COMM 317: Lobbying and the First Amendment

Charles Krautheimer, who writes an op-ed piece for The Washington Post, isn't a guy I often agree with. He's a neo-conservative, and his instincts on foreign policy are a lot like Gen. George Armstrong Custer's (let's go pick a fight and decide later whether we can win it or not). But in today's Post he has a column called "In Defense of Lobbying." For once I agree with Krautheimer 100 percent, since he makes the same case I was trying to make in class the other day.

But Krautheimer makes it more eloquently than I did. Here's his lede:

Everyone knows the First Amendment protects freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly. How many remember that, in addition, the First Amendment protects a fifth freedom -- to lobby?

Of course it doesn't use the word lobby. It calls it the right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Lobbyists are people hired to do that for you, so that you can actually stay home with the kids and remain gainfully employed rather than spend your life in the corridors of Washington.

Krautheimer employs one of the oldest rhetorical dodges in the book. He sets up a "straw man," and then he knocks it down. But his straw man is kind of clever. He says:

To hear the candidates in this presidential campaign, you'd think lobbying is just one notch below waterboarding, a black art practiced by the great malefactors of wealth to keep the middle class in a vise and loose upon the nation every manner of scourge: oil dependency, greenhouse gases, unpayable mortgages and those tiny entrees you get at French restaurants.

The rest of the column is devoted to knocking down the straw man: Lobbying is good, especially when Republican presidential candidate John McCain's relations with lobbyists are questioned.

Krautheimer's job was made easier by an expose -- a "gotcha" story -- by The New York Times that hinted that McCain's politicial people had hinted that McCain may have had something that looks like an affair with a lobbyist for whom he got involved with a Federal Communications Commission case. Said Krautheimer:

It must be said of McCain that he has invited such astonishingly thin charges against him because he has made a career of ostentatiously questioning the motives and ethics of those who have resisted his campaign finance reform and other measures that he imagines will render Congress influence-free.

Ostentatious self-righteousness may be a sin, but it is not a scandal. Nor is it a crime or a form of corruption. The Times's story is a classic example of sloppy gotcha journalism. But it is also an example of how the demagoguery about lobbying has so penetrated the popular consciousness that the mere mention of it next to a prominent senator is thought to be enough to sustain an otherwise vaporous hit piece.

The score here, as I see it: Krautheimer 2, New York Times 0. He's right about the rumors about McCain, and he's right about lobbying.

William F. Buckley Jr., 1925-2008

Cross-posted to my mass communications blogs. WARNING: A blogging assignment for COMM 387 is lurking in the last graf. -- pe

One of the giants of American journalism died this week. William F. Buckley wrote a number of books, but he will be remembered as a television personality and especially as founding editor of The National Review, a magazine that almost single-handedly launched the conservative movement that elected President Ronald Reagan and more recent imitators.

A moving editorial "William F. Buckley, Jr., R.I.P. that appeared soon after his death Wednesday morning and other testimonials are available on the
National Review website. They're written by Buckley's admirers and followers. They have a right to grieve, and they do so with real eloquence.

But Buckley had admirers across the political spectrum, including a lot of people who disagreed with his political views.

One of the best tributes I've seen so far is by cultural affairs writer and critic Julia Keller of The Chicago Tribune. She has no political ax to grind. She's just a perceptive student of American culture, and a very talented writer in her own right. Definitely a byline worth looking for. Keller says Buckley:

... was a wide-minded and perennially curious generalist, a renaissance man in an era that increasingly tended to produce only careful, plodding specialists. He wrote fetching books about his passion for sailing, and spy novels featuring a CIA agent named Blackford Oakes. His book on Barry Goldwater is scheduled to be published in April; he was working on another book at the time of his death, Christopher Buckley said. He was found at his writing desk in his Stamford, Conn., home at about 9:30 a.m.

That is what Christopher Buckley told President Bush when the latter called Wednesday morning to express his condolences. "I said, 'Mr. President, you're a Texan, and you'll understand this—he died with his boots on.' " Later in the day, a call came from Nancy Reagan, Christopher Buckley said. Then he called former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to tell him the news. "He wept."

In a way we don't really have anymore, Buckley was a public intellectual and a fixture on television. Says Keller:

On [Buckley's show] "Firing Line," he brought grace, charm and an old-world civility to television, debating the likes of economist John Kenneth Galbraith and novelist Norman Mailer.

"Back in the days when the options in the TV universe were smaller," said Rich Heldenfels, a columnist with the Akron Beacon-Journal who has written several books on television history, "it was possible for viewers to encounter those sorts of people, whereas today they're elbowed aside." It is difficult to imagine the politely erudite aura of "Firing Line" in today's world of political coverage on cable TV, a world in which the yelp and the snarl have replaced the thoughtful pause.

And we're all the poorer for it.

I will post links to other articles on Buckley below. The Trib has a very good obituary (the news story) by Scott Kraft of The Los Angeles Times, for starters. Buckley knew how to use the language, and the articles about him will too.

But I think Keller's in the Trib this morning will stand up as one of the best. Read it. Find a sample of Buckley's writing, and compare it to Keller's. She writes like him. She picks up just a little bit of his style, just enough to give a little flavor of it. Then she echoes it -- just enough to be enough and not so much it's too much. Here are a couple of quotes from Buckley:

• I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston telephone directory than by the 2,000 pople on the faculty of Harvard University.
  
• Truth is a demure lady, much too ladylike to knock you on your head and drag you to her cave. She is there, but people must want her, and seek her out.

A link to a network news obit on YouTube.

Blog: Go to the Google news page. Read some of the tributes. Here's one, headlined "On TV, Buckley Led Urbane Debating Club," by Eric Konigsberg in The New York Times. Find some others. What did William F. Buckley contribute to the way we talk about public affairs? Could he compete in today's 24/7 multimedia world? What, if anything, can you learn from him that you can use in your own career?

Another Norwegian folk music link

Another artist on Radio Norway this morning, a band called Over Stok og Steen (over hill and dale), a band from Hedemarken, a rural area north of Oslo and east of Lake Mjøsa. The song was "Nu vil jeg reise langt herfra" (Now will I travel far from here). Lyrics of the first verse in translation:

I now will travel far
Across to America
I hope God'll help me there
Though from you I must depart.

It's a ballad, a sad song.

Definitely worth another look ... or listen.

COMM 317: Times v. Sullivan, wrapping it up

Here are some questions to think about ... and talk about ... then think about some more ... 'cause they'll never be completely answered ... but they'll never go away, either. Questions like this are somewhat interrelated, often in odd ways, so you may wind up thinking about one question while you're thinking about another. You may wind up contradicting yourself, too. That doesn't necessarily mean you don't understand the case!

1. What is the significance of Times v. Sullivan:

• In American history?
  
• To lawyers?
  
• To working journalists?
  
• To you?

2. What were the rules of libel law for working journalists before Times v. Sullivan?
3. What is "actual malice," and how did it change the rules?
4. How could you cover Illinois statehouse politics if Times v. Sullivan hadn't been decided the way it was?

Next week, finish "Make No Law," and bring the "AP Stylebook" to class. We'll bring First Amendment law and the rules of libel up to date. We'll also (this by popular request in our one-minute, three-question midsemester questionnaire) tell you what you can and can't say in print today without getting sued for libel.

COMM 317 -- Obama, plagiarism, speechwriting and media ethics

Before the flap about alleged plagiarism in presidential candidate Barack Obama's speeches fades into ancient history (which is probably a good place for it), we need to look at a couple of ethical points it raised. They're important, even though the controversy itself probably wasn't.

Here's what last week's "plagiarism wars" showed (in addition to an increasingly desperate campaign by Obama's opponent Hillary Clinton). Different people have different standards on plagiarism, and we'd better know them all in self-defense.

Let's try something in class today. Below are linked several stories about Obama's speeches and the great plagiarism food fight ... and a cute cartoon by David Horsey of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (at least I think it's cute). Read them, discuss and blog about these questions. We'll want to talk first and blog later. The great Clinton v. Obama plagiarim food-fight wasn't a court case, but it can be analyzed like one:

• What are the facts here? Facts are facts, and your factual analysis will be like you did briefing court cases. Think of Sergeant Friday in the old TV reruns: Just the facts, ma'am.
  
• What ethical principles are involved? (This would correspond to the law in a court case.) You will probably find several. Say what they are, and whose they are, e.g. college students, news reporters, desperate candidates, etc.
  
• Choose a principle or two. What issue does the principle involve? Choose one or two of the most important issues, and be ready to say why its important.
  
• How would you decide the issue? As a candidate? As a speechwriter? As a reporter?

Readings. In today's Washington Post, staff writer Alec MacGillis has a good analysis of Obama's speeches. Says MacGillis:

Obama gave his rivals an opening to question his speechmaking recently when he borrowed a riff about the power of words that was used two years ago by Massachusetts Gov. Deval L. Patrick (D), a friend and informal adviser. But the episode also illustrated a basic fact about Obama's ever-evolving stump speech: It is replete with outside influences, from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. ("the fierce urgency of now") to Edith Childs, the councilwoman in Greenwood County, S.C., who inspired the "fired up, ready to go" chant that Obama used for months to end the speech.

To his critics, these influences are proof that Obama's rhetoric is less original and inspired than his supporters believe. "If your candidacy is going to be about words, then they should be your own words," Clinton said in Thursday's debate in Texas. ". . . Lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe in, it's change you can Xerox."

To his admirers, this magpie-like tendency to pluck lines and ideas from here and there and meld them into a coherent whole is inherent to good speechwriting and part of what makes Obama effective on the stump. It has allowed him to adapt quickly to rivals' attacks, which he often absorbs into his remarks, parroting them and turning them to his advantage.

Different strokes, as I heard somewhere but am unable to cite, for different folks.

(By the way, Clinton was playing fast and loose there with the intellectual property of another. "Xerox" is not a verb, as Xerox Corp. will be glad to tell you. It's a registered trademark. She should have said "photocopy." Unauthorized use of a trademark isn't exactly plagiarism. But it's close. Close enough for government work, at least. Now where did I hear that? You've got to be careful.)

Jack Shafer, the media critic for Slate.com, raised a point last week that's especially important for us. His title says it all ... "Don't Call It Plagiarism." But Shafer's point is some people do, and in some contexts what Obama did would be plagiarism:

Without a doubt, Obama echoes Patrick note for note, and if he had included this passage as part of a student paper at, say, Harvard, the school would rightly condemn him for plagiarism, which the school defines as "passing off a source's information, ideas, or words as your own by omitting to cite them -— an act of lying, cheating, and stealing."

Shafer links, by the way, to a Harvard University handout defining plagiarism in academic essays. It's as good an explanation of the academic conventions as you can find. Confusing, but good. The conventions themselves are confusing.

If Obama were writing his speech for a student paper at Harvard (or one at Benedictine for that matter), he'd say something like this: As was so compellingly enunciated by Patrick, D. (2006), the words of King, M. (1963), ... and so on and so on. Please please please please please do not write that kind of stuff in my classes. But that's not the kind of writing that we're talking about here. We're talking about political stump speeches. Shafer adds:

On the conceptual level, nobody can accuse Obama of having stolen from Patrick the ideas or the information that "words matter," a proposition that is self-evident to every educated person this side of Hillary Clinton.

So, did Obama steal the words?

I think not. Most campaign speeches are composed by speechwriters who assume the candidate's persona. The candidate becomes the public "author" of these words when he speaks them, even if all he did was a light edit of the script. A speechwriter would never claim he was plagiarized by his candidate, nor would a volunteer. In fact, the volunteer would be elated.

Obama, by all accounts I've read, takes a much more active role in speech writing than most politicians. But the point remains: They's a lot of ghostwriting in politics and public relations. In the right context, it is entirely ethical.

(Personal disclosure: I used to ghostwrite op-ed columns for the Illinois state treasurer. I'd tape his off-the-cuff remarks and weave his words together with his published writing, often in the form of word-for-word magazine interviews, so I could be reasonably sure the column was in his voice. But if I was doing my job right, he did very little editing. The practice may sound deceptive, but it's universally accepted. I thought, and still think, it was entirely ethical.)

Shafer was not the only writer for Slate.com to weigh in on the issue. Timothy Noah, who maintains a blog aptly named "Chatterbox," seems to have caught ABC News doing something that looks a lot like plagiarism ... at least to some people ... and when it was reporting on the great Obama plagiarism flap, no less. Says Noah:

ABC News' Sunlen Miller and Teddy Davis claimed on Feb. 19 that the story of Obama borrowing Patrick's "just words" line was "first reported by ABC News' Jake Tapper." Not true! The story of Obama borrowing Patrick's "just words" line was first reported by Scott Helman of the Boston Globe in April 2007.

ABC News' attempt to claim credit for breaking this bogus plagiarism story is, if anything, a greater moral offense than Obama's bogus plagiarism itself (though both ethical breaches are measured in microns). After all, ABC News is claiming affirmatively that it broke the plagiarism story. Obama, though he borrowed Patrick's words (just as, on previous occasions, Patrick has borrowed his) never claimed affirmatively that he invented them. Or rather, that his campaign staff invented them, though here things get a little complicated because the line was probably fed to both Patrick and Obama by the political strategist, David Axelrod, who has worked for both of them.

To support his point, Noah links to a column on plagiarism in The Atlantic by James Fallows, senior reporter for the magazine who once served as a speechwriter for then-President Jimmy Carter. Fallows also discusses the ethics of speechwriting ... and of journalism:

A plagiarism charge stings when it underscores the idea that the plagiarist is trying to mask some deficiency: The D student looks over the A student's shoulder to copy during a test. Does any sane person actually think that Barack Obama is deficient in expressing himself? His first book was a "real" book, of a quality most "real" writers would be proud to have matched. (The second one was more of a campaign book, and less in his own voice.) To the extent this flurry is designed to introduce subliminal concerns -- and, let's face it, concerns tied to racial stereotypes -- that Obama is not quite deserving intellectually, a flim-flam man, it really is contemptible.

So basically Fallows lets Obama off the hook. But look what he says about professional writers:

... it's different when people whose job is writing -- people who know very well that the exact phrasing of ideas is each writer's brand and property, and who have plenty of time, in private, to check and perfect the phrases on which they will be judged -- copy others' work. I'm a hawk on punishing them. But to think that this is anything like a candidate's constant search for ways to explain his message, in real time, is unrealistic and wrong. As someone has already said, in an interview or post somewhere whose insight I'm stealing, It's fine for the Hillary Clinton campaign to adopt "Fired up! Ready to go!" as its new motto, and it's fine for Barack Obama to use this way of explaining the importance of hope.

But what about professional writers who happen to be writing speeches for politicians?

COMM 209: Wednesday's assignment

Cover the Tunes and Noon open mic and "free food day" Wednesday in the gym in the Ursuline Academy building. The event begins around 11 a.m. and goes till 1 p.m. Instead of meeting in Dawson Hall Wednesday, I will have a signup sheet at the gym. Your story should be 750 to 1,000 words long. Include some "color" or descriptive wwriting, and at least three quotations from real, live people. Due Friday, Feb. 29.

Here's some background on the event:

Jennifer Cosby, president of the Student Activity Council, will emcee.

"We wanted the students to have a chance to show their peers their talent along with the faculty," she told The Bulldog, Springfield College-Benedictine University student paper.

"We can hire a professional musician anytime, but to have a student or faculty member who representes the school performing onstate is priceless," Cosby added.

Important! Please note: This week's issue of The Bulldog has a story on Tunes at Noon. It is ethical to use their quotes, but you have to say you got them from the paper. A common way of doing it is to use something like "told the Bulldog" (or "told the Journal-Register" or whatever the published source is). You also see something like, "was quoted as saying in the ________________ (name of paper)." It's better to get your own quotes. Anything that's already been in print is pretty lame, and besides, you want the experience of interviewing people, don't you?

Here's some more information. It's from a news release that was emailed to students, faculty and staff:

There will be a FREE FOOD DAY on Wednesday February 27th located in the Ursuline Gym. Starting at 11:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. we will be having Penne Pasta with marinara and Alfredo sauce as well as meatballs and chicken. Also we will have French bread and Caesar Salad and cookies and punch. So please come and enjoy the food put on by SC/BU and your Sodexho team.

Sean McIntyre

Retail Manager
Sodexho
541 East Black Ave
Springfield, IL 62702
(217) 527-8440 Office
(217) 527-8441 Fax

How would you attribute this?

COMM 209: Tips from op-ed piece, email (smiley face)

In class Friday we were talking about how to take a cliche and turn it around into something fresh. Here's an example from an op-ed piece in Sunday's Washington Post (sometimes called WaPo for short). It's by Michael Signer, a lawyer and national security consultant who worked for John Edwards' presidential campaign.

We've all heard the cliche about going out on a limb, right? It means taking a risk, getting involved with something. Look how Signer turns it around as he makes his case the media don't pay enough attention to national security issues:

The last year has thrown a dizzying array of foreign policy challenges at the United States. We deployed an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blustered their way across the world stage. Russian President Vladimir Putin flirted with a new cold war with Washington. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Pakistan.

And, of course, we all continue to live in the chilly shadow of 9/11.

You might imagine that such red-hot foreign policy issues, combined with a wide-open presidential election, would spark a journalistic fire so intense it would force candidates up into trees and out on limbs to defend their foreign policy positions.

But you'd be dreaming.

So it's the same cliche. But Signer elaborates on it. And he does something else, too. There's a hint of another figure of speech, too, a metaphor about hunting dogs treeing a raccoon. He's from Virginia, so thoughts of coon dogs would come naturally to him.

Signer's piece is worth reading for a couple of reasons. One is he's absolutely right about the national media. (You don't have to agree with Edwards' policy positions to agree with him on this one.) The other is that it's a very well written opinion piece. Here's another snippet:

Sometime in the summer, I asked a major Washington journalist why we weren't seeing any rich comparative articles on foreign policy. He looked at me and said, "But you guys haven't done anything on foreign policy." I took a deep breath and recited the major speeches Edwards had already delivered. He thought a moment and then said, "You know, you're right." I implored him to write something substantive about our major proposals -- on global aid, national security, veterans issues and Iraq. He readily agreed. "I owe you guys a piece," he said. "I'll write it."

It never happened.

Good dialog. Very clear writing. See how short the sentences are? And look how both times Signer leads up to a very short paragraph for emphasis.

Makes it stand out, doesn't it?

As long as we're looking at media stories for style, here's one that appeared in The Onion over the weekend. Billing itself as "America's Finest News Source," The Onion traffics in satire rather than news. Satire has a way of backfiring on people who try to use it, but The Onion has the language of much routine news reporting nailed.

Really nailed, as Signer might say.

So here's the story that caught my eye. It ran Sunday under the headline "E-Mail From Aunt Accidentally Opened." The lede:

CHICAGO—An otherwise routine e-mail-checking session went wrong when college student Gwen Petersen, 20, accidentally opened a message sent by her Aunt Sophie in Michigan, sources reported Monday.

After correctly identifying the sender as KalamazooLady5237@aol.com, her mother's sister and a 57-year-old guidance counselor present at Petersen's birth, Petersen attempted to properly delete the unwanted correspondence as she had many times before. But one mistaken click of the mouse began an ordeal that would overtake Petersen's in-box for several minutes—thrusting the history major into an HTML-formatted world she "never intended to see."

"As soon as I clicked on it, I realized what I'd done, but by then it was too late," Petersen told reporters following the error. "With as much time as I spent talking to her on her birthday and Thanksgiving, something like this was bound to happen. I should have been paying closer attention."

And here's the "billboard" or nut graf:

The moment her computer's hourglass icon finished spinning, Petersen was subjected to a vast compendium of mass-circulated poetry, pet humor, and inspirational aphorisms with vague underlying religious motivations. Without needing to scroll down, Petersen further noted that the e-mail featured a background wallpaper of cartoon ducks, as well as numerous typographical errors and a large banner spelling out "You got 2 love this!" in a rainbow-colored, bouncing font.

The e-mail was also embedded with a midi version of the song "Wind Beneath My Wings."

Do you get this stuff too? The language of newspaper journalism isn't the only language The Onion has nailed.

Or run up a tree.

COMM 209: Multi-media package, well organized profile

Here's some creative use of a newspaper's website ... a print, sound and still photo package in The Anchorage Daily News about a teenage contestant from nearby Wasilla, Alaska, in a preliminary event that's part of the buildup to next month's Iditarod sled dog race.

First there's a well-written story by the ADN's Melodie Wright. If you want to know how to write a profile, check this one out. It's a good model. Wright's lede:

WASILLA -- MacKenzie Davis turned 16 last month, but the idea of a driver's license scares her.

She has less of a problem taking 25-mile training runs by herself into the semi-wilderness on the back of a dog sled, or camping in subzero temperatures with only the dogs as companions. In her mind, the vagaries of the Alaska wilderness are more predictable than its roads.

See how it hooks you with a twist or an odd thought -- a 16-year-old who's more interested in dog racing than getting her license? Then the nut graf (actually a couple of them):

MacKenzie is one of 21 mushers signed up for this year's Junior Iditarod on Sunday. The race from Wasilla to Yentna Station Roadhouse follows the original Iditarod Trail and Yentna River for 60 miles, when mushers spend the night at the roadhouse before returning to Willow the next day.

Teenagers from 14 through 17 from all over Alaska will compete for scholarships offered through fifth place, with $5,000 going to the winner.

Remember how a lot of stories have an anecdotal lede (a story that leads into the story) and a "kicker," a twist or an odd thought that hooks you at the end? Well, this one is about opposite. It begins with a twist and ends with an anecdote. Here's the story:

Decked out in a custom embroidered coat her father gave her for Christmas one year, MacKenzie visits the kennel daily. Her dogs sit up at her approach, the afternoon quiet soon broken by inquisitive barks and the clink of chain on snowy ground as they pace in anticipation.

One by one, she harnesses them up. As the barks turn to howls, MacArthur, a white Alaska husky, starts chewing on the holding chain with excitement. MacKenzie's lead and smallest dog, Herschy, is hitched last.

"She's so smart," MacKenzie said. "She knows the trail and she knows where to go."

Now all in a row, the dogs go up on hind legs as they strain to hit the trail. MacKenzie pulls the snow hook. The barking is replaced with the hiss of runners on snow and her voice.

"There you go," she says as the team pulls out of sight. "Good job, guys."

Backwards. Completely backwards. But it works.

The ADN also has an audio slide show. Click on the link underneat the picture of MacKenzie putting booties on one of her dogs (yes, sled dogs wear booties ... it keeps the ice from building up in the hair between their paw pads). It will feature still pictures and audio of MacKenzie -- and the dogs.

COMM 317: oral arguments -- U.S. Supreme Court

Anthony Lewis in "Make No Law" says oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court is

... the one chance the justices have to emerge from their cloister, the secluded chambers in that marbale palace on Capitol Hill, and grapple directly with the lawyers who represent the clashing interests before them. It is also a rare opportunity for the public to gain insights into the minds of those who actually make the decisions. (128)

For reporters covering the high court, it's kind of like reading tea leaves. The justices very rarely talk with the press, and they never talk about upcoming judicial decisions. So oral argument gives the reporters a chance to guess what's on their minds by the tone of their questions.

How much did the argument in Time v. Sullivan tip the court's hand? What would you guess the justices were thinking?

Here's another exercise. Let's read some stories about the oral argument last year in Morse v. Frederick, a free speech case involving a high school student in Juneau, Alaska, who displayed a banner reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" outside his school in 2002. He was punished for it and literally made a Supreme Court case out of it.

What are the issues in the case? What are the facts? What is the law? What are the questions that have to be decided (i.e. the issues)? Which ones seem to matter most to the justices? Can you guess how they were going to decide?

Here's a story by the Student Press Law Center, with links at the bottom of the page to the oral argument transcript and earlier stories on the case. Let's also read a snarky little writeup in Slate.com, by legal correspondent Dahlia Lithwick who puts a civil libertarian spin on it and also can't resist riffing on the justices' demeanor in court.

What similarities do you see between Times v. Sullivan on the one hand and Morse v. Frederick on the other? What differences? What implications might all of this stuff have for you as you begin writing and editing careers?

COMM 209: Profile of Chicago alderman / READ

Here's a story in today's Chicago Tribune on former Chicago Ald. Burt Natarus. Please read it. It demonstrates a couple of points that will help you in your writing.

1. Organization. See how the story begins by telling kind of an interesting little story-within-a-story? The bit about the 74-year-old guy hitting on the Trib reporter? Then it goes to the nut graf (or "billboard," as Newsweek magazine calls it in a *handout you'll be getting in class today). It says:

Natarus, who was the second-longest-serving member of the City Council, has always blithely stomped back and forth across the line that separates joker and joke. He's what's known in newspaper stories as colorful, eccentric, a real character.

But the man also has feelings.

OK, OK, the nut graf is actually a couple of grafs. This is journalism, not rocket science. It's not precise.

2. Profile. A "profile" isn't rocket science, either. It's just a story that "present[s] present a person, a place, or an activity vividly to their readers," according to the "St. Martin's Guide to Writing," a freshman English textbook that borrows the idea from journalism. There's more on a handout linked to my faculty page. Keep it in mind. Pretty soon you'll get to write some profiles of your own. When you're wondering how to do that, remember the Trib's profile of Ald. Naturus. It's a good example to follow.

_______________

* This handout, from Newsweek Educational Programs, is important. If you weren't in class today, ask for it.

Equal time for McCain -- 'bomb bomb Iran'

I didn't think I'd be able to find it, but YouTube has clips of Republican presidential candidate John McCain singing "bomb bomb Iran" to the tune of the old Beach Boys' standard "Barbara Ann." It was clearly a joke, but McCain's opponents were horrified. Whether they were just waiting to be horrified, by anything he said or did, is a question I will leave to others.

More equal time -- Huckabee's band

Since we've got links on my blogs now to music by two Democratic presidential candidates, I decided I'd better find a YouTube clip of former Arkansas Gov. and GOP candidate Mike Huckabee's band "Capitol Offense." Huckabee was governor, and thus working in the state Capitol, at the time he formed the band. It performs mostly 1960s and 70s covers. The clip shows him playing the Lynard Skynard hit "Freebird" at a rally in New Hampshire.

Huckabee plays bass guitar, and he clearly enjoys it. I think he deserves credit for playing at all, given his schedule. Here he is sitting in with a high school jazz band in Concord, N.H., and with Mama Kicks, a local band in Londonderry, N.H. Both sound like they've had more time to practice than Capitol Offense. But then their bass players aren't running for president.

Equal time -- a Hillary Clinton ad

I've been waiting for this, ever since I posted a link to the video by will.i.am promoting Barack Obama's presidential campaign -- it's a chance to link to a video promoting his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton's campaign. It comes via "The Caucus," the New York Times' political blog. Tacked onto the end of a report on negative TV ads is this snippet:

And then, just a funny riff from the Clinton campaign. You know, she might as well have that Guitar Hero game. So we’re leaving you on a lighter note … maybe just because it’s Friday.
Though, sorry, it is so not T.G.I.F. It keeps going on, as you know. And maybe it’s her counter to the “Yes, We Can” video for Obama featuring will.i.am of the Black-Eyed Peas. Or hey, everybody has their air-guitar, even Physical Phil on “October Road,” who just played “Rock All Night” with a tennis racket. And uh, Fleetwood Mac, didn’t have that air game.

I offer this without comment; either I'm clueless, the New York Times is clueless or we're both clueless. The YouTube clip is embedded in the story, which also has a link to the the blog's story on the Obama video.

So far I haven't seen any musical videos for Republican front-runner John McCain, but I'll keep my eyes open. And GOP challenger Mike Huckaby, I understand, plays bass in a band called "Capitol Offense." I'll keep my eyes open for some of his stuff, too.

COMM 317: How to "brief" a case

Legal "briefs," so goes the old lawyers' joke, are anything but ...

Today we will brief the grave constitutional issues raised in a landmark judicial decision in the U.S. District Court at Augusta, Ga., by "Blackie the Talking Cat." Blackie did not testify on his own behalf, but it was argued -- unsuccessfully -- that his right of free speech under the First and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitition was abridged when his masters were required to pay a business tax to the city of Augusta when they asked pedestrians on the city streets to pay money to hear the talking cat. The case, perhaps not surprisingly, was decided on other issues.

Robert J. Beck, an international law professor, has guidelines on how to brief a case linked to a course syllabus at Tufts University. It is unusually clear. Let's use it to analyze the decision of U.S. District Judge Dudley H. Bowen in Miles v. City Council of Augusta, Ga., 551 F.Suppl. 349 (1982).

Download link: Deadheads for Obama

Are you kind?

A concert tape of Phil Lesh's "Deadheads for Obama" concert Feb. 4 in San Francisco is available for download on the Internet Archive. Here are the particulars, copied and pasted [but without formatting] from the website:

Collection: PhilLeshandFriends
Band/Artist: Phil Lesh and Friends
Date: February 4, 2008 (check for other copies)
Venue: The Warfield
Location: San Francisco, CA USA

Source: Schoeps mk41>kc5>cmc6>lunatec v2>sound devices 722
Lineage: 722>soundforge 6.0 (fades, edits)>Wav>Flac
Taped by: Ian Stone
Transferred by: Ian Stone (stone.ian@gmail.com)
Keywords: Phil & Friends; Dead; Deadheads; Obama; Benefit

And here's the playlist:

Deadheads For Obama
Featuring Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, and Friends
2/4/2008
The Warfield Thtr.
San Francisco, CA


Taped & Seeded by: Ian Stone (stone.ian@gmail.com)
Source: Schoeps mk41>kc5>cmc6>lunatec v2>sound devices 722 @24/48 at taper's section, right of center.

Set I.
Disc 1
1. intro
2. Playing in the Band*>
3. Brown-Eyed Women†,
4. Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo†>
5. New Minglewood Blues*,
6. Come Together*
7. Phil's Campaign Speech
Set II. (Acoustic)
8. Deep Elem Blues,
9. Friend of the Devil,
10. Deal,
11. Ripple

Set III.
Disc 2
1. China Cat Sunflower*†>
2. The Wheel*†>
3. The Other One*>
4. Sugaree*

Disc 3 (set 3 cont'd)
1. Eyes of the World*†>
2. Throwin' Stones*>
3. Iko Iko>
4. Jam*†>
5. Playing reprise*†
6. Crowd Noise/Phil Speaks

7. Encore: U.S. Blues*†%

Bob Weir, guitar and vocals;
Phil Lesh, bass and vocals;
Mickey Hart, drums and vocals;
John Molo, drums;
Jackie Greene, guitar, keyboards and vocals;
Steve Molitz, keyboards and vocals.

* with Mark Karan, guitar;
†with Barry Sless, pedal steel guitar;
%with Hippie Bill, flag

COMM 317: Due process, torture in the news

Now that the Justice Department is planning to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and five other alleged terrorists before a miliary tribunal in connection with the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, issues of due process are in the news again. So staring back at me this morning while I'm standing in line for my daily Chicago Tribune and bottled Starbucks confection is the following headline in the Trib:

9/11 trial
to enter
uncharted
legal area

It was right next to a picture of a burned house belonging to a alleged serial killer who last plied her alleged trade in 1908, a well-charted area both legally and journalistically. People like to read about trials, but they like even more to read about serial killers.

The Trib says the 9/11 trials will be controversial. Here's why:

The charges filed against the six, including alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, outline a litany of war crimes and include conspiracy, murder, attacking civilians, terrorism and supporting terrorism. All six suspects are being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the military plans to try them together.

Monday's announcement takes the Pentagon, and the country, into largely uncharted legal territory. The procedures of the military commissions have been challenged repeatedly in court, with some success, and legal precedents that have been developed by courts over decades or longer hold less sway than in the civilian criminal justice system.

But the administration argues that ordinary courts are not equipped to handle the sensitive national security considerations involved in trying top terrorists.

Complicating the 9/11 trials, if they go to trial, is the fact Mohammed was "waterboarded" -- an interrogation technique widely considered to be torture -- at the U.S. facility for alleged terrorists at Guantanamo. The Trib reports:

Last week, CIA Director Michael Hayden confirmed that Mohammed, the purported mastermind of the attacks, was one of three terrorism suspects in CIA custody who had been subjected to the interrogation technique known as waterboarding.

Waterboarding makes a prisoner believe he is in imminent danger of drowning. The suspect is tied to a board and water is poured through a cloth that covers his face. The practice is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Army Field Manual, and most of the international community considers the technique torture.

In addition, al-Qahtani, who Pentagon officials say was supposed to have been the 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks, has alleged that he was tortured and last fall recanted a confession he said he made after he was abused by interrogators.

There are several open questions here. How reliable is information obtained by torture? Is it allowed under U.S. law? The Boston Globe has a good background story on torture and its legal implications.

All of these questions are up in the air, and properly so since they're before the courts. Expect them to be argued at length as the 9/11 cases progress to trial. Expect to see clear and convincing arguments on both sides of the issue. Both? That's too simple. On all sides of all the issues.

The British, by the way, are nervous about the use of what they consider to be torture by a key ally in the war on terror. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine show he is concerned about the upcoming trials:

In answer to a question from a Jeremy Vine show listener, Mr Miliband said the UK defined water-boarding as torture, adding that "we don't... we would never use water-boarding".

Mr Miliband said: "There's absolutely no question about the UK government's commitments in respect of torture, which is illegal, and our definition of what torture is.

"And I think it's very, very important that we always assert that our system of values is different from those who attacked the US and killed British citizens on 11 September, and that's something we'd always want to stand up for."

But Miliband said he hasn't lost faith in the American judicial system:

We have some concerns about that [whether Khalid Mohammed can get a fair trial], and there are still some cases in front of the American Supreme Court, because, of course, the great thing about America, and I suppose countries like ours as well, is that the independent legal system provides a check and a balance on the operation of the legal system itself.

In 2005 Great Britian's highest court, known as the Law Lords, ruled that evidence obtained by torture could not be used in British courts, even though the United States is a close ally in the war on terror. The Court of Appeal, an intermediate appelate court similar to our federal circuit courts in Chicago and other cities, had ruled such evidence was admissible.

The Law Lords struck down the Court of Appeal decision in strong, stirring, indignant language that referred to centuries of English common-law precedent, to the moral weight of international treaties and obligations like the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and to the rights of individuals as enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.

"The principles of the common law, standing alone, in my opinion compel the exclusion of third-party torture evidence as unreliable, unfair, offensive to ordinary standards of humanity and decency and incompatible with the principles which should animate a tribunal seeking to administer justice," Lord Bingham wrote.

He referred to authorities from as far back as the 15th century to make the case that torture has no place in English law, or indeed in any law. He quoted the historian Sir William Holdsworth, who wrote in 1945 that "once torture has been acclimatized in a legal system, it spreads like an infectious disease" and "hardens and brutalizes those who have become accustomed to it."

The prohibition against torture "has now become one of the most fundamental standards of the international community," Lord Bingham continued.

"This prohibition is designed to produce a deterrent effect, in that it signals to all members of the international community and the individuals over whom they wield authority that the prohibition of torture is an absolute value from which nobody must deviate."

It is important to remember here the Law Lords were applying a British definition of torture and their ruling affects cases only in the British courts. But, as The New York Times noted, "the ruling seems to have been made with the current international situation very much in mind." The Times added, "Several of the concurring opinions referred explicitly, and not flatteringly, to the United States."

An exhaustive (and exhausting) history of torture from the ancient Greeks to early 20th-century Europe is found in the 1911 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica", which concludes, "The whole subject is now [1911] one of only historical interest as far as Europe is concerned." The Britannica quotes Sir Edward Coke (the 17th-century English jurist who is quoted at the top of our syllabus), who said, "... there is no law to warrant tortures in this land, nor can they be justified by any prescription, being so lately brought in." But the encyclopedia notes torture was used quite a bit during the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, and has a link to something called the "scavenger's daughter" that I know you'll want to know about.

The 1911 edition of Britannica, by the way, is widely considered to be the best encyclopedia ever written.

But of course that was before Wikipedia.

COMM 317: Seditious libel

Libel law in the United States has evolved in the direction of granting more freedom of speech. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were an attempt to restore an English common law doctrine known as seditious libel. It was like modern libel law in that it put limits on speech calculated to do harm to another. But it was different in that it put limits on speech that tended to harm the government.

Originally, when it was created by Act of Parliament in 1275, seditious libel was a crime against the crown that covered "any false news or tales whereby discord or occasion of discord or slander may grow between the king and his people or the great men of the realm." But in 1606, the English Court of Star Chamber greatly expanded the doctrine. Geoffrey Stone and Dan Kahan explain:

The Star Chamber ruled, first, that a libel against a private person might be punished as a crime, on the theory that it might provoke revenge and, hence, a breach of the peace. Second, the Star Chamber held that a libel against the government might also be punished criminally and was especially serious because "it concerns not only the breach of the peace, but also the scandal of government." Third, although the statute of 1275 had insisted upon proof of falsity, the Star Chamber ruled that the truth or falsity of the libel was immaterial under the common law; thus, even a true libel of government could now be the subject of criminal prosecution.

Let's be clear about this: Anything you said that would cause discord to grow between the king, or the royal government, and the people was libel. Truth was not a defense. In fact, as Stone and Kahan note, the saying was, "the greater the truth the greater the libel."

One more little wrinkle. The government didn't have to prove the libel would do any harm. All it had to prove was a "bad tendency" to create discord.

How would this affect political discourse?

If I published an article documenting that the governor of Illinois spends hundreds of thousands of dollars flying back and forth to Chicago when he has a tax-supported executive mansion in Springfield, would that tend to provoke "discord or occasion of discord" between government and people? If I published an article documenting that President Bush used discredited intelligence to urge the invasion of Iraq, would it tend to provoke discord? How could we have free and open elections if we could still be prosecuted for seditious libel.

Here's a link to some recent cartoons by David Horsey of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. How many of them could have been prosecuted under the common law of seditious libel?

COMM 317: Due process in First Amendment case

Here's a story on today's Baltimore Sun website that raises definite First Amendment issues --

It's also about due process, the way I read it.

A U.S. district judge in Baltimore has cut in half the damages awarded to the family of a marine whose funeral was disrupted by anti-gay protestors. But he allowed the original jury verdict against the protestors to stand.

"There was more than sufficient evidence to support the jury's verdict that [the protestors'] conduct before, during and after the funeral of Matthew Snyder was outrageous ... [and] highly offensive to a reasonable person," U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett wrote in a 52-page opinion.

So Bennett upheld the jury's decision. But he cut the damages award from $10.9 million to $5 million. According to The Sun, he "cited Supreme Court precedent requiring the judge to weigh the nature of the harm suffered by Snyder against the financial resources of Westboro and its members to finance a large damage award."

What are the First Amendment issues here?

(When we speak of an "issue" here, we're using the specialized sense of a question to be resolved. Dictionary.com has these definitions in sections 5 through 8:

5. a point in question or a matter that is in dispute, as between contending parties in an action at law.
6. a point, matter, or dispute, the decision of which is of special or public importance: the political issues.
7. a point the decision of which determines a matter: The real issue in the strike was the right to bargain collectively.
8. a point at which a matter is ready for decision: to bring a case to an issue.

They all mean more or less the same thing. So when we speak of the "issue of law," we're speaking of a question that has to be decided in a case.

Here are some issues in this case: How far can you go in exercising your right to free speech? How far is too far? Can you injure another person? When do you invade another person's privacy? What is a reasonable amount for a defendant to pay for inflicting emotional distress and invasion of privacy? How do you make a fair decision on what's a reasonable amount. (Hint: You go back to court, you have a hearing. That's what "due process" is about.) How would you decide these issues? Why did the judge decide them the way he did? What was his reasoning? Ask yourself these questions, and you'll be thinking like a lawyer.

COMM 317: Questions for reading "Make No Law"

Consulting "Make No Law" and the Internet, please answer the following questions on the historical chapters about constitutional law. They are designed to get you skim-reading through the chapters to pick out some of the main points more quickly than you would if you tried to read them all word-for-word. Post to your blog. As you answer the questions, give the page number from "Make No Law" in parentheses and link to your online sources. (See example at the bottom of this post.) The questions are:

1. What do freedom fries, liberty cabbage, the PATRIOT Act of 2001, the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 have in common? What effect, if any, do they have on freedom of speech? On the freedom of the press?

2. What specific things did people say about 18th-century politicians that got them prosecuted under the Alien and Sedition Acts? How do they compare to political discourse today? Were they harsher, milder or about the same? How many current statements about U.S. presidents and former presidents -- and presidential candidates -- can you list that could be prosecuted if the Alien and Sedition Acts were still in force?

3. For each of the court cases below, give the facts of the case, the issue of law and a good quote from the opinion or dissent that sums up its importance to journalists working today. See my example below, summarizing a case we haven't gotten to yet. Please consider these cases:

a. Abrams v. United States.
b. Whitney v. California.
c. Near v. Minnesota.

Example
Falwell v. Flynt (1988). Facts: The Rev. Jerry Falwell sued Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler magazine, for a parody ad that the online encyclopedia Wikipedia delicately describes as showing a "drunk[en] Falwell having an incestuous encounter with his mother in an outhouse." Law: Falwell's lawsuit said the parody held him up to public ridicule, libeled him and inflicted emotional distress. Flynt argued Falwell was a public figure, and the parody was clearly marked so nobody would take it seriously. The court decided in Flynt's favor. Quote: Chief Justice William Rhenquist said Falwell was a public figure who was involved in politics, and therefore could be satirized even though the satire might be distressing. "The appeal of the political cartoon or caricature is often based on exploitation of unfortunate physical traits or politically embarrassing events -- an exploitation often calculated to injure the feelings of the subject of the portrayal" (Wikipedia). Rehnquist also said, "But in the world of debate about public affairs, many things done with motives that are less than admirable are protected by the First Amendment" (232).

COMM 209: Here's a model back-to-school story

Journalistic writing is pretty much the same all over the English-speaking world, and the format for a meat-and-potatoes newspaper story doesn't change. Which is why we're reading a back-to-school story from The Torres News, Australia's "Independent Voice of the Torres Strait and N.P.A." [Northern Peninsula Area], wherever that is. It's getting toward the end of summer in the southern hemisphere, so that's why we're reading back-to-school stories from South Africa and Australia, by the way. That's where the kiddies are going back to school at this time of the year.

Well, wherever it is, this little back-to-school story will show us the format for a news story like the back-to-school stories you're getting back today.

[And the primary election stories you'll write this week. Your assignment: A 750-word feature on election day at Springfield College/Benedictine. Based on no fewer than three interviews. Write it in the format I outline here. Due Friday.]

Let's take a closer look at the back-to-school story. The first three grafs set it up:

Lunches are packed, bags are ready - students across the Torres Strait are heading back to school this week to start another year of active learning.

The 2008 school year for all Prep to Year 9 student started on Tuesday, 29th January. For Year 10 to 12 students, school will start on Wednesday 30th. Pre-Prep on Thursday Island will be stagged – Group A starting Wednesday and Group B on Thursday. This means all students, between the ages of 3½ and 17 are expected to be enrolled and attending their school this week.

“The first few days of the school year are important for all students.” Stephanie Savage, Associate Principal - Tagai State College said. “They are provided with an introduction to the learning environment, their teacher as well as the learning and behaviour expectations for the class. Students that miss these days, start the year on the back foot.”

See what's happening here? The lede in the first graf is an attention-getter. See how it's short, it's crisp and it sets the scene to tell a story?

That's what journalistic writing is all about. Short. Crisp. To-the-point. It's about stories. Narrative. That's why reporters always call the stuff they write a story. People want to read stories.

Now let's look at the second graf. It's present tense and future tense, but it tells a story. The kids are going back to school.

Next, a quote. It isn't a great quote, but it'll do. It isn't a great story. So we have a lede, an elaboration on the lede and a quote. Graf graf quote.

See what comes next? See the pattern?

Tagai State College’s Executive Principal, Don Anderson, outlines another important reason for kids to be front of teachers this week. “Schools are resourced on the enrolment figures collected on the 8th day of the school year. The number of teachers, the amount of teacher aide hours and the funds available for learning materials depend on the numbers of heads in the classrooms on day 8. Students enrolled after this time are not counted – so resources have to be spread thinner.”

Let's go back and look at the pattern for the whole story. Graf graf quote, transition quote. I would break that last graf into two, by the way. So would most writers and most copyeditors. (The Brits, and the Australians, call them subeditors, by the way.) So it would be graf graf quote, graf quote. See the pattern?

Let's read on:

In 2008, Tagai State College is looking to continue working with families and communities to improve on the learning outcomes for the students of Torres Strait.

“We have over 140 experienced and enthusiastic teachers ready. We have developed the highest standards of learning experiences and materials” Stephanie Savage said. “For the best start, Parents and Communities need to ensure that all children start school this week.

“2008 is the year in which we have every student, everyday in every classroom, learning.”

See how the pattern continues? Graf quote quote. There's something else going on here, too: Stephanie Savage's quote is broken into two grafs. If you closely at the end of the first graf, you'll see it doesn't have a quote mark at the end. That means the quote carries over to the next graf. That's "AP Stylebook" style. They use it in Australia, too, apparently.

Finally, the last graf is kind of a throw-away:

Parents are encouraged to contact their local Tagai State College Campus if they have any questions regarding enrolment for 2008.

So they just stick it on at the end.

And the pattern for the entire story (as I would edit it) is graf graf quote, graf quote, graf quote quote, graf. That's very common way of putting together stories. It's not rocket science. It's not a mathematical equation. Sometimes you'll have three or four grafs in between quotes. Sometimes you'll have longer quotes and shorter grafs in between. But you string the story together from quote to quote like beads on a cheap necklace.

What else can we notice about this story? The grafs are short. Much shorter than you learned in English class. In newspaper copy that is prepared for a print edition, almost every quote stands alone in its own paragraph. Sentences are short, too. Once you get used to it, you'll find you can write well in a stripped-down news style. You'll find you can write fast, too.

(Which is why they do it! When you're on deadline, you don't have time for a lot of fancy stuff.)

When I started newspapering, I had just finished a Ph.D. in English. So it took me forever to get rid of my great big long, academic, sophisticatedly articulated, philosophically cogent, clunky, unreadable sentences. (One tip: I learned to break each of my school paragraphs into three or four newspaper grafs.) But once I did make the transition, I felt a lot better. I'll bet you will too.

See Dick write. Write, Dick. Write. See Jane write. See Dick andJane tell a story. See Dick and Jane get A's in COMM 209.

I've read all the first set of papers in COMM 209 now, and I have a couple of general suggestions:

1. Use short, simple words.

2. Use them in short, simple sentences.

3. Use your short, simple words and short, simple sentences to tell a story.

Easy to say, isn't it? But harder to do. It comes with practice, and we'll be working on it the rest of the semester.

When I was a kid, first-graders learned to read from a book called "Fun with Dick and Jane." It was sappy. Here's an example from the 1950s. You could have a field day with the historical implications of Jane's dolls, the middle-class family gathered around, the middle-class values. In fact, social historians like to study the Dick and Jane books for the attitudes they reflect. It was sort of an upper middle class never-never land. But look how short those sentences are. "One, two, three," said Jane. "Three new dolls for my birthday! ..." Here's another story that reflects attitudes toward TV in the early days.

But that's not where I'm going with this. I want you to write like Dick and Jane in COMM 209.

At least for a while.

Your first stories were pretty good (or would have been, some of you, if you'd bothered to edit them). In general, they were good college writing. But there are some differences between the kind of writing you do for most of your college courses and the kind of writing professionals do for a living. Some are matters of style. Short sentences, very informal word choices that sound like spoken English. When I first left the newspaper business, I noticed my freshman English students made a lot of errors because their sentences were too complicated. So I wrote up a tip sheet on workplace writing. Key points: 1. Read your writing out loud. 2. Write like you talk. If you write great big long complicated sentences in your first draft, break them up. That's what I have to do. That's what a lot of professionals do.

Try it. You'll like it.