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| HOME | Watching the Watchdogs |
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By SARAH PANUSKA
Khesha Duncan, an African-American who works as a special projects assistant for MU, says the black community is often portrayed differently, and often negatively, by the media. But she usually kept her views on media bias to herself, or shared them only with close friends. Duncan and other Columbia residents took part in Watching the Watchdogs, a series of dialogues that encouraged citizens to voice their concerns, hopes, fears and beefs with local media. Residents were invited to air their views with journalists and with researchers on media issues such as accuracy, ethics, fairness and the influence of advertisers or special interests over news content, and to discuss the future of media in the Internet age. The conversations were sponsored by the Columbia Human Rights Commission Study Circles program, the Columbia Missourian and the Reynolds Journalism Institute. All of the reporters involved in this special section attended the meetings.
Tom approached me about the possibility to involve us in supporting the desire to have citizen input to take to the journalism school’s centennial celebration,” Ward said. “We were happy to do it, because through the course of the citizen dialogue program, the media continued to be a topic that came up, especially when people have had issues with how diverse groups are represented in media coverage.” The conversation didn’t end with the summer meetings. The residents who participated in those events were given VIP passes to the Missouri School of Journalism Centennial Celebration, to be held Wednesday through Friday. There they will be able to mix with hundreds of professional journalists expected to descend on MU for a series of seminars, symposiums, demonstrations and parties. Warhover, an MU journalism graduate who now runs the Missourian newsroom, said citizens need to be at the center of that dialog. “There can be no journalism without the community,” Warhover said. “At our 100th anniversary, who better to be VIPs than the people we serve.” The residents who attended the summer meetings joined in the discussion for a variety of reasons and from a variety of backgrounds – as diverse as Darryl Douglas, a 47-year-old empty nester who said it was a chance to get out of the house and hear some interesting conversation and Nick Rodriguez, a teen who wanted to offer a young person’s perspective. “Everyone got to say what they thought,” said Rodriguez, who said the discussions exceeded his expectations. “It wasn’t just one person saying ‘this is wrong’ or ‘this is right.’” Abraham Eisenstark said that though some in his group expressed negative feelings towards the local media, most appreciated the role various media outlets play in the community. “Newspapers are a record of the culture of the community,” Eisenstark said. “I travel a lot and I learn a lot about a community from the local newspaper. Here in town we have two good papers. Columbia is one of the greatest places in the world to live, and the journalism plays a big part in that.” “It’s not very often that the media is willing to turn the table on itself,” she said. “I thought it was a very cool and brave idea.” But she said the real proof of the idea will be whether the conversation continues — and whether the ideas expressed are taken seriously and acted upon by media leaders. “In terms of having the opportunity to voice my opinion about the media, I thought it was awesome,” she said. “What comes of it remains to be seen. People shared their legitimate concerns. The thing their media can do is to absorb it and change behavior where they can.”
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Nannette Ward, study circles program coordinator, said the conversations came about after a successful partnership with the Missourian and the Human Rights Commission in February when they, along with KRCG/Channel 13, sponsored the Let’s Talk Columbia weekend. Afterward, Missourian’s Executive Editor Tom Warhover came to her with another idea.