COMM 317: Friday ...

Three things I want us to do today:

• Take a look at Charles Dickens, the 19th-century English novelist (see "Tangent ..." on blog below at Aug. 26). He understood journalism; he understood the courts (including chancery); he understood politics and human nature (two ways of saying the same thing?); and he wrote well. Dickens isn't summer-afternoon-on-the-beach type reading, but you can learn a lot from looking at the way Dickens describes things and the way he puts sentences together. Let's follow a link, too, to the description in a state politics blog of a political tiff in a chancery hearing right here in Springfield.
  
• Review the landmark case Miles v. City Council of Augusta, Ga. and apply the principles of analytical reasoning behind the judge's decision. By the way, there are analytical reasoning questions on the LSAT (Law School Admissions Test), and the ability to apply the law, or conditions, to a set of facts, or premise, is one of the most important skills lawyers develop. Journalists, too.
  
• If we get to it (and I hope we do), sort out some of the facts and the law involved as bigwigs of the South Carolina Republican Party decide whether to impeach Governor Sanford as, to quote the headline in a news service for lawyers, the "Sanford Saga Enters 'Bizarre' Phase."

There's no lack of facts in the Sanford saga. His Latin American lover. His weepy press conferences. The general embarrassment of having a governor go off the rails (although I do have to admit he has better hair than other governors I've known). His alleged abuse of the regulations for the use of state aircraft. All facts. But how much of this stuff can be be impeached for? What are the rules? How do we apply the law to the facts? Where would we find out? What does the South Carolina Constitution say about it all?

COMM 337: Defamation

Some unedited notes - copied from the web and pasted below ...


http://www.ehow.com/how_2063889_sue-defamation-character.html

from How to Sue for Defamation of Characterstrong at eHow website

Generally, to make a successful defamation of character claim, you must show that there was a false statement of fact, this statement was conveyed to a third party and the statement is understood to be about you and tending to harm your reputation. In the case of a public figure, actual malice must also be proved.

http://www.expertlaw.com/library/personal_injury/defamation.html

Typically, the elements of a cause of action for defamation include:

• A false and defamatory statement concerning another;
• The unprivileged publication of the statement to a third party (that is, somebody other than the person defamed by the statement);
• If the defamatory matter is of public concern, fault amounting at least to negligence on the part of the publisher; and
• Damage to the plaintiff.
  

In the context of defamation law, a statement is "published" when it is made to the third party. That term does not mean that the statement has to be in print.

COMM 317: Tangent on Charles Dickens. Tangent? No. It's our assignment for Friday

Charles Dickens, whose novels many of us suffered through in school, is surprisingly good if we read him on our own time later. He was an amazing descriptive writer whose cadences match the rhythm of the spoken language, and his characters come alive and step up off the page 150 years later. He was also a very good reporter before he started writing novels.

Read the page on Dickens' biography "From Law Clerk to Journalist" in a very good fan's website called Gad's Hill Place. My theory: Dickens was so good at recording spoken English because he was first trained as a court stenographer. He covered courts and he covered the houses of Commons and Lords for a magazine called The Mirror of Parliament. Here's what he had a character in "David Copperfield" (1849-50) say about covering British politics, in terms that obviously spoke for Dickens himself:

I ... am joined with eleven others in reporting the debates in Parliament for a Morning Newspaper. Night after night, I record predictions that never come to pass, professions that are never fulfilled, explanations that are only meant to mystify. I wallow in words. Britannia, that unfortunate female, is always before me, like a trussed fowl: skewered through and through with office-pens, and bound hand and foot with red tape. I am sufficiently behind the scenes to know the worth of political life. I am quite an Infidel about it, and shall never be converted.

Anything there remind you of Congress? Or, for that matter, the Illinois General Assembly?

Dickens also covered the British high court of Chancery, first as a stenographer and later writing sketches for magazines. In later years he made the court almost a character in the novel "Bleak House." Its first chapter begins with a famous description of the fog in London that turns into a description of the (mental) fog in Chancery court. Here are the first few grafs:

London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes—gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another's umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits [islands] and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the misty clouds.

Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their time—as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling look.

The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.

Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds this day in the sight of heaven and earth. ... [Parentheses in the original. Brackets are mine. -- pe]

And so on. I was first told about this passage when I was a courthouse reporter in Tennessee, which still has a separate Chancery Court system, and I think everyone ought to read it.

We don't have separate chancery courts in Illinois, but we have chancery cases in Circuit Court. When perennial U.S. Senate candidate Andy Martin sued the Illinois Republican Party earlier this month asking for a court order making them let him speak at GOP rally during the State Fair, he was filing a chancery case against the party leadership. Any time a plaintiff seeks a court order making a defendant do something, i.e. a "writ of specific performance," technically he's filing the case it "in equity" or "in chancery" and not "at law." If you ever cover the courts, these legal technicalities can be important.

So when Sangamon County Circuit Judge Patrick Kelley got mad and said "I feel as though I am overseeing a trailer park" during the hearing on Martin's lawsuit, he was expressing a sentiment Charles Dickens would have fully understood and sympathized with.

COMM 317: Facts, law and catfights ... in today's Washington Post

An article by opinion writer Kathleen Parker discusses that catfight between the model and the art student who called her a skank in New York City. That's the one where model Liskula Cohen was called a "skank" in a then-anonymous blog.

It sounds like maybe Parker is a little confused on some of the technology (but, hey, maybe it's me who's confused). But she quotes from a new book "Google Bomb" by a psychologist named Sue Scheff, who "was able to prove [in court] that her reputation and business suffered" when she was defamed on the Internet. Parker:

Scheff's case and the Cohen incident suggest that a new level of accountability, largely missing from personal blogs, may be in the offing. "What you type today can haunt you tomorrow," says Scheff. "People need to know that if you use your mouse and keypad to harm others, there is a price tag."

Harm is the operative word. Although Scheff was able to prove material losses, Cohen likely gained from her brief tenure as a victim. In fact, she has dropped her lawsuit and forgiven the blogger.

The bottom line is, well, the bottom line. Parker adds:

No one likes being bashed online or elsewhere -- and public people are familiar with the experience. But even Scheff thinks that in the absence of quantifiable defamation, anonymity deserves protection. As Google and the courts slug it out, Cohen did manage to render an oft-ignored lesson in bold italics: Think before you type.

Or else someone may want more than a penny for your thoughts.

And that really is the bottom line.

COMM 207: First day, syllabus ...

Until I get some "issues" resolved with Benedictine's FTP server, we're going to use the copy of our syllabus that I posted to The Mackerel Wrapper class blog when I updated it a couple of weeks ago. Scroll down past my cat's fake Kenyan birth certificate to Aug. 7, and keep scrolling through the COMM 317 syllabus till you get to ours. It's *slugged "COMM 207 syllabus." Catchy, huh?

We'll go over it in class. Syllabuses (please note correct plural in AP style) are kind of like the safety instructions you get from a flight attendant, when they chirp, "In the unlikely event of an emergency landing ..." and go on to show you where the exits are located and how to inflate your life jacket. Absolutely, fundamentally boring, but good to know if unlikely events arise.

And sometimes unlikely events do arise.

________________
* "Slugged" is old-fashioned newspaper jargon for the little tagline you put in the upper lefthand corner of a story to identify it. It comes from the same word as the slugs that people used to try to put in coin-operated vending machines. It means a little chunk of metal, and in our business it dates back to the days of hot metal type. We'll learn lots of neat little tidbits like that.

Elmer Kelton, April 29, 1926 - Aug. 22, 2009

Elmer Kelton, a working journalist who wrote Western novels on the side and is considered a master of that much-maligned genre, died Saturday in his home town of San Angelo, Texas. He was 83.

By coincidence also on Saturday, I finished reading "Shotgun," a new reissue of a 1969 novel I'd picked up at Schnucks earlier in the week. It just shows Kelton didn't fade away, and he didn't go out in a blaze of glory, he went out as he had lived ... plugging away at a craft he mastered early and kept up year after year in a thoroughly workmanlike way. Other novelists burn out, or start to parody themselves in their later work. Kelton didn't. In all, he wrote 62 books ... most of them category westerns. Not great literature, although a couple of his mid-list novels, like "The Time it Never Rained" and "The Man Who Broke Midnight" are justly considered to be minor classics. Mostly Kelton's books were just well-crafted stories that upheld the values Kelton thought important. He also edited magazines, a more than full-time job in itself, until he retired in 1990.

If you're interested in writing for common, everyday readers - maybe especially readers who live in the country or live in town but still ask if you think it'll rain and talk like they spend time on the phone with relatives who live in the country - you should consider picking up a couple of Kelton's books and studying the way he writes.

The editorial board of the Austin (Texas) Statesman-American summed up the man - and his career -like this in a piece to be published in Tuesday's paper:

The elderly gentleman wearing the western cut suit and listening attentively to former President Bill Clinton at the 2005 Texas Book Festival would have been easy to overlook.

He projected a quiet, dignified demeanor, wearing the look of a West Texan with unstudied grace. He could have easily been an accountant or school administrator from Abilene or Fort Stockton. Approached and addressed as "Mr. Kelton," he looked up, shook hands and expressed appreciation for the compliments from well-wishers who recognized him as a renowned Texas author whose very name seemed to fit his life's work.

Elmer Kelton, who died in San Angelo on Saturday, was a lot like the people he wrote about over a newspaper, magazine and literary career that spanned six decades. He listened more than he talked, and when he did speak, his words reflected the roots of his rearing and his love for the land and the creatures it supported.

Those creatures would be men, women and cattle ... probably in about that order.

After serving in World War II, Kelton studied journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. According to his obit in the Abilene (Texas) Reporter-News, Kelton was farm and ranch writer-editor for the San Angelo Standard-Times, editor of Sheep and Goat Raiser Magazine and, for 22 years, associate editor of Livestock Weekly. He retired in 1990, but he continued to write westerns. His first came out in 1956, and the last two will come out posthumously. He was working on another until this spring, when his health failed.

Macy Halford, a book reviewer who doesn't ordinarily write about westerns, grew up in Texas. This is what she said on the New Yorker website: "Kelton opened my eyes to the romance of the landscape and of a certain character—hard-nosed, homespun, forlorn, but with a vast capacity for revelation—that marked his nineteenth-century cowboys and that somehow still clung to many of the late-twentieth-century Texans I knew." She quoted a passage that, for her, was typical vintage Elmer Kelton. It's in a novel called "Sons of Texas," and it's a dialog between two cowboys:

“You ever given much thought to dyin’, Eli?”

Eli shook his head. “Never was interested in it, much. Always rather think about livin’. There’s more future in that.”

“I come near dyin’ in Texas once already.”

Eli nodded toward Lucero. “So’ve him and me. We all have. And we’re all still here. So why not take what you’ve got and enjoy it while you can?”

“Ain’t much to enjoy.’”

“Sure there is. Sunshine instead of rain. Birds singin’ in the trees. A man takes his blessin’s where he finds them.”

Halford admits "less generous critics might call all this hokey (and they have), but it’s just the sort of hokum I like."

But there's more than likeable hokum here. Read that passage out loud to yourself. Listen for the cadence, the rise and fall of the spoken language. Where have you heard people talk like that? West Texas? Central Illinois? (I grew up in East Tennessee, and that's where I first heard it. I still hear it in downstate Illinois.) If you want your writing to take on the cadence and texture of vernacular American speech, you can do a lot worse than read Elmer Kelton. I'd recommend a lot of Elmer Kelton. I'll bet he's all over the used bookstores.

Here's one last passage. It got picked up in staff writer Jared Fields' obit for the Abeline Reporter-News:

Kelton’s work with the San Angelo Standard-Times often took him to area towns. In his memoir “Sandhills Boy,” Kelton writes about covering a firemen’s convention in Winters and trying to take a picture, but the flash wouldn’t fire. “Finally one of the firemen stepped out of the line and said, ‘Son, I’ll bet if you put this plug into that socket, it’ll work.’ I did, and it did, and I felt about two feet tall.”

Vernacular American speech. Roll that last sentence around on your tongue, "I did, and it did, and ..." You'll hear what I mean. All written by a workmanlike guy who had a realistic sense of what's important and what isn't, and a strong sense of craftsmanship to match.

COMM 317: Facts and law, an extreme case

As we keep exploring why -- and how -- lawyers think like lawyers, we'll learn how to brief cases. A good definition of what law students do when they brief a case is put out by the City University of New York's law school. It says:

A student brief is a short summary and analysis of the case prepared for use in classroom discussion. It is a set of notes, presented in a systematic way, in order to sort out the parties, identify the issues, ascertain what was decided, and analyze the reasoning behind decisions made by the courts.

To simplify a little, they analyze a case by breaking it down into: (1) the facts of the case; (2) the legal issues, or questions of law involved in the case; and the court's decision or holding.

Sometimes, the cases can be difficult. One that's in the news this week is the decision by Scottish justice minister Kenny MacAskill (whose office is equivalent to an attorney general in the U.S.) to release Lockerbie bomber Adelbaset al-Megrahi, a Lybian convicted of causing the deaths of 259 passengers and crew aboard Pan Am Flight 103 and 11 villagers who died when the plane was bombed in midair and struck a schoolyard in the Scottish village of Lockerbie in 1988. That decision has been hugely controversial, both in Scotland and in the United States, where the aircraft was bound on a flight from London.

Writing in The Guardian, a British newspaper, editorialist Iain Macwhirter lays out the legal issues:

MacAskill's defence is that he acted in accordance with the laws and values of Scotland – as indeed has been accepted now by No 10 [British slang for the Prime Minister or head of the British government, equivalent to the "White House" in our political slang] in its statement today. The Scottish justice minister is a lawyer and something of a stickler for "due process" – for following the accepted rules for coming to a legal decision. Prisoners in Scotland, no matter their crime, are eligible for release on compassionate grounds if they have a terminal illness which will likely kill them within three months. When application has been made, and provided the medical evidence is sound, the justice minister is required to consult key authorities, including the Parole Board, the prison governor and the social work agencies. This he did. All these bodies recommended that Megrahi should be released on compassionate grounds. ...

So let's try to sort it out ...

What are the facts? According to his profile in Wikipedia, Megrahi, a Lybian intelligence officer, was convicted on 270 counts of murder and conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the bombing. After 12 years of legal maneuvering, according to Wikipedia, "Court proceedings started on 3 May 2000, and the judges announced their verdict on 31 January 2001. They said of Megrahi: 'There is nothing in the evidence which leaves us with any reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the first accused, and accordingly we find him guilty of the remaining charge in the indictment as amended.'" Megrahi has maintained throughout the proceedings that he is innocent, and there is considerable sentiment that Megrahi may be innocent of the actual murders. But his trial, like most trials, was to establish the facts. And the trial judges decided the evidence, i.e. the facts, showed him to be guilty. In appellate cases, the trial court's factual decisions usually stand. So while the facts in the case aren't 100 percent clear, they're clear enough. It is also a fact that Megrahi is dying of cancer.

But what about the law? The law is clear, too. Scottish law says any convicted felon can be released, should be released, on compassionate grounds if certain conditions are met. One of those conditions is a terminal illness. So law minister MacAskill decided he had no choice but to release Megrahi under the law.

There is also an ethical component to this case. Reaction was swift and harsh, and Wikipedia notes that "the White House [our equivalent of No. 10 Downing Street, right?] issued a statement saying it deeply regretted Scotland's decision to release Megrahi and also extended its deepest sympathies to the families of the victims." What do you do, ethically, with a guy who murdered 270 people? Does it matter that Scotland doesn't have the death penalty? Also this: Macwhirter's article quoted former British Labour minister Malcolm Chisholm, who said the decision to release Megrahi was "entirely consistent with both the principles of Scots Law and Christian morality, as evidenced by the widespread support of churches across Scotland."

Lots of gray area there. Enough to make your head ache ...

Updated notes re: FTP saga

Note to self: When access to FTP server is restored, post revised versions of

-- COMM 207 syllabus
-- COMM 297 "
-- COMM 217 "
-- COMM 390 "
-- HUM 223 "
-- faculty webpage and "oldsyllabus" directory

-- pe

---

Also, create '09 folder for assessment newsletter and post August issue archived at http://hogfiddle.blogspot.com/2009/08/nuts-bolts-benu-springfield-aug-2009.html ...

COMM 317: First day, syllabus, defamation, etc.

We now have an updated syllabus for COMM 317 (media law and ethics) on my faculty Web page at http://www.sci.edu/faculty/ellertsen/facultypage.html. But I've been having issues with Benedictine's FTP server, and I can't get on the school Web site in order to make corrections. So for the time being we're going to use the copy of our syllabus that I posted to The Mackerel Wrapper when I updated it a couple of weeks ago. The Wrapper is our class blog, among other things, and we'll be using it a lot this semester.

So let's get started. Scroll down past the post headed "COMM 317 -- first day, skanks, etc. -- add 1 and my cat's fake Kenyan birth certificate to Aug. 7. The post we want now is slugged "comm 317 syllabus." Catchy, huh?

We'll go over it in class. Syllabuses (please note the correct plural in Associated Press style) are kind of like the safety instructions you get from a flight attendant, "In the unlikely event of an emergency landing ..." and so on as they show you how to inflate your life jacket and where the little lights on the floor are. Boring, but good to know if unlikely events arise.

And unlikely events do arise. Many of you are grizzled J-school veterans by now, so you've already learned that.

COMM 317 is a media law and ethics course. So we'll start with the law piece and move on to ethics. We'll review some of the fundamentals of libel, fair use and intellectual property law. You already know them, so the review won't take long. While we're at it, I will assign some readings on the World Wide Web concerning how legal cases are decided. Lawyers don't think like the rest of us, and I think it's important for the rest of us to be able to think like a lawyer. There are some fundamental differences between law and personal ethics, too, and they're not exactly what you'd think they are. Some of them are subtle, and they tend to get into conflict with each other at inopportune moments.

More to come.

Aren't we lucky? We have a legal spat in the news to help us get thinking like lawyers. So scroll back up to "COMM 317 -- first day, skanks, etc. -- add 1" or link here. Before you do, though, note the assignment below.

For Wednesday go back over the section on media law in the AP Stylebook. And I'll see if I can bring in an appellate court case so we can look at it.

COMM 207 -- first day, etc. -- add 1

This will affect Thursday's assignment. We'll also talk about it in class when we get time, either Tuesday or Thursday ...

Slate.com, the online magazine started by Microsoft Corp. and now part of the same media conglomorate that owns The Washington Post and Newsweek, now has a news *aggragator called "The Slatest" (a play on words mashing up "Slate" and "latest"). They explain how it works in today's edition.

Here's how I want to use it. Chapter 1 in our textbook, which was already assigned, talks about how local, regional and nationally oriented newspapers in California handled a typical news day when the book was being written. But it came out in 2005, and the world has changed since then. So let's hope Wednesday is a typical news day and compare today's news with what was in the papers five years ago as it was captured in our textbook.

_________________
* Probably you already know this, but an "aggragator" is defined in Wikipedia like this: "In general internet terms, a news aggregation website is a website where headlines are collected, usually manually, by the website owner." Somebody once said there are two types of blogs: (1) linkers; and (2) thinkers. Aggragators are the linkers.

Two other points:

• Journalism, the whole communications industry, in fact, is full of jargon. You'd think professional communicators wouldn't use use words people don't know. But you'd be wrong. When I come across jargon in the class blog, especially at first, I'll star it with an asterisk and define it in a footnote.
  
• If you're a grizzled veteran of my classes, you already know this, too. But if you're not and if you've had teachers who wouldn't let you use Wikipedia, you should know this: I use Wikipedia all the time, I think it's more reliable than other encyclopedias. I just try to be careful when I use it. Wikipedia is part of that changing world, I guess.

COMM 317 -- first day, skanks, etc. -- add 1

Today (Monday) isn't the last time this is ever going to happen ...

Yeah, we'll go over the syllabus and do all that good stuff we have to do on the first day of class. Call roll, too. If you've taken out student loans, the federal government is very interested in your whereabouts. But there's something in the news now, and we'll take it up in class since it fits what we'll be studying ... how well it fits is something we'll decide .

Here's the story: Late last week, a trial court judge in New York City ruled fashion model Liskula Cohen can sue an pseudononymous blogger who called her a skank, among other unkind names, for defamation of character. Now the blogger, a fashion design student named Rosemary Port, is suing Google for defamation because it released her name under court order. I'm not sure either one of them is guilty of anything I'd recognize as defamation, but if we have time after going over the syllabus Monday, we'll look around the Google news directory and see what we can find out ... .

(That's why I like teaching journalism: The world just refuses to chop itself up into neat little 50-minute segments for my convenience.)

In the meantime, here are two things I want you to know about Web blogs:

• When you post anything to a blog, or anywhere else on the Internet, you are publishing it.
  
• I am being very, very polite in my references to Ms. Cohen and Ms. Port on this blog.

Legislative reporter covers ELCA church assembly

John Croman, who covers the Minnesota legislature for KARE Channel 11 television in the Twin Cities, said he "drew the 'gay Lutherans' story, as one of my colleagues termed it," when the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted to accept gay pastors in committed relationships to their "rostered" or certified clergy this week.

Croman's blog post, which recorded his observations of the ELCA vote, was headlined:

Just like the legislature, only with prayer breaks

Croman explained:

The 1,000 voting delegates this week dealt with a lot of important issues, but the one that drew the mainstream media's attention was an amendment that would allow individual congregations to seat gay pastors who are sexually active. With more than 4 million members nationwide, and 830,000 in Minnesota, the world would be watching.

Until now ELCA churches could call gay pastors, but those ministers had to remain celibate. The change would allow churches to hire pastors in same-sex relations that are "publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous" unions.

In many ways the floor debate on the change resembled the political skirmishes I cover at the State Capitol on a regular basis, with a couple of notable exceptions. Bishop Mark Hanson, who presided over the assembly, kept people to strict time limits, so there would be no filibustering to run out the clock.

And, most remarkable to those of us who dwell in the realm of secular politics, the delegates would be called to pause for prayers on a regular basis. This would be, after all, not a decision to be taken lightly or without seeking divine guidance.

In the speeches from the floor it was clear many were struggling with the task of squaring two Biblical tenets; the commandments to love one another, and to scriptures condemning homosexual acts.

The rest of it, Croman reported pretty much as you would floor debate in the Minnesota statehouse, or any other. It's a pretty balanced, sensitive job of covering a story that had lots of potential stylistic and ethical pitfalls, under the circumstances.

COMM 317: Thinking like a lawyer ... this isn't assigned, but it's important ... so let's stop for a minute and read it

On the Slate.com website, an "explainer" detailing why lawsuits contesting President Obama's status as a natural-born citizen always get thrown out of court. The money graf:

... If Obama stood his ground, and Congress stood by him, then the only way to legally remove him from office would be for someone to sue. Problem is, no one would have standing to bring such a lawsuit. To establish standing, a plaintiff must show that he has suffered an injury personal to him, that the defendant caused the injury, and that the court could provide a remedy. That turns out to be an impossible task.

A good rule of thumb: In order to sue somebody, you've got to be able to prove they cost you money. No money, no lawsuit.

But read the rest of the story. One of my goals for you this semester is to start learning how to think like a lawyer. Most people (including most editorial writers) can't. Let's change that.

Kenyan birth certificate for Oley the Cat ...

Ah, the wonders of modern technology. Link here for a picture of my cat Oley. A few mouseclicks (if you'll excuse the expression in this context), and I got him a birth certificate as genuine as the "Kenyan birth certificate" the tinfoil hat folks have supplied for President Obama. Here it is ...



Do you want a Kenyan birth certificate all for your very own? Click here for the Kenyan Birth Certificate Generator.

But you'll have to get your own cat.

In Springfield I recommend the Waggin' Tails shelter north of the Illinois State Fairgrounds.

comm 317 syllabus

Communications 317: Media Law
Benedictine University at Springfield
Fall Semester 2009

www.sci.edu/faculty/ellertsen/comm317syllabus.html

"Where do you think these rights came from? The stork didn't bring them! The judges did. -- Justice Potter Stewart, U.S. Supreme Court.

"So as grave and learned men may doubt, without any imputation to them; for the most learned doubteth most, and the more ignorant for the most part are the more bold and peremptory." Section 338a. -- Sir Edward Coke, Institutes of the Lawes of England (1628) Sect. 338a.

Communications 317 meets from 1 to 2:15 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday. Place to be announced. Instructor is Pete Ellertsen, 211 Beata Hall (old Ursuline convent), telephone 525-1420x519, email: pellertsen@sci.edu. Office hours TBA. Home: 545 Feldkamp, Springfield, IL 62704. tel. 793-2587.

I. Course Description.
Course Title: Mass Media Law and Ethics Course Number: COMM 317 Credits: 3.00.
Description: Examines the many legal and ethical issues related to the mass media. Fall.
Prerequisites RHET 102 or HNRS 191.

II. Textbooks. You have two: (1) Philip Patterson and Lee Wilkins, "Media Ethics: Issues and Cases"; and (2) "The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual." Also required are the readings on the World Wide Web linked below in the Tentative Calendar and on my blog for communications students called The Mackerel Wrapper. Supplies. You will be required to maintain your own blog, so you will need computer access. It is available at the Benedictine/Springfield Resource Center.

III. Mission statement of Benedictine University. Benedictine University at Lisle dedicates itself to the education for the undergraduate and graduated students from diverse ethnic, racial and religious backgrounds. As academic community committed to liberal arts and professional education distinguished and guided by its Roman Catholic tradition and Benedictine heritage - the University prepares its students for a lifetime as active, informed and responsible citizens and leaders in the world Community.

IV. Goals, objectives and outcomes.

A. Goals
Students will gain an appreciation of the rights and responsibilities of journalists under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Students will gain an exposure to legal traditions of reasoning and adjudication that affect them as journalists, as practitioners of the communication arts and as citizens.
Students will understand their obligations as mass media professionals under personal injury and intellectual property law.

B. Student Learning Objectives. Upon completion of the course, students will be able
explain how statute law and court decisions affect their lives as journalists, communications professionals and citizens; understand the principles of professional journalistic ethics and apply them to hypothetical situations that confront professionals in journalism, public relations and advertising; reflect on the ethical demands placed on professional writers by such issues as invasion of privacy, and apply the principles of libel and intellectual property law in the AP stylebook to their own writing as student journalists

V. Teaching Methods. Peer work, small group and whole classroom discussion (including participation in discussion on the Message Board linked to my faculty webpage), pre-writing, drafting and editing exercises, including the preparation of case briefs on assigned reading; conferencing; and intervention in student writing processes.

VI. Course Requirements.
A. Attendance Policy. Attendance is mandatory. To avoid class disruption, students in COM 317 must be on time. If a student misses class, is the student's responsibility to get class notes, assignments, etc., from classmates. Missed in-class work, by its very nature, cannot be made up. Absences will hurt your grade.

B. Reading Assignments. Please see the Tentative Calendar below.

C. Written Assignments.
You will do frequent in-class writing exercises. I will assign exercises without notice.
You will be required to write a documented paper on a topic I will select for you and to follow my instructions for arguing and documenting the paper.
You are required to post to a Web log (blog) of your own creation and to the class message board, both in and out of class. I will post assignments to the board and/or The Mackerel Wrapper.
Both the midterm and final exam will be essay questions.

VII. Means of Evaluation. Your final grade will be based on assignments weighted as follows: (A) class participation and in-class journals, worth 50 percent of the total grade; (B) a 10- to 12-page documented research paper on a specific topic assigned and approved by the instructor, worth 25 percent of the total; and (C) quizzes and tests including the midterm and the final exam, worth 25 percent.


Academic Integrity Statement
Academic and professional environments require honesty and integrity, and these qualities are expected of every student at Springfield College-Benedictine University. In accordance with such expectations, academic integrity requires that you credit others for their ideas. Plagiarism, whether intentional or not, is a grievous offense. Any time you use words or ideas that are not your own, you must give credit to the author, whether or not you are quoting directly from that author. Failure to do so constitutes plagiarism.
Any incident of plagiarism and/or academic dishonesty may result in serious consequences. Penalties for academic dishonesty vary depending on the severity or extent of the problem but are always serious.
The following are consequences you may face for academic dishonesty:
· a failing grade or “zero” for the assignment;
· dismissal from and a failing grade for the course; or
· dismissal from the Institution.

Please refer to the Springfield College Benedictine University Catalog or the Student Handbook for a complete discussion of the Academic Integrity policy.

Grade Appeal Process
According to the Springfield College Catalog, grade appeals must be initiated 90 days prior to the end of one semester after the course in question has been completed. The process for appealing a grade is outlined below.
First, contact the Instructor.
1. A student must appeal to his/her instructor in writing (e-mail is
acceptable) and provide specific reasons why his/her grade should be
changed.
2. The instructor must respond to the student in writing (e-mail is
acceptable) and provide a copy to the division chair.
Second, contact the Division Chair.
3. If the student wishes, he/she may then appeal to the division chair in
writing (e-mail is acceptable) and provide specific reasons why his/her
grade should be changed without the instructor’s permission. The student
should understand that overwhelming evidence must be presented to the
division chair to prove that the current grade is incorrect.
4. The division chair must respond to the student in writing (e-mail is
acceptable) and provide a copy to the academic dean.
Lastly, contact the Academic Dean.
5. If the student wishes, he/she may appeal to the academic dean in writing
(e-mail is acceptable) and provide specific reasons why his/her grade
should be changed without the instructor’s or the division chair’s
permission. The student should understand that overwhelming evidence
must be presented to the academic dean to prove the grade is incorrect.
6. The academic dean must respond to the student in writing (e-mail is
acceptable). The academic dean’s decision is final.

Add/Drop Dates
Aug. 28 - Last day to add courses
Aug. 28 - Last day to drop a course without a W (4:00 p.m.)
Oct. 24 - Last day to drop courses

Incomplete Request
To qualify for an “I” grade, a minimum of 75% of the course work must be completed with a passing grade, and a student must submit a completed Request for an Incomplete form to the Registrar’s Office. The form must be completed by both student and instructor, but it is the student’s responsibility (not the instructor’s) to initiate this process and obtain the necessary signatures.

Student Withdrawal Procedure
It is the student’s responsibility to officially withdraw from a course by completing the appropriate form, with appropriate signatures, and returning the completed form to the Advising Office. Please refer to the Student Handbook for important financial information related to withdrawals.

The instructor's grading scale is as follows: A = 100-90. B = 89-80. C = 79-70. D = 69-60. E = 59-0.

VIII. Course Outline and Calendar. Please see Tentative Calendar below. The schedule of assignments is tentative, and departures from it will be announced at the class meeting prior to the change -- or via the Message Board. Students who miss class are responsible for keeping up with rescheduled assignments.

IX. Americans with Disabilities Act. Springfield College in Illinois/Benedictine University provides individuals with disabilities reasonable accommodations to participate in educational programs, activities, and services. Students with disabilities requiring accommodations to participate in campus-sponsored programs, activities, and services, or to meet course requirements, should contact the Director of the Resource Center as early as possible. If documentation of the disability (either learning or physical) is not already on file, it may be requested. Once on file, an individual student’s disability documentation is shared only at that individual’s request and solely with the parties whom the student wishes it shared. Requests are kept confidential and may be made by emailing jharris@sci.edu or by calling 217-525-1420, ext. 306.

X. Assessment. Goals, objectives, and learning outcomes that will be assessed in the class are stated in this syllabus. Instructor will use pre-tests and post-tests, background knowledge probes, directed paraphrasing, reflective essays or other Classroom Assessment Techniques as deemed necessary in order to provide continuous improvement of instruction. Students are required to take part in all assessment measures.

Tentative Calendar

Week 1
The basics. Read Jane Kirtley, Legal Foundations of Press Freedom in the United States"; and the John Jay School of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York's guide to writing case briefs. Lewis covered the Civil Rights movement and the U.S. Supreme Court for The New York Times. Kirtly is media ethics and law professor at the University of Minnesota. In order to meet your obligations under the law as a media professional, you should learn to think like a lawyer; knowing how to write briefs will help you accomplish this. And it will teach you more about logic than all the liberal arts courses in the world.

Week 2
Read the introduction to the First Amendment by Doug Linder, professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School. Be ready to answer the questions at the bottom of the webpage. Here's another one to chew on: Would voters OK the First Amendment today?

Week 3
Review the "Briefing on Media Law" in the AP stylebook. In my edition (2002) it's on pages 339-75; in more recent editions, page numbers will vary. Reading will be supplemented by the instructor.

Week 4
Read and be ready to discuss Patterson and Wilkins, Chapter 1 "an Introduction to Ethical Decision Making" and 2 "Information Ethics." We will choose case studies to go over in class.

Week 5
We will continue our discussion of Chapters 1 and 2 in P&W. I WILL ASSIGN THE MIDTERM [AN OPEN-BOOK TAKE-HOME ESSAY ON LAW, ETHICS AND HOW THE TWO ARE RELATED.

Week 6
Read P&W, Chapter 3, "Advertising Ethics." We will discuss selected cases in class. MIDTERM EXAM IS DUE. I WILL ASSIGN TERM PROJECT TOPIC.

Week 7
Read P&W, Chapter 4 on "Loyalty: Choosing Between Competing Allegiances."

Week 8
Read P&W, Chapter 5, "Public Relations: Standards of Advocacy."

Week 9
Read P&W, Chapter 6 on "Privacy ... in the Global Village"

Week 10
Read P&W, Chapter 8 "Media Economics"

Week 11
Read P&W, Chapter 9 "Mass Media in a Democratic Society."

Week 12
Read and be ready to discuss Patterson and Wilkins, Chapter 10 "New Media." In addition, download and read University of Tennessee law prof Glenn Reynolds' paper on libel in the blogosphere. Reynolds writes the widely read "Instapundit" blog, so he's given serious thought to the issue. RESEARCH PAPERS ARE DUE.

Week 13
Read P&W, Chapter 11, "Ethical Dimensions of Art and Entertainment."

Week 14
Read and be ready to discuss Patterson and Wilkins, Chapter 12 "Becoming a Moral Adult." Relax! You won't be preached at. The chapter is about how we develop our personal and professional ethical standards.

Final exam schedule TBA.

COMM 207 syllabus

Communications 207: Editing for Publication
Benedictine University - Springfield
Fall Semester 2009


www.sci.edu/faculty/ellertsen/comm207syllabus.html

"Remember the waterfront shack with the sign FRESH FISH SOLD HERE. Of course it's fresh, we're on the ocean. Of course it's for sale, we're not giving it away. Of course it's here, otherwise the sign would be someplace else. The final sign: FISH." -- Peggy Noonan, columnist, The Wall Street Journal

Communications 207 meets Tuesday and Thursday from 1 to 2:15 p.m. Monday in Dawson 220 (third-floor computer lab) on the SCI campus in Springfield. Instructor is Pete Ellertsen, 211 Beata Hall (old Ursuline convent), telephone 525-1420x519. e-mail: pellertsen@sci.edu. Office hours TBA. Home: 545 Feldkamp, Springfield, IL 62704. tel. 793-2587.

Course Description. Course Title: Editing for Publications. Course Number: COMM 207. Credits: 3.00. Introduction to the principles and practices of editing for books, magazines, and newspapers. Spring. Prerequisite: RHET 101 [English 111].

Textbooks. You have two: (1) "Modern News Editing" by Mark Ludwig and Gene Gilmore and (2) "The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual." Readings on the World Wide Web as indicated below in the Tentative Calendar.

Mission Statement: Benedictine University in Lisle is dedicated to the education of undergraduate and graduate students from diverse ethnic, racial and religious backgrounds. As an academic community committed to liberal arts and professional education distinguished and guided by our Roman Catholic tradition and Benedictine heritage, we prepare our students for a lifetime as active, informed and responsible citizens and leaders in the world community.

Goals, objectives and outcomes.

A. Goals. Students will understand the principles of editing for print media in an era of cross-platform convergence; editing as a management function; and publications design. Processing body copy and display type for maximum clarity and impact will be emphasized.

B. Student Learning Objectives. Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:
-- effectively edit stories without distorting them
-- write effective headlines and cutlines
-- use typography effectively
-- demonstrate the basics of publication design and the logic of packaging
-- apply AP stylebook rules.

Teaching Methods. Peer work, small group and whole classroom discussion (including participation in discussion on the Message Board linked to my faculty webpage), pre-writing, drafting and editing exercises; conferencing; and intervention in student writing processes.

Course Requirements.

A. Attendance Policy. Attendance is mandatory. To avoid class disruption, students in COM 207 must be on time. If a student misses class, is the student's responsibility to get class notes, assignments, etc., from classmates. Missed in-class work, by its very nature, cannot be made up. Absences will hurt your grade.

B. Reading Assignments. Please see the Tentative Calendar below. In addition to the readings outlined below, you will be responsible for readings posted to my weblog "The Mackerel Wrappper" at http://www.mackerelwrapper.blogspot.com/ and to our class blog, which I will create later on a web-based blogging service.

C. Written Assignments. You will do frequent in-class writing and editing exercises. Count on 1-2 per week. They must be written on deadline and completed by the end of that class period. Since speed, accuracy and being able to "think on your feet" are important values in the mass media, I will assign exercises without notice.

You will be required to post to the class web Log (blog), both in and out of class. I will create a blog titled "COMM207fall09" on Blogger and post assignments to it. The purpose of these exercises is to give you more experience with HTML (hypertext markup language) and publication to the World Wide Web.

Both the midterm and final exam will be a combination of essay and short definition questions; both are to be treated as deadline writing assignments in which accuracy, clarity and your ability to produce "clean copy" count toward your grade.

If you must be absent for good cause, I will whenever possible try to give you an opportunity to make up the work. But on some assignments, I simply will be unable to do so. especially if they involve editing "spot" news that cannot be repeated, e.g. a shooting or legislative debate. Please understand that absences will hurt your grade.

Means of Evaluation. Your final grade will be based on assignments weighted as follows: (A) class participation and in-class editing exercises to be assigned without notice, worth 50 percent of the total grade; (B) out-of-class written and editing exercises, including the midterm, worth 25 percent of the total; and (C) quizzes and tests including the midterm and the final exam, worth 25 percent.

Academic Integrity Statement. Academic and professional environments require honesty and integrity, and these qualities are expected of every student at Springfield College in Illinois/Benedictine University. In accordance with such expectations, academic integrity requires that you credit others for their ideas. Plagiarism, whether intentional or not, is a grievous offense. Any time you use words or ideas that are not your own, you must give credit to the author, whether or not you are quoting directly from that author. Failure to do so constitutes plagiarism. Any incident of plagiarism and/or academic dishonesty may result in serious consequences. Penalties for academic dishonesty vary depending on the severity or extent of the problem but are always serious.

The following are consequences you may face for academic dishonesty:
· a failing grade or “zero” for the assignment;
·dismissal from and a failing grade for the course; or
·dismissal from the Institution.

Please refer to the Springfield College in Illinois/Benedictine University Catalog or the Student Handbook for a complete discussion of the Academic Integrity policy.

Professionals in the communications industry are held to higher standards of ethics than others. Plagiarism can result in immediate termination from a job; if published works are plagiarized, the offense often involves copyright infringement, which is a violation of federal law. A standard legal reference defines plagiarism as “[t]he deliberate and knowing presentation of another person's original ideas or creative expressions as one's own” and explains: “Generally, plagiarism is immoral but not illegal. If the expression's creator gives unrestricted permission for its use and the user claims the expression as original, the user commits plagiarism but does not violate copyright laws. If the original expression is copied without permission, the plagiarist may violate copyright laws, even if credit goes to the creator. …" 8 Black's Law Dictionary 1187 (2004).

The instructor's grading scale. The grading scale is as follows: A = 100-90. B = 89-80. C = 79-70. D = 69-60. E = 59-0.

Grade Appeal Process. According to the Springfield College in Illinois/Benedictine University Catalog, grade appeals must be initiated 90 days prior to the end of one semester after the course in question has been completed. The process for appealing a grade is outlined below.

1. A student must appeal to his/her instructor in writing (e-mail is acceptable) and provide specific reasons why his/her grade should be changed.
2. The instructor must respond to the student in writing (e-mail is acceptable) and provide a copy to the division chair.

Second, contact the Division Chair.
3. If the student wishes, he/she may then appeal to the division chair in writing (e-mail is acceptable) and provide specific reasons why his/her grade should be changed without the instructor’s permission. The student should understand that overwhelming evidence must be presented to the division chair to prove that the current grade is incorrect.
4. The division chair must respond to the student in writing (e-mail is acceptable) and provide a copy to the academic dean.

Lastly, contact the Academic Dean.
5. If the student wishes, he/she may appeal to the academic dean in writing (e-mail is acceptable) and provide specific reasons why his/her grade should be changed without the instructor’s or the division chair’s permission. The student should understand that overwhelming evidence must be presented to the academic dean to prove the grade is incorrect.
6. The academic dean must respond to the student in writing (e-mail is acceptable). The academic dean’s decision is final.

Incomplete Request. To qualify for an “I” grade, a minimum of 75% of the course work must be completed with a passing grade, and a student must submit a completed Request for an Incomplete form to the Registrar’s Office. The form must be completed by both student and instructor, but it is the student’s responsibility (not the instructor’s) to initiate this process and obtain the necessary signatures.

Student Withdrawal Procedure. It is the student’s responsibility to officially withdraw from a course by completing the appropriate form, with appropriate signatures, and returning the completed form to the Advising Office. Please refer to the Student Handbook for important financial information related to withdrawals.

Add/Drop Dates. Last day to add courses is Aug. 28. Last day to drop a course without a "W" is Aug. 28. Last day to drop courses is Oct. 24.

VII. Course Outline and Calendar. The course outline is as follows:

A. Principles of print media editing across platforms
1.Editing in an age of convergence
2. News value, accuracy and objectivity
3. Journalistic values in PR and advertising
4. Management and copy flow
B. Editing -- getting it right
1. The "AP Stylebook" a basic tool
2. Getting it right -- working with words
3. Processing body copy and headlines
4. Editing wire service copy
C. Visuals in print media
1. Editors, words, text, art and design
2. Processing artwork for publication
D. Doing the right thing -- ethics
1. Imagination, accuracy and breaking news
2. Law and ethics
3. Policy and responsibility

The schedule of assignments below is tentative, and departures from it will be announced at the class meeting prior to the change -- or via the Message Board. Students who miss class are responsible for keeping up with rescheduled assignments.

VIII. Americans with Disabilities Act. Springfield College in Illinois/Benedictine University provides individuals with disabilities reasonable accommodations to participate in educational programs, activities, and services. Students with disabilities requiring accommodations to participate in campus-sponsored programs, activities, and services, or to meet course requirements, should contact the Director of the Resource Center as early as possible.

If documentation of the disability (either learning or physical) is not already on file, it may be requested. Once on file, an individual student’s disability documentation is shared only at that individual’s request and solely with the parties whom the student wishes it shared. Requests are kept confidential and may be made by emailing jharris@sci.edu or by calling 217-525-1420, ext. 306.

IX. Assessment. Goals, objectives, and learning outcomes that will be assessed in the class are stated in this syllabus. Instructor will use pre-tests and post-tests, background knowledge probes, directed paraphrasing, reflective essays or other Classroom Assessment Techniques as deemed necessary in order to provide continuous improvement of instruction. Students are required to take part in all assessment measures.


Tentative Calendar

Week 1. Read Ludwig and Gilmore, Chapter 1. Editing across platforms in an electronic era.
Week 2. Read Ludwig and Gilmore, Chapter 2. Deciding what's news; news ethics and other communications careers.
Week 3 Read Ludwig and Gilmore, Chapter 3-4. Newsroom management and editing.
Week 4. Read Ludwig and Gilmore, Chapter 5. Working with stories; AP style.
Week 5. Read Ludwig and Gilmore, Chapter 6-7. Working with words; headlines; more AP style
Week 6. MIDTERM EXAM.
Week 7. Read Ludwig and Gilmore, Chapter 8. Art and design.
Week 8. Read Ludwig and Gilmore, Chapter 9. Art, graphics and editing.
Week 9. Read Ludwig and Gilmore, Chapter 10. Wire copy.
Week 10. Read Ludwig and Gilmore, Chapter 11. Imagination.
Week 11. Read Ludwig and Gilmore, Chapter 12. Breaking news.
Week 12. Read Ludwig and Gilmore, Chapter 13-14. Law and ethics.
Week 13. Read Ludwig and Gilmore, Chapter 15. Law and responsibility.
Week 14. Review and assessment.
Final exam schedule TBA.