Dissent, its Persecutors, and the New Russia

The post-Soviet decades have brought about significant changes of the Russian social landscape. A countless number of civic initiatives engaged in charitable operation, legal assistance, education, environment, arts and culture, etc. have emerged across Russia. Self-help communities and effective crowd-funding for all kinds of purposes are evidence of public solidarity inconceivable in the Soviet state. The second half of the 2010s were marked by a rise in investigative reporting based on state-of-the-art data journalism and the rapid progress in social media. Apparently, the impressive rise in civil society has become a matter of growing concern for the Russian government, and in the past year, the Kremlin has stepped up persecutions of political activists and investigative media. This repressive surge is reminiscent of the events some four decades ago when the Soviet government undertook to radically eliminate the dissident movement. The activists of today may be different from the Soviet dissidents, but for now, they are just as defenseless vis-à-vis the state as the dissidents were.

An Historical Study of Newspapers and Public Opinion About Education

<p>The aim of this thesis was to survey educational trends as reported in five daily newspapers from 1901 to 1905 and from 1978 to 1982. As a basis for evaluating those trends, writings from historians in the earlier period were used, while academic writings from Delta journals were used in the latter period. The role of the newspaper in reporting issues differs in two inter-related ways from academic and historic writings. First, newspapers must "serve" the public so as to achieve their second function, viability. This is achieved by a process of "gate keeping" whereby articles are selected for publishing suitability. A significant mismatch was found in the earlier period between issues identified by historians and those reported in the newspapers. In that period, the public and newspapers alike were too pre-occupied with "balancing the traditional principle against the geographical principle", which was further reinforced by local jealousies, to notice the important changes that were taking place. In the latter period, the issues were generally found to be shared by academic writings and newspaper articles alike. However, as with the earlier period, good investigative reporting on serious philosophical and ethical issues was omitted. In neither period of time did the public appear to be seriously interested in educational trends.</p>

An Historical Study of Newspapers and Public Opinion About Education

<p>The aim of this thesis was to survey educational trends as reported in five daily newspapers from 1901 to 1905 and from 1978 to 1982. As a basis for evaluating those trends, writings from historians in the earlier period were used, while academic writings from Delta journals were used in the latter period. The role of the newspaper in reporting issues differs in two inter-related ways from academic and historic writings. First, newspapers must "serve" the public so as to achieve their second function, viability. This is achieved by a process of "gate keeping" whereby articles are selected for publishing suitability. A significant mismatch was found in the earlier period between issues identified by historians and those reported in the newspapers. In that period, the public and newspapers alike were too pre-occupied with "balancing the traditional principle against the geographical principle", which was further reinforced by local jealousies, to notice the important changes that were taking place. In the latter period, the issues were generally found to be shared by academic writings and newspaper articles alike. However, as with the earlier period, good investigative reporting on serious philosophical and ethical issues was omitted. In neither period of time did the public appear to be seriously interested in educational trends.</p>

“Police Brutality Exposed”

This article explores the conditions for changing news media coverage of police brutality, focusing on the Chicago Tribune. Police have historically dominated news about policing, resulting in very limited coverage of wrongdoing. Following the murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark by Chicago Police officers, a racially and politically heterogenous coalition exposed the connection between police brutality and knowledge production. Activists developed a radical critique of police brutality’s role in sustaining an unequal social order and opened new possibilities for political solidarity. When longtime Chicago machine alderman Ralph Metcalfe challenged Mayor Richard J. Daley on the issue, “regular” Black Democrats came to join liberals and radicals in demanding change. The conflict generated by Metcalfe’s revolt provided both a justification and a set of questions for the Tribune’s investigative task force to engage. In a pathbreaking series of investigative reports on police brutality in 1973, the task force convincingly demonstrated the existence of widespread police brutality but also tamed its political significance with bureaucratic reform. The dilemmas of coalition politics that shaped this investigative reporting and the response to it continue to structure the choices faced by political movements seeking meaningful transformation today.

Collaborative Journalism from a Latin American Perspective: An Empirical Analysis

The practice of collaboration in journalism is not new. The developments in information and communication technologies (ICTs) are understood by many scholars as the critical factor for collaborative journalism to flourish across newsrooms. By working together, practitioners can address the challenges of a profession in crisis as well as the need to produce quality investigative reporting. Much of the academic discussion regarding cooperative efforts in journalism has happened in the US and Europe. This paper aims to shed light on collaborative journalism outside this region, focusing on Latin America. To conduct our study, we looked at the literature concerning collaborative journalism in the Scopus and Scielo databases to build a survey that was shared among Latin American practitioners who worked on collaborative projects in recent years. Our findings show that Latin American news organisations are taking part or forming collaborative efforts to share a set of practices, processes, and motivations. However, their motivations are different from their Western counterparts, as Latin American journalists are looking for ways to fulfil the normative role of journalism in society and occupying spaces left by the mainstream media. By doing so, practitioners focus on topics and communities that are often misrepresented, forgotten, or underreported in the media. Finally, our paper concludes by suggesting a profile of news outlets working on collaborative projects across the region, and we provide some directions for future research.

Revealing problems, pointing fingers, and creating impact A survey of investigative reporters/editors regarding journalistic impact

One measure of success for investigative reporting is impact: Did the story lead to any sort of outcome, from public awareness and dialogue to meaningful policy change? While investigative reporting is historically impact-oriented, there is a dearth of academic scholarship as to what journalists seek and expect when it comes to generating impact. Using data from a national survey of investigative reporters/editors, this research develops a more holistic conceptualization of journalistic impact.

Disliking Ike

Although Drew Pearson encouraged Dwight Eisenhower to run for president, he quickly lost his enthusiasm and became a frequent critic. Pearson had hoped that Eisenhower would stand up against McCarthyism but considered his response to be weak. Knowing that many of the newspapers that carried the “Merry-Go-Round” were Republican, Pearson tried to cover the Republican administration fairly, while scrutinizing it thoroughly. His columns helped to defeat the nomination of Lewis Strauss to be secretary of commerce, and forced the resignation of Eisenhower’s chief of staff, Sherman Adams. Eisenhower’s objective of a “leak-free” administration made investigative reporting harder and caused Pearson to be frequently assailed by Eisenhower’s press secretary, James Hagerty, for publishing lies. Later evidence, however, has supported Pearson’s reporting and revealed Hagerty to be the liar.