J492 International Journalism Final Examination Fall 2005 50 points

DEADLINE: Completed tests must be turned in by 5 p.m. Monday, Dec. 5, to the J492 drop box in the hallway outside 216 Allen Hall. No e-mail submissions will be accepted

REQUIRED: Typed, (12-point), double-spaced answers to four of the following five questions. Maximum length: two pages per answer, eight pages total.

GRADES: Based on (1) clearly organized, logical responses that (2) use identified sources or examples from the readings, lectures, videos and other class presentations to defend answers that (3) approach professional standards of composition.

1. What do you think should be the proper role of a journalist in wartime? Should peacetime objectivity be set aside to promote the war effort and to accept government restraints on negative information? Or, as Walter Lippmann argued during the Vietnam War, should truth be a journalist’s overriding goal, despite pressures from the government and a patriotic public? Consider the findings of Stuart Allan and the opinions of journalists in Reporting America At War.

2. Although U.S. citizens have greater access to international news than ever before from television, newspaper and Internet sources, the latest Pew survey finds Americans returning to isolationism and only partially informed about the rest of the world. Discuss this apparent contradiction, drawing on Greg Philo’s discussion of British television audiences and other materials in the course. What solutions can you offer?

3. Promoters of new communications technologies argue that global television and new Internet sources can resolve imbalances of news communication within and among nations at differing phases of development. Is this likely? Consider the views of Prasun Sonwalkar on India and Daya Kishan Thussu on media poverty.

4. What is the “CNN Effect?” How does the political scientist Steven Livingston suggest live global television images might affect policymakers, as outlined in class? Give examples of at least one of his three suggested theoretical “effects.” Consider also the views of Christiane Amanpour in Reporting America at War.

5. Danny Schecter and Jake Lynch both advocate reforming international news, one by outside criticism and the other by working with journalists. Evaluate the assumptions behind their approaches and the issues they hope to address. What commonalities and contradictions do you find?