ICL: THE NEWS MEDIA: WHAT’S WRONG? WHAT’S RIGHT? WHAT’S NEXT? - 6 sessions

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THE NEWS MEDIA: WHAT’S WRONG? WHAT’S RIGHT? WHAT’S NEXT?

by Ron Yates, 6 sessions, Mondays, January 25 – March 1, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm

What’s going on with the news media in America? Has it lost its way? If so, what can be done? How should we evaluate the media and the information it provides? Who are the people who gather the news, write it, and present it in its many forms? Who owns the media? We will examine those questions and issues and we will also look behind the headlines for the truth and accuracy, as well as the biases, and the dishonesty. We will learn how to recognize bias and unfairness in print and broadcast news. Classes will be interspersed with real life instances of “stories behind the stories.”

Ronald E. Yates is a former award-winning foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and Professor Emeritus of Journalism at the University of Illinois where he was also the Dean of the College of Media. More recently, Ron has turned to fiction and is the author of the award-winning Finding Billy Battles Trilogy. Ron lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in Japan, China, Southeast Asia and Latin America where he covered several major stories including the fall of South Vietnam and Cambodia in 1975, the 1989 Tiananmen Square tragedy in Beijing, and revolutions in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. His work as a foreign correspondent resulted in four Pulitzer Prize nominations and numerous other journalism awards.