Barbara Walters

American writer and journalist Barbara Walters was born on September 25, 1929 in Boston, Massachusetts. Barbara graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York in 1953 and soon landed a job working for an advertising agency. Afterward, Barbara took on a new role as an assistant to the publicity director for a television station based in New York City called NBC. After obtaining a great deal of skills and experience in television production and writing, she was offered a job from the CBS television network as a news and public affairs writer/producer. 

As Barbara gained further skills and experience in this field, she continued to receive more job opportunities. In 1961, NBC’s morning show hired Barbara as the Today writer where she did occasional on-air feature stories. Barbara was then asked to be the “Today Girl," but this was a particularly hard job because it conventionally included more than just reading out commercials, performing small talk, and being good-looking. However, Barbara was able to expand beyond this inflexible role and position herself amongst a panel of newsreaders and commentators on the Today Show. Barbara’s knowledge and appearance on camera coupled with her strong journalistic efforts, allowed her to become one of the most well-known people on the show. This also helped Barbara become the co-host of the Today Show with Hugh Downs in 1974 where her excellent work resulted in an Emmy award.

Soon after, Barbara became the first female co-anchor of an evening network news program when she signed a contract with ABC. During this time, Barbara was the highest-paid journalist with a $1 million yearly salary. This was an enormous accomplishment for a woman during this time, as the industry was male-dominated and women delivering and reporting major stories were accepted by very few, making it difficult for women to create any sort of impact. Later on, in 1997, Barbara became a co-host on the daytime talk show The View. However, in 2014 Barbara announced her retirement from both The View and television news broadcasting as a whole.

Although Barbara said farewell, her fearless efforts caused her to become a huge icon for the public. Barbara is highly recognized for her talent and skills, as she has received many awards including the “Overseas Press Club's highest award, the President's Award, in 1988; induction into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame in 1990; the Lowell Thomas Award for a career in journalism excellence in 1990, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Women's Media Foundation, in 1991; the Muse Award from New York Women in Film and Television in 1997; the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 2000; and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2007, as well as 34 daytime and primetime Emmy Awards.” Barbara has also earned honorary doctoral degrees from numerous colleges and universities.

I chose Barbara Walters because she has paved the way for a great number of female broadcasters and journalists. For, she is highly respected in the interviewing field and an inspirational leader to many. She has also interviewed a large number of important and well-known figures. During these interviews, Barbara did an impressive job of asking questions that the public wanted answers to while inserting her personal opinions and comments in order to uncover the truth. Barbara’s style and techniques are extremely effective. Her success has been attributed to her passion and dedication along with leadership characteristics and drive to accomplish her goals. Even though Barbara did not develop the interviewing process, she most definitely has remodeled and improved it.

Barbara Walters Timeline

Fidel Castro Interview With Barbara Walters

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Barbara-Walters

https://www.biography.com/media-figure/barbara-walters

Yellow Journalism and Muckraking

What was yellow journalism and muckraking? What was the difference between the two? How do they play a role in our society today?

During the early 19^th century, yellow journalism was introduced; a specific news reporting style that played an important role in the turn of American Journalism. The concept of yellow journalism was coined from a particular type of writing in which authors would write from their individual point of view in order to publicize or convince people about a certain belief or political cause. This type of newspaper reporting manipulated people’s opinions and deterred itself from being both factual and true. However, these news stories were successful in grabbing readers’ attention.  

The main goal for yellow journalists was simply to entice readers in order to sell papers. They had the ability to influence public opinions and reactions to specific events through the use of personal ideas and information consisting of a biased nature. The most common examples of yellow journalism included appealing and misleading headlines which were typed in bold, large letters. It also included fake interviews and information from unknown sources. We are familiar with this type of journalism method today, as unproven evidence and the citing of unknown sources are still common. Today, some refer to this journalism style as “fake news,” which is a term used to describe news reporting of inaccurate events or events that never even occurred. Some of today’s media like CNN have acquired a reputation for misinforming and misreporting the news. Nevertheless, this type of news reporting is still successful in attracting public attention because people thrive on gossip. 

Muckraking was another journalism concept that played an important role in the turn of American Journalism and was also introduced during the early 19^th century. One was referred to as a muckraker if they were a journalist who attempted to expose corruption occurring in a business or the government to the public. These types of journalists worked extremely hard to put a stop to corruption and injustices.

The journalistic approach of muckraking can easily be compared to the act of whistleblowing. A modern-day example of a muckraker is Julian Assange, who was the founder of a website called Wikileaks. Assange used this website to share confidential information with the public and exposed the government by posting military documents about the war in Iraq. Instead of being admired for his work, Assange was arrested and thought of as a criminal. However, he was proud of his efforts and successfully used today’s technology to get the truth out to the public.

We sometimes don’t realize that yellow journalism and muckraking have been around since the early 19^th century. However, it seems to be more prevalent today. Our advanced technology has allowed news to quickly spread and stories to become instantly viral due to people’s reactions. Nevertheless, both people and news sources are becoming more and more aware of this and are realizing how fast negative news travels, especially about celebrities, politics, and public figures.

Related Wikipedia Articles:

Penny Press

Yellow Journalism

Muckraker

Yellow Journalism Video

Shanghai Air Quality Monitoring

During my time in Shanghai, China, my Environmental Science class and I got the opportunity to visit Fudan University. This day consisted of a hands-on tour of the air quality monitoring station at the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering. Here we were given the opportunity to learn about Shanghai’s highly polluted city and the striving efforts to improve the quality of their air. One of the environmental researchers at the university showed my fellow classmates and I how pollution was analyzed by using special instruments to gather data. This experience allowed us to better understand how poor air quality negatively impacts the current and future lives of the people living in China.

While observing the measurement site, we experienced many processes and techniques used in measuring air quality all while learning about regional transport and the chemical process of air pollution. In the researcher’s lecture, she explained to us that you can figure out the concentration of certain gasses by using special instruments to look at light from the sun. One of the measurement techniques talked about was the Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (DOAS). This technique is based on beers law, also called Lambert-beer law. This technique looks at gaseous pollutants to see how they absorb light. DOAS systems are usually divided into two groups; passive and active. The active DOAS system uses artificial light, whereas passive uses the sun as its light source. The length of the light path in the atmosphere for active DOAS is very distinct, but for passive DOAS it is hard to make out. Later on, we discussed external energy sources and how the energy flux from the sun varies with wavelength. We even learned about black body radiation along with the different laws associated with it like Planck’s Law, Wien’s Displacement Law, and Stefan-Boltzmann Law.

During our visit, we also experimented with MAX-DOAS; a widely-used method that is implemented when observing trace gasses. This method allows you to identify the type of radiation you get for each wavelength and the concentration of certain gasses by using special instruments to measure light. We were able to do so by looking at sunlight wavelengths through a measurement instrument on the side of the building which provided us with data that was projected on a computer screen. We were also shown two instruments that measured air pollution through different means. One instrument was UV, and the other, LED.

The air quality in Shanghai has been at hazardous levels for quite some time now. These levels tend to be at their worst in the winter season due to the trade winds. For, in the winter Shanghai gets wind from the North instead of from the ocean (like they do in the summertime) which is much cleaner. The winds from the North carry a lot of pollutants and gasses to the South, causing more pollution in the air. An outstanding amount of China’s air pollution is also due to the production of goods for exportation along with emissions from many factories, and since Shanghai is overpopulated, much of this pollution comes from the people themselves. Not to mention, the impact of poor air quality is a serious health issue for children. Since their lungs are still developing, they are more affected by the poor air quality. Plus, children tend to spend more time outside playing and participating in activities causing them to acquire serious asthma problems.

After the tour, we visited The Wusong Paotaiwan Wetland Forest Park and learned more about how Shanghai is trying to improve its air quality. The city of Shanghai and other parts of China have provided the growth of various types of vegetation through the development of wetland parks. This plays a helpful role in the improvement process of air quality in urban areas. For, wetland parks contribute to biodiversity and vegetations can help eliminate air pollutants. These wetland areas also contribute to the people living nearby and help improve their quality of life and counteract the effects of climate change.

Civil War & The Press

In 1861, the United States Civil War divided America into two sides, the northern United States (Union) and the southern United States (Confederacy). Although the war brought forth a long devastating period filled with bloody conflict, it was an incredibly important time period for journalism because it changed the way people received the news.

Journalism’s role during the American Civil War and the excessive rate at which people from both the North and South demanded information regarding the war is discussed by historian Ford Risley in his journal when he writes “More than they had ever done before, citizens of the Union and the Confederacy turned to the press for news. With Americans fighting against Americans, the war was the biggest event in people’s lives, and they could not get enough information about what was taking place. The war helped make the United States a nation of newspaper and magazine readers” (Risley, Civil War Journalism). During the war, the newspapers gave the public the ability to receive continuous insight and knowledge regarding up-to-date news and events. However, in both the beginning and throughout the duration of the Civil War, conflicting ideas and opinions caused not only the country to be divided in many ways but also reporters and journalists. David B. Sachsman, author of the book called, A Press Divided: Newspaper Coverage of the Civil War, discusses “the role of the press before, during, and even after the Civil War to determine the influence of newspapers on public opinion” (Sachsman, A Press Divided: Newspaper Coverage of the Civil War). Prior to the war, journalists and writers shared similar opinions with one another. However, when the war began, the press ”was sharply divided politically and regionally. In 1860, Southern newspapers were split between two different political candidates, John C Breckinridge and John Bell, whereas Northern Democratic newspapers generally supported Stephen A. Douglas, and Republican newspapers supported Abraham Lincoln. At that critical time in American history, public opinion differed enormously depending on where one lived and which partisan newspaper one favored” (Sachsman). Although reporters from both the North and South desired to share their opinions and stories, journalism in the North was generally in favor of the war, “exaggerating Union victories and minimizing Union defeats” (Risley). Whereas, journalism in the South was more against the war and in favor of slavery. They “emphasized Union problems, and explained the consequences of defeat” (Risley).

In addition, the press from both the North and South tended to use illustrations and photos to deliver stories and events about the war to the public in order to express their opinions. However “The great majority of illustrations and photographs appeared in the North. Three illustrated weeklies published the sketches of full-time artists in the field. Cameramen made photographs that could not be published, but were turned into illustrations and shown in galleries. The South had fewer magazines and most closed because of insufficient manpower, supplies, and advertising. The South also had fewer photographers and most of them did not have the equipment, supplies, or financial wherewithal to record the war" (Risley).

Reporting about the war became an art during this time period and journalists went to great lengths to be the best in such a highly competitive time and field. According to Sachsman, “both sides feared the power of the press to subvert national unity. Abraham Lincoln and his Republican government turned this fear into action by arresting editors and suppressing hundreds of newspapers” (Sachsman). During the Civil War, the press was constantly fighting their own war. A war against an enemy who’s goal was to demolish reporter’s methods of communication and unfortunately more than not was successful in doing so.

Sachsman and Risley help us realize that the journalism techniques and styles from both sides during the war required a strong possession of knowledge and skill as well as symbolic representation and writing. Thanks to the war and its resulted spread of talented reporters, the public was able to stay informed about the war through not only newspapers but also through visual representation.

https://books.google.com/books?id=8q00DwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/civil-war-journalism.html