Author Archives: Prof. K

Media history commentary

Posted on July 25, 2012 | Comments Off on Media history commentary
  • Radio and the Titanic —  Radford University, April 5, 2012 — If Guglielmo Marconi had not been so stubborn, perhaps 1,600 would not have perished when the Titanic sank in the icy Atlantic 100 years ago.
  • Hezekiah Niles: a patriotic newsmagazine editor in the 19th century —Baltimore Sun, Sept. 4, 2011 — Niles was a devoted patriot and an editor with vision. He managed to put aside his own partisanship in order to reach out in the spirit of compromise. He hoped that spirit might hold the nation together. Although his ideas were widely accepted in the North, he found attitudes in the South hardening during his years as editor.
  • Public Broadcasting’s Fight for Funding —Roanoke Times, Feb. 20, 2011 — … The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967, but the roots of educational and public broadcasting go back to the early days of radio, when communities, schools and churches started their own services, according to Radford University communications professor Bill Kovarik. “Federal licensing for commercial stations basically pushed all those educational stations off the air,” said Kovarik, who has written a media history textbook titled “Revolutions in Communication.”

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Posted in Media history

The newsroom and the greatest country

Posted on June 26, 2012 | Comments Off on The newsroom and the greatest country

Jeff Daniels in HBO’s Newsroom.

Among the hundreds of reviews of  HBO’s The Newsroom during the summer of 2012,  so far, none have questioned the basic accuracy of the screed heard round the world.

You can watch it at this link  or just read it here:

“And you — sorority girl — yeah — just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there are some things you should know, and one of them is that there is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world.”
“We’re seventh in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, third in median household income, No. 4 in labor force, and No. 4 in exports. America leads the world in only three categories: Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending where we spend more than the next 26 countries combined.”

Acerbic. Bitter.  Certainly human. But …  journalistically accurate?  Let’s take a look. Continue reading →

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Posted in Currents

Information politics and oil wars

Posted on June 25, 2012 | Comments Off on Information politics and oil wars

Were we wrong on “peak oil”?  Or just misinformed? 

BP_reserves_global_550x375  proved.versus2

By Bill Kovarik

One of the more painful lessons of recent  history involves the way politics can slant  scientific information.

The latest entry in this category seems to be the curiously sudden abundance of fossil fuels.   Where we once had imminent shortages and a series of resource wars for Middle Eastern oil, we have natural gas from fracking, heavy oil from Venezuela and unconventional oil from Canada’s tar sands now hitting world markets.

Reactions from the world press include the following:

  • “We were wrong on peak oil,” said  George Monbiot of the Guardian in July, 2012.  “There’s enough to fry us all.”   Environmental strategies must change now because “the facts have changed,” he said. Continue reading →

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Posted in Currents

New metaphors for information

Posted on May 14, 2012 | Comments Off on New metaphors for information

At the end of the 20th century,  two main metaphors for information were common:   information “overload” and the information “superhighway,” and the two concepts worked together.   Just as trucks on a highway can be over weight limits, so, too, could a person’s capacity to absorb information deliveries also be overloaded.

The problem with this metaphor is that it assumes a one-dimensional delivery of a quantity of information from point A to point B.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Currents

On April 1, Google re-introduced Morse Code …

Posted on April 1, 2012 | Comments Off on On April 1, Google re-introduced Morse Code …

Note the two buttons - dot and dash - on the "Gmail tap."

Yes, its just two keys that express the entire alphabet.   And, while we’re at it, what about hand-set type and manual printing presses?

(Note the date – April 1) !

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Posted in humor

Threatening the media

Posted on February 16, 2012 | Comments Off on Threatening the media

In the long history of public relations blunders, perhaps the strangest is the saga of the disintegrating Heartland Institute.

Most recently, its choice to link a terrorist with “belief” in climate change has eviscerated the Chicago based advocacy group.  But even before the May debacle, the signs of dangerous incompetence on the part of public relations practitioners were all there.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Flashbacks

Letters to the science editor, 2016

Posted on January 31, 2012 | Comments Off on Letters to the science editor, 2016

Now that the average American has taken a  serious interest in science,  we’re seeing all kinds of new debates.  People  worry about radiative forcing and the use of the Stefan-Boltzmann constant in global climate models, among other things. So it’s not hard to imagine that there will be a lot more of this ersatz erudition in the media. Here are a few of the letters to the editor we will probably be seeing soon:

  • The so-called Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction theory is ridiculous!  Iridium does not kill dinosaurs !! Show me just one tiny bit of evidence that a dinosaur ever keeled over after being exposed to iridium! You cant, can you? Stupid ass scientists.   —  BJR, Lubbock, Tx.
  • It’s hard to believe anyone but an outright moron would accept the Kepert model as a modification of the valence shell electron pair repulsion theory. VSEPR theory is practically written in the Bible.  You will fry in hell, Kepert model fools! — TD, Richmond, Va.
  • Bateman’s biological principle is clearly an abomination in the sight of God. I cant tell you how repulsive it is to have this taught to my children in school.  If people didn’t believe in Bateman’s principle, biology teachers would be cast out of their lucrative $40,000 a year jobs.   When oh when will these lying scientists ever learn? — BZ, Bozeman, MT.
  • Quantum Field Theory? Ha! Just a plot by montrachet swilling mathematicians!   — YN, Portland, ME.
  • And that goes DOUBLE for the Banach–Tarski paradox!  — YN, Portland, ME.

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Posted in humor

A Fleet Street relic strikes again

Posted on January 30, 2012 | Comments Off on A Fleet Street relic strikes again

Scientists worldwide were alarmed  Jan. 29 when the London Daily Mail reported — inaccurately — that British Meteorological Office had released “temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.”

The Met Office immediately issued a press release saying the article contained “numerous errors in the reporting.”

In other words, the Mail just seems to have just fabricated the data they attributed to the Met Office.  They just made it up. Invented it.  Pulled it out of the air.  Lied.  (Could it be any clearer?)

This would be outrageous for an actual NEWSpaper, but it’s standard procedure for the Daily Mail —  one of the grotesque and humble relics that once adorned Fleet Street the way gargoyles have graced Notre Dame cathedral.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Flashbacks

Yes, Virginia, and Robin, there IS a Santa Claus

Posted on December 2, 2011 | Comments Off on Yes, Virginia, and Robin, there IS a Santa Claus

Thomas Nast 1892.

Chicago Fox news anchor Robin Robinson played the Grinch this week by advising parents to tell children the “truth” about Santa Claus.  (At about 3:30 on the video).

“Stop trying to convince your kids that Santa is Santa,” Robinson said on the air.  “That’s why they have these high expectations. They know you can’t afford it, so what do they do? Just ask some man in a red suit. There is no Santa. (Tell them) as soon as they can talk — There… Is … No … San… Ta …”

Outraged parents threatened to roast her like a chestnut if she didn’t rein it in.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Flashbacks

In memory of Joseph Pulitzer and Charleston Bay

Posted on November 2, 2011 | Comments Off on In memory of Joseph Pulitzer and Charleston Bay

By Bill Kovarik

Years ago,  when I worked as a reporter at the Charleston SC News & Courier, I would often look out over the bay and think about Joseph Pulitzer.  

Out there, where the muddy Cooper River met the great blue Atlantic,  Pulitzer died 100 years ago this week ( Oct. 29,  1911).

He was hidden away on his yacht, as usual, suffering from an extreme hyper-sensitivity to sound.  According to biographers, even the sound of a person’s voice was painful, and his last words were to ask that an assistant reading to him speak more softly.

Pulitzer’s sickness is astonishing — for a journalist, at least.  Most editors and many reporters have the opposite problem. Their lack of sensitivity, in both physical and moral terms, approaches outright deafness.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Flashbacks