Press freedom and responsibility was emphasized at the recent Robert H. “Doc” McGaughey Lecture on Sept. 19 where Renee Shaw, Kentucky Educational Television (KET) Public Affairs Director and KET Moderator, explained the importance of journalistic integrity.
Murray State students, faculty and community members flocked to Lovett Auditorium to hear Shaw’s speech, including Marcie Hinton, associate professor of public relations.
“Renee Shaw is a hero of mine,” Hinton said. “I love KET and I love Renee, so I was really anxious to get her perspective on news today and media literacy today, and she delivered that tenfold.”
Shaw began her lecture by recognizing the challenges that are faced in the news today, focusing on how burned out and mistrusting much of the American public has become as a result of biased news reporting.
“Back in 2022, the Border Institute had concluded a biannual study and found that 42% of Americans, sometimes or often actively avoided contact with the news. That’s more than 100 million people,” Shaw said. “News and information shunted from digital platforms is finding its lowest common level: the trivial is elevated as profound and what’s fiction is interpreted and passed off and sold off as truth. And just as importantly, it’s harder to distinguish the credibility of the source of the writer. It’s crash and burn–the leads, the teases, the headlines. And crash and burn is exactly what many of us are doing by watching it. We’re exhausted, we’re traumatized, and we feel hopeless.”
Shaw dedicated much of her lecture to finding solutions to this divide between journalists and citizens. She highlighted the importance of fully explaining issues and concepts to the public so that nothing can be misconstrued. Shaw gave the example of when she produced a news segment dedicated to teaching the public how a grand jury works during the time of the Breonna Taylor case. The segment was well received and proved that when news covers complex topics, a journalist’s main goal should be to inform.
Hinton plans to implement this in her classes.
“I teach a media literacy class, so I’ll apply tons of things from this lecture when we get to the journalism (and) news point of the class, especially the idea that all media needs some explanation,” Hinton said. “These days, there’s so much of it, as (Shaw) mentioned, and it all starts with social media. And so all of it needs an explanation. People need to be able to sit down, read it and understand it. People learn reading (and) writing, and arithmetic–media needs to be in there too.”
Another solution Shaw proposed was the aptly named solutions journalism, an approach to news which highlights responses to issues, rather than just the issues themselves. By detailing why responses are or are not working, solutions journalism stories can help people learn what is needed for change and improvement and can provide people with a refreshing and hopeful view of news coverage.
“The bottom line is that journalists’ work is both transactional and relational with sources and subjects, but also with audiences,” Shaw said. “People need to leave a story they’ve read or a program that they’ve watched with a sense of possibility and solutions journalism can be a template for achieving that and building trust in our trade.”
Shaw’s suggestions for coverage improvement was appreciated by journalist Edward Marlowe, a 2012 Murray State alumni and former reporter for the Murray State News. Marlowe said he believed having Shaw speak on campus was a boon for the University as she was able to bring credibility and advice for all ages.
“She had something for students just as much as she had something for me,” Marlowe said. “She is able to bring levity to the situation, which I think is so important. She has a lesson for every single journalist in every single phase of their career. She was able to talk to young journalists that are trying to take that next step, but she was also able to talk to me. I’ve been a journalist for 15 years, and she was able to tell me that I still have so much more to learn, more humility to absorb, more ways in which I can get better as a journalist.”
Shaw also encouraged all those in attendance to become more active in their news participation and to work on growing their media literacy. Whether someone was a journalist or a member of the public, Shaw said that everyone had a responsibility.
“We have to do a little homework too,” Shaw said. “To be an informed citizen doesn’t mean you just get fed this stuff; you have to take and exercise some discernment about what you’re watching, where it’s coming from, and to expose yourself to contrary opinions. That’s part of my news diet, not just as a practitioner of journalism, but a consumer of news, and one who believes in this country and loves our democracy. Fundamentally, journalism is a protector and surer of democracy, and it takes all of us to make sure that there is light instead of darkness.”
Hinton hopes the students in attendance will start implementing these habits in their own lives.
“We all need to be fact checking, reading the news every morning–and reading legitimate news, not just social media,” Hinton said. “And be watching media and participating in media, creating media while being deliberate and conscious of what it is that we’re creating and what we’re consuming.”
The Doc McGaughey Lecture aims to bring an accomplished journalist to campus every year to teach people about the importance of press freedom and responsibility. Past lectures in this series can be viewed on the Murray State Live YouTube channel.
