Searchlights and Sunglasses Chapter 4: Guided Reading Questions

1) According to the Knight Foundation, being an informed and engaged community means that a community is not just made aware of what's happening in the world, but they also must be willing to act upon that information and to engage with each other and the issues at hand. 2) The three examples of investigative journalism and the monetary impact they made are as follows: (1) ProPublica and NPR's investigation - $200 million, (2) the Center for Public Integrity and The Washington Post's investigation - $100 million, and (3) The Center for Investigative Reporting's investigation - $200 million. This combines to approximately half a billion dollars of social impact, and the lives saved and/or improved by these investigations are priceless. 3) Several thousands of journalism jobs have been cut within recent years. 4) Though education systems definitely share the blame as well, the author makes it clear that journalists themselves are somewhat to blame for news illiteracy in America since they chose not to tell people how news systems worked. 5) One way a journalism organization highlighted the impact of investigative reporters was through the hefty financial support the Knight Foundation granted in that area: the Knight Foundation invested millions of dollars in nonprofit investigative reporting. Journalism contests and conferences also serve to highlight investigative journalism. In addition, journalism schools can highlight investigative journalism by teaching 21st century literacies to all the students in their universities. 6) The problem before the Deerfield Forum was created in New Hampshire was that there were not many candidates in the city of Deerfield's local elections, no one seemed interested in trying to solve community problems, and the city had no newspaper to report to the citizens. After community volunteers began reporting for the Forum, the number of candidates for public office as well as voters at these elections have gone up and continue to do so. 7) In terms of revenue, digital advertising differs from print advertising in that despite the fact that online ads bring in less than a tenth of the money that print newspaper ads used to bring in, print advertising falls yearly and by 2015, the main source of revenue for newspaper companies may be digital. 8) According to the author, arts journalism is doing well nationally while it is not doing well locally. The author uses the fact that there film critics prosper on the web as an example of the state of national journalism. 9) According to the author, every major upward spike in U.S. election turnout has come during a time when new forms of mass media arose. 10) The mistake that traditional news media has made with their websites is that they encourage anonymous comments on their websites. 11) News organizations can better engage their community by having conventions with community representatives. 12) Community engagement with a news story oftentimes leads to the creation of a change of sorts. 13) One can find a journalism code of ethics on the websites of news organizations. 14) Digital media definitely does create new ethical concerns of journalists and citizens, partly due to the opportunities for anonymity which leaves many thinking they can get away with even the harshest and nastiest of criticism. It also does create potential to deal with those problems, however, starting with the availability of journalism codes of ethics on news organizations' home pages on their websites. 15) Personally, I try and abide by this common rule regarding web ethics: if you have nothing good to say, say nothing at all. Therefore, I do not talk about anyone or anything in a demeaning way on the Internet, for I know it is unethical and that it can lead to further complications.