Connie Scultz Speaks at JSU By: Kevin Brant

On March 8, Jacksonville State University department of communication had their annual Ayers Lecture at the Houston Cole Library. More than 100 people came and heard Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper columnist Connie Schultz.
Schultz spoke on a variety of things which included her family life, being married to a senator, her dog and life as a journalist and columnist.
According to Schultz, journalists are able to relate with people. “When it comes to journalism, we have more in common with people then most think they do,” Schultz said.
Schultz then spoke on advice her mom gave her regarding getting married to a guy when she was younger. “Don’t marry a guy until you see how he treats the waitress at a restaurant,” Schultz said.
Schultz also mentioned a startling statistic regarding journalists in Washington D.C. “Only half of the 50 states have only one journalist in Washington D.C.,” Schultz said. “Washington needs us as journalists to people so they can know what is going on in government.”
The young people are important to Schultz. “The young people are entitled to have their opinion on whatever is going on in the world,” Schultz said.
After Schultz ended her lecture, there was a short question and answer session. People in attendance were given an opportunity to ask questions on a wide variety of subjects.
Ashley Groover from Rainbow City, Ala., thinks highly of what Schultz had to say. “ I think we need more strong and opinionated women like Connie to help push the generation of college students, Groover said. “ She spoke about being fearless and we need not to be afraid to have our opinions but do it in such a way to where journalism standards are not compromised.”
Jessica Phillips from Southside, Ala., really enjoyed what Schultz had to say. “ I loved it and I thought she had had thoughtful comments.

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WikiLeaks

          WikiLeaks is known for the most classified documents ever to be published in history. Beginning in 2006, WikiLeaks acquired its domain name of wikileaks.org. It was a site where whistleblowers could come anonymously without fear of being recognized. The nonprofit website uses volunteers on a global basis for input. The website is able to be edited by the many volunteers around the globe. Volunteers are anonymous and protected to the fullest extent. They leak all information that is received by many different individuals and have started in 2006 and are presently leaking information. Some publishing companies began to collaborate with WikiLeaks to begin a record-breaking, vast leak within a new digital age era.

          They are not government regulated. The expressions made and information leaked is protected by their first amendment right and a legal open internet of expression without interference. They are a medium and part of a mass media. They are the internet

Since 2006 they have leaked documents uncovering Guantanamo Bay protocol for the U.S. Army, Scientology’s secret documents,  Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email comments, a list of restricted email address of many countries, and intercepted phone conversations with Peruvian politicians in an oil scandal.

            Documents are recovered different ways. It is by hacking into forbidden accounts or inside informants passing on the leaks. They consist of it published tens of thousands of confidential military field reports about the two wars in July 2010; it was denounced by American officials for endangering the lives of soldiers and civilians. The release in late November 2010 of a trove of 250,000 from the State Department led to anger and criticism from officials worldwide. In late August 2011, American officials became alarmed when WikiLeaks published nearly 134,000 leaked diplomatic cablesof classified, secret, and private information (New York Times).

A code of ethics is in place for all journalists. Journalists use this, though not mandatory or legal, as a guide for ethical reasoning when writing stories that will be published. Wikileaks has a transparency way of publishing information without always using the code of ethics; although they do not legally have to. A part of the Code of Ethics describes how journalist can minimize harm by:

— Show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage. Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects.
— Be sensitive when seeking or using interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief.
— Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance. (SPJ).

Other journalists can use these leaked documents alongside their stories for credibility and authenticity. Today large publishers continue to use leaked information in their newspapers. Companies include The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, and El Pais. They are able to do this by their first amendment right of freedom of the press.

In December 2010, a website that the Pentagon had described in 2008 as dedicated "to expos[ing] unethical practices, illegal behavior, and wrongdoing within corrupt corporations and oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East," and that in 2009 had received the Amnesty International New Media Award for reporting on extrajudicial killings in Kenya, came under a multisystem denial-of-service attack intended to prevent it from disseminating information. The attacks combined a large-scale technical distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack with new patterns of attack aimed to deny Domain Name System (DNS) service and cloud-storage facilities, disrupt payment systems services, and disable an iPhone app designed to display the site's content (Benkler).

On December 1, 2010 Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee Senator Joseph Lieberman told all parties affiliated with WikiLeaks to stop. This was after the State Department already sent out a letter to WikiLeaks stating someone has broken the law. In rebuttal, all its contributors Amazon, Mastercard, Visa, Paypal, and Apple discontinued its service to WikiLeaks. It lost 90% of its funding.

The government wants to regulate websites from leaking classified information. This started in 2010 when the American government soldier’s helicopter video was leaked globally exposing the acts of the military government. The government believes WikiLeaks has violated the espionage act that states when the United States is at war, shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the Constitution of the United States, or the military…… and whoever shall willfully advocate, teach, defend, or suggest the doing of any of the acts or things in this section enumerated and whoever shall by word or act support or favor the cause of any country with which the United States is at war or by word or act oppose the cause of the United States therein, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both (Halsall).

Bills introduced by the United States to regulate the internet have not been successful. Intellectual Property Act (PRO-IP Act) of 2008, which created an IP czar in the White House and funded additional resources for criminal copyright enforcement, Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 that required colleges to redesign their networks and develop offerings to protect the interests of Hollywood and the recording industry against theft students, COICA introduced in September 2010 states sites that have "no demonstrably commercially significant purpose" other than providing access through downloading, streaming, or linking to unauthorized materials (Benkler), SOPA introduced on 10/26/2011 authorizes the Attorney General to seek a court order against a U.S.-directed foreign Internet site committing or facilitating online piracy to require the owner, operator, or domain name registrant, or the site or domain name itself if such persons are unable to be found, to cease and desist further activities constituting specified intellectual property offenses under the federal criminal code including criminal copyright infringement, unauthorized fixation and trafficking of sound recordings or videos of live musical performances, the recording of exhibited motion pictures, or trafficking in counterfeit labels, goods, or services (Thomas).

As these bills are being discussed a major “Blackout” happened over the internet. In response to the bills to protest against changing the open internet Reddit, Mozilla, Twitpic, Cheezburger network, Harry Potter themed game site called "Hogwarts New Zealand", Google, and Firefox blacked out there web pages and could not access them.

                                           History of Involved Media Organizations

Many well-known journalists reported WikiLeak’s transparent documents in their news. Below are some excerpts of reports from CBC News television, The Guardian, UK Channel 4, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Spiegel, Aljazeera, and The New York Times to name a few.

Canadian forces may have secretly participated in the invasion of Iraq is contained in a classified U.S. diplomatic memo obtained exclusively by CBC News from the whistleblower website WikiLeaks (Westen).

Bloody errors at civilians' expense, as recorded in the logs, include the day French troops strafed a bus full of children in 2008, wounding eight. A US patrol similarly machine-gunned a bus, wounding or killing 15 of its passengers, and in 2007 Polish troops mortared a village, killing a wedding party including a pregnant woman, in an apparent revenge attack (Davies).

             UK Channel 4 news reports on September 2011 that “WikiLeaks has defended itself against accusations that it may have put lives at risk and in a series of Twitter postings blamed individuals who used to work with the organization and The Guardian newspaper for inadvertently disclosing a password which could be used to open the file containing the cables online”.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism on October 23, 2010 tells what the files leaked of a US Helicopter attack. “According to the files, despite knowing the insurgents wanted to surrender, the crew not only opened fire with a Hellfire missile, but when it missed they actively chased them down to a shack where they had taken refuge. With the approval of their command unit, they opened fire again, killing both”. (Stickler)

Spiegel online international comments, "Our previous dealings with WikiLeaks were on the clear basis that we would only publish cables which had been subjected to a thorough joint editing and clearance process. ... We cannot defend the needless publication of the complete data -- indeed, we are united in condemning it."

Aljazeera reports, “However, certain US and Western leaders contend that Wikileaks cannot enjoy protection under "freedom of information" because they believe it has launched an "information war" against the US that involves espionage, and an attack on US national security.

New York Times headline on October 22, 2010 read Leaked Reports Detail Iran’s Aid for Iraqi Militias, and read “On Dec. 22, 2006, American military officials in Baghdad issued a secret warning: The Shiite militia commander who had orchestrated the kidnapping of officials from Iraq’s Ministry of Higher Education was now hatching plans to take American soldiers hostage”.

These media outlets are currently following leaks given by the anonymous source. However, The Guardian is being sued by WikiLeaks for allegedly leaking 251,000 unredacted cables.  

Description of Individuals and Organizations Reported by Media

Not much is known about related entities of WikiLeaks. All the volunteers remain anonymous. Few that has been in the public eye.

Julian Assange claims to be the founder, spokesman, and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks. He was able to produce his website under The Sunshine Press Organization and is a member of the Sunshine Press Production Company.

The original publisher of the WikiLeaks website was called the "Sunshine Press", however, WikiLeaks' own internal structure and history remain shrouded in darkness (Rosenthal).

Former spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg has left WikiLeaks. He wrote a book about working with Julian Assange. However, it to, did not reveal any information about the website.

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, has not blocked WikiLeaks access to its customers.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is finding ways to “civil” the internet. Eric Schmidt attended one of his seminars.

Tom Flanagan was a political science professor at the University of Calgary. He is known for making a comment on CBC News Network stating the assassination of Assange. Laughingly he says, “I think Assange should be assassinated, actually.”

The only other publicly known individual related to WikiLeaks is Kristinn Hrafnsson who is also a member of the Sunshine Organization. 

Ethical Issues Involved

The ethical issue before WikiLeaks is free speech verses national security. The Pentagon condemned the website and demanded, through the news media, that its staff return the documents and any other documents not yet released. All four branches of the armed services issued internal memoranda to personnel barring them from accessing WikiLeaks, and the Department of Justice began to eye Julian Assange, the site's founder and public face, for charges under the Espionage Act of 1917. Meanwhile, an Army intelligence analyst, already suspected of leaking classified video and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, was sitting in a military prison in Kuwait, where he instantly became a person of interest in the Pentagon's growing investigation into the source of the Afghanistan documents. WikiLeaks would not confirm whether the analyst was the source (Peters).

A reporter’s privilege involves protection by the government by shield laws. The government can request sources from journalists; if journalists dispute this they can receive prison time. A question arose if WikiLeaks can be protected under this law.

The first amendment right granted to every American citizen is freedom of speech and press. This allows for the open internet and a free flow of information with government regulations.

Investigative reporting involves more than the mere dumping of documents. It is a "watchdog journalistic process of investigating wrongdoing ... with the goal of holding power-wielders accountable for their actions. It often involves in-depth, long-term research and multi-article reporting revealing new information. It is based on documentary research, extensive interviewing, and undercover reporting and surveillance (Peters)”. Wikipedia using illegal means of hacking to upload many documents for the public’s right to know. 

Critique of the Media Coverage

WikiLeaks and the governments of many countries consider issues from different perspectives. The government has become a dictatorship-like for America. It claims freedom but wants to regulate as well. I understand regulating so harm or injury does not happen to an individual, but to regulate for not accepting one’s thoughts is a whole other thing. They feel in this case it threatens the lives of American troops and national security. I do believe it does this.

Military plans in war do not need to be publicly documented for the world to have access. However, cruelty by soldiers in all countries should be publicized. It should not be tolerated.

The free flow of speech with the open internet links us to so many things. Government should not fully regulate it. I do feel they should protect against piracy and privacy.

In class, we discussed two types of ethical considerations; the absolutist and the other situational ethics. I feel the government is the absolutist because they do not believe in any “grey” area. It’s their way or no way and their way is the only right way. The American people are the situational because they feel there is a rational way to handle leaks without a set of rules to govern them. WikiLeaks is also an absolutist. They believe no matter what is published it is in the right for people to know at any cost.

If we can apply Aristotle’s Mean of finding a common ground between the two issues, everyone would benefit. We can still have an open internet with government rules. 

Recommendations for Ethical Media Practice

Corruption should be leaked but use discernment when names are involved. Keep a censor. They could also use a spokesman for addressing the public on what they actually stand for. However, I would not use Assange because he symbolizes trouble among everyone.

Become true investigative journalist. Report and analyze without hiding. Let everyone know what you stand for so there are no surprises.

In truth Assange is not really the story here, nor is Wikileaks.  They simply illustrate the times we are in; media now flows differently. Stopping a newspaper from publishing a story is no longer the issue, nor is it necessarily an option.  Information is now free flowing.  It can be replicated and travel past national borders.  WikiLeaks is simply the first volley. What price people will have to pay for transmitting information, as well as who decides which information is legal to post, are issues that journalists, governments and the public at large are going to have to answer (Mora). 

Elite Honor Students Sponsor S.H.O.E Drive

This will be the third year for the JSU elite honor students to sponsor a SHOE drive. The drive is through the entire month of February. All shoes will be donated to the JCOC (Jacksonville Christian Outreach Center) locally.

Boxes are placed throughout JSU for students to donate new or slightly worn shoes for charity. Last year boxes were only in the academic buildings, however, this year they will also be placed in residence halls. In future years, more boxes can be placed in other areas to increase donations.

 “Students spear-heading this are elite honor scholars, and it’s a big service project for them and they can give back from the benefits they receive for their scholarships.” says Janet Whitmore, Honors Program Coordinator.

Inspiration for this project came from “Tom” shoes. The maker of “Tom” shoes, Blake Mycoskie, befriended children in Argentina that do not have shoes to protect their feet and walk barefoot every day. He wanted to help by having his company donate a pair of shoes to a child for every purchase that was made.

 Elite honors decided to help those locally. The first year, 50 shoes were collected around campus. Then last year, 220 pairs of shoes were collected. This year they hope to beat last year’s number and progressively get larger.

The drive is personal to the students involved. The students are so spread out with their schedules, this allows them to bring the shoes to one place and count them all together as a group with a similar project.

Plans for the project’s future? They say every year is a growing effort.

Arts and Sciences Symposium

Since 1995, every year an Arts and Science symposium takes place. In the last 6 years Dr. Jan Case has been the chairman for the event at JSU. Through the years there have been different formats and different ones in charge of the event.

It is about students ranging from graduates to undergraduates that do research projects either extracurricular projects working along with their professors or as part of a class they attend. This gives the students a forum to come and present the work they did and discuss it within a ten minute session. Some of the students will present this to committees later on and this gives them a chance to get a trial run.

Subjects include English, Art, Math, Computer Science, and recently the College of Education has a couple of entries this year. A lot of new entries from here and there are submitted.

Dr. Case explains, “It’s a great variety and that’s the good thing about it. It gives us a chance to see what is going on in the rest of the campus… I really like knowing different things that are going on….I have learned a lot about grants and projects they have for freshman biology students.”

Any department that has at least three entries is provided a prize. It is a very “low-key”, but friendly competition.

All the abstracts that are presented from their research are published in a proceedings book so the students will have a collection. It’s a great experience and looks great on a resume if the students apply for a job or enter into graduate school.

Dr. Case says, “It really makes them stand out because we are small enough to foster undergraduate research and our undergraduates can present a lot of things that other universities reserve for their graduates”.

The application process opens up at the end of the fall semester. Most of the students that did their research in the fall and present their abstracts have a little time to revise before presenting.

Projects that are done in the spring are not finished yet and this is why it is held in the fall now. Before the symposium was held later in the spring but it was hard because of all the end of the year things going on. It has worked out well, after many experimental dates, so it is kept this way.

Along with presentations, a graphic art contest is taking place. The winners for this year’s symposium are Nicolette McClure, Lindsey Brooks, and Lindsey Price. The art design was used for the itinerary and will be used for the rest of the year. This was their first year entering the graphic art contest and won!

Alabama College Goal Sunday

Last day to apply for scholarships is March 1^st

This is the second year for JSU and the state of Alabama to hold Alabama College Goal Sunday. This is a nationwide program sponsored by the Lumina foundation through a grant through the YMCA. The YMCA in Birmingham applied for the grant and received for the first time last year. Stephanie Miller is the state coordinator and JSU continues to still be a site for this program.

Stephanie Miller gives incite to the program, “I think it’s a great program because it helps the community not to be afraid of the filing process that you know there is someone there to help them.  Some don’t know what’s available and some don’t have access. In today’s society, we think everyone has a smart phone, everyone has access to a computer, and some live in areas where the internet is not readily available. So the goal of Alabama College Goal Sunday is to help all students in the state of Alabama file a fafsa form, it is free, and there are people that are here to help”.

The program is set up across the state not only in Alabama but in Tennessee, Florida and it’s a time when financial aid professionals come together and we try to reach people, parents, and students that need help filing for financial aid, what the process is, give them information. Whether they decide to come to JSU or not this is the foundation for applying for any federal aid at any school.

            Vicki Adams says, “We have labs set up so that we can take these parents and students that want to apply for the fafsa, a free application, we will get it done today, and they can put up to 10 universities or colleges on the electronic app and just a good time to reach out.”

The program proves to be helpful. A survey said it was a great opportunity for the parents to come in because it may be special circumstances and at least with a financial aid counselor parents can sit and talk with that counselor and walk them through that process.  There are parents that are not working any longer or parents that were married this past year that are not married now and we help them get through the application process.

Adams adds, “The application, of course, we have been doing it for so long...I could imagine a new person sitting down to that application could be mind boggling”.

One family that showed up Sunday has two daughters that received scholarships from JSU. The girls say JSU gave them a better offer than anywhere else.

Dr. William A. Meehan states, “It’s our opportunity to tell you all about financial aid. It’s not about coming to JSU particularly. We want to make sure you have all the information you need to make a wise decision about financial aid and going to college. There is no reason in today’s economy, even though college is very expensive, that you cannot afford to go to college… I think it’s a great opportunity for folks that want to know more about college and financial aid opportunities. It’s not about JSU it’s about helping families and having students have access to college. Financial aid is very important because college has become more expensive through the years”.

It’s a free process. Some fafsa websites will charge you $80, so make sure if a site asks for your credit information log out and go to fafsa.gov. Apply as early as possible. Start taxes early and once they are filed start the fafsa process.

            Parents are helped to get Pin numbers. A pin can be deactivated if it were ever compromised. Follow up with the school’s financial aid office for any additional information that is needed.

The professional financial aid staff included Stephanie Miller, Vickie Adams, Marian Bryant, and Donna just to name a few.

The student ambassadors show their support for incomers to lend a hand to get started at JSU.

Student ambassador, Morgan Cox says,” it can be a complicated process and having these people here to take time out of their weekend to come help students and teach….I think it means a lot to people”.

Another student ambassador, Jordan Vickers, adds, “It simplifies things”.