Episode #18 The JSchool's Response to Changes in the Industry

In Episode #18 JSchool director Tom Hodson talks with Reform Radio host Bob Stewart about the impact that changes in the journalism industry are having on Ohio University's JSchool. Stewart is Associate Director for Undergraduate Studies in the JSchool, as well as occasional host of Reform Radio.

Episode #17 Matt Sienkiewicz, Live from Bethlehem film

In Episode #17, Live from Bethlehem Producer/Director/Cinematographer Matt Sienkiewicz talks with Reform Radio host Kevin Zieber about the film.

From the Live from Bethlehem web site: "Matt Sienkiewicz is an Emmy-nominated screenwriter and documentarian, as well as a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin. His credits include the award winning comedy series Windy Acres and the acclaimed television documentary Festa. His academic research focuses on Western involvement in Middle Eastern broadcasting initiatives and ethnic representation in American media. He has articles forthcoming in The Journal of Film and Video and The Community Media Reader."

About the film:

"Live From Bethlehem chronicles the struggles, failures and triumphs of the Ma'an News Network, the only major independent news source in the Palestinian Territories. Following the lives of the station's reporters, producers and photographers, this documentary provides an in-depth, balanced look into the challenges of making news in one of the world's most combative regions. A highly observational film, Live From Bethlehem focuses more on people than politics while still engaging with questions of gender equality and freedom of expression in the evolving Palestinian mediascape."

Episode #16 Media Reform and The Guild

Episode 16 features Guild member and former Plain Dealer reporter/columnist Scott Stephens talking with host Kevin Zieber about The Guild's position on media reform.

Amy Goodman, co-host of Democracy Now! (replay of Episode #13)

This week we repeated Episode #13 (from April) with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! to call attention to the fundraiser at Casa on Aug. 22, 2009. The April broadcast of Reform Radio featured an interview of Amy Goodman, executive producer and co-host of the groundbreaking independent news program, Democracy Now! (The second part of "The Gnat and the Elephant" will air in May.) Over the years, Goodman and Democracy Now! have won numerous journalism awards including the George Polk Award for Radio Reporting, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism, and the Society of Professional Journalists' Best Investigative Reporting Award. On March 31 she, along with Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald, received the first Izzy Awards, named in honor of the legendary investigative reporter and publisher, I.F. Stone. During the interview Goodman addresses the importance of independent journalism, why she became a journalist, and her experiences in the struggle to speak truth to power.

Goodman came to Athens and Ohio University on her 72-city tour of the country promoting independent journalism and public radio, and to broadcast Democracy Now! live from the television studio studios of WOUB. She also was one of two keynote speakers at the the first Shuneman Symposium on Photojournalism and New Media held April 9 by the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. Her speech brought hundreds to Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium. Click on the media player below to hear Athenians' reactions to Goodman's address and their support for independent journalism programs as Democracy Now!

Episode #15 Media and Democracy, part 2

The July broadcast of Reform Radio continues the conversation with Ohio University Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Algis Mickunas on the importance of independent, critical, truth-telling media in our democratic republic, the first part of which was rebroadcast in June. Truth telling by today's journalism stars is rare, as they function more as official mouthpieces for the corporate and governmental elite. Last week, the journalism icon and standard-bearer news anchor, Walter Cronkite, died. Glenn Greenwald in a recent Salon.com column starkly pointed out the differences between today's journalists and those cut in the mold of Cronkite, I.F. Stone, and Edward R. Murrow. The failure of media and journalists, as part of a constitutionally protected "fourth estate" Mickunas discusses.

Media and Democracy (replay of Episode #10)

The June broadcast of Reform Radio is a rebroadcast of episode 10, featuring the first of a two-part conversation with Ohio University Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Algis Mickunas. Mickunas is world renowned for his scholarship on contemporary European philosophy, Marxism, phenomenology and hermeneutics. In this segment Mickunas discusses the relationship of the media and a healthy, functioning American democracy. Mickunas says that democracy requires an active, involved citizenry that keeps an eye on not only its elected representatives but its media as well. "If we don't participate, democracy is gone. Democracy doesn't grow on trees, doesn't sit in some sort of a brain cell," says Mickunas. Mickunas explains how and why citizens must be involved with their governments in order to legitimate them and keep them focused on the people's business, and how media is intimately involved in the political process. He also outlines how media have neglected their roles as the constitutionally privileged, so-called "fourth estate." Be sure to tune in next month for the second part.

Episode #14 The Gnat and the Elephant

The May broadcast of Reform Radio airs the second of two interviews with an award-winning former business reporter for Gannett newspapers (White Plains, N.Y.), Demetrius Patterson. Patterson, who is also a graduate of the Midwest Workshop for Minority Journalists, which was sponsored by the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism in the late 1980s and early 1990s, delves into the details of his demise as a reporter after breaking what should have been, perhaps, the biggest story of his journalism career. He was featured on ABC's Nightline after reporting on racism throughout General Motors management which precipitated systemic failures in its minority dealership program. After heated accusations and lengthy legal battles, Patterson learned that some stories, as documented by Into the Buzzsaw and Project Censored, are too hot for corporate America and mainstream news media. The show will be rebroadcast Thursday, May 21, at 9 a.m. (EST) on WOUB 1340 AM (www.woub.org).