kelly anne fitzpatrick

Music: The universal language

8/19/2009

At Salzburg Academy we do a lot of talking. A whooooole lot. And some things simply don’t translate for all of us. I have seen many times, someone ask a question and not get the response they were at all looking for because in all of the translations to and from English, something just didn’t come across.

In a discussion Tuesday we found a solution: music. The Academy had the pleasure of an intimate conversation with conductor Sir Gilbert Levine. Levine is at Salzburg Global Seminar as a writer in residence as he works on his autobiography, The Pope’s Maestro.

Levine is a Jewish-American who, in the midst of the Cold War, took a position as the Director of the Krakow Philharmonic. At the time he said he understood that it was an unconventional measure for an American—especially a Jew—to cross the Iron Curtain and take up a position in Poland.

He did not know quite how shocking it would be to the media or the Catholic Church. Newsweek covered the story and within five days of arriving in Poland, the Cardinal Archbishop contacted him for a personal interview. Weeks later Levine found himself in a one-on-one meeting with Pope John Paul II in his private office in the Vatican.

According to Levine, the two discussed many things, particularly what it meant to John Paul that he had taken the position in Krakow. The Pope also informed Levine that he would be performing for him.

Over the coming years, Levine conducted many concerts as the results of collaborative projects between himself and the Pope. Chief among these was a concert commemorating the Holocaust. The Pope himself suggested having the concert in the Vatican, welcoming Rabbis and survivors to come and celebrate their own Jewish heritage within the capital of Catholicism.

A few years later the Pope suggested, “the Papal Concert of Reconciliation.” Following 9/11 the Pope welcomed leaders from all three Abrahamic faiths to celebrate the unity of their faiths. Through all of this, Levine repeatedly reminded the Academy, “Our differences are small compared to what unites us.” This is how the Pope felt; this is how Levine feels. This is, I believe, the greatest message the Academy has to offer its participants.

Following this concer and in-keeping with Salzburg Global Seminar tradition, we then had the pleasure of attending our own concert. The piano concert, featuring works by Mozart and Chopin, reached out to every one of us in a unique way. As Levine told us, “If you go to a concert with an open mind and an open heart, you will be changed.”

The Holocaust and Genocide Today.

8/11/2009

Genocide. Torture. Holocaust. All of these words are very powerful and bring very strong images to mind. These images are explored in depth in the movie, “Night and Fog,” a documentary from the 1950s that explores the lives of prisoners in Nazi concentration camps throughout Europe.

The Salzburg Academy watched this film last night in conjunction with our Friday visit to the Dachau concentration camp memorial. Following the film the room was silent, but with some prodding participants began to share their responses. The importance of the viewing, as Faculty Chair Susan Moeller put it, is not to sadden and upset us all, but rather to draw out the passion that the film instills.

Every participant came with a different background and different experiences. Some participants reminded us that these people were not monsters, the entire country wasn’t evil. They were simply people who didn’t have the strength to fight the propaganda of the regime. The government used media to create a climate that allowed atrocities to happen in plain sight. The German people, the Austrian people, the Polish people and the French people who stood by and allowed these things to go on were not all so different from us. They felt there was nothing they could do. They were afraid. It would not be a very long road for any one of us to travel to the same place.

In a sense we have reached that place again today. We blame those who stood by and let this happen during World War 2, but by our own logic, we—especially journalists—are responsible for genocides that happen today around the world. Torture and pain occur daily and we stand aside as onlookers. Why must we look back on something 70 years after the fact to understand that it was wrong? What will others be looking back on 70 years from now and blame us for? Why do we need to wait 70 years?

We feign powerlessness as we sit with all of the tools at our fingertips. We are unable to fathom a fate such as that suffered in the holocaust, yet we daily condemn others to it when we turn a blind eye. We worry about getting involved in others’ problems because it is all just so political. It’s so complicated.

It’s not. Pain is simple. Pain feels the same to everyone. Pain doesn’t care about religion or political beliefs or ethnic backgrounds. Genocide is wrong. Always.

These all seem like simple assumptions yet we choose not to think about it that way. My admonition is only this: understand the power of words. For the Nazis, words allowed them to commit great evils. Today we have the ability to use words to overcome genocide, pain, hopelessness and suffering. Why aren’t we?

Mobile Media and a Changing Journalism World

8/10/2009

The understanding and incorporation of new media into journalism, in my opinion, is one of the greatest challenges facing journalists today. In order to sell a media “product” it must be transferrable onto numerous platforms. None of that is particularly ground-breaking, yet one of my greatest concerns in entering the professional world is what the heck I’m going to do about it.

For that reason, the presentation given to the Salzburg Academy today by Corey Haik, Assistant Managing Editor of the Seattle Times online and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, was particularly interesting to me. The focus of today’s discussion was mobile media and its effects on journalism.

News media can now reach consumers through SMS, emails, smartphones and numerous other channels. As the delivery of media changes, so changes the process and production. Now, viewers and readers watch as a story occurs. Gone are the days of, as Haik put it, getting your story, having a coffee, thinking about it, talking to your editor, and then pumping out a fully digested story in 30 minutes. That is not a newsroom that will exist when I join the professional world.

A journalist tweets a question. A reader responds with a story idea, an event taking place at that moment. The journalist goes to the scene and shoots a video on her iPhone. She immediately posts online the video along with a headline and photos from the scene. The journalist gets a few interviews and returns to the office. She writes her first few graphs. She gets more information through phone calls and chats, all occurring on Skype. During the entire process, she is tweeting her thoughts and progress. Her followers are responding, giving more information and sending her in new directions. Eventually, her story may be A1 material. It may not.

During all of this the journalist may get a few details wrong, she may misspell a name or confuse a date. Her errors may be graver than simple mistakes. Regardless, they are immediately corrected in the online story and there is no real consequence. In the end, the print story—if it makes it that far—will be the print story we are used to seeing. It is the online story, which exists in many forms and drafts, which is unconventional.

The question is: is this good or bad? This is a very difficult question to answer, and one that has had participants here in Salzburg and journalists around the world very conflicted. In my mind, it is mostly good.

I am all for journalistic responsibility and professional standards, but where does getting the story become more important? If the news that we send out is a result of a journalistic process that includes not only editors and people in the newsroom, but also people in the community and around the world, than in the end we are sending out a better product.

To me the idea of journalists existing on a plane above the rest of the world, able to look down objectively and omnisciently, is absurd. Every journalist is a member of a local, national and most importantly, global, community. Better news comes from a better connection to those we serve, and that is something that big media, in the power they had in the previous century, had forgotten. It is my hope that new technologies will ground us in the reality of whom we serve and what we intend to accomplish through reporting.

Media Coverage of Swine Flu

8/9/2009

It is shocking the influence media can have on us. If you say H1N1 Influenza A (or the translation of that) to anyone with access to a television or internet they can probably tell you that that is the scientific name for a disease more commonly known as swine flu. The swine flu epidemic dominated TV, internet and paper news in the United States for weeks.

Something I had never thought of before though, was how swine flu was covered in Mexico, where the first case of La Gripe del Cerdo occurred. The government cancelled all schools in Mexico City on April 23, 2009. Five days later, all labor, non-strategic public administration and social activities had been halted.

As a result, TV media viewership skyrocketed. National newspapers’ sales increased by 10%. Swine flue became one of the only topics on social media as well. Facebook profile pictures were of people in decorated medical masks. People used chat programs to plan trips to the grocery store—the only place people were able to go to.

The question is: what effect did the increased media consumption have? According to the report given by the Mexican participants of the Salzburg Academy, the government reported on swine flu very effectively. Their minister of health gave a report three times a day on the status of the epidemic and appropriate preventive measures to be taken. One presenter said, “Everybody pretty much knew what to do.”

However, in a comparison of the top newspapers, none of the figures were consistent with each other or with the numbers released by the government. On the whole, the Mexican media failed to understand and report the scientific jargon used by the government.

In addition to the failures of the media in Mexico, media elsewhere failed to accurately report on swine flu. Coverage resulted in discrimination against Mexicans, who tended to be viewed as “natural carriers” of swine flu, and some news outlets around the world called the disease “Mexican flu.” The United States had more cases than Mexico and yet many countries, especially in South America, cancelled or limited the number of flights travelling to Mexico.

Despite reports from the World Health Organization (WHO), very little preventive journalism was done. In 2003 the WHO warned of a flu pandemic like swine flu, and in December, 2005 the WHO published a booklet of information specifically to help journalists accurately report on and understand a flu pandemic. Regardless, media urged flu vaccinations even though the WHO warned that they would not help against a new strain like swine flu.

In the aftermath of swine flu hysteria, we as journalists can look back and assess the job that was done. And it was a poor one. Even now, no follow up has been done. According to one participant, “It’s like [swine flu] came from outer space and then went back.” We cannot allow ourselves to be caught so unaware, unprepared and uneducated again.

Human Rights: Journalism or Advocacy

8/5/2009

Access to clean, fresh water is becoming a growing issue around the world today. At least, that is the premise of the film One Water, produced, written and directed by Sanjeev Chatterjee.

The film aims to represent the relationship between people and their water in different societies around the world. The filmmakers travelled with a crew of three to destinations such as Kenya, India, Hungary, and Japan to create the documentary, which has become a much larger project than was originally intended. Chatterjee has dedicated the past seven years to the film, reediting it for different audiences and purposes, and screening it in locations around the world.

The basic argument of the film, though not blatantly stated, is that water is a basic human right. The film shows the daily struggle people go through to obtain water (only sometimes clean). Interviewees ranging from the Dalai Lama to Robert Kennedy Jr. advocate that the privatization of water is morally wrong. Kennedy asks us what we would charge for next, the air that we breathe?

The film is a fascinating one, especially from the perspective of a journalism student. Chatterjee very clearly straddles the line between activist and reporter. Aside from being a documentarian, Chatterjee is also the Executive Director of the Knight Center for International Media. As Chatterjee explains, in a global community, we all face world issues like disease, poverty, and starvation, but how do we face them together? The Knight Center aims to answer this question.

Further blurring the boundary between reporter and activist, Chatterjee then projects a photograph of an ammunition magazine on the screen in front of us. He asks us to think of the magazine--as in the glossy, paper kind--as a holder of ammunition, carrying the ability to call others to action.

Yes, media do have the ability to call to action. The question is, do they have the responsibility to do so? More importantly, is it appropriate for news media to advocate ideology--even an ideology as simple as clean water for all mankind?

In my mind, the answer to this question is very unclear. The journalist has a responsibility to be fair, to accurately portray the world as it is. Where necessary, yes, journalists do need to seek out and report on the underprivileged, the silenced and the forgotten. But the line between fair portrayal and advocacy is a very difficult one to identify.

As far as I can tell, One Water is not news, it is advocacy, and Chatterjee, an activist. I don't believe that takes anything away from the film; it is still an extremely well-made and moving documentary. However, it falls more in line with sites like Scott Harrison's "charity: water" (http://www.charitywater.orgweeblylink_new_window), another admirable organization working towards similar goals.

To be direct, in the question of advocacy and reporting, I would have to simply say, "I know it when I see it." Or at least, in studying media literacy, we hope to learn to know it when we see it.

Tom Stoppard

8/3/2009

As a literature student, one of my greatest dreams is being realized at this moment. I am one of a small group of students having a conversation with a world-renowned playwright about writing, media and theater. Tom Stoppard is a fascinating speaker and apparently a highly private man. He has asked us not to record any of this conversation, so that's all I will say here, but this is an amazing experience.

Digital Media--The China Perspective

8/2/2009

The Digital Media presentation given by the Chinese delegation of the Salzburg Academy discussed many examples of Chinese netizens, through blogging and social media, forcing the government to bring about justice in various cases. In many of the examples, bloggers would call the government out on falsifications or demand that the government look into wrong doings. The Chinese speakers seemed very proud that their government responded to its citizens in that way.

As a citizen of a democratic government, I’ve always seen Communism as oppressive and generally evil. Granted, I don’t know a whole lot about Communism, but just ask James Bond, Communists governments are out to get everyone. When another participant asked a question about whether the government was truly letting bloggers say whatever they wanted, the Chinese seemed confused—yes, of course they were, their government didn’t shut down these sites, they liked the input from the people. Whether or not the government truly wants bloggers’ input can never really be known, but for me, hearing this was a true paradigm shift. Another participant followed up with a question about blocking of websites with “inappropriate” content. The Chinese didn’t seem fazed at all. Again, I was baffled. No uproar? No outrage that the government was hiding things from them? They seemed insistent that the censorship situation in China was improving; the government had not passed a law that had been propsed regarding installing chips in all new computers to block sites. Their positive outlook made me wonder: do media as the gatekeepers intentionally influence the public against other forms of government? Is that wrong? Do we have a responsibility as world citizens to seek information from enough sources that we can accurately evaluate our own situations? Is it irresponsible to assume that we can get our news from one source, or are media responsible for being “fair and balanced?” This final question is key in the issue of media literacy, which is the central topic of the Salzburg Academy. We write lesson plans to teach people around the world how to digest news in a way that makes them a good world citizen. My revelation over Chinese media reminds me that even as a journalism student, I have not been diverse enough in my media diet to truly pass judgment on anything I have not personally experienced.

"The world needs journalists to explain the world."

7/28/2009

The title of this post is a quote from the Salzburg Academy opening speaker, Lorraine Branham, a journalism professional and dean of the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

In her speech, Branham touched on many of the topics that we will be discussing in the coming weeks at the Academy. She first discussed new media and how they are changing the field, though intimated that new media have really become old news.

What she advocated however was that, though we may be doing our jobs differently now, media consumers still need us to be doing them. The citizen journalist plays an important role in picking up the slack that has been left by the downsizing of traditional media. Citizens are able to be the pulse of the community. They provide the media with stories that deserve coverage and can be more accessible than many traditional media. However, the man on the street does not have the reliability or ethical training of a professional journalist. More importantly--at least in my mind--is that traditional media can, and have a responsibility to be advocates for those who cannot speak for themselves.

As Branham put it, "human suffering continues around the world today." She gave example after example, along with statistics, of the voiceless who need journalists to call attention to their plight; AIDS victims, those living below the poverty line (on less than a dollar a day), children who suffer without proper medical care, those without food and clean water and many other issues. (For more on what's being done about these issues visit the UN's Millennium Development Goals website: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/weeblylink_new_window)

While the numbers seem daunting and intimidating, it is reassuring to know that I am a student being trained to help these people, not through medicine or research, but by making people realize that we are all responsible for one another. We cannot forget that, though they can't be heard, we must feel o's suffering as our own. Otherwise, we as a global community will never be able to move forward and progress.

Adventures

7/26/2009

Helen Keller once said, "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." Well Helen, my life is certainly not nothing.

I intended to blog frequently at this site about my trip to Salzburg, Austria to study at the Salzburg Global Media Academy, and today is my first scheduled day in Salzburg. Sadly, I am not in Salzburg. I am in Washington Dulles International Hell....er....Airport.

In all fairness, I had it coming. Aside from the occasional glitch--delayed flights due to maintenance or weather issues--all of my previous flight experiences have been pretty pleasant. Relatively speaking, of course. I should have expected this. Three flights. Only an hour layover at each stop. Something was going to happen. It was bound to. I told myself, "As long as I get to DC to meet up with the rest of the group I'll be fine. Just need to get to DC on time."

Other than realizing 20 minutes before leaving home that my bag was about 15 pounds too heavy (hey, its three weeks, I need a lot of stuff!), my departure from Cape Cod went off without a hitch.

I got to Boston on time, got through security no problem (I always feel like they're going to find something in my bags even though I check a thousand times for gels, electronics, or the rogue explosive that may have slipped in--one of those authority issues I have I guess), and made it to my gate. This is where I made my fatal error. I did it. I sent that text message: "Looks like my flight won't be delayed! No missed connections :)." Crap.

We boarded on time and even made it away from the gate before the hooziwhatsit light went off. Crap. Twenty minutes later the maintenance crew has reset the whatchamacallit and we should be one our way until (DUN DUN DUN) the captain informs us that due to air traffic coming into DC we will not be departing for another 25 minutes. Crap.

We finally leave and the flight went fine. The crew came around with information on connections out of DC.
"Flight 916? To Frankfurt? It's a 5:15 flight?" I asked hopefully, naively.
"Oh. 5:15? Well....I'm not sure"
Crap.

The captain asks that passengers not making tight connections here in DC remain seated allowing others off the flight first. Yeah right. Air travel has been reduced to crude football and no one, I mean no one, is really that polite. Did I mention I was about three rows from the back of the plane?

I pull all of my linebacker moves to get off the plane and nearly trample a small asian couple admiring a baby immediately outside of the air craft door. I run (and for those of you not aware, I do NOT run) to my next gate and, panting, listening as they call final boarding for my flight, reach the man standing outside of the door at my gate. The closed door at my gate.
"Name?"

"Kelly." pant. "Fitzpatrick." pant.

He meanders to the United AIrlines desk, dramatically picks up the phone that connects to the other end of the gangway, slowly turns and looks over his shoulder out the window that overlooks the tarmac, and we both watch as the gangway pulls away from the closed door of the 777 carrying flight 916.
"The door is closed."

Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap.

I glared daggers at the man hoping that he might actually turn to stone. No luck. Tears blurring my vision and still panting I turned away and dragged myself to the Customer Service counter.

It is important to note that that wing of the terminal had no AC. In July. In Washington DC. It was also packed with dozens of people waiting in line for a swift kick in the groin from United's useless customer disservice. It seemed like everyone else was from some disastrous flight from San Francisco and I was the only person on the Boston flight who missed their connection. So much for commiserating with all of my fellow screwed Bostonians.

After waiting 45 minutes to be informed that there was not a single seat on a single flight out of either DC airports to anywhere in Germany until the same flight tomorrow, and no the airline could not comp a hotel because the delay was due to air traffic, I sadly dragged myself to curb 2H to await a hotel shuttle. I did strongly consider crying in a bathroom stall but I was way to hungry and needed to get to the hotel to eat. ASAP.

I then waited a full hour in whipping winds and torrential downpours under an awning that was far too small, for a hotel shuttle that was running "ten minutes" late.

And here I am, 20 hours later, $150 lighter, in the same terminal, waiting at the same gate, with only slightly better AC, far worse for the wear (you don't really think you'll need deodorant or a hair brush for an overnight flight), and still 12 hours from my final destination.

Here's to adventure.

Twitter...

5/15/2009

Really.....why? Why exactly does everyone you know need to know that your toe hurts? or that you are grocery shopping--yeah, thanks for that tip on the sale on coca-cola products, but if I were in the market for beverages, I think I could figure that they were two-for-one on my own.
I guess twitter makes sense for celebrities. Maybe. Personally, I really don't give a hoot about what b.spears is up to, but I suppose if you buy into that celebrity obsession thing its worthwhile. Its a great tool for marketing a celebrity at least, it keeps her, as a product, in consumers' minds, but the other 5,999,999,900 of us do not need to twitter or tweet or twit or whatever it is.
In my mind I even tried to justify twitter, saying to a friend, "well I mean with you guys that I live with it might be nice to always know where you are. Ya know, be able to know who's in class, who I can go to dinner with, whatever." To this she responded, "Ummm, because we don't have text messaging?" Touche. And so I have given up. I will continue to listen to radio djs talk about who is saying what on Twitter and merely wonder in amazement. And I'm sorry that your toe hurts, you should go tweet about it.