We Want Media

Last semester I took a lecture with Jefferson Flanders. It was Mass Media and Government, which, I won't lie, sounded lame at first, but turned out to be one of my best classes. Perhaps because it was during the November elections, but Flanders managed to always keep the class engaging and relevant.

Aside from my professor, one of our guest lecturers left a striking impression on me. A woman from the Wall Street Journal, who did most of her reporting in the Cold War era, came in and spoke with us about international reporting and the changing face of such in today's global media. Some of her discussion was geared towards the closing of many foreign bureaus due to diminishing budgets, as well as a switch from the traditional newspaper format to a better received tabloid format (not just a foreign preference as seen by a recent change in the New York Observer). This was interesting and informative.

But what really got me was her 20-minute allottment time to scaring me out of my interest in a future reporting abroad. She started off with citing the number of deaths in the past decades of journalists in foreign countries. While perhaps this was meant as a sincere warning and advisement, it came across as reason to halt all considerations of being an international reporter immediately.

While I do not wish to marginalize the deaths of these reporters, and in no way should this be taken lightly, I found her post Cold War mindset to be the bigger issue. Journalism students should not be deterred from reporting abroad, but should take caution. And the main subject of the lecture was supposed to be the changing face of the media. She seemed to be rather scared herself, hanging onto the clutches of media's past. Unfortunately, she took a reactionary position to the problems reporting abroad, rather than encouraging us to help find ways to make such an important and necessary task more safe.