Roaring Flames Demolish San Francisco

Reading about the San Francisco fire that wreaked pure and endless havoc, after the seismic quakes, to our city that we are all so accustomed to and greatly respect was really a unique experience. I used articles from the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times that I thought were very beautifully written. Coverage of this event in history was very difficult due to the fact that getting eyewitness accounts and reliable sources was beyond adverse to acquire from the decimating city. Yet, despite that, the articles were suffice to provide the reader with more than just a glance into the current state of the burning city.

Firstly, the article from the New York Times was more brief than that of the Los Angeles Times but very adequate for the reader. Both were able to include statistics of the current dilemma as well as give insight on the buildings that have been drastically affected by the fires. I thought the the Los Angeles Times did an amazing job on letting the reader what was going on in little blurbs throughout the article. Also, making a short list of the identified dead was very successful in grabbing the reader, especially if it was a reader from that day.

Both articles had similar angles to how the story was framed, which was that tragedy befell San Francisco; it’s hard to not see things from this angle. But the most satisfying thing from the way the stories were written was that it could have been written very weak and with dull word usage but thankfully, it was not. Both stories dived into the chaos that swept the Bay area, especially the article from the Los Angeles Times. During the reading of these articles, I found myself thrust into a captivating story of chaos and misfortune, and then realized, wait, this really happened. The power of the way that these stories were written was so poetic in form that the reader can almost smell the smoke, taste the ashy air, feel the warmth of raging flames, and clearly see the emblazoned city disintegrating before their very eyes.

I feel that journalism now, has lost some of that compelling power to steal the reader and not only inform of the occurring news but to invoke infinite interest. A great article should be written to make the reader’s heart rate rise, especially when the content of the story is so groundbreaking as the San Francisco fires. The coverage today of events can be so draining to read because of the lack of power in the journalist’s words. With a story like this you can even get a sense of the melancholy in the writer because you know that he or she knows what fatal effects this fire will have on the city of San Francisco. Now, looking back on this event from the future, because of the framing of the story and from being a San Franciscan myself, you cannot help but truly sympathize with what had happened. Even with more than a century after the fires, making a reader feel something from the article is truly the most amazing way to cover and write a piece.


HEART IS TORN FROM GREAT CITY :San Francisco Nearly Destroyed By Earthquakes and Fire--Hundreds of Killed and Injured--Destruction of Other CoastCities--California's Greatest Horror.. (1906, April 19). Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File),I1.  Retrieved April 9, 2009, from ProQuest Historical Newspapers Los Angeles Times (1881 - 1986) database. (Document ID: 349538652).

ALL SAN FRANCISCO MAY BURN; CLIFF HOUSE RESORT IN SEA :Flames Carried From the Business Quarter to Residences PALACE HOTEL AND MINT GO; BIG BUILDINGS BLOWN UP. Other Shocks Felt During the Afternoon -- Insane Asylum Is Wrecked and Hundreds of Former Inmates Are Roaming About the Country -- Reports of Heavy Loss of Life at San Jose.. (1906, April 19). New York Times (1857-Current file),p. 1.  Retrieved April 9, 2009, from ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2005) database. (Document ID: 101775031).

“We Don’t Want Another Oswald!”: The Media’s Reaction to Robert F. Kennedy’s Assassination

The panic and confusion following the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy the night he won the Democratic nomination in California translates to the television and written coverage of his death. Because the assassination occurred during an important event, the media was able to provide the public with a shaky yet strong understanding of the night that RFK was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan, an unstable man who claimed that he wanted more attention directed towards Palestinians.
The public first found out Kennedy was assassinated through the TV news. An article published by Time on June 14, 1968 titled “What Was Going On” relays how the media reacted. The article has no byline; it was probably a group effort by the editors.
Because the press was so hotly covering the celebration, members of the media became subjects of news articles and radio and TV broadcasts. Members of the media who had been injured or near the assassination understood the necessity of eyewitness testimony more than a normal person would. Thus, elaborate and panicked accounts were available for newspapers and networks.
An especially notable—and widely used—description came from Andrew West, who worked for a radio network. West recorded his reaction to the shooting while it was happening. According to the Time article, he said:
“Senator Kennedy has been . . . Senator Kennedy has been shot! Is that possible? It ispossible, ladies and gentlemen! It is possible! He has . . . Not only Senator Kennedy! Oh myGod! . . . I am right here, and Rafer Johnson has hold of the man who apparently fired theshot! He still has the gun! The gun is pointed at me right this moment! Get the gun! Get the gun! Get the gun! Stay away from the guy! Get his thumb! Get his thumb! Break it if you have to! Get the gun, Rafer! Hold him! We don't want another Oswald! Hold him, Rafer . . . The Senator is on the ground! He's bleeding profusely . . . The ambulance has been called for, and this is a terrible thing! . . . Ethel Kennedy is standing by. She is calm, a woman with a tremendous amount of presence . . . The shock is so great my mouth is dry . . . We are shaking as is everyone else. I do not know if the Senator is dead or if he is alive . . ."
The way West spoke about the shooting and how the Time article was written depicts how devastated and shocked the media was. Time’s respect for and mourning of the figure reflects a loss of hope that even the media could not hide. There were few attempts to be objective. The article also reflects how much the media wanted to make sense of the assassination and deliver that understanding to the public.
Following the assassination, the print media focused more on the aftermath and the chronology than the shooting itself. On June 6th, a day after the assassination, the Los Angeles Times wrote a story titled “Despair Grips Youth in Wake of Shooting: Hopes for New Politics Dashed.” The press accurately depicted the youth’s devastation. “I have a sort of gut feeling, deep down inside, that this shooting and whatever happens to Kennedy will make young people completely unreachable,” one girl said. In many following articles, the focus was more on the despair people felt; this despair seemed to be shared by the media and proponents for changeas well.
In an interview almost a year after the assassination, Sirhan claimed that he wished the president was still alive, but he believed that “the cause of the Palestinian Arab people was worth both Senator Kennedy’s life and his own.” In an article published by the New York Times “Sirhan voices regret at having killed Kennedy,” the focus of the article was more about the fact that Sirhan wished the Senator was still alive to be President than that Sirhan, in his mentally unstable mind, assassinated Kennedy in order to draw attention to injustice in Palestine (Israel becoming a state is also one of the top 100 stories of the century). Although the article contains his comments about the Palestinian people, the headline and the pull quote—the parts of the article that receive the most attention—are about him wishing Kennedy could have been President.

Clinton Impeached

In 1998 President Clinton was impeached over his illicit affair with Monica Lewinsky. Although the public was outraged over Clinton’s moral wrongdoing and lies, many did not feel Clinton’s personal cheating was enough to have him impeached. Others believed he was a liar and not to be trusted and wanted him to be impeached. However, the outcome of the trial was that Clinton was in fact impeached of both articles he was charged with. I examined two articles from varying coasts, New York and San Francisco, to find out what the underlying message of the article was and how it was presented to readers. The first article by The New York Times,
“Impeachment: The President” does a thorough job describing the tone the day Clinton was impeached. The San Francisco Chronicle article “Clinton Era Marked by Scandal, Prosperity” describes how even though Clinton left office with a tarnished reputation, the change he brought to the administration is not forgotten.
“Clinton Era Marked by Scandal, Prosperity” describes the State of The Union address as one that was beyond original, mostly based on the fact that six days previous the Washington Post published an article accusing Clinton of his infamous affair. This article does a really good job of setting the stage for the reader with all of the emotional undertones, for example, “Never before had the nation seen its leader so publicly embattled by such intimate matters.” The article goes on to discuss how scholars will remember the Clinton era as either prosperous or regretful. This article does not discuss the process and depth of the impeachment so much as the aftermath.
“Impeachment: The President” talks more about Clinton’s denial of being impeached, saying he never used the word “impeached” because he didn’t want it to be bound to his name. This article tells how the whole ordeal began, starting with Kenneth W. Starr’s investigation. This article gives more detail about the actual events rather than just focusing on the mood.
Both articles give the reader a lot of information about the event, but they also bring their own ideas. It seemed like in “Clinton Era Marked by Scandal, Prosperity” the author really wanted to make the point to discuss how this whole process would affect the Clinton name. It also used some details that may be deemed unnecessary. “Impeachment: The President” did a really good job of incorporating quotes, but some seemed a little biased on Clinton’s side, maybe using them for reader apathy. However, both articles did a fine job on staying impartial, you couldn’t tell a clear bias from either side. Additionally, both articles offered concrete facts for the reader so that they could make up their own minds on whether Clinton being impeached was a good or bad thing.

Standard Oil Busted

Between 1902 and 1904, “muckraker” Ida Tarbell published the culmination of 2 years of meticulous research: a 19-part series exposing the Standard Oil Company’s corruption. The articles explained heavy research and complicated documents to the public with clarity. Tarbell’s “History of Standard Oil” tore down the mythical illusions about the company while revealing Rockefeller’s unethical practices and the mistreatment of his employees to the public.
In one article she wrote that “The oil men as a class had been brought up to enormous profits, and held an entirely false standard of values.”
Although McClure’s popularity flourished after the articles were printed, some mainstream newspapers did not publish the story at first. One can believe that reporters from papers like the LA Times, the NY Times, and the Washington Post were reluctant to associate themselves with the muckrakers and their reporting methods. When the story first broke, the kind of investigative journalism the muckrakers were producing at the time was not popular amongst most reporters, and many found the muckrakers to be crude. By writing off the muckrakers, big papers missed out on a major story at first. Instead of publishing their own stories, many papers wrote disparaging accounts of Tarbell and her findings. In one LA Times article, titled “The Standard Oil Legend: Ida Tarbell May Be Called a Writer of Folk Lore and Fairy Tales as Well,” condescendingly says that Tarbell’s work had “interestingly combined fact, rumor, common reputation, and current fiction regarding the great industrial giant.” Later, the reporter quotes someone saying that “the historical facts have been dressed in the motley of popular legend.”
As the story of the Standard Oil’s and Rockefeller’s schemes progressed, mainstream newspapers started printing stories and alerting even more people to Standard Oil’s misdeeds. The New York Times published a series of articles, especially after Standard Oil raised the price of oil, to which one reader responded in a letter to the editor saying “Its monopolistic power is well illustrated by taking advantage of the present necessities of the people.”
In 1904, the LA Times published an article titled “Where Standard Oil’s Real Interest Lies: Smoked Out at Last—It Means Desperation—An Unknown Quantity. Amazing Misstatements, Concessions of Defeat.” The article writes about a trial in which Standard Oil said it did not help to nominate a politician, and then said that it was not interested in industries besides oil (a statement that the New York Times editorial staff takes to be a gross lie). Some papers had criticized Tarbell for her grand language initially, but this article takes on quite a theatric tone itself. The article says that “the big fact of Standard Oil is that from its immense ganglion of wealth a million nerves radiate, binding scores of banks, and industrial companies into one large, consistent commercial body…If Standard Oil was not willing to tell the whole truth about its commercial power, it was probably still more unwilling to tell the whole truth about its political power.”
Tarbell started an intensive written battle against Standard Oil that the mainstream media eventually joined. Although I am not likening the muckrakers’ work with articles published the National Inquirer and other sensationalist celebrity magazines, the tendency of the elite media to disregard certain publications (or writers, in this case) as vulgar sometimes works to the media’s disadvantage today (other times, it is completely rational to ignore claims that Bat Boy is on the loose again). It is interesting to note that John Edward’s affair—a revelation that changed the makeup of last year’s election—was reported for months by the National Inquirer before the mainstream media picked it up after the Inquirer published photos of Edwards and his videographer.



WHERE STANDARD OIL'S REAL INTEREST LIES :THE CONTEST OF 1904. Smoked Out at Last--It Means Desperation--An Unknown Quantity. Amazing Misstatements--Confession of Defeat. Standard Oil and Parker. Smoked Out at Last. It Means Desperation. An Unknown Quantity. Each Speech an Evasion. Amazing Misstatements. The Parker Primer. Troubles of a Candidate. Justifying Hill. Parker's Inconsistency. Confessions of Defeat. A Guarantee of Peace. Caught With the Goods.. (1904, November 3). Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File),p. 11. Retrieved April 8, 2009, from ProQuest Historical Newspapers Los Angeles Times (1881 - 1986) database. (Document ID: 322838262).

NY Times, The Rise in the Price of Oil: http://0-proquest.umi.com.opac.sfsu.edu/pqdweb?index=0&did=101305616&SrchMode=2&sid=3&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1239226108&clientId=17866

LA Times, Prejudice Against Oil Men. http://0-proquest.umi.com.opac.sfsu.edu/pqdweb?index=3&did=336042602&SrchMode=2&sid=2&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1239225927&clientId=17866

The American Experience: the Rockefellers. A Journalistic Masterpiece.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rockefellers/sfeature/sf_7.html


Politico.com: The Top 10 Media Blunders of 2008
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=5C593F04-18FE-70B2-A853DACA726E9AB9

The End of Apartheid

Dolly- The Cloned Sheep

I found four articles from the New York Times written by Gina Kolata between 1997 and 2002 in which she covered the cloning of Dolly, the sheep, and the consequences that resulted from the procedure. Even though one of the articles mentions that “macabre jokes” evoked from the sheep’s cloning, the articles themselves are not written with sarcasm or ridicule. Rather, I saw all four articles to express the biological complications and success encountered by scientists and the sheep in a way that is easily understood by the public who does not have a scientific background.

“Cloned Sheep Showing Signs of Old Cells, Report Says,” is an article published May 27, 1999 where Scottish scientists- whom created Dolly- reported that the sheep’s genetic material in her cells may cause premature aging. The article mentions that if the assumption is confirmed, then genetic abnormalities would be associated to animal cloning, which would delay the possibilities of human cloning.

This article provided a lot of information regarding telomeres, which were defined as a “virtual aging clock for cells grown in the laboratory… the telomeres in older animals tend to be shorter than they are in younger animals.” I enjoyed reading this article because it presented the opposing views of various scientists. In my opinion, the article was objective because there was a balance between the success of a cloned animal and the genetic problems that resulted. The controversy in the article is whether or not Dolly’s telomeres are shorter than what they had been reported to be earlier.

Dr. Judith Campisi, who studies cellular aging at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, responded, “I’m not convinced the results are meaningful,” to cancer researcher, at the Whitehead Institute of Technology, Dr. Robert Weinberg’s statement that “it is difficult to distinguish between 22-kilobase-long telomeres and 19-kilobase-long telomeres.”

On February 14, 1998, Gina Kolata from the New York Times wrote an article about Dr. Ian Willmut’s acceptance at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that he intended to try to clone an adult animal once more.

Critic Dr. Norton D. Zinder, a microbiologist at Rockefeller University in Manhattan challenged that Dr. Wilmut did not provide sufficient evidence to prove that Dolly was the clone of an adult. Because the cloning of Dolly was possible through the udder cell of a dead ewe, Dr. Zinder and other critics do not validate Dolly’s creation; hence, these scientists expect the process to be repeated.

Dr. Wilmut responded that attempting to successfuly clone a sheep from an original udder cell would take one-thousand tries and half a million dollars. Furthermore, Dr Wilmut reassured the audience that further tests were in process at other laboratories to prove that Dolly was certainly “a clone derived from the adult sheep.”

Dr. Ted Friedman, gene therapy researcher at the University of California in San Diego stated, “We will never reach an ethical consensus on this any more than on abortion.”

Coverage of Dolly the sheep provided, in my opinion, adequate information to inform the public sphere about the pros and cons regarding cloning. Cloning is a very controversial topic because it touches on religious, humanitarian, scientific, and spiritual concerns. For readers who want to base their support for cloning on scientific facts, the New York Times and reporter Gina Kolata used scientists from various parts of the world, specialists in a broad selection of science, and those with opposing views. I think it is important to emphasize that not all coverage regarding Dolly was comical or mere “macabre jokes.” The articles I read did not make me change my mind about cloning; however, I admire the scientific advances that are happening and the human potential to explore and maneuver lives.

Cloning, abortion, and gay marriages: all topics of controversy that as Doctor Friedman said, we will never be able to reject or support as a country. These three topics are subject to scrutiny because of people’s religion and morality. Hence, it is the newspaper’s responsibility to provide solely facts and or opinions, but not fancied with sarcasm, ridicule, and “macabre jokes.”

Sources:
By GINA KOLATA. (1998, February 14). Creator of Cloned Sheep Says He Will Try to Repeat Process. New York Times (1857-Current file),p. A7. Retrieved April 8, 2009, from ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2005) database. (Document ID: 116988636).

By GINA KOLATA. (1999, May 27). Cloned Sheep Showing Signs Of Old Cells, Report Says. New York Times (1857-Current file),A19. Retrieved April 8, 2009, from ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2005) database. (Document ID: 117178516).

The "Unsinkable" Titanic

“Rule of Sea” an article by the New York Times on April 16, 1912 reported that the Titanic sank at 2:20 a.m. Monday April 15th after “the biggest steamship in the world” was sunk by an iceberg and went to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean; possibly taking 1,400 passengers and crewmembers.

The article emphasized that members from the White Star Line, the company that owned and built the Titanic, did not want to admit that everyone aboard the Titanic was not safe. In addition, the article includes Mr. Franklin’s (Vice President and General Manager of the International Mercantile Marine) confession that it was impossible for neither one of the two ships sent to answer the Titanic’s call for help had reached the Titanic’s location before ten o’ clock, which would have been seven and a half hours after “the big Titanic buried her nose beneath the waves and pitched downward out of sight.”
Furthermore, the New York Times’ article revealed that Captain Haddock, from the Olympic, the Titanic’s sister ship, gave the public false reassurances saying that the Titanic was being towed to port by another ship. Only the White Star offices were aware that the Titanic sank.

The article concluded that no one ashore could say what caused the great ship to hit bottom because the Titanic could have sunk as a result of a mechanical error or a collision with an iceberg.

In Discovering the News, Michael Schudson writes that during the first two decades of the twentieth century, even at the New York Times, it was not common for journalists to see a clear separation between facts and values. However, I would argue that The NY Times article did a great job investigating and illuminating to the public about the two different stories that were told from members of the White Star. Though, I thought it was interesting that at the beginning of the article, the article affirms that an iceberg sank the Titanic; yet, at the end, the article poses two possibilities for the incident.

I learned that Carr Van Anda, an editor at the New York Times, organized coverage with survivors of the Titanic who had returned to New York by renting one floor of a local hotel and setting up four phone lines. The New York Times was the only newspaper to report that the Titanic had sunk.

I researched the Washington Post and the earliest article reporting on the Titanic I found was dated July 31, 1986.

“No Gash From Iceberg Seen on Titanic: Discovery of Buckled Hull Plates Casts New Light on Collision,” by Boyce Rensberger, says that explorers who completed eleven days in small submarines observing the Titanic did not find the presumable “300-foot gash” torn on the ship’s side as a result of a collision with an iceberg. The article provides six distinct pictures and a picture diagram with labeled sections of the ship.

Robert D. Ballard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution was the Washington Post’s source. Ballard examined most of the “882-foot Titanic’s hull” and stated that most likely, the separation of steel plates facilitated leakage to sink the ship.

Because a gash was not evident and survivors did not recall feeling a sudden collision, Ballard, along with other analysts believed that the “ship suffered not so much a crushing blow as a slicing by a sharp wedge of ice.”

I thought both articles were controversial because the one published in 1912 focused on challenging facts that the captain and manager provided. The Washington Post’s article proves that the Titanic sank due to a mechanical complication, which is controversial because then the public realizes that the incident could have been avoided if more careful attention would have been devoted to the structure of the ship.

The stories of the Titanic reminded me of September 11 coverage. News media gathered information and “informed” the public that the U.S. was under attack, it told us the number of passengers on the planes, the rescue plan, and it showed us emotional images continuously. As time passed, analysts began questioning the event and now, the public has sufficient news stories and documentaries where we learn that September 11 had been planned and that even former President Bush was involved.

I see that the event of September 11 is of greater magnitude compared to the Titanic because more lives were lost. But both events rose emotional and controversial stories that are still talked about and questioned today. What really happened?