AI goes out of its way to be wrong, so don’t trust it yet
By Howie Boxley Rachel Pollack, a renowned author, artist, and tarot expert, passed away on April 7, 2023, at the age of 75. Pollack’s death was confirmed by her publisher, Llewellyn Worldwide, who stated that she had died peacefully at her home in the Hudson Valley, New York. Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1948, […]
What is ‘truth’ in documentaries? Sometimes, it’s a meltdown of a letdown.
By Benton Davis In 2019, HBO released a five-part miniseries about the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster. In the opening minutes of the first episode, we see a Soviet scientist hang themselves, deliberately doing so two years later to the second from the initial disaster. The scientist, named Valery Legasov and portrayed by Jared Harris, did commit […]
Privacy and the dead man from S-Town
By Hannah Saad Brian Reed, a producer with NPR’s This American Life, was looking for new story ideas when John B. McLemore, a resident of Woodstock, Alabama, contacted him to investigate a possible cover-up of a murder in Bibb County. Reed and McLemore corresponded through phone calls and emails and eventually, Reed traveled to Woodstock […]
Figures lie and liars figure: Journalists should be wary of bias behind numbers
By Serena Bailey In the immediate wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy group that works to reduce gun violence, tweeted that the Parkland shooting had been the 18th school shooting of the year. This statistic was shared by Bernie Sanders and New York […]
Associated Press stylebook needs to step it up on language for covering the disabled community
By Zoe Norberg In the past several years, the Associated Press has added chapters ranging from social media to religion, and most recently, data journalism to the categorized section in the back of the AP Stylebook. Nevertheless, an in-depth chapter about the proper usage of disability language is absent from the stylebook––instead, this topic is […]
How social media fed information about a Marine’s death
By Sonya Haines When a Marine, Private First Class (PFC) Ethan Barclay-Weberpal, was murdered at Camp Pendleton in January 2018 media outlets across the nation began scrambling to gain the most up-to-date information available. The original story did not surface from the Associated Press (AP), therefore, many news outlets turned to social media to gather […]
Lying ethics and ethical lying: How effective communication is a twisted business
By Mackenzie McClintock Start with constant criticism from high-profile government officials about news coverage. Then mix in increasingly prevalent screams of “Fake News!” directed at the media. That breaking news statistics piece was also slightly incorrect due to the source’s miscalculation, so issue an apology statement. The story will stir itself and result in a […]
Dove ad shows some dirty racism
By DE Harry A Dove Facebook advertisement went viral on social media this past Sunday, Oct. 8, 2017. The GIF displayed three women taking off their skin-colored shirts, revealing the next underneath. The transition from the black woman to the white woman made headlines. The company received backlash from viewers of the advertisement labeling it […]
Not all opinions should be treated equally
By Maddy Ard Richard Spencer has some rather unpopular opinions. The outspoken white supremacist delivered a speech advocating for an ethno-white state on Oct. 17, 2017, at the University of Florida. Though vastly outnumbered by protesters demonstrating against Spencer, it seems Spencer’s supporters made the biggest waves. About an hour after Spencer’s speech, a non-fatal […]