Yesterday we of the Elite Eight had the privilege of sitting down with Sandra Knispel. We chatted about her previous involvement with the Teacher Corps and the role of the Media in our society. Ms. Knispel is a journalist who works for National Public Radio and Mississippi Public Broadcasting, et al. She recently won an award for Best News Story from the Mississippi AP Broadcasters Association, reporting on social issues in the Delta. She’s altogether a fascinating woman, and especially fun to talk to because of her mixed German-British-Mississippian accent, which makes for a calm, cool, radio-ideal voice.
She really began the chat by asking us what our impressions of the Media were. I don’t think I said anything, but I would have given honestly negative feedback, mostly because my only exposure to the Media has been through the larger television broadcasters. It’s clear that she wanted to challenge the negative view of the Media, and get us to think of journalists as individuals, not as an underground organization plotting together to blind the lesser American minions.
She had a lot to say about it. I was struck by how little I had really exposed myself to it. Other people check out the paper, or get it online at least, or read various periodicals, or listen to the radio, or watch investigative journalism on television. I don’t do any of that on a regular basis. I think the only real exposure I’ve had recently to the Media was when my step-father was listening to the Glenn Beck show (it’s no suprise, then, that I had a sour taste in my mouth); and I’m pretty sure that commentators like Glenn Beck are not counted in what Ms. Knispel was calling “the Media.”
As the conversation moved and swirled, she quoted James Madison to say that a free press was responsible “for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.” (In that sentence, Madison doesn’t use the term free press himself; but it’s an unimportant point.) From there she suggested that the Media has a large responsibility in the power of a nation, that it is a reflection of and stimulus for the State and the citizens. And then she went further to say that the mandate of the Media is to educate the citizens. In an idealistic sense, I agree with her, but on my pad in front of me I was running over the words Journalists make money repeatedly with my pencil. My silent thoughts on money became humorous when Tish next to me asked what she meant by “free” press….
This post actually isn’t about my opinions of the Media’s virtue, because my opinions are mixed and generally underdeveloped. I’m more concerned with the Media’s use. I do think the Media is useful for educating the American citizenry. If an English teacher used, for example, a newspaper in the classroom, he could hit four birds with one stone: (1) students are reading and analyzing text, (2) they’re being informed about local and national events/politics, (3) the teacher is meeting any number of State objectives in the textual analysis, and (4) students have an outlet to think critically about current events. There are many students in the Delta who have never been or will be outside of their county, let alone Mississippi or the country. Illiteracy isn’t the only thing threatening these students. Along with illiteracy (or is it prior to it?) is a dearth of experience. They are not exposed to the sources of new ideas, even if they have the tool by which humans communicate them to each other (that is, language). And even after gaining the skill of reading, the texts they read may only hinder the kind of development that can only come from reading something new and utterly outside yourself. Give a kid an international newspaper. Then suddenly the skill of reading is put in perspective as a tool for thinking, thinking something new. What would happen if the Media were incorporated into the classroom in this way? In a somewhat unrelated way: What would a class discussion look like among students in the Delta after they heard their school being talked about in a broadcast by Sandra Knispel?
(I am very sorry for my horrendous grammar in this post, having been altogether conflicted as to whether media should really be treated like a singular noun.)
She really began the chat by asking us what our impressions of the Media were. I don’t think I said anything, but I would have given honestly negative feedback, mostly because my only exposure to the Media has been through the larger television broadcasters. It’s clear that she wanted to challenge the negative view of the Media, and get us to think of journalists as individuals, not as an underground organization plotting together to blind the lesser American minions.
She had a lot to say about it. I was struck by how little I had really exposed myself to it. Other people check out the paper, or get it online at least, or read various periodicals, or listen to the radio, or watch investigative journalism on television. I don’t do any of that on a regular basis. I think the only real exposure I’ve had recently to the Media was when my step-father was listening to the Glenn Beck show (it’s no suprise, then, that I had a sour taste in my mouth); and I’m pretty sure that commentators like Glenn Beck are not counted in what Ms. Knispel was calling “the Media.”
As the conversation moved and swirled, she quoted James Madison to say that a free press was responsible “for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.” (In that sentence, Madison doesn’t use the term free press himself; but it’s an unimportant point.) From there she suggested that the Media has a large responsibility in the power of a nation, that it is a reflection of and stimulus for the State and the citizens. And then she went further to say that the mandate of the Media is to educate the citizens. In an idealistic sense, I agree with her, but on my pad in front of me I was running over the words Journalists make money repeatedly with my pencil. My silent thoughts on money became humorous when Tish next to me asked what she meant by “free” press….
This post actually isn’t about my opinions of the Media’s virtue, because my opinions are mixed and generally underdeveloped. I’m more concerned with the Media’s use. I do think the Media is useful for educating the American citizenry. If an English teacher used, for example, a newspaper in the classroom, he could hit four birds with one stone: (1) students are reading and analyzing text, (2) they’re being informed about local and national events/politics, (3) the teacher is meeting any number of State objectives in the textual analysis, and (4) students have an outlet to think critically about current events. There are many students in the Delta who have never been or will be outside of their county, let alone Mississippi or the country. Illiteracy isn’t the only thing threatening these students. Along with illiteracy (or is it prior to it?) is a dearth of experience. They are not exposed to the sources of new ideas, even if they have the tool by which humans communicate them to each other (that is, language). And even after gaining the skill of reading, the texts they read may only hinder the kind of development that can only come from reading something new and utterly outside yourself. Give a kid an international newspaper. Then suddenly the skill of reading is put in perspective as a tool for thinking, thinking something new. What would happen if the Media were incorporated into the classroom in this way? In a somewhat unrelated way: What would a class discussion look like among students in the Delta after they heard their school being talked about in a broadcast by Sandra Knispel?
(I am very sorry for my horrendous grammar in this post, having been altogether conflicted as to whether media should really be treated like a singular noun.)
1 comment:
Hi Philip,
I said, "First, the press is not free." I did not ask her what she meant by her comment about the free press but I did ask her to explain her comment about there being a disregard for good journalism in America.
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