Journalism and Peace syllabus

Journalism and Peace

University of Maryland

Fall Semester 2013

Prof. Colman McCarthy

Whether they are journalists working for the corporate media or going it along as independents, or whether they are print or broadcast reporters, or whether they are newspaper columnists or television analysts, the media are deeply involved in the issues of war and peace. The course examines both the quality of the coverage and the relationship of the media to those who peace wage or wage war. Scarce attention is given to those who make the peace while great attention is given to those who break the peace. Time now to end the imbalance.

The course is discussion-based. Dissent is welcomed, as are minority views, eccentricities and the occasional digression. Let’s be good listeners. Listening is an act of caring.

COURSE TEXTS

Strength Through Peace

Solutions to Violence

Peace Is Possible

I’d Rather Teach Peace

WRITTEN REQUIREMENTS

A paper and a journal. The paper should be between 1,000 and 1,200 words. Due date: October 28. The ideal paper is a mix of personal reflection, analysis and fact-based commentary. It should not be a conventional research paper, tilled from the depleted soil of term paper dullness. Write a paper that is uniquely and creatively your own that no one else could produce: perhaps about some of your life experiences, how you have dealt with hard times, how you have dealt with violence in your life or conflicts with your family and friends. Another possibility is to write your reflections on one or more of the essays in our texts and how those ideas relate to your own life. It’s fine to use the first person pronoun. In fact, it’s often better that way. It’s a matter of expertise. You’re the expert on you. Or should be.

The journal, which can be hand-written or computer-typed, should contain weekly entries of 300 words or more. About what? It might be your comments about the class discussions, your reactions to the class readings, your comments about events in the news, ideas aroused by experiences outside the classroom--please omit, however, gripes about the cafeteria food and/or campus parking fines. Keep a journal so that 40 years from now, someone close to you can read it and say, “So that’s what you were like in college. No wonder you turned out so well !”

Due date: final class.

Papers or journals that are exceptionally well-written, creative and unique earn As. Ones that are above average, flow with well hewn prose and have occasional flashes of creativity earn Bs. Papers or journals that show only an ordinary command of language and aren’t especially noteworthy in either style or intelligence, earn Cs. Ones that are plodding or cause the professor to fall asleep after the first page earn a D—or F, depending how long the sleep lasts.

FINAL EXAM AND GRADES

Based on the course texts and handouts, the exam will list approximately 20 quotes as well as a list of their authors. Students are expected to match the quotes with the authors.

Only those quotes which were read aloud in class will be on the exam. Final grades are based on thirds: one third the paper (33), one third the journal (33), one third the exam (33).

The best reason for an absence is a death: mine or yours.

If you miss a class, check with a fellow student on what was covered or read aloud.

AVAILABILITY

I’m reachable at the Center for Teaching Peace, 4501 Van Ness St., Washington DC 20016. Phone 202 537-1372. Email: cmccarthy@starpower.net

What follows is a week by week plan of what’s ahead, and like all plans may be altered if necessary.

An examination of the relationship between journalism and peace, including our own personal involvements in decreasing violence and increasing peace.

Week Two Women in combat: Not in foreign battlefields but in the war zones of American streets when verbal violence victimizes women—catcalling. Read chapter 2 in “Peace Is Possible.” How do the media cover the issue of women victimized by other forms of violence?

Week Three An examination on how journalists and the corporate media reported America’s recent wars—Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.

Readings: chapter 8 in “Strength Through Peace.” “War Made Easy,” a documentary, will be shown.

Week Four Journalism and animals. The longest war in recorded history, and probably before history was recorded, is the war on animals. Readings: chapter 12 in “Strength Through Peace” and chapter 8 in “Solutions to Violence.”

Michael Weber, the director of FARM (Farm Animal Rights Movement) in Bethesda, Md., will be the guest speaker and lead a discussion on how the media cover the animal world, from slaughterhouses to the annual Thanksgiving “pardoning” of a turkey at the White House. For class, read Chapter 12 in “Strength Through Peace.”

Week Six An examination of reconciliation and forgiveness between enemies in the Vietnam War. Read chapter 9 in “Peace Is Possible.” The documentary, “Vietnam: Long Time Coming” will be shown.

Week Seven Journalists and the death penalty. An exploration of the coverage given to executions and legal cases involving capital punishment. Readings: chapter 10 in “Strength Through Peace” and pages 95 to 110 in “I’d Rather Teach Peace.”

Week Eight The documentary “From Fury to Forgiveness,” on capital punishment, will be shown. Readings: chapter 7 in “Solutions to Violence.”

Where has nonviolence worked? In many places, whether across the living or across the ocean. Readings: chapter 6 in “Strength Through Peace” and from the bottom of p.82 through 88 in “I’d Rather Teach Peace.”

Week Ten Time now, at last, for Gandhi. Read the Gandhi essays in chapter 3 in in “Solutions to Violence” and chapter 5 in “Strength Through Peace.”

Week Eleven A discussion of civil disobedience and how journalists cover the rebels and dissidents. Read chapter 6 in “Solutions to Violence” and chapter 10 in “Peace Is Possible.” Journalists and Martin Luther King, Jr. Why is the “I Have a Dream” King hailed but the anti-war anti-American foreign policy King ignored?

Week Thirteen What is love? How do the media portray it? How do we make ourselves loveable? Chapter 9 in “Solutions to Violence.”

Week Fourteen

Some people ask what’s happening. Some ask why it’s happening. And a rare few make it happen. They are people of passion, people on fire with ideals make it happen.

Read p. 122-132 in “I’d Rather Teach Peace.”