Dorothy Thompson

 

Dorothy Thompson born July 9, 1893 and died January 30, 1961. Dorothy was an American journalist and broadcaster in which she reached a huge audience in the late 1930s. At that time she was seen as "aggressive" however she got her message across because she became a prominent American journalist and radio personality. She was one of the few women news commentators on the radio in the 1930s. She had a thrice-weekly column in The New York Herald Tribune that was published in about 130 papers throughout the country. Her estimated audience reach was ten million people.

 In 1931 she interviewed Adolph Hitler and wrote an article "I saw Hitler, warning of the threat he posed." The interview request took time to get approved but it finally did in 1931 however under strict rules. In which she could only ask him three questions and had to be submitted a full day in advance. Her weekly broadcast talked about the truth of Nazism, she wanted American involvement in the war. Her purpose was to warn Americans about the threat that Nazi Germany posed to the democracy and to Europe's Jews. She actually became the first American journalist to be deported form Nazi Germany in 1934. 

Dorothy was married to a Hungarian Jew and had various jewish acquaintance in middle Europe. Dorothy career as a columnist and broadcaster started after Hitler deported Dorothy from Germany. She had also disagreed with fascism in Europe and campaign against it for the victims. She seems to distinguish between bad and good and fight for the right cause even if it doesn't affect her at all. In 1939 she was on the cover of TIME magazine and was named the second most influential woman in the country after Eleanor Roosevelt. After 1920 she became anti-Zionist and went against the creation of the state of Israel and through that several newspapers dropped her column. 

Good luck and Good night

 Good luck and good night is a drama and history movie from 2005. Some of the cast consist of George Clooney, Tom McCarthy and Patricia Clarkson. What is meant by the phrase Good Luck and good night is referring to the communist scare of early 1950s that media had to revolt against the censorship due to fear of communism in the United States. The movie started at a dinner party where Ed Murrow giving a speech about journalism was only concerned in reporting the good stories not the ones that speak the awful truth. Ed Murrow is basically bad mouthing journalism expressing how they are not doing a good job.   

The McCarthy era when personal civil liberties were stepped on by the government through unnecessary conviction without trial or representation. Individuals were concerned about their welfare so they could do anything to get by. People began not trusting the government due to the unlawful treatments and governments exploitation threats of terrorist attacks in the Cold War. During that time the administration of the government was all hush-hush and would not share any necessary information to citizens. The government would intentionally read a message transmitted through telephone without the permission of all parties. Corruption through dishonesty and illegal behavior by the people who worked for the government and had power. The government would provide misinformation to citizens. There was a practice of appointing friends and associates to position of authority even without the qualifications for the job. 

The overall lesson of the movie is to show that overcoming something that feels impossible such as the government even though they have so much power compared to the average person, it can still be down through consistency and determination. "It shows how a small group dedicated to the forces for honesty and integrity overcame great odds and brought down a corrupt government bureaucracy." The movie ends with concluding the speech from the beginning of the movie saying "Television can continue to be mindless programming that distracts the public from the real issues, or an opportunity to inform and educate people to make a better world." Considering that the the person that was giving the speech was at the dinner party in his honor for his contribution to television, it says a lot about the how television can be used for progression rather than just entertainment. Television could make a big impact on the societal outlets, views, and influence change. A new face of journalism could thrive through media production and create a more justified nation by staying updated on important news. 

Journalism Heroes; The Modern Era: Women's pages

 Women's Pages

Women pages was first appeared out in New York in the 1890s and it then other newspapers that covered society, food and fashion adopted it. It was essential to have a women's pages in their newspaper. Women's pages was exactly what it's name entailed, a section in the newspaper dedicated to woman themselves. Written by women and read by women. However the only things that were covering in the women's pages was no other than the typically chatter women's in the 1890s should have only been talking about. Clothes, baking, shopping and cleaning. Women's pages were covered with headlines such as "Crystal White Soap, for the laundry, and "Simple frocks for local graduates" also "Feminine chat". It was supposed to be like how the sport sections is for men but the women's pages were for the women. Not at all was it supposed to be looked at as if it was including the women in the news to keep them informed by instead to making more money by widening their audience. 

By the 1950s and 1960s Dorthy Journey, Vivian Castleberry and Marj Paxson were journalist that became the women's pages editors. People considered women's pages as "fake news" because they were writing about birth control and abortion. Their news was considered fluff in which everyone already knew those issues were common in society. It would have been more juicy news if while reporting it they tried to change it. Another comment about women's pages was that "They were doing good journalism, they were just wearing hats and white gloves because that's what society required of them." -Kim Voss 

Through the growing feminist movement women's issues were important as the news that made the front page. Journey, Castleberry and Paxson amplified women's issues. Covering battered women, new economic models for childcare and the spread of feminism in depth then any front page on a newspaper. Through this outspoken bold move from these women's pages editors, there was a transition that changed the organization of the newspaper from men and women to work and leisure. This was a big deal because there wasn't an obvious separation between sexes. The first paper to achieve the transition was the Washington Post on January 6, 1969. Ben Bradlee was the editor at the time and his reason for changing the organization was to "treat women as people and not as appendages to men". 

Collateral Murder- Wiki Leaks

During the first international war, more commonly known as WWI there were many Americans that were anti-war. The progressive era, 70% people were against the war. The Espionage Act was government employees who spoke against the war were thrown in jail. Government employees who spoke against the war were called whistle blowers. It was expected that the employees work with the government that did corrupted things and not speak against it. During Bush’s administration whistleblowers were thrown in jail for 7 years. The Sedition Act punished those who were anti-war but through a private sector. In 1989 congress passed the Whistleblower Protection Act to “strengthen and improve protection for the rights of federal employees, to prevent reprisals, and to help eliminate wrongdoing within the government.” One-way whistleblowers were protected per se was being able to release information while keeping their identity protected. However, the government created other laws that didn’t give federal employees much protection, also found ways to ruined their lives. 

 

Wiki-Leaks is an international and non-profit organization that publishes news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources. Bradley Manning, worked for the army and leaked corrupt information about the government to Julian Assange the founder of WikiLeaks. Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified videos of torture to WikiLeaks a 3^rd party publisher. The video we saw in class was a United States helicopter in Iraq shooting a van that resulting in 12 individuals at the scene dying except two children who were injured in the van. Two of those individuals were journalist, Namir Nour El Deen and Saeed Chmagh, who worked for the Reuters news agency. The video was unedited footage from the point of view from the helicopter cockpit. You can hear the soldiers demanding to fire and urging for permission to fire. It sounded like they enjoyed it based on my opinion. However, this was one of various videos that were uploaded to WikiLeaks and is also now uploaded to YouTube. 

 

A journalist from Australia who was in London at the time. Collateral murder WikiLeaks Iraq Julian Assange was sentence for 120 years due to USA government. Ecuador offered Julian asylum, so his life consisted of being trapped in Ecuador for 7 years. However, with the Extradition treaty which is the United States has treaties with more than 100 countries and the agreement various from country to country. If a person who has been charged with a crime flees to another country, they can be trial in that country if there is an extradition treaty. The treaty is a way is that the United States could reached into another country and ignore another’s countries rules, basically kidnapping. Since Julian was in hiding in Ecuador and nowhere to be found, the government went after his family through harassments. A supreme court case Bartnkiki v. Vopper: A third public publisher is not liable for information obtained illegally if the third public publisher was not involved in the illegal activity. A journalist passing it to the government is susceptible to punishment. 

The government tried to accused Julian Assange of being part of it by accusing him of hacking the government to get information. The British violated due process by holding Julian Assange in solitary confinement without an actual charge. The government did that in an attempt for Julian Assange to die in jail. Since the government couldn’t use the Espionage act and Sedition act so they tried to use a false rape allegation. Through the false rape allegations, even though the woman stated that it was not rape the government was producing a chilling effect. The government knew they couldn’t win legally so instead they ruined his life. As of April 20th 2022, A British judge in London formally approved the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States to face spying charges, However the case is now up to Britain's interior minister for a decision.