Critical journalistic approaches

As we read Hamlet, we are studying different critical approaches to the play that have been applied to literature through the course of history. It's interesting to incorporate critical approaches such as feminist, Marxist, and psychoanalytic into a reading of a text that may otherwise have been read by me simply in a more traditional formalist manner. Between these critical approaches, there is a multitude of details that are made apparent as being relevant to a certain approach.

While I attempt to better understand these approaches, it has become clear to me that approaches like these don't apply only to literature, but to more everyday media, including the news. Different news sources report from different perspectives. One such news source is the World Socialist Website, whose perspective is akin to the Marxist critical approach. Many people are aware of liberal or conservative bias among major news networks. News networks blatantly report facts that aren't completely accurate or frame information in a way that construes something different than the reality of a scenario. Of course, it's difficult to determine what is the "correct" perspective on an issue; there's always a different way to interpret facts and cause an effect. Such is one of the points of the new historic critical approach.

But anyway, I thought it would be interesting to compare two articles from different sources, written about the same issue. The first article is from the World Socialist Web Site. The second is from CNN. Both are written about intervention of world leaders in Libya. One noticeable difference is that while the CNN article refers to US forces or the British Prime Minister, socialist article consistently refers to "imperialist" forces and "imperialist" leaders. It's a small difference, but nonetheless makes a difference in the mindset of a reader and adds to the socialist slant of the article. There are many points in the socialist article that are blatantly biased, and the author intends for them to be, it is also the smaller aspects of the article that stick with a reader and add to the different approach to the issue.

The CNN article quotes two politicians...

Gadhafi and those around him must be held accountable (for any actions) which violate international legal obligations and common decency," she said. "Through their actions, they have lost the legitimacy to govern."

Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, called Gadhafi "delusional," adding that "when he (Gadhafi) can laugh when talking to American and international journalists while he is slaughtering his own people, it only underscores how unfit he is to lead and how disconnected he is from reality."

Meanwhile, the WSWS article says,

Gaddafi is a criminal who deserves to be brought to justice, but none of the imperialist leaders currently denouncing him have any standing to point the finger elsewhere. They are all complicit in wars of aggression and colonial-style occupations that have killed hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan and are implicated in all of the attendant crimes, including torture, rendition and indefinite detention.

The apparently less biased article does not give any indication that world leaders have anything but disgust for Gadhafi, while the socialist one gives another perspective that readers otherwise would probably not get. Who's to say which is right? Both present facts; they just frame them in different ways. It's interesting how different critical approaches can apply not only to reading literature, but to reading as well as portraying news.

Valentine's Day

In honor of today's delightfully floral, candy-coated, pink and red holiday, I decided to search "valentine's day" on the New York Times website. I was unsurprised to see headlines for a column about the nature of love and a feature on different celebrities' celebrity crushes. However, I was quite interested to see the headline, "Behind Roses' Beauty, Poor and Ill Workers." I guess I should have realized that there must be some negatives behind such a seemingly frivolous holiday, but somehow I was still taken aback to see an article about one of these negatives on Valentine's Day in such a prominent paper.
When I showed this article to my English teacher, she was substantially less surprised than I was, and quite aptly pointed out the movie Blood Diamond, which also points out the horrors behind a product that is typically considered to be romantic. While this is a very similar situation, it somehow seems more acceptable, seeing as it's coming out of the film industry, which seems more of a typical medium for dramatizing situations, rather than an everyday newspaper like the New York Times.
It makes me think, though, about the whole concept of investigative journalism. Should a journalist always look for the other side to a story, even if it's unpleasant? Or should news industries be content with the stories they have, and leave the joyful holidays untouched, so they can go on being joyful? While I'm typically a pretty optimistic person, and would love to see Valentine's Day as just a day full of love, I think newspapers have every right to dig deeper wherever they can. Many people are probably hesitant to taint the image of pleasant holidays. But if there is something serious that people have a right to know, why shouldn't a paper publish it? Many people may feel a twinge of guilt after reading such an article, and then go on happily receiving their roses, even with the knowledge that they were the product of hard labor and toxic conditions. There may, however, be a handful of people inspired to do something about the situation, and change it, so that such an article may not exist in a few years. It's a stretch, but it's a possibility.
Personally, I believe that newspapers are entitled to provide readers with this sort of information. If someone was personally being harmed or attacked through an article, it would be a different story. But in the case of revealing the plight of a group of people that work to make Americans' Hallmark holiday more enjoyable, I believe that newspapers should keep doing what they're doing.
What do you think? Should newspapers continue to put a slight damper on people's Valentine's days in this manner? Rose farm in Ecuador

Perspective

In the blog Common Sense Journalism, author Doug Fisher referred to an article written by Tim Radford: "25 Commandments for Journalism." These 25 commandments are really intriguing to me as an aspiring journalist, as they bring up points that I have learned about, points I hadn't considered, and points I wish major newspapers would adhere to. One of my favorites is number 5--

5. Here is a thing to carve in pokerwork and hang over your typewriter. "No one will ever complain because you have made something too easy to understand."

This calls for simplicity in journalism, and is very refreshing for someone like me, seeing as I often find myself lost when reading newspaper articles that attempt to include every detail and intricacy of a story. Radford certainly adheres to this principle throughout the writing of his 25 commandments, as he cleverly yet simply illustrates the points he wants to make. Another of the commandments that I really like is number 20--

20. English is better than Latin. You don't exterminate, you kill. You don't salivate, you drool. You don't conflagrate, you burn. Moses did not say to Pharaoh: "The consequence of non-release of one particular subject ethnic population could result ultimately in some kind of algal manifestation in the main river basin, with unforeseen outcomes for flora and fauna, not excluding consumer services." He said "the waters which are in the river ... shall be turned to blood, and the fish that is in the river shall die, and the river shall stink."

Radford makes a point without beating around the bush.

But the commandment that really strikes me and can be related to our current study of different perspectives and criticisms is number 9.

9. So if an issue is tangled like a plate of spaghetti, then regard your story as just one strand of spaghetti, carefully drawn from the whole. Ideally with the oil, garlic and tomato sauce adhering to it. The reader will be grateful for being given the simple part, not the complicated whole. That is because (a) the reader knows life is complicated, but is grateful to have at least one strand explained clearly, and (b) because nobody ever reads stories that say "What follows is inexplicably complicated ..."

I think that this doesn't just apply to journalism, but also explains why literary criticism exists or why people look at Hamlet and other works of Shakespeare's from different angles. Shakespeare's plays are so intricate and multifaceted, and a reader can often become lost in the word play and even the sometimes confusing plot lines. Just as journalists are instructed by Radford's commandments to clearly explain one side of a story, rather than trying to present a confusing and garbled account, so do literary critics attempt to explain a story through one lens, rather than trying to cover all possible interpretations of a story.

To use Radford's metaphor, it's much easier to eat one piece of spaghetti at a time, rather than trying to shove the whole plate in your mouth at once. This helps me understand the benefit of reading about different literary criticisms of Hamlet. Doing so will help me, as a reader, to put the pieces together in order to understand Hamlet, or any other piece, more easily. Next time I'm writing a news story, I'll keep this concept in mind, eager to give readers the ease of understanding that's presented when literary critics explain one strand of a story.