Orlando Sentinel Research Articles

Parental Rights Laws and the Impact on Mental Health Services and Counseling for Adolescents.

Parental Rights Laws and the Impact on Mental Health Services and Counseling for Adolescents.

ARTICLE-REVIEW ON THE BOOK BY Stephen J. Berry Watchdog Journalism: The Art of Investigative Reporting (University of Iowa, 2009. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 290 p.)

While witnessing a flood of media failings in 2002 and 2003 in the United States, and especially, the New York Times stunningly detailed mea culpa concerning its mistakes in covering the run-up to the United States’ war in Iraq, the author, a former investigative reporter, decided to show how watchdog journalism should work. The author selected six Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative projects of various-size newspapers and showed how the projects started, proceeded, and brought about change. The selected newspapers are The Orlando Sentinel in Florida (chapter 1), The Williamette Week in Oregon (chapter 2), The Toledo Blade in Ohio (chapter 3), The Baltimore Sun in Maryland (chapter 4), The New York Times in New York (chapter 5), The Los Angeles Times in California (chapter 6). Each chapter presents a backstory on each investigative reporting based on the author’s interviews with the reporters who carried out the investigative project. The book supplies full details on the path to finding out the truth by various investigative skills. The author emphasized that investigative journalism can be done individually or as a team at any size newspaper regardless of obstacles or corporate pressures, if only the journalist is armed with the investigative mentality. The author writes that this investigative mentality is required these days when corporate pressure on the media is widespread.

A Conversation

A Conversation

Gendered Violence as Revelation in John le Carré’s <em>The Night Manager</em>

Gendered Violence as Revelation in John le Carré’s <em>The Night Manager</em>

The blame game: news, blame, and young homicide victims

ABSTRACTMedia have represented blame in homicide cases as attributable to a victim or an offender; we provide a more nuanced category of shared blame. We examine stories covering young homicide victims to demonstrate how shared blame is operationalized in print news, noting stark differences across a victim’s race and gender. We conduct a content analysis of the Orlando Sentinel newspaper and police reports from Seminole County and Sanford, Florida, from 2000 to 2012. Stark racial and gender differences are apparent in the way the content is framed and how the victims are depicted. The newspaper’s representation of young African American males is consistent with existing stereotypes of the “criminal black man.” We discuss the larger implications of our findings and how our results apply to high-profile killings of young homicide victims including Trayvon Martin.

DISCURSIVE MECHANISMS OF NEWS MEDIA - INVESTIGATING ATTRIBUTION AND ATTITUDINAL POSITIONING

The case of 17-year-old Afro-American Trayvon Martin shot dead in 2012 by white neighborhood watch George Zimmerman is generally reported as the first killing of what over the last few years seemed an epidemic of lethal violence committed on mostly unarmed afro-American civilians which ignited other waves of protests and rioting across the whole country. Immediately after Martin’s fatal shooting the initial absence of charges against Mr. Zimmerman’s conduct, owing to a controversial self-defense law, prompted nationwide protest and unrest. An online petition calling for a prosecution of Zimmerman garnered over two million signatures; a process against Zimmerman was then started, though in 2013 his acquittal gave birth to the international activist movement #BlackLivesMatter on social media. All these events have since then resonated in the sensationalized reports of the media which «employ textual strategies which foreground the speech act of offering values and beliefs» (Fowler 2013: 209). Within Martin & White’s Appraisal Framework (2008) qualitative samples from the US print media coverage (The New York Times and Orlando Sentinel) of Trayvon Martin’s story are investigated. More specifically, our focus is mainly on attribution and evidentiality, i.e. on the interplay of directly-quoted or indirectly-reported speech that journalistic writers use to attribute viewpoints and versions of events to a variety of external sources, especially potentially controversial meanings largely confined to material attributed to quoted sources. We aim at providing a socio-critical interpretation of how the supposedly unbiased media narratives of ethnic affairs contributed to inflame racial passions, and, by funneling audience attention toward certain topics, influenced public perceptions of important issues.

The new Norm

This article examines how one Central Florida newspaper used emerging media technologies to communicate and engage better with a newly active audience during its coverage of two high-profile court trials. Through a series of in-depth interviews with participating journalists, the author demonstrates how the Orlando Sentinel disrupted traditional newsgathering and dissemination methods during reporting of the Casey Anthony and George Zimmerman trials, and in doing so, challenged long-standing gatekeeping media theories and exemplified emerging participatory journalism models. Findings show that audience demands for live and continuous information throughout the development of the Casey Anthony and George Zimmerman stories and resulting court proceedings were a driving force in changing outdated journalism paradigms that led to the adaptation of a new norm by the Orlando Sentinel newsroom and journalists.

Indicaciones recurrentes en las normativas para el uso periodístico de las redes sociales

Mainstream media all over the world have been regulating the behavior of their journalists in social media, fearing these new forms of communications might damage the credibility of their institutions. Those who have not yet done so face with concern this unstoppable challenge and are now outlining their own guidelines for social media policies. In an effort to inspire the design of these new policies, this paper aims to approach the recurring topics in the policies already written by leading media such as AP, American Society of News Editors (ASNE), BBC, Bloomberg, Charlotte observer, Freedom communication, Los Angeles times, NPR, Orlando sentinel, Politico, Reuters, Rockford register star,Saint Louis post-dispatch, Source media group, The Denver post, The guardian, The journal gazette, The Manhattan Mercury, The New York times, The Roanoke times, The Wall Street journaly The Washington post. A qualitative content analysis of 22 of these policies has been conducted to identify these topics.

Stand-alone News Photographs Portray Less Diverse, More Segregated Communities

How diverse is news content when criteria traditionally used to judge newsworthiness do not apply? As a first step in understanding presence of diversity when newspaper content is not beholden to traditional newsworthiness criteria, this study examines visual framing of standalone newspaper photographs that capture a realistic slice of everyday life.1Despite argument that the distinctive qualities of pictures make study of visual communication especially relevant to concerns of framing theory,2 framing researchers have virtually ignored visual component of news. A content analysis of 131 framing studies published in 15 international communication journals found 83 percent of studies completely neglected visuals and only 5 percent of framing studies coded visuals.3 By examining stand-alone photographs, this study will add to little studied visual component of framing while providing insight into diversity of photographs that depict a slice of life.What is mainstream news media's record on diversity in news coverage? Historically, African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans have been excluded from news.4 After criticisms and pressure, press began to include racial and ethnic groups in its coverage, but empirical literature shows people of color and issues relevant to them have primarily been under-represented.5 Additionally, people of color have been covered using 18 stereotypes.6 African Americans in particular have been stereotyped in news as criminals, poor, entertainers/celebrities and sports figures.7Races and ethnic groups have also been segregated in news. Segregation has been found in use of expert sources in network television news8 and story assignments in local TV news9 and newspapers.10 Research also has found an increase in African American sources in local TV news11 and Latino sources in newspaper stories12 when numbers of overall sources increases.Because purpose of standalone newspaper photographs is to communicate a slice of everyday life visually, independent of traditional newsworthiness criteria, question becomes: Are African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans included in that slice of life, and, if so, how are they framed?Research QuestionsThis study will address that issue by answering following research questions:RQ1:What is racial and ethnic composition of stand-alone, slice-of-life newspaper photographs and is there diversity or segregation?RQ2:What is relationship between number of people in photograph and racial and ethnic composition of photograph?The first research question builds on literature that has found segregation in contemporary news coverage.13 The second research question expands literature that has found diversity increases with increased numbers.14 Answering both research questions will contribute to diversity in news literature and little researched visual framing literature.MethodTo answer research questions, stand-alone, slice-of-life photographs published in six newspapers over a three-month period were content analyzed. The newspapers, which were selected to represent diversity in geography, ownership and population, included: The New York Times national edition (The New York Times Co.), San Diego Union-Tribune (Copley), Courier-Journal, Louisville (Gannett), Kansas City Star (McClatchy), Orlando Sentinel (Tribune Co.) and Houston Chronicle (Hearst).For cities in which newspapers were based, mean population percentage of whites was 56 percent; mean population percentage of African Americans was 25 percent; Latinos represented a mean population percentage of 19 percent while Asian Americans represented a mean percentage of 6 percent. The smallest mean population percentage was Native Americans at .5 percent. …

Early warning systems and disaster preparedness and response in local government

Purpose – The aim of this research is to better inform public policy makers and the disaster management community about the use of early warning systems. The central research question of this article is how local governments should provide early warning to the citizenry of impending tornado danger.Design/methodology/approach – The main objectives of the paper were achieved by reviewing the literature on early warning systems for tornadoes and by conducting a content analysis of news reports, from the Orlando Sentinel newspaper, which identified the most cost‐effective early warning system for tornadoes. The theoretical approach of the paper covered the responses, results, and recommendations themes from the disaster management early warning system literature.Findings – The study concludes with a disaster management policy recommendation for an early warning system for tornadoes for local government. The paper's recommendation is to utilize the cost‐effective NOAA weather radios to alert the citizenry of i...

NASA Funding Slow, Not Steady, After Space Race

After reading d. Kennedy's editorial “Sputnik nostalgia” (5 October, p. [17][1]), I find myself in a state I did not expect—one of disappointment. Kennedy writes about the positive effects the launch of Sputnik had on education and the nation's educational community. These improvements resulted largely from an increase in federal sponsorship that came as part of the backlash from Sputnik. Yet, there lies within this seemingly fine outcome an issue that needs to be addressed. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was formed along with a dramatic increase in federal funding for science and science education in response to the former Soviet Union's incredible achievement ([1][2]). When Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon, the government's interest in science dropped almost immediately. Because of the sudden lack of funding, the Apollo program was discontinued just 6 years after Apollo 11 landed in the Sea of Tranquility, in order to save funds for the shuttle and Skylab programs ([2][3]). Lately, NASA has received additional funding to attempt a second series of missions to the moon as part of the Constellation Program ([3][4]), but the long-awaited increase is the bittersweet result of an imaginary space race ([4][5]). It seems that only when faced with the threat of looking stupid or coming in second place does our government open its wallet to science ([1][2], [4][5]). 1. 1.[↵][6] 1. J. F. Kennedy ,Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs, Washington, DC, 25 May 1961. 2. 2.[↵][7] 1. R. W. Orloff , Apollo by the Numbers (NASA History Division, Washington, DC, 2000). 3. 3.[↵][8] 1. W. Gerstenmaier ,paper presented before the Subcommittee on Space, Aeronautics, and Related Sciences, Washington, DC, 28 March 2007. 4. 4.[↵][9] 1. R. Block ,“NASA points to foreign competition to spark support,” Orlando Sentinel 23 October 2007. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1150389 [2]: #ref-1 [3]: #ref-2 [4]: #ref-3 [5]: #ref-4 [6]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1. in text [7]: #xref-ref-2-1 View reference 2. in text [8]: #xref-ref-3-1 View reference 3. in text [9]: #xref-ref-4-1 View reference 4. in text

Papers Endorse Incumbents Four-to-One over Challengers

Non-presidential candidates in 20 papers in 2002, 2004 and 2006 were analyzed. In addition to favoring incumbents, they endorsed candidates slightly more conservative than congressional averages.

The effective use of the media during an infectious disease emergency

11. Business Continuity. Website with links to fluwiki sites. At: www.fluwikie.com/pmwiki.php?n=Consequences. WorkplaceContinuity. Accessed 21 April 2006. Leonhardt D. FEDEX News from New York Times on the Web. At: www.fedex.com/us/about/news/nytoct05.html?link=4. Accessed 21 April 2006. Microbix. Microbix pandemic plan. At: www.microbix. com/1502.html#generalmeasures. Accessed 5 February 2006. Jackson GW. Experts discuss bird flu response. Orlando Sentinel 6 April, 2006. Available at: www.orlandosentinel.com/ business/orl-birdflu0606apr06,0,5656766.story?coll=orlbusiness-headlines. Accessed 21 April 2006. 12.

Public Access to Autopsy and Death-Scene Photographs: Relational Privacy, PublicRecords and Avoidable Collisions

During the 2001 Daytona 500 NASCAR race, Dale Earnhardt crashed and died. The Orlando Sentinel sought autopsy photographs—public records under Florida law. Legal battles followed. The Florida Legislature passed restrictive legislation to protect the family from the anguish of having the photographs published. This article examines precedent for relational or derivative privacy claims, including the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in National Archives and Records Administration v. Favish, and focuses on the Earnhardt case and other recent Florida examples of the popular outrage helping to fuel relational privacy claims. The article concludes the Earnhardt state legislation and Favish federal FOIA decision are overbroad, though understandable responses; and, it recommends that access advocates consider supporting legislation allowing inspection, but not copying, of records likely to provoke outrage if released and distributed on the Internet or otherwise.

The Fairness Doctrine

Bob Morris can't sing, falsetto or otherwise. This portion of one of his “SUNDAY AT BOB'S” columns is reprinted with permission from the Orlando Sentinel. Orlando, PL.

Balance of Editorial Commentary in Four Florida Newspapers during the 1984 Presidential Campaign

Do editorial sections publish a positive ratio of favorable to unfavorable commentary about endorsed candidates and a negative ratio of favorable to unfavorable commentary about unendorsed candidates? A content analysis of the editorial sections of the Miami Herald, St. Petersburg Times, Orlando Sentinel and Tampa Tribune revealed mixed support for the hypothesis. The findings suggest editorial sections in some newspapers may be more internally balanced in their political commentary than previously believed.