COMM 386 --

Communications 386 - Media and Government
Benedictine University - Springfield

Fall Semester 2008

Analytical article (paper) assignment

Write a 2,000- to 2,500-word analytical piece, in the style of an article in a “quality” print publication like The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker or National Review, evaluating coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign in light of the commonly heard critique that American public affairs journalism treats politics and government in terms more appropriate to the entertainment industry, even celebrity gossip.

This critique has been voiced prominently by the late Neil Postman of New York University, who said in “Amusing Ourselves to Death” (1986) that:

Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death.

Perhaps even more authoritatively, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel of the Committee of Concerned Journalists reported in “Elements of Journalism” on a meeting at Harvard University in which influential editors, broadcasters and journalism professors complained,

News was becoming entertainment and entertainment news. Journalists' bonuses were increasingly tied to the company's profit margins, not the quality of their work. Finally, Columbia University professor James Carey offered what many recalled as a summation: "The problem is that you see journalism disappearing inside the larger world of communications. What you yearn to do is recover journalism from that larger world."

During the run-up to the Nov. 4 election, we saw both kinds of journalism practiced. And we saw journalists complaining of coverage that seemed to be centered on wisecracks about lipstick, pit bulls and pigs when serious economic issues were more deserving of attention. Yet, most analysts said the “big” issues decided the election. Your assignment: Decide how well the media did in covering the election. There’s evidence they did a pretty good job, and there’s just as much evidence that they wallowed in trivia. So there is no right or wrong answer to my question. But you do want to give your opinion and cite evidence for it; find some articles that seem typical of the trends you see in the coverage, and quote from them. Write well. Don’t be afraid to entertain your readers. In other words, treat this assignment as if you were writing for publication. (If if it’s good enough, in fact, I may ask you for permission to run it in The Sleepy Weasel, our campus magazine.) Due Monday, Nov. 24, the day before Thanksgiving holiday.