Enemy waters
Public’s view of journalism dismisses its ideals '
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Nearly daily, as a testament to the
dedication people have to rooting out
evil in the world, I am posed a single,
solitary question: “You’re joining the
media?”
The term media has come to
replace journalism much like ambu
lance-chaser replaced lawyer and
quack replaced doctor. It’s a term
lightly sprinkled with abuse and hint
ing at vile connotations.
After all, people tell me, the
media killed Princess Diana, the
media were responsible for the
Lewinsky debacle, the media shoved
the O.J. trial down the throats of
unwilling victims.
Hell, you’d think it was the media
who crucified Christ if the public had
its way. Only if we had exclusive cov
erage, though.
As a strapping young lad, I found
myself wandering into the field of
journalism for many reasons, but the
single moment that had me convinced
traces back to one little movie
ii was duuui wuuuMcui emu mis
little story they were working on.
“Woodstein” was Bob Woodward and
Carl Bernstein (played by Robert
Redford and Dustin Hoffman), and
the little story they were working on
brought down President Nixon.
The movie was “All the
President’s Men.” You should watch it
sometime if you think journalists
don’t do anything worthwhile.
But the public has confused the
media with journalists.
Journalists are concerned with
bringing the facts to the people, a
deeper search for the truth. The media
merely want your attention so they
can get paid.
And the number of people getting
into journalism declines every year.
UNL, which has a very highly
ranked journalism school, has seen
enrollment in that school go down.
“I think, apparently, there is less
interest in the profession,” Daryl
Frazell, associate professor and chair
man of the news-editorial department
told me. “As you notice, we don’t
have as much faculty.”
Frazell has often struck me as a
little intimidating, but after our dis
cussion I think I’ve come to under
stand it’s just a really good poker face.
The face of journalism, on the
other hand, reveals a great deal about
the changes of the past 10 years.
And the rnlleee has ehanaed with
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er enrollment means fewer teachers
and fewer classes offered.
But journalism is going through a
paradigm shift, and the college does
have to reflect that, re-evaluating the
news-editorial department.
Magazines may be the print medi
um of the future. Or the Web could
replace paper publications, eventual
ly
The school must prepare students
to compete in the field of tomorrow.
But it also has an obligation to pro
duce responsible professionals.
Still, no school can do it all, and
not even schools can be held account
able for a regrettable decline of jour
nalistic values.
Shoddy journalism is the public’s
fault. In many cases, the public has
stopped discriminating between good
journalism and bad journalism.
This lack of support for good jour
nalism means that any ol’ schmuck
can walk in and start work in the
media. This means the field isn’t
drawing the dedicated people it once
did.
“The thing that I’m finding thal
isn’t as strong as it once was is the
kind of zeal for this profession thal
once existed, based on the idea thal
journalists are out finding out as
much as they can about the truth and
publicizing it for the good of the soci
ety ” Fra7ell tnld me
fcfc
More frequently today, journalists appear to
be seen by the public as intrusive, arrogant
and rather useless - preying on society.
Daryl Frazell
chairman of the UNL news-editorial department
“More frequently today, journal
ists appear to be seen by the public as
intrusive, arrogant and rather useless
- preying on society,” Frazell said,
“and that’s highly disturbing to me.
But that image is part of the problem
with recruiting students.”
Over the past 10 years, I’ve heard
the media described as too liberal,
conservative, intrusive, timid, useless,
outdated, unfocused, bull-headed,
stubborn and foolish.
When the Lewinsky affair broke,
the public saw the media as “giving it
too much attention,” such as one per
son told me. I retorted, “How should
the press ignore the possible
impeachment of the president? Just
because we don’t cover it won’t make
it go away.”
People want to kill the messengers
for the news they don’t want to hear.
The distrust of the media springs from
people’s distrust of politicians, the
court svstem and the world in peneral
Society is cynical, and they’re blam
ing the wrong folk.
The truth hurts, babe, and there's
no way around it. Good medicine
stings the hardest, and this is a dou
ble-barrel blast of realism whiskey
down your throat.
It’s going to take efforts on the
part of both the journalism school, the
students and the public to get the
focus of journalism back to where it
needs to be, no matter what the forum.
You need to join the fight.
Stick the needle in your vein. Tell
people the truth. Write free or die.
And tell ’em you want the truth, and
that no price is too high. That’ll get
their attention.
The journalism guerrilla still
encourages you to aid in the fight. All
communiques should he sent to jour
nalisticwarfc(re(ahotmail.com.
All pleas for mercy w ill he duly
ignored
Cliff Hicks is a senior news-editorial and English major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
The sport and the fury
Husker football’s bells and whistles destroy joys of the game
Did you know “beautiful people”
is a legitimate phrase? You can actu
ally look it up in the dictionary, and
there it is: wealthy, fashionable peo
ple of the leisure class.
(There is no such phrase as “ugly
people,” at least according to
Webster’s, but there is “ugly duck
ling,” which, of course, turns out to
be beautiful.)
I’m one of the lucky and fortu
nate souls who gets to see those
beautiful folks week in and week out
strolling into Memorial Stadium jet
setting their way up the skyboxes,
which, during gameday, is off-limits
to media dregs like me.
since we all walk in the same
west stadium entrance, I get to brush
shoulders with some of these folks,
folks I like to call the “breeze peo
ple” because they’re always doing
something with their hair because
the breeze keeps messing it up. And
to quote some lady right outside the
entrance, “See those people? Those
aren’t clothes from Kmart they’re
wearing.”
As I went up the elevator a sec
ond time that day, I stood with some
of these fine people. Did you ever
notice that beautiful people have
screwed-up laughs? Where’d they get
them? Not even laughs really, as they
are punctuations of breath every few
seconds. They’re practiced laughs, of
course, because they’re so used to
being pleased. Pleasure (plus leisure)
is what it’s all about.
There’s no age breakdown, but I
suspect this new class of skybox fel
lows are younger than the old crones
who used to sit up there. I’m not sure
Samuel McKewon is a junior news-editorial and political science major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist
tnat s a good tiling. Actually, i m not
sure that any of it is. Newer, younger,
more expensive? Thanks, but when it
comes to football, I’ll take old, even
older and cheap.
I'm not a sports purist. How
could I be? I was born in 1977, well
after Monday Night Football had
started and just as college basketball
was to hit the big time. But I respect
simplicity. I respect the game. I
respect sports unfiltered.
I wonder if that's happening at
Memorial Stadium on Saturday.
More and more, the game is becom
ing cluttered with noise pollution
and the ever booming voice of the
PA announcer. More beautiful, if you
will, with a lot less substance.
There’s the distraction they call
HuskerVision, which no matter how
much I might want it to disappear,
never will. It manages to pollute all it
comes in contact with.
Right before the game, did we
get to know who won the coin toss?
Hell no, because we had to “direct
our attention to the field” as there
was a ceremony to induct new mem
bers into the Nebraska Hall of Fame.
Of course, there were many better
times this could have been done, but
what the hell, why not?
I nen mere was a commercial ot
sorts for Nebraska football, I think,
where four guys played characters
who stole Husker stuff and wor
shipped it before the game. It was
about four minutes long. There went
a couple thousand right down the
drain.
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve
ever seen,” said one sportswriter. He
was right.
It’s always interesting to note that
most photographers can’t do much
with the Husker players for feature
portraits except take their picture
somewhere in the stadium. Not too
many fancy things we could do, even
if we wanted to. But it’s always good
to see Willie Miller had time to run
down to a swimming pool and do a
skit for HuskerVision, which was
snown alter he scored a touch
down Saturday.
The skit was called “Free V
Willy.” I IuskerVision must have %
forgotten how to spell Miller’s
first name.
All game long that thing
never shuts up, updating
us on Flusker
sports that finished ^
play in the spring or running
that commercial. Then came
the “ask a Husker” session,
where some baby-faced
child asked quarterback Eric ^
Crouch what to do when you
had to go to the bathroom on ... ™
the field. “Hold it in,” Eric ~
said. There goes another couple
thousand.
Since when,
I wonder, did '
sports become a non-stop
listening barrage? Only baseball has
retained some of its purity, although
barely so. Basketball games repre
sent rap concerts. Football games at
Nebraska have become a continuous
running commentary. I think the
Huskers employ about 2,000 cheer
leaders and dancers that skitter about
the field week in and week out, full
of sound and fury, signifying noth
ing.
And who can we thank for this
diversionary affair? The same people
who got their phrase in the dictio
nary.
The beauties love entertainment.
They love having a full-stocked
fridge of meats and cheeses and the
occasional cocktail they’ve been told
(nudge and wink) they’re not sup
posed to have. They love having
flowers delivered to their box.
They love having a piano player -
a piano player! - at the game to
soothe their emotions after a rough
day of watching football. They love
walking out to their Cadillac utility
vehicles - there is such a thing now -
and breaking out another round of
meats and cheeses.
Beauties love a show. And since
Athletic Director Bill Byrne got
here, that’s exactly what he’s given
them, for better or for worse.
I understand, now, why the old
boosters didn’t care for Byrne. They
realized, as I do, that all of the pomp
and circumstance was useless, point
less. They didn’t want their ticket
prices raised. What did they care
about improvements? They liked the
game just the way it was.
So did I. The games when 1 was
younger - five times more intense.
The Oklahoma games were howlers.
The crowd got itself pumped up on
its own, no help. They’d boo calls
they thought were bad, but never
really knew (there’s freedom in
uncertainty).
ii was iootoan, noi a social eveni,
not a display for the beautiful people
to clap and enjoy, then sign up for
another couple million. It’s still foot
ball, but not nearly as much. There
are too many people involved now;
too many folks on the coattails of the
Big Red Machine.
People scurry about with head
sets on, coordinating things that need
not be coordinated. They’ve made up
jobs, hell, whole new departments,
just to help promote the team.
Nebraska football is the sweetest of
all pecan pies. Everybody wants a
piece.
Friday night I went to a high
school game. Wahoo vs. Fremont
Bergan. Complete blowout. About a
thousand fans, tiny little band at half
time, scratchy PA announcer.
It was perfect, though, because it
was football. It was sports. I asked for
no more and was given what I asked
for. The game left me full; I didn’t
throw up because of all the extra
sweets on the dessert tray.
At Nebraska, the course has been
set already. You can’t tear the skyboxes
down, you can’t un-install
HuskerVision. Those people up in the
skyboxes, it’s their game now, and
Kmart ain’t invited.
Screw me, too. I’m in the minority
here. Lord knows, the 5-year-old chil
dren like the games a lot more now.
It’s all well and good, as long as
Nebraska keeps on winning. The
Comhuskers must do that.
Because those beautiful people,
they get mighty bored, mighty fast.
After all, they’re used to getting enter
tained just about everywhere they go.