Spectrum

Newspapers and other forms of news media are disappearing in the wake of more people getting their news through social media,

The result, according to the Medill Local News Initiative, is that our democracy is being threatened; civic engagement is declining; political polarization is increasing; and misinformation proliferates.

Dr. Janice Collins, multiple Emmy winning journalist and award-winning educator, says that the loss of local news strikes at the bedrock of our society and imperils our democracy.,

Studies show that one-third of U.S. newspapers that existed in 2005 will be gone by the end of 2024. As a country, we are losing more than two newspapers a week leaving 6.4 percent of the country without any local news outlet.

Dr. Collins advocates that this crisis must be addressed at multiple levels. She asserts that more national support needs to be given to emerging local and hyper-local non-profit news efforts.

She also says that the news media must embrace the newest technologies and not shy away from innovation.

Dr. Collins suggests that news media must be more transparent on how they function, utilize research to target opportunities, and solicit and train citizen journalists to partner in news gathering and disseminating efforts.

While disheartened by the current demise of certain news media, Dr. Collins enthusiastically embraces the future of journalism and its role in society.

Dr. Collins is an associate professor of journalism at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University.

Too often legal terms are used, without definitions, by the news media while covering cases involving former President Donald J. Trump. This leads to public misinformation, misunderstanding and confusion.

Periodically, this season, WOUB’s Spectrum podcast will endeavor to translate these key terms and procedures into understandable language so that the average person can keep up with the legal proceedings.

Retired judge and legal analyst Judge Gayle Williams-Byers along with retired judge and Spectrum host Tom Hodson will translate legalese into bite-sized digestible terms by using examples that everyone can understand.

These episodes will explain what is happening in Trump’s cases from a judge’s perspective instead of from the viewpoint of the parties. If you listen, you will be able to follow the cases better and understand more.

In this episode, Judge Byers and Hodson delve into “gag orders” – why they’re issued –how they’re structured-- what they really mean – and how they are enforced.

They talk about the difference between the state gag order in Trump’s New York civil fraud case and the one in the federal criminal election interference case in Washington, D.C.

Listen and learn about gag orders and the impact they may have on trials to come.

David Collins, an eight-time Grammy award winner, has been producing groundbreaking films, documentaries, television and streaming projects for over 25 years.

The common thread to his expansive body of work is that his projects give voice to marginalized populations and feature inclusive and omni culture content.

He, with his partner Michael Williams, created Scout Productions in 1994 – just five years after David’s graduation from Ohio University.

Scout Productions has gone on to produce Queer Eye for the Straight Guy for Bravo in 2003, Queer Eye for Netflix in 2018, Legendary for HBO Max in 2020 and his current effort in partnership with Amy Poehler called The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning for Peacock.

Collins says his award-winning company is provides culturally transformative and emotionally gripping content across multiple platforms with humor and heart.

He has two new series launching in May 2023.

An investigative documentary, The Secrets of The Hillsong Church, premieres on May 19 on FX and the following day on Hulu and “Merpeople” will open on Netflix on May 23.

David returned to Ohio University this spring to deliver the undergraduate commencement address and shared with WOUB’s Spectrum some insights into his education, his early career, and what keeps his company and his storytelling fresh.

Two- and one-half years ago, the Goldsberry family was robbed of over $230,000 by international computer scammers who took control remotely of a family computer and emptied several bank accounts.

This happened through 14 wire transfers to Thailand from December 16, 2020 to January 11, 2021.

During this time, the family noticed strange transactions happening and notified the national fraud department of their bank plus the local bank authorities.

To date, however, the Goldsberry family has yet to be reimbursed for their loss and they are frustrated.

Retired Ohio judge Alan Goldsberry and his financial consultant son Stuart have unsuccessfully tried various means to get reimbursement.

They contacted the local police, the local prosecutor and the FBI but have come up empty on a mechanism to get their money back.

They have attempted multiple times to get cooperation from their bank but to no avail.

They also have filed suit in federal court to get the bank to release its records. This was only partially successful.

Finally, they have turned to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) but have not heard from the FDIC for several months.

Meanwhile, they are running out of options.

Listen to their story as a warning on how this might happen to you.

If you have any suggestions on other options the Goldsberry family may have, please email them to me at [email protected].

This fall, the National Judicial College (NJC), located on the campus of the University of Nevada-Reno, will hold its second groundbreaking course to teach judges from across the nation how to develop and maintain anti-racist courtrooms.

This four-day course will be held in Montgomery, Alabama. Last years, inaugural course took place in Memphis, Tennessee.

“Participants will be challenged to examine their own beliefs, including unconscious beliefs, and consider anti-racist theory with practice as potential antidotes to bias,” says Judge Benes Aldana, president of the NJC.

The course is designed to identify sources of personal and systemic bias in courtrooms and to create or facilitate effective interventions.

Successful participants in the class are expected to lead “impactful initiatives to identify and mitigate sources of bias in the legal system, according to Judge Gayle Williams Byers, a Fellow at the NJC.

The course curriculum includes history, experiential learning, cognitive science, and psychological and sociological research.

“Masking” is a term used for when people with commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) get lenient treatment in our nation’s courts. This allows offenders to hide their traffic offenses and stay on our highways without retribution.

Masking, although too often commonplace, is actually a violation of federal law and prohibited and states could get in trouble if their judges do not comply, according to retired Judge Gayle Williams-Byers.

Too often, however, a person with a CDL may be cited for a traffic offense in his/her private vehicle. When the violator appears in court, they claim that they will lose their job if the offense is reported to a state Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

As a result, says Judge Byers, prosecutors and judges too often reduce the original charge to a minor offense that is not reportable to the state, or which does not carry any points against the offender’s license.

This masking process is prohibited yet in some places it is the norm. It is being opposed by the National Highway Safety Administration.

To promote compliance, Congress passed the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999 which requires the withholding of certain federal dollars from states who are not in compliance. Yet too many judges do not know that “masking” is illegal.

The National Judicial College and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are teaming up to raise awareness and thus make our highways safer.

Before traveling to the Midwest, New Yorker Fran Lebowitz talked with Spectrum’s guest host Emily Votaw and share her views on life, mortality, friends and smartphones.

Lebowitz is a writer, humorist and intellectual. A child of the 1950’s, she shares her social criticism with wit, wisdom and a dose of sarcasm.

In 1978, her first book of essays “Metropolitan Life” was published followed by another book of essays in 1981 called “Social Studies.”

Since then, she has been a frequent talk show guest and public speaker due to her engaging banter and her sometimes skewed slant on the world and pop culture.

Lebowitz spoke with Votaw recently before a speaking engagement in Marietta, Ohio.

Local television newsrooms are often chaotic with breaking news and even routine stories spreading news crews and reporters across a wide geographic area.

All are gathering news for both digital distribution and broadcast purposes with multiple and constant deadlines.

Someone must coordinate this mayhem and that person in the tri-state area of S.W. Ohio is Ramsay Fulbright, the Assignment Desk Manager for WCPO 9 News. He daily is sending reporters and photographers to stories across Cincinnati, SW Ohio, Indiana, and northern Kentucky.

Once the news is gathered, Ramsay also leads a team of assignment editors who feed the news products to various producers of multiple local television news shows every day.

Experience pays off for Ramsay. Over the years, his news judgment has been honed by his time as a news photographer.

Prior to jumping to the assignment desk, Ramsay spent 11 years as either a photographer or the head photographer at stations in Arkansas, Tennessee, Arizona and at his home station of WCPO News 9 in Cincinnati.

He lives in a fast-paced professional world, but he relishes the challenges. He boasts that no two days are the same and that the variety makes his job fascinating.

Learn more as you listen to this edition of WOUB’s Spectrum Podcast with Tom Hodson.

In the third of our Spectrum Podcast series on the inner workings of local television news, Janelle Bass gives us insight on being a managing editor at an urban television station in Cleveland.

Bass not only manages the reporters at WEWS News 5, but she also heads an award-winning podcasting project at the station. It is part of local television’s entrée into all forms of digital media: print, social media, podcasting and video.

She says every day on the job presents different situations and new challenges. There is no time to be bored or to rest.

She compares her job to trying to organize chaos, especially on breaking-news days.

Earlier in her career, Bass served as a wedding planner in North Carolina. She admits that many of the skills she honed coping with couples about to get married are the human relations skills she now uses managing the newsroom staff.

As an African American woman in media management, Janelle also has encountered some special challenges over her career even though she has a communication degree from The Ohio State University and an MBA from Baldwin Wallace University.

Some employees have balked at taking direction from a woman who is also Black, according to Bass. She says that this prejudice, however, cannot get in the way of delivering the news.

She says when that happens, she reminds them of the job they must do first, and then, after the job is completed, they can discuss whatever gender or racial issues are bothering them.

This the second in a series of episodes of WOUB’s Spectrum podcast focusing on the importance of local television news in our news consumption.

Allison Herman is a young news director. She only graduated from journalism school at Ohio University in 2010 yet she has climbed the ranks quickly in the news busines.

Already in her brief career, she’s worked in Huntington-Charleston, West Virginia, Louisville, Indianapolis, and Raleigh-Durham until she landed at WTKR-News3 in Norfolk, Virginia in 2021.

About seven months ago, she was promoted to news director. In just a short time, she has changed the news coverage from leaning more towards soft news to a more hard-news format.

Allison endeavors to service a large sprawling geographic area taking in numerous cities along the Virginia coast. Her viewing area also includes the country’s largest naval base in Norfolk. The region is quite diverse, racially, and economically. It also includes urban and rural areas.

To meet the news needs of such a large and diverse footprint is a real challenge, according to Allison, but one that she happily embraces.

Hear how this young news director attacks her job every day and get a glimpse of what it’s like behind the scenes in a local new room.

Listen to how reporters, photographers, editors, directors, and producers work together to bring you the latest in local news.