Reading Questions - Fabrication, Consolidation, and the News

 

The easiest way to complete the reading questions is to copy the questions, paste them into the body of an email, and then fill in the blanks.  Be sure to include your full name and the letters "MP" in the subject heading of your email.  Do not send your answers as attachments, and please use the course web page to transmit your message.

  1. From "Janet Cooke and Jimmy's World:" “Nevertheless, Cooke was disgraced as a journalist and dropped out of the public eye for many years. She briefly re-emerged in 1996 to tell her story to the magazine GQ. The movie rights from that interview were subsequently ________________.”
  2. From “"Confabulation Crisis:” “On Tuesday Barnicle responded with a furious column, a masterpiece of petulance and self-pity, datelined Dublin, in which he compared himself to Irish nationalist hero Michael Collins ("shot to death by his own people") and fulminated that the "Globe chose to put me on the rack to appear even-handed within the _______________________________________."
  3. From “The Jayson Blair Project:” “Blair, like Glass, Cooke, Smith, and Forman, got away with making things up for as long as he did because  ______________________________.
  4. From “Flood the Zone with Innuendo:” "Fear not that Robinson will suffer.  Parks, Ellis, Flynn, and Gore will probably have to put up forever with the damage to their reputations, but Robinson can take comfort in the _________________________, which have recently rewarded Blair with primetime coverage of his memoir and secured sinecures for Barnicle at both the Daily News and the Boston Herald." 
  5. List the "Big Ten" media giants discussed by Mark Crispin Miller in "What's Wrong with This Picture?"
  6. From the stories covered in this week's lesson, describe one or two instances in which newspaper reporters and editors' attempts "seem fair" ended up distorting the news. Be sure to write in specific, detailed, and complete sentences.