by Chad Painter
Lester Bangs, who proved that writing about rock can be just as exhilarating as playing it. (Photo: Stephanie Chernikowski)
CLEVELAND, April 4, 2009—“Le Freak” is blasting from the speakers as disco legends Chic step to the stage and are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
While Chic has no business being rock hall-of-famers, that’s a discussion for another day; the Cleveland institution has a long tradition of inducting non-rockers such as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five (rap), Miles Davis (jazz), Parliament-Funkadelic (funk), Bob Marley (reggae) and the Bee Gees (bad pop).
And while the RRHF has honored David Crosby, Eric Clapton and three-fourths of the Beatles multiple times, it has only opened its doors for music journalists twice: for former Billboard editor Paul Ackerman and Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner. (more…)
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by Chad Painter
Chickens in newspaper... ahem. (Source: hot-screensaver.com)
Katie Couric isn’t known for her hard questions, and it seemed like she was throwing a softball to Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin when she asked at one point in the now-infamous CBS Evening News interview “…what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?”
Couric’s seemingly simple question, though, was tougher than it sounded: Palin could have given one of five possible answers.
Option 1: “I’m not going to answer that question, and here’s why…” (more…)
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by Chad Painter
Faye Dunaway in "Network" (1976)
People say a lot of things about journalism. That the reporting is one-sided and subjective. That reporters would rather than get the story first than get it right. That editors are more concerned with selling sex and sports than reporting worthwhile stories.
But one thing that can’t be denied is that people are fascinated by journalists. That’s why there are so many movies about the profession. Here’s a list of the ten best movies (excluding documentaries) about journalists and their craft. (more…)
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by Chad Painter
Barack Obama held a four point lead over John McCain in Sunday’s Gallup poll of “national voter preference for the presidential election.” The good news for McCain is that he had closed the gap since Saturday, when Obama led 50 percent to 44 percent. The bad news for McCain is that he led the poll by two points on Sept. 14.
At the time of Sunday’s poll, the election—the only poll that actually matters—was still 44 days away. This horse racing of the campaign is way too early to matter. (more…)
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Clyde Bentley speaking at the Missouri Centennial (Video: EWS)
By Chad Painter
The Missouri School of Journalism celebrated its 100th birthday last week with three days of panels, symposiums and barbecue. What follows is a semi-coherent wrap-up of what one person learned by attending. I haven’t figured out a way to clone myself yet, so I could only be at one event at a time. If you gained some wisdom that you don’t see here, please post it to the “Comments” section. Enough of my yapping; let’s boogie.
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The Missourian is losing money. One million dollars worth, in fact. With the amount of brainpower coming together for the journalism school’s Centennial, it’s high time to put our heads together and come up with a solution.
By Chad Painter
The people behind the past and present of the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism are taking time this week to give themselves a well-deserved pat on the back. Missouri’s journalism program is celebrating its centennial September 10-12 with a series of events, symposiums, and gatherings, but will anyone mention the white elephant in the room? The school’s flagship daily newspaper, the Missourian, is sinking in the red faster than the Titanic sank in the Atlantic.
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by Chad Painter
It has become fashionable in journalism circles to blame Rupert Murdoch for the fall of the profession, and Murdoch certainly should receive part of the blame. His NewsCorp, which transformed the New York Post into a paper propped up by the twin evils of gossip and sensationalism, invented the tabloid TV show format with A Current Affair and created the ultra-partisan, ultra-conservative Fox News Channel, which brought the screaming-head talk show format to new heights with Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity.
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by Chad Painter
Teachers teach because they can’t do, the old saying goes. But do critics critique because they can’t perform? Should all music critics be able to play music? There’s little debate that it helps to have first-hand experience in a given subject. But is it truly necessary?
The first complaint lobbied by a musician, artist, or filmmaker after getting a negative review is that the critic isn’t qualified to comment because he or she has never picked up a guitar, paint brush, or camera. Is that complaint valid — that is, must a critic know how to play a G7 chord in order to justify his opinion that a band’s new album sucks?
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by Chad Painter
The Mount Rushmore of Journalism would feature the busts of David Halberstam, Seymour Hersh, WoodStein (the collective representation of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein) and Gay Talese.
Talese made his name as a reporter for the New York Times and Esquire in the 1960s; his “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” could be the single greatest piece of journalism ever written. With a collection of other writers, he invented the storytelling, reporting, and writing style known as the New Journalism.
In The Gay Talese Reader: Portraits and Encounters, Talese gives advice to young, aspiring journalists. It boils down to: be curious, and never write for money.
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by Chad Painter
Tuesday was primary day here in Missouri. A primary is basically an election before the general election, in which the two major political parties decide who is going to run as that party’s representative for office.
A nagging question persists each primary season: Should journalists, whose very core is a sense of unbiased reporting, join political parties and vote in primaries?
