Story Archives of 'Journalism'

Many complain TV news has been reduced to entertainment and sensationalism, replacing serious stories on issues that matter with stories of celebrities, courtroom trials, fires and crime stories. But a longtime TV reporter and author of a book on broadcast news says that if you look closer, you may be able to learn something from the newscasts you see on TV.

Guests

• Steve Powers, veteran journalist and author of How To Watch TV News
• Robert Thompson, Trustee Professor of Television and Popular Culture at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University

We'll also hear from

• David Hatcher, assistant news director for WBZ TV News in Boston

Since we started Word of Mouth two months ago, we've received many topic suggestions from listeners, many of which became on-air segments. One listener has written several times, encouraging us to examine the headlines on CNN.com.

One of his emails – with the subject line "Is CNN now the Weekly World News?" – underscores headlines like "Cannibalistic Iguana Chokes On Toy Lizard" and "Six-Legged Kitty Named Hex Needs Surgery."

CNN's headlines have been the focus of some humor and chagrin in the blogosphere, and it seems like the network itself is getting into the game - you can now buy official CNN t-shirts printed with its own campy headlines.

But kidding aside, if solid journalism from one of America's leading news sources is eroding, that can be a serious matter. Keene State media professor Mark Timney volunteered to perform an unscientific, one-week survey of CNN.com's coverage for us, and he joined Word of Mouth to tell us what he found.

Professor Timney created a pie chart that breaks down CNN.com's content over a one-week period. Click on the thumbnail to expand.

(Photo by Shawn Honnick)

Controversy is swirling over three Presidential forums scheduled for this weekend in New Hampshire...because they will exclude less-popular candidates. The media sponsors say their goal is a deeper discussion among leading contenders, but their decision has caused an outcry...that shutting certain people out is un-democratic. We'll look at the controversy...and how presidential debates have evolved this year, with such a long campaign season and so many candidates.

Guests

• Andy Smith, Associate Professor of Political Science at UNH and Director of the UNH Survey Center, the state's leading poll organization.
• Thomas Patterson, Professor of Government and the Press for the Shorenstein Center at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He is also the author of several books, including "Out of Order", about the media's political role and "The Vanishing Voter", looking at the decline in electoral participation.

He's a former publisher, a reporter, a storyteller, a lover of the outdoors and a loyal fan of New Hampshire’s North Country, and throughout his career John Harrigan's been able to meld all those facets of his life together. His column “Woods, Water and Wildlife” has been a fixture in the Union Leader for the last 32 years celebrating the beauty of New Hampshire’s outdoors; while his other column “North Country Notebook” is now run in twelve weekly newspapers. He’s the former owner and publisher of three newspapers in Northern New Hampshire and in 1997, was declared First Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for getting his paper out the night of the Colebrook shootings, in which his editor, his longtime companion and two police friends were killed. All throughout his career Harrigan has celebrated his North Country while seeing it change before his eyes. For our next installment of our 25 in 25 series, we look at how the North Country has changed and how it's stayed the same over the last quarter century with Colebrook reporter and raconteur John Harrigan.

Guest

• John Harrigan, former owner and publisher of the Colebrook News and Sentinel, and columnist for the New Hampshire Sunday News and for Salmon Press Group.

NHPR's Jon Greenberg talks with Brooke Gladstone, cohost of NPR's On the Media, about the media's role in shaping the news, especially in terms of the presidential race. The event took place in front of a live audience at the New Hampshire Historical Society Library in Concord.