Bloggers need awareness of law, ethics
We’re working on a new digital project at Sunderland that will give our students a great outlet to develop their skills online. One of the key issues we’re coming up against, of course, is the liability that we as a journalism department may have as publishers of student work.
A practical benefit of the new digital platform will be to show students, in practice, the requirement of an understanding of media law if they really, really want to work in media. But such an understanding, according to the latest research from global legal services organisation, DLA Piper, is significantly lacking from current internet users and publishers. The research illustrates that: Read more
Bias against climate change in US textbooks
This story on political viewpoints getting on university reading lists (in the US) is an important one, as it shows how the good ol’ American tradition of inserting bias into education has reached a teaching of the enviro
nment.
As some of the comments on this article say, the textbook in question (’American Government’) is a politics book, not a science textbook. And the point being…? Any publishing on issues of science must get the science right. And there’s a lot of bias around. This is a nice article on the seven types of curricular bias to watch out for.
Restricted to America? Not at all. Some archived articles covering bias in textbooks from Italy, Japan, the Czech Republic, (article from one of my favourite sites, the F-Word). And not one of my favourite sites, those homophobes and xenophobes over at the BNP even think it’s a serious issue.
Good to know Grist has its eyes on this for environmental oversight (as in the US meaning of the word, not the British). Grist editorial is a good example of covering environmental issues. They say their coverage is “gloom and doom with a sense of humour. So laugh now — or the planet gets it.” The idea that people get turned off by negative coverage was covered Futerra’s report on UK media coverage of climate change. You can downoad the report here: Futerra Media Report.
A degree’s worth…?
I’ve had a couple of conversations with my students regarding the value of degrees.
For example, one student, who runs themusicmagazine.co.uk, a pretty sharp self-made music, err, magazine, was wondering what the value of a degree was when he could easily publish and develop as a journalist without having to attend lectures. Particularly when he and many others were feeling those lectures were not relevant enough to their needs, especially for those on the magazine journalism route. Not now, not paying fees. (Talking to a colleague today, he was the second to mention in the last couple of days the increased disgruntlement of students since fees were introduced. I can’t believe any/many are going as far as prostituion to pay their fees, though, as reported in The Times. Don’t do it, Scott…)
My response seemed a good one, so I thought I’d share it with some others. Read more
