what he feels is the true face of war – that this angle is often overlooked in many stories about conflict.
“Covering a war might be the easiest job you ever have,” he told the journalism students at USC. “What you’re shooting is so inherently dramatic that [it’s] no matter if you’re a good journalist or a bad journalist. But covering war as collateral damage – it doesn’t seem as compelling as a tank battle or someone getting shot in the streets, [and] I was objectifying human beings through their suffering. A victim can be a bad guy and a bad guy can have heroic qualities.” The challenge, he said, was to come up with a compelling balance.
Sites also credited USC journalism professor Patricia Dean, who taught Sites at Northwestern University’s School of Journalism, with giving him the ethic to succeed as a journalist and the opportunity to share his experiences with students.
“It’s very cathartic, speaking to groups of people like you,” he said. “I’m grateful to Pat for that – and to USC.”
When asked if USC Annenberg had a role in training the next generation of Hot Zone blogger-journalists, Sites found that USC has been on the right track.
“I think that you’re doing it already,” Sites said, referring to Annenberg’s journalism program. “The people you’ve had come to speak here – and I’m humbled to be among them – sharing them, sharing their lives, sharing their stories…obviously the new technology has to be taught, but you can’t lose sight of the narrative. Pat pounded that into our heads at Northwestern, and I’m sure she’ll be doing that here [at USC].”
The Internet, said Sites, is as mainstream as any of the other media and it hasn’t eliminated those other media – it has actually “amplified” print and broadcast media to the point where the worlds are webbed together. Sites said that some of his online stories would be picked up by other channels, with the viral stories reflecting on each other and consequently providing more and more information.
After all the work Sites has done in bringing to the forefront these new ways to tell a story, he reminded those present that traditional storytelling in journalism is still the most powerful tool – if done right.
“You have to examine what [a story’s] meaning is,” he said. “For your sources and for yourself.”
Sites’ reportage can be accessed online at http://hotzone.yahoo.com.
By Jonathan Arkin
“Bad policy cannot be covered by good public diplomacy,” State Department diplomat James Kelman told participants from the USC Annenberg Center on Public Diplomacy on Oct. 23. Speaking out in particular against Iran’s suspected nuclear proliferation efforts and how diplomats might address the problem, Kelman described public diplomacy as “one of the tools that policymakers have” and that its usefulness can augment many a government’s foreign policy initiatives and even [covert] intelligence efforts. “Exchange of information equals exchange of intelligence,” he said.
Kelman stated that Iran’s nuclear motives may hold severe repercussions in the global arena.
“The Iranian nuclear issue does threaten international stability,” he said. “One of the things we are trying to engage Iran on – and Iran is one of the great cultures of the world – we know for a number of reasons that Iranians in Iran are favorably disposed to the kind of values espoused in the West.”
For this reason, Kelman said, public diplomacy professionals have and should continue to promote long-term person-to-person interactions such as cultural and educational exchanges, and blogging, to present mutually positive images that might make future diplomatic efforts run more smoothly than they have in the past between Iran and the U.S. In light of the recent acrimony presented by the appearance of Iran’s president at Columbia University, Kelman presented the idea of a different, less contentious engagement of energy.
“Bring someone into our communities,” he suggested. “Bring them into our schools, [have them] read our newspapers. Then go back and make up [their] mind.”
In addition to detailing some of his duties at the Bureau of International Security and Non-Proliferation, where he currently serves as senior advisor, Kelman also described his work at the International Atomic Energy Agency, an organization and forum that seeks to promote the peaceful use of atomic energy worldwide.
“I came up with a public diplomacy plan,” he said, describing his learning efforts in the IAEA. “I drafted a plan that essentially tried to engage European audiences in how the Iranian nuclear policy was basically a public policy issue. There was a small element of engaging Iranians but [since] we don’t have diplomatic relations with Iran, this was a challenge.”
The atmosphere in the packed room became testy when a USC professor of chemical engineering, Muhammad Sahimi, claimed that Iran had no aspirations to make a nuclear bomb.
“Public diplomacy works if it is completely honest,” Sahimi said as he defended Iran’s pursuit of Uranium enrichment, his voice cracking. “You are not being honest. Iran is not a threat to anyone.”
Kelman defended U.S. policy goals and the outlets used to promote them – news outlets such as radio’s Voice of America, heard in Iran, and even Al-Jazeera. He described cooperative efforts in many areas of interest to Iranians. In the medical field, which is advanced in Iran, Kelman spoke of exchanges of researchers and of doctors invited to interact with their counterparts in the United States. He also mentioned “big sports” – especially wrestling and soccer – music, popular culture and the hard sciences as avenues to show America’s best face on the one hand, and that Iran is “not the closed society everyone believes it to be” on the other.
He suggested USC Annenberg could lead the way with such efforts.
“Being positive and reaching out and taking advantage of these opportunities,” he said, “to do what Annenberg does – which is to train professional public diplomats – what Annenberg has been in the leadership role all along, that would be wonderful. Any university reaching out to an Iranian counterpart could only enhance the prospects for greater mutual understanding.”
Kelman also mentioned the usefulness, on the collegiate level, of programs such as the Fulbright and Muskie Fellowships - in addition to other private fellowships that also send promising young scholars abroad to study and interact with other students and educators with similar interests.
“Most of us believe that an open society is its own best witness,” he said.
Cowan, Kaplan on political speech
University professor Geoffrey Cowan and Norman Lear Chair Martin Kaplan contributed essays to What Orwell Didn't Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics, published by Public Affairs.
The anthology examines contemporary issues through the lens of Orwell's 1946 essay Politics and the English Language. "From the use of deceptively murky jargon, to the emotional pull of phrases like "The War on Terror," to the rise of infotainment and pseudo-science, to the disinclination of big media to provide real news, these writers address unsettling developments in today's public discourse," writes editor András Szántó. "Reflecting on Orwell, they shed new light on the power of politicians and the media to deceive and to repair, to fracture and to unite American democracy."
Cowan's essay is entitled "Reporters and Rhetoric." Kaplan's is "Welcome to the Infotainment Freak Show."
More information
Buy the book
Communication professor and director of the Center for the Digital Future Jeffrey Cole spoke at the Digital Marketing Summit in Sydney, Australia. Cole’s presentation focused on the relationship between the Web and traditional media.
“We are going to consume news and entertainment literally in places it was not possible before,” Cole said. “Most of our mobile use has been for voice and texting and most of our entertainment has been confined to the home— in the future we will be watching in the park, waiting in the airport or on the bus.”
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Writer-in-residence Norman Corwin staged his comedic radio program "Strange Affliction" at the Thousand Oaks Library Oct. 26 as a benefit for the American Radio Archives. Corwin's radio programs were legendary in the '30s and '40s and his "We Hold These Truths," a celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Bill of Rights, was a critical reminder to the nation of the values it would soon be fighting for in World War II.
The event was by invitation only, but the program was recorded to air on area station KCLU-FM at a later date.
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An Oct. 29 New York Times article looked at journalism professor Marc Cooper's recently launched campaign coverage Web site Off The Bus (OTB).
“In two days, we can have 50 or 100 people work an hour a day and do the work it used to take a reporter two months to do,” said Marc Cooper, who is OTB’s editorial director. The idea is to produce a fuller, more nuanced picture than one reporter could do on his or her own.
Off The Bus is a collaboration with the Huffington Post.
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Communication professor Josh Kun dialogued with renowned conductor Leon Botstein about the nature of listening to music in the fall 2007 issue of Guilt & Pleasure. Kun and Botstein discussed how listening is affected by being present at a live performance or listening to a recording.
"I happen to think that we are in the age of the death of recording — which is not a bad thing — and the revival of live performance," said Botstein, who is currently writing the book The History of Listening.
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Read the article
Journalism professor Bill Boyarsky was interviewed on “AirTalk” about his new biography of 20th-century politician Jesse Unruh. The book, Big Daddy: Jesse Unruh and the Art of Power Politics, is a close-up look at the charismatic political leader and his era.
“We should care about (Unruh) because he transformed the way politics were practiced in California,” Boyarsky said. “The story of Unruh’s life was of good and bad. (Unruh) really created a full-time and professional legislature. He also created something bad — the idea of campaign contributions being funneled through the speaker of the assembly.”
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Amy Tenowich's "Salsa Without Borders" was the cover story for the Oct. 25 issue of Pasadena Weekly. In it, she details her recent foray into Salsa dancing, meeting a "diverse mix of folks" and uniting nations "one four-minute song at a time."
"My leading men ran the gamut of colors and creeds, making it feel like an affirmative action dance celebration," Tenowich wrote.
Tenowich, a broadcast journalism graduate student, is the 2006 winner of the Art Buchwald Scholarship, given in honor of Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and USC alumnus Art Buchwald.
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In the Oct. 24 issue of LA Weekly, Daniel Heimpel (M.A., print journalism '07) writes that “this might be the year the 12,000-member Writers Guild starts a fight it can’t win.” His article, “WGA's Biggest Enemy,” discussed how a strike (now underway) by the Writers Guild of America may see similar outcomes to the 1988 strike—leaving some writers jobless. WGA is in a dispute with studios over residuals in new media and DVDs.
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Melba Novoa (B.A. / M.A. Communication/Communication Management, ’07) received a Bronze World Medal in the Profiles/Community Portraits category at the New York Festivals' Radio Broadcasting Awards banquet in New York City for her documentary Day of the Dead: Celebrating Life and Death. The documentary was written, produced and directed by Novoa. Taped in Mexico, Ireland and the United States, the program explores the significance of the Day of the Dead and how it is observed by different cultures and countries. The Bronze Medal is the 30th industry award that Melba has received.
Castells notes rise in nationalism in places like Wales may be a reaction to globalization (Western Mail)
Cole sees architecture trends parallel Internet (New York Times)
News coverage of California wildfires benefits greatly from citizen journalists, Hollihan says (The Baltimore Sun)
Kaplan says governor's response to fires is personal and reassuring (Time)
Taplin says writers strike could damage LA economy (NPR)
Web proves to be robust communication network during disasters, Williams says (San Diego Tribune)
Center for the Digital Future finds rise in print material read online (Direct Traffic)