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OPINION
THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 2005
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WWW.KANSAN.COM
PAGE 9A
▼ SACK'S PERSPECTIVE
Steve Sack/STAR TRIBUNE
IT JUST MAKES SENSE
TV news superficial by nature print, online more in-depth
STEPHANIE LOVETT slovett@kansan.com
With no disrespect to the late pope intended, I got tired of watching the constant coverage of his death. During the week of his funeral, I gave up on finding any other news on television and turned to reading my news exclusively.
Of course, it's not fair to
generalize. The pope's funeral coverage was a huge news event. Normally, television covers a variety of stories. And TV news stations can report stories as they happen.
Still, the shortcoming of TV news is that despite constant coverage, it only rarely provides the depth and perspective needed to understand what's going on.
This limitation makes sense when you consider the nature of television. TV news is image-driven. Reporters need pictures to make a story, so the more abstract questions surrounding some stories are harder to package for television.
Unfortunately, this means people who get their news primarily from TV get much less in-depth, thought-provoking reporting.
A study released by the University of Wisconsin-Madison last month pointed out this very fact.
Researchers surveyed selfidentified liberals in the month following the Sept. 11 attacks. Liberals who were heavy television watchers became more in favor of government police powers.
Liberals who watched little
Written material is spread over space. Hence, it's easy to reference previous parts of a story within written material, whereas it isn't possible with television, Simpson said. Moreover, watching TV is a passive activity and reading is active.
"Television news doesn't promote critical thinking. You can point your eyes at a screen, but you need more engagement than that," Simpson said.
The Terri Schiavo circus is another example of broadcast media unable to tell the whole story.
Dietram Scheufele, a professor who conducted the study, said the results were a very strong argument for reading newspapers as opposed to watching TV news.
Good coverage explored the issues related to the Schiavo case that made it so newsworthy: Is there a right to live? What are the possible ramifications of Congress's intrusion in the case? Should marriage trump blood relatives in end-of-life decisions?
television and read newspapers remained more skeptical of increased government intrusion.
spread over time.
Reading promotes more critical thinking than television because of how parts of the stories are separated from others, said Greg Simpson, cognitive psychologist and chair of the University of Kansas psychology department. Television is
Television has value. But we should consider it our initial contact with what's going on in the world. For more in-depth coverage, read your news in a newspaper or Internet source you trust.
Broadcasters were likely aware of the issues needed to put the story into perspective, but it is simply harder to communicate those abstract ideas with the television medium.
But those questions were scant raised by national broadcast news. Despite 24/7 coverage of a big news story, viewers were delivered little more than angry rhetoric from both sides of the political extremes.
Television news has value. But we should consider it our initial contact with
There's a saying that history is written by the victors. Dependable news accounts can be a counter to that — but only if people think critically about the news they take in and demand that reporters look deeply into news stories.
what's going on in the world. For more indepth coverage, read your news in a newspaper or from an Internet source you trust.
♦ Lovett is a Kansas City, Mo., senior in journalism and political science.
GUEST COMMENTARY
GTAs unfairly treated like mercenaries for faculty
Power is exercised through a multitude of practices ranging from the coercive to persuasive. It is also exerted through systems of categorization, where certain groups are granted or denied various rights.
BRIAN AZCONA
opinion@kansan.com
In American history, a long record of struggle reveals this
fact, and people have courageously challenged unethical circumstances perpetuated by dubious definitions, frequently along the lines of class, gender and race.
This week, graduate employees at Yale and Columbia are striking. Why has unrest penetrated these bastions of privilege? Because graduate teaching assistants demand that their administrations recognize them as workers, not just students, and acknowledge their rights to organize as a union and collectively bargain for a contract.
Guardians of the Ivy League, however, assert their prerogative to define both the legal status and identity of its workers. The National Labor Relations Board validated this position and denied GTAs at private universities a basic human right.
The 2004 ruling followed the installment of new pro-business appointees to the NLRB. The decision fell along party lines — three Republicans ruling against the GTAs and two Democrats ruling in their favor — and it overturned the NLRB's previous bipartisan and unanimous ruling in 2000, which permitted GTAs at N-
In light of such disappointments, it helps to keep in mind that infamous clause in the United States Constitution that declared African Americans three-fifths of a person. Then, we realize that logic and consistency have never really been the basis for state-supported systems of categorization, and such attacks on common sense are always amenable.
But one does not have to turn back to history to witness offenses to reason. The University of Kansas enacts a similar authority by classifying many of its graduate employees as "lecturers."
the "lecturer."
which permitted GTAs at New York University to create a union.
Many of these "lecturers" are currently seeking degrees and perform the same duties as GTAs. Some have been demoted as a result of the 10-semester limit — a unilateral decision from the provost David Shulenburger which
restricts GTA funding to five years it takes average PhD student in the United States seven to eight years to obtain a degree.
Others just have trouble finding GTA positions as they enter the University because of reductions and must settle for the precarious existence of
The distinction excludes them from our union contract, so they do not receive tuition waivers and other benefits. These alternative classifications contribute to the 14 percent reduction in the number of University GTAs since 1997—the year the union, GTAC, won its first contract.
Rather than provide a model for fair employment practices and accountability, public universities draw from corporate culture and opt for the strategy mastered in the cutthroat world of business Downsizing
The change provides insight as to how the University approaches the need for academic labor in an era of declining federal and state
Thus, the University and other public universities around the country ironically appropriate practices lauded in the private sector to minimize cost.
In these days of mounting corporate frauds,why would public authorities turns to the private sector for guidance?
Rather than provide a model for fair employment
practices and accountability, public universities draw from corporate culture and opt for the strategy mastered in the cut-throat world of business: Downsizing.
As private universities, like Columbia and Yale, turn to the state to do their dirty work, public universities, like the University of Kansas, begin to emulate their corporate "partners" in their management practices. The rulers of these institutions do not seem to recognize any demarcation between public and private or between education and business.
The only boundaries that they see are those that inscribe workers and students into bureaucratic categories and limit their capacity to determine the meaning of education, the role of the university and their place in it.
- Azcona is a graduate teaching assistant in sociology.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
SUV column misleading in terms of poor safety
The points made in Austin Caster's recent column "Lighten burden on wallet, environment with Hybrids" are mostly good ones, but I would like to tender an important correction.
The article states that SUVs "have the highest safety ratings". This is incorrect. Because of the weight distribution and the height of the center of gravity from the road, SUVs are up to twice as likely to get into a high-fatality "roll-over" accident than any other class of passenger vehicle.
These factors also lead to a higher danger of hydroplaning on wet roads. Safety inspectors
have demonstrated that fatalities in small and medium SUVs are alarmingly higher than fatalities in cars and vans of similar size. In larger SUVs, what is alarming is the rate of fatalities in the other car involved in an accident.
For every 25 deaths in a large SUV involved in a two-car accident, there are 112 deaths in the other vehicle involved. Large SUV owners are willing to trade the high possibility of killing other people for the "safe" feeling they get driving a behemoth vehicle. This abysmal safety record makes SUVs more dangerous than a loaded gun.
No indeed, SUVs do not have the "highest" safety ratings.
Meredith Vacek
Lawrence
Non-traditional student
REPORT CARD
Pass:
Kansas Relays. The event has always been a pleasure, but this year's track meet should be the best one since it started back up again. Meet organizers pulled out all the stops this year to attract stars like Maurice Greene, Stacy Dragila, Amy Acuff and KU's own favorite son, Charlie Gruber.
Fail:
Catholic Church. So much for progress The church picked the most archaic man to be pope.
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KU Info is still here for KU students. We just answered how to get gum out of carpet, how to make fried rice, and also a question about a possum.
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Let me get this straight. John Randle gets arrested five times and he still gets to keep his scholarship? That's got to change.
So much for progress in the church. No wonder participation is at an all-time low, with the church preaching an anti-gay message, excluding women from the church and prohibiting birth control.
Holy crap, the new pope used to be a member of the Hitler Youth.
Tennessee? It's freaking ridiculo
Why the hell doesn't the city of Lawrence coordinate the lights on 11th and Kentucky and 11th and an orange line.
I think me and John Randle can agree on one thing; the urinals at KU are disgusting.
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Boy, I'm glad to see that the Free For All now reports the rugby scores, because I'm tired of listening to all those pansy reports about the football team.