Support for the Media Project comes from the College of St. Rose, Albany, New York,
offering a Master of Arts and Communications to advance careers in media, PR, and journalism,
fuller part-time options, 518-4545143, and Rosenbaum Media Group, a Digital Communications
Agency integrating high-definition video into PR, marketing, advertising, and social media
campaigns, big picture thinking for local and national clients, Rosenbaummedia.com.
From Northeast Public Radio, this is the Media Project, a weekly discussion about issues
confronting the media.
See it's really quite a bar, all these peppermint meets up to interesting people.
They wallow in corruption, crime and gore, tingling, ling, city desk,
whole press, whole press, extra extra read all about it, it's a mess meets the test,
all these peppermint meets up to interesting people.
It's wonderful to represent the press.
Okay, let's go. I think I want to change careers. I think I want to be a sports journalist.
Really? Yeah. Well, you need little expertise in your field.
One more than in any other field. Well, all you have to do is know two words.
Okay. What's that? Alex and steroids.
She used to have that news thing. The young students I have,
are interested in sports journalism. They want to cover the games, they want to cover the stars
and the fun. They don't want to cover tiger woods and trouble. Who am I? Everyone knows who I am.
I can stop them. Go ahead and tell them.
Tell them to tell them.
This is the media project. Welcome to the first voice you heard was Dr. Alan Shardt.
Not unusual. CEO of Northeast Public Radio. First last, you go, you wake up to it,
you go to sleep to it and it lulls you to sleep during the day if you're lucky.
Each of our, Rosemary Armeo professor at the University of Albany and the journalism program
there long time investigative journalist and I'm Rex Smith editor of the time,
Jr. The punitive host of this program. You want to spell that word P you it begins Alan,
you would like that. Yes. So the two, the two trust. Anyway, we're just talking as the show
is about to get underway about the fact that there are so many students at U Albany, journalism
students who wish to be sports journalists. Of course, there are enough jobs in sports journalism
for them. So they, I guess they better get ready to be lawyers and doctors and such. Sports
information directors and colleges and that. The second choice is music and entertainment. No
one picks like I want to do hard news. I want to do anti corruption reporting. I never get those
kids. Well, that's because they haven't been raised that way. Yeah. In other words, they haven't
been raised on that. I haven't turned them yet. Yeah, but, but, but, but, but, but, but that's right.
You know, it's so interesting Rosemary that you say that because there are now a thousand environmental
programs around the United States. Okay, I made that number up. Okay, but a thousand. Let's just say
that. Let's say there are a lot of them. Everybody wants to be a major in environmental justice and
good works and all the rest of it and stop us from frying and ultraviolet rays and CO2.
I say all of this to you for a reason, which is when they get out as Rick said, where are the jobs?
The jobs. Well, I'll tell you where the jobs are. They're working with the corporations that
these guys hate so much. That's the problem. Yeah. And actually, there are jobs in sports journalism
if you consider journalism to be working for the team. That is, the teams themselves hire bloggers.
They it is essentially a form of public relations that is more concealed than what you typically
think PR being, but each of these teams, of course, has their own elaborate system of reporting on
what the teams do. It's true. We have students working with some of the teams to learn that.
I mean, basically to be a journalist now, you have to be an entrepreneur. You've got to figure out
where you can make money. And you've got to make it interesting. I forgot. Let me give you a
example. I love the Times Union Rex's paper. I read it every day. Oh boy. Here we go. Fabulous.
Just fabulous. But it raises an ethical standard. To me, it's one that I have struggled with many,
many times here. My wife, Roselle, is an outstanding Holocaust scholar. And I've asked her 100 times
to come on and talk about the Holocaust when we have a relevant story here on WMC, but she won't do
it. But yesterday I read a wonderful piece on the front page of the Times Union above the
fold about redheads. Ah, redheads, yes. Right. Yes, there's a group gathering in Troy, a very bright
young man in the community named Duncan Carey as a graduate of Union College has organized an
association of redheads and so on. Yes, yes. Well, what I loved about the page, the thing is that
there are very few experts on redheads in the world. And one of them happens to be Mrs. Rex Smith,
Marion Smith, my wife Roselle, on redhead. She did indeed. And it was an excellent book. And we
talked to her about it right here on WMC. We can ask her because we don't run the Times Union.
She was quoted at length in the in the piece. The fact quoted briefly at the piece and she was
identified with the name as being the wife of times union editor Rex Smith. I thought it was a
little excessive, frankly, but you know, you did. Yes. Why? Well, the fact is my wife happens to be,
you know, I suppose there's no sense I can still want me to answer the question. Yes, but I can see
the curls coming around your mouth right now. And you know, you just take it easy here. We're just
having a half and so this question is the nation, the only person really who has written a
definitive redhead. I already said that here. So if you're doing a story about red hair, she would
be the right person to quote without questions. So you're exactly right. I think she's right. I think
it was good that she was identified that way because it just it transparency is always good. And I
think that Roselle should be here talking about the Holocaust. She won't do it. Well, I think it's
sort of your demand you're denying. Then if she is really the great expert on it, you're denying
your listeners the opportunity to hear this great expert. Well, I think she'll do that if she
really is the great expert. Oh, well, she's not your great expert. Then like there's no reason.
There's no reason to get so called great expert. There's no reason to get nasty. I think we
start a campaign getter on here. I'm here. I do too. Yeah, I think we should call. I think in fact,
in the fun drive, people should call up and say I'm calling for we want Alan. Exactly. By the way,
it happens with some regularity people do quite because we hear from Roselle. I just want you to know
that the Clintons have the same problem. Do they? The husband and the wife, you know, it's like
such a conflict of interest. And modern day couples both are good and expert in their fields. And
both deserve recognition. You just have to acknowledge that she's there because she's an expert
not because I'm married. But we were talking about journalism jobs. Oh, yes. There is an interesting
point there, Alan, which is that there is a new study out the National Association of
Colleges and Employers alleges that there's good news for communication majors, which is a good
thing. They broadly describe communications majors as including journalism, advertising,
public relations and all that sort of thing. The starting salaries were up 4% on average over
2011 grads. And the average annual salary is $40,900 supposedly. I wish you hadn't said that.
Can you believe that? Well, and it isn't believable. I wish you hadn't said that because there'll be
young people from our newsroom at my door knocking on my door any minute now. That's a lot of money.
The study has been pulled apart by experts who just found lots of fault with it. And it's very
interesting because it shows you one of the concerns that journalists ought to have, which is how
you report statistics. Right. You know, it's a very good statistical story. And it shows, for example,
that it's supposed to have been adjusted for inflation. It's not adjusted for inflation. If you adjust
for inflation, the raise is only like 1%. And it only counts people who have full-time jobs,
not free-lancers or people trying to put it together. Are we talking average here? Yes, average is
supposed to be. And it's very important. Exactly. And it also doesn't include anybody who is not
working in journalism. You have a journalism degree, but you're working in the PR office down
this street. Yep, or you started that way and now you're running time-warner. Okay, well, then you
can't salary when you're running time-warner. Then the average. Not now. That's not at beginning
journalism salary. But I noticed that Rex, I think, said the word communications. We had a guy
who worked in our department, yours and mine, Bob Sanders, who used to distinguish between the word
communications and communication. Exactly. He used to say communication. If you were professor
communication, that was an academic undertaking. So he wanted to make the stationery for the department,
say, the department of communication with the department without an S. Oh, dear, actually,
you know, out at Syracuse University at the new house school of communications, they are very
definitive about that S because they have multiple departments within that school. That's
interesting. That bring people together. And this argument about academic organization of things
always, of course, drives people crazy. So you make sense. You make sense for founding.
Why, why thank you? No, that really was a good point about Syracuse University. I say it only
because, you know, I may have ticked you off earlier in the program and I want to say...
Not that it would make any difference in the outcome of the program or anything.
Yeah. But the one thing I'm worried about is the day you slam the door and say, I'm done.
I'm out of here. That's it. I'm up.
It'll be a great moment. You know, the really exciting radio.
Well, to bring you back to our number, there used to be a book. We used it as a textbook when I was
a young journalism student called How to Lie with Statistics. The theory being we had to learn
how statistics are misused in order to learn as a journalist how to use them. That's a great
point. So the point at the point of this is that if you get a job in journalism, the salary
still sucks. What do you think? $40,000 a year to start is not... That's not a real number.
A real number. That was the whole point of it. This is not a real number. What do you think? $30,000
a measure, sorry? Yes. If you have a wife, if you have kids, if you want to eat a lot or even a
little bit out out in the world rather than the ramen noodles, yeah. That was so sexist, what you just
said. If you had a wife, but if you had a husband, you had a support. I did for many years.
It was a good thing. You know, those were the days. Any case, you know, the problem is that you can't
make a great living in journalism. I was just having a conversation with one of our senior
editors about this yesterday concerning one of our colleagues, reporter and her staff, who's
likely to be taking a job in public relations just because of the difference in pay. We call that
going over the dark side. Well, you could. It's true. Although I've... The hours are regular. The
work is clean and door work and there's a better paycheck. At the bottom of it, you have to sort of
tell the company line. Yeah, you're selling, not writing. True, but I would like to say on
behalf of PR people that, you know, reporters rely on them a lot more than reporters like you admit.
The same way that legislators rely upon lobbyists. Bad. This is bad. There's so much more going on
in public relations than in journalists. We need more journalists. We don't need more spokesman
for state agencies and businesses. Let the heads of those businesses and agencies talk to
journalists and cut out the middleman. Well, I'm sorry. I agree with that. I think that's really
good, but I do think that there are people who are trying to make an honest living. You know,
I don't really want to say that all people engage in public relations are bad people. I agree with
you. They're not all bad. It's just that they're doing bad things. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I'm
sliding with Alan on this one. It's not a good field. It's not good for our democracy that we have
on. And Ron Kermione, for example, should be working at the Times Union, not for the state government.
Well, he was good. He was and he's a great PR guy too. Yeah, you can write directly to Rex.
And that's interesting. Rex and Rosemary right here at media at WMZ Federal work.
And we'll make sure they get your complaints. Oh, boy. So Alan, you're about to do a fun drive
on North East Public Radio here. And I think you ought to mimic what's going on at WBEZ,
the Chicago Public Radio stage. Very funny. Very clever. What they're trying to do is encourage,
well, they're trying to get a little bit of attention by being sexy. Yeah, literally. Yeah.
So they say we want listeners tomorrow go make babies today. That's right. Do it for Chicago.
Interesting people make interesting people. So it's, you know, it's an interesting notion. Well,
here's the problem to be to be unusually serious about this. We do know the numbers in public
radio. Keep going up. Age numbers keep going up. So here is an idea, which has been used in many
societies around the world, by the way, encouraging people to have babies so that they have enough
people, you know, to take care of it. We have social security, which is supported by younger people
for older people. And so, and so you could go look it up, but there are plenty of societies to say
have more babies and we'll give you a medal if you have. Well, there's a story in the time
June and this morning about this very thing. Yeah. What's that? What's that? That the population is
decreasing in the Western world while it's exploding still and developing what we used to,
can we still say developing countries, whatever we call a third world these days? Which is now
seen as a bad thing. It's so interesting because for the same reason, just because remember,
in the old days when the population, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. You can't support the aging
population if you don't keep having more young people. And remember that when Rex and his group,
you know, a very outstanding centrist type gray-haired, dimpled people in Jackson, his group,
I couldn't be what you're talking about. They used to be advancing zero population growth.
You know, or ZPG. And now we have it and we don't like it. And Rex is always telling us that it is
the job of the media quite correctly to be citizen journalists and to explain the implications of
this stuff. But I think somehow and all this stuff was coming out, we missed the boat. Well,
if you're talking about public policy, we should have had thoughtful immigration policies for a
long time if you want to encourage growth so that the growth would be in economically advanced
societies like ours rather than the growth being in places where there aren't the natural
resources to sustain the populations. But that's, but I thought you were going to say something
else, which is really true. The way we're sustaining it is we're now taking 12 million people.
And we are saying, and I think this is where journalists should explain what's going on really.
And that is, it may look serendipitous that the 12 million undocumented people showed up,
but in fact, they are taking the place in many ways of the young people who are being supposedly not
being born in this country because those are the people who are going to be doing all the
supporting. I would like to point out that the media has been writing about this for about two
years now. At least the economists had a front page cover on it. Oh, the economist so good.
Everybody's running down to the corner and getting that now. Well, just because you're audience might
be. Yes, our audience will. And just because you don't read those boring stories, Alan, about
the demographics and population trends, we publish them, but they're not quite as titillating as
some of the stuff in the. Why is why why are you why is Roseway giving me this evil eye now?
I don't get it. I don't. Because we're veering into the sexist again. So I have to just watch you,
Alan, you know, you never can tell, but the point being that the problem being, of course,
that there aren't enough young people paying attention to serious news media of any sort,
whether it's the easy Chicago WAMC Albany or the Times Union, we need to be figuring out a way
to reach a younger demographic. I did my annual terrifying quiz on the opening day of an
international reporting class. And I asked them where Molly was and where Algeria was most did not know.
Oh, come on. I asked where was the percentage. I asked what Al Jazeera was and my favorite answer was,
oh, yeah, Karim Al Jazeera, play for the later. And the ladies in 90s. Excellent. Now,
the point being actually I saw that you posted on Facebook and you know, you can reach young people
with social media. And this has got to be where we make our play. This is why we need to be in
social media and it isn't necessarily the case that people will gravitate to everything they see
there. But my daughter who is 17 years old, she is not 17 years old. She is. And she has,
we have her picture on our wall up here in a place of honor with Rex. Yes, she does.
Has her been years old? And she's very bright and she much to my surprise, she actually knows what's
going on in the world. Oh wow. Absorbs it via social media. Well, look who our parents are also.
I mean, you know, it's not as if you guys don't count. Well, yeah, but I haven't gotten her on a
diet of the times union yet. You know, this is I can't. But you're talking around the dinner table.
You and the red headed author. Yes, yes, there is some of that. Hey, when there is a,
I've talked a little bit. Would you Alan about your standards for underwriting here? Do you have any
sorts of underwriters that you have regulation of what programming underwriting is beyond or what
you can't do? We have certain things we won't do. I mean, I can tell you right now that we will not
take any hard liquor ads. We certainly won't take any tobacco ads or any of that stuff. In a
couple of cases, we've had the board vote on this. But I do know there was a major Supreme Court
case involving a St. Louis station where the KKK wanted to underwrite. And they said no,
when all the way to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court said, nope, just because they take
public funds doesn't mean they have to take anything they get. So you obviously had a point to make
well. The point was actually a PBS has this wonderful program called Nova. They had a show called
Rise of the Drones. And it was sponsored by, you know, that's kind of the term that we can use
these days by Lockheed Martin, which is a manufacturer of drones. And apparently that violates
PBS's underwriting guidelines. Well, apparently it's just a stupid thing to do. And I'm ashamed of
them for having done it because they bring a bad name to all of us here at Public Radio.
Public Broadcast. But, you know, the interesting thing is it is a tighter standard here in public
broadcasting than say in the commercial media that I work for because while we have certain
standards in advertising that I'm not quite going to be able to cite them. But generally,
the assumption is that advertising is different from news. And while you may have an ad there for
something that a person may find is tasteful, it nevertheless doesn't interfere with the
news presentation. So we don't have much of a delineation there. Well, you know, there's also
there's several levels which can be very confusing. So we play at least one and nationally syndicated
program. We don't choose their underwriting. They choose their own, which used Monsanto,
which is a, and that's not too, too, too many of the, you know, people who listen to Public
Radio. And I got all of these calls saying, how dare you do this? So I think if it's a PBS
national show, that would be different than your local station, which is doing it. Explain to me
what the thought process is. Monsanto is a radically modified crop. All right. But that is not illegal.
No. So you're saying that something that does not match the political bent of your board is
something that you wouldn't have the board of our listenership. Okay. So your listeners are
dictating what kinds of underwriters you'll accept. No, they're not dictating it. And I'll tell you
why because we didn't kick that nationally syndicated show off the air. I've made the point. I don't
like it. I've said I don't like it. Why's that? Well, because I happen to think that our listeners
are very good and very bright and smart and insightful listeners understand that genetically modified
crops and the way that the laws are developing around them so that, for example, if you have a farm
and you're not using genetically modified crops and, you know, the seed goes across and cross-fertilizes
with your corn, you know, I'll sell the corn as I understand it. That's a bad thing, Rex. Well,
it may be true. It sounds to me like you're right, but the fact is, unless it's barred by the Congress,
why should that business be denied the equal opportunity to have its voice heard on a publicly
supported radio station? Well, it should build drone airplanes. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
Exactly. The government say alcohol as a matter of fact is a legal substance in this country. Why
can't an alcohol distiller underwrite programming? Well, because I think that the board of the station
has a right to say this is not something that we want to be putting out there. I think that's true.
Isn't it pretty practical? Wait, wait, Rosemary, I have to say one more.
Sorry, sorry, sorry. Punch two is solar, Lexus. Don't you think Rex, that freedom of speech works both
ways that a radio station has freedom of speech to? Yeah, what's the, yes, what's the, you know,
you mean the freedom to say we don't accept underwriting from somebody? Do you make any modification of
that in exchange for accepting taxpayer dollars? Well, the percentage of our money that we get here
is so small from taxpayer dollars that I would hate and I would tell you right now if that kind of
thing attached to it, a requirement, I would say no to the public money. So that's a lot of money.
I mean, it's 10% of our $6 million budget, but it's, but it's something you'd have to give up.
And you're not saying I'm sure that you wouldn't allow a spokesman for a monsanto to come onto your
program. I mean, would yes, absolutely. I've had those kinds of people here. Alcohol, gun manufacturers,
those kinds of folks, you can have in your, in your, in your news, yeah, in the news. But you just
don't want to wouldn't take their money as underwriters, right? Is it, isn't there a practical thing
there beyond all the freedom of speech, you know, puffery? If the point of an ad is to get a wind
patrons to the product and you're playing it to an audience that's unsympathetic, aren't they
going to tend to shut off your program and not, not help the sponsor and not help your program?
Could be. So I mean, isn't there, isn't there a practical reason to want to match your sponsorship
with the inclinations of your audience? Could be. We get an interesting free speech conversation.
Meanwhile, just call the you all in the development association monsanto,
Lockheed Martin will listen to all of you. Let the money come rolling into the public universities.
We an interesting discussion with the governor of New York this week. I saw the picture of him
sitting around with all of you guys. He came into a editorial board meeting and one of the
conversation points really was about his signing of an element of the gun control law that just
passed the New York State legislature, which took off limits, which imposed a new freedom of
information law restriction terrible that doesn't no longer allow us to have gun permit information.
And the point really was that we made to him what's the next step? If you start pulling things out
of public documents saying you can't let the public see them, the next time the newspaper does
something else in popular, you're going to say, no, no, no, we're going to make that illegal too.
What did he say? I can't wait to hear. Well, it was actually a very practical answer. He said,
we had a couple of months. I had to do that in order to get a certain number of votes. We said,
which votes are you not going to get? Well, I'm not going to say definitively who, but it was
necessary to have you pointed out that he didn't seem to need to need. He doesn't need anything.
He's got the assembly. He owns the assembly of the old Democrats and the Senate is there just
because he lets them be there. I mean, I'll tell you right now that Senate would those Republicans
would not be in the Senate unless Andrew Cuomo had not would not be in control of the Senate.
You're right. That's right. They would not be in control of the Senate because he said he was
going to veto that self-serving reapportionment bill. He didn't do it the day he didn't do it.
The Senate became Republican. Wow. So, so they all made everything is my point. And that was the
point that we wanted to make too. We said, you know, you could have gotten that bill. He said,
I could not have gotten that bill without making the compromises we made. I'm hoping there will be
a chapter amendment that as we discuss in this program, that's what it's called in New York State when
they changed a lot. Yeah, changed a lot basically. That this thing that they just passed they will
fix and we won't have this restriction on public access to information out of half. Well,
you know, the governor's favorite quote. The one he uses a lot. It is what it is.
Finally, in our brief last moment here, there is a reality show. And NBC is a casting call for a
small town newspaper to have a reality TV show about newspaper life. I like it. I like it. You can
get people who will come in you. I mean, think of it. You know, it's you. We're not small enough.
I'm afraid, but the drama of a copy editor inserting commas where reporter doesn't want it. The
the head or the headlines, the typos. Oh my god. People will go crazy. The byline fight in the slot.
Something I learned on this program. The slot is where the club is so looling. The slot you never
can tell. And the the starter. The starter is the last story before you start the press. Anyway,
so you learn a lot from this program, folks. And we hope you come back and join us next week
on the media. I said anything to offend you, Rex. I take it back. Right.
Oh man.
But finally the movie is not with standing. They all got fired at patches on their pants.
They organized the union together.
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0