Are We in the Dark?

The major magazines in the US have a lot to think about when deciding on a cover for their latest issue. Because most magazines come out monthly, their editors know that people will be passing the newsstands and laying eyes on their cover layout decision for 3 to 4 weeks, so it must be impactful as well as having a good shelf life. This is a much bigger job than just piecing together pretty pictures.

To complicate this matter, most of our major magazine publishers in America also distribute their wares to other markets abroad like Asia and Europe. Now they have to design a cover that will suit those very-different tastes. It must take a wealth of knowledge of foreign cultures and plenty of boots on the ground overseas to ensure that their cover layout has the impact intended and does not offend.

Now let us flip this concept a bit. What if the US magazines found it easier to be impactful in the foreign markets, but were afraid of the consequences of their actions here in America? Does that sound a bit Orwellian to you? Well, it is a fact and there is proof on Time Magazine’s own website, where they show you what the covers of their different magazines look like in a given month.

Check out the website linked above and go back through the past year’s publications.

Am I really A Journalist?

The Skyline Journalism Department considers all Journalism 120 students as members: that also goes for 110 students and of course the staff working on The Skyline View itself. We can all write stories with hopes of eventually getting them published in the paper. We can do everything a big city paper can do, we write opinion pieces, feature, news and sports articles, but there is one tool that we are not afforded as student journalists—we are not issued press credentials.

Possessing press credentials or passes can get you behind the scenes and right to the meat of the story, but student journalists find it hard to get approved for one.

Recently, a sexual assault occurred on Skyline’s campus and it was a member of The Skyline View staff that broke the story via Twitter, but when the student journalist was trying to obtain more information from the San Bruno Police, he was turned away because of his lack of credentials. The newspaper’s faculty adviser, Nancy Kaplan-Biegel, was even on the phone with the San Bruno Police testifying to authenticity of the reporter…to no avail.

This was The Skyline View’s story, and our newspaper had to sit on its hands and wait for “legitimate” news agencies expand on the story.

I really have no point here other than this just being a sad tale.

Lèse Majesté

Journalism is sometimes a hard and thankless job, and sometimes journalists are even willing to go to jail in order to ensure the journalistic ethic of protecting the identity of a source. Nevertheless, when a journalist decides to stick by their guns and go to jail for this, it is their choice to do so. So imagine you are a journalist or blogger that is going to jail, not for what you wrote, but for something, someone else wrote. That is the fate of many journalists, bloggers, and even Facebook users in the Kingdom of Thailand.

Thailand has a much-revered King is so loved that laws are in place to protect his image from even the slightest of disparaging comments. These are called laws of lese majeste, the term derives from the France, and means “injured majesty”.

 Now as any seasoned visitor to Thailand knows, it is always a good practice not to talk about the Thai royal family at all for fear that even a nice comment you make about the royals will be interpreted as negative.

These laws are the reason why if you visit any blog, newspaper website, or even a Facebook account based out of Thailand, the comments sections below the posts are disabled. They do this because these laws are so strict, that even if somebody else makes a comment on your blog that disparages the Thai royals, you are held responsible as the blogs owner, and you will go to jail. That is even if you deleted the comment to moment you first saw it.

           

 I plan on living in Thailand in the future, but I’m not sure if I will even bother to operate a blog when I am there…too risky.

            

Regis

We have just begun to touch upon broadcast media in our Journalism 120 class and it has struck me, and I’m sure others as well, just how different writing for broadcast is from print journalism.

One of these aspects is the “split script” that conveys both what appears in video on one side, and audio on the other.

That being said, it has led me to appreciate the ability of certain TV personality’s ability to read from teleprompters in a way that leads us to forget that they are reading at all.

Of course, the ability to flawlessly read from teleprompters is not just reserved for TV journalists.

(This begins my awkward transition into an article about Regis Philbin.)

Regis Philbin is not a journalist by trade, but an entertainer, and he has amassed more on-air screen time than anybody else on record with 16,700 hours on television.

Now, after over fifty years in show business, Philbin is retiring from his long-running morning show, LIVE! with Regis & Kelly.

What is amazing about such a long career in show business, is the long list of luminaries Philbin has been able to work with, from Joey Bishop, to Jack Paar (I will now wait for you kids to Google those names).

Waiting…

                        Waiting…

                                                Pretty impressive, huh?