I love our Tuesday night class with Steve Springer, from Voice of America. Each week we meet with Steve, since he’s the adjunct for our Semester in Washington summer program. I like his stories, his advice, and the fact that he opens up the floor for the rest of the class to share their thoughts, and sometimes, like last week, get into some pretty heated debates.
Last week’s topic: Michael Hastings’s article in Rolling Stone about General McChrystal.
There has been quite a stir over whether or not McChrystal should have given his real thoughts and opinions on top administration officials. There’s so much to talk about! Did Hastings cross an ethical line? Was the interview on or off the record? Would you have published the article if you were Hastings? Was there something he should have done differently? Was Obama right to relieve him of his duties? The list goes on and on, and needless to say, two hours wasn’t long enough for everyone to share their many opinions.
I’m not going to get on my soapbox, but I think this would be a good topic to discuss further on some sort of message board. I know there are already hundreds of threads out there, but I want to know: how do past, current, and future journalists feel about this issue?
Steve and Amos (The SIWJ program Director)both talked about their personal experiences similar to Michael Hastings’s situation, and it was interesting to hear how they would have handled it twenty years ago vs. how they would handle it today. That’s something I find very valuable: the fact that we’re learning from someone who has done and still does this sort of stuff everyday of his life. The information he’s giving us comes from his first hand experience doing exactly what a lot of us hope to do in a few years. You can write all the textbooks you want, but I don’t think they can educate you on half of the stuff some of our guest speakers, not just Steve, have talked to us about.
From All the President’s Men, to Facebook issues, to Michael Hastings’s article that brought down Stanley McChrystal, to PR vs. advertising vs. journalism, class with Steve Springer is always entertaining.
