2008 Woodie Awards
University of Texas professor critiques American news media
John Seidner
Issue date: 10/24/05 Section: News
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Dr. Robert Jensen who has been a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin since 1992, also sat down for an interview beforehand to speak about issues involving his book and current events.
The lecture titled, "The U.S. Media & War," focused on the coverage of the war in Iraq. Jensen critiqued the press point-by-point and explained to the audience from the beginning that he wanted to provide a framework for understanding the media. His specific target focused on corporate and commercial news media.
Jensen wrote in his book that white people need to turn the tables on themselves concerning racism. The recent reaction to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina provided an excellent example as to how he feels.
He said: "It was kind of spooky, almost, the book came out in early September, those images from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina were very much on people's minds. The point I made in the book is there are still racialized disparities in wealth and well-being in this country and, in fact, those gaps are in some ways not narrowing at all and, in other ways, narrowing so slow it's almost irrelevant. New Orleans was kind of an extreme example of that."
The U.S. and state of Louisiana's governments reaction to helping victims of Hurricane Katrina should bring about movement building, according to Jensen. He said he believes that simply voting leaders out will not change future reactions.
He gave examples, such as the anti-war and feminist movements that began in the 1960s that were threatening to people in power. He said, "Those movements didn't leave those permanent institutional structures."
He said he believes this allowed corporations to become stronger and that any new movements need to correct the past mistakes for a permanent solution to the perceived problem.
