Wayne Barrett Expounds about Today’s Journalism

Wayne Barrett

“The real problem for journalists is favor,” Wayne Barrett said in a student press conference at Brooklyn College last Thursday. “Editors want you to be a tough guy in the newsroom but they want you to be nice to the people so they can give you scoops.” He is talking about the people who journalists talk to get their information and essentially their stories, such as politicians and everyday people on the street. He adds, “You never know when the good story is going to get burned.”

“The worst journalism is a weather report,” Barrett said. “They have endless hours to talk about [a weather event]. They answer the questions who, what, when, and how but they never answer the question “Why?” Barrett tip toed about the point that climate change might not really be 20 years from now. He introduces the question of whether or not we are living in it now. “Are they not telling us?” Barrett asked the audience. He said that reporters have to ignore the data and are making a political statement that they are not saying what is really going on.

Barrett has been a prominent writer at the Village Voice for almost 40 years. He wrote five books, including two on Rudy Giuliani and one on Donald Trump.

“Trump is a business man whom the bank puts so much money into him that he can’t fail,” Barrett informs. When he wrote the book 20 years ago, Trump went bankrupt and he owned no more casinos. He wrote the book while Trump was in financial trouble.

“He had me arrested one time,” Barrett said. “I got arrested and was handcuffed to the wall night. I was Donald’s favorite reporter.”

Barrett also talked about the Independent Black Movement. This movement, which included Al Sharpton, took on the Brooklyn County Organization which was the most powerful county in the United States at the time. The movement ultimately took on corrupted black spokesmen. For a while, Sharpton was a FBI informant of the mob.

“Every county leader is going to jail,” Barrett said as the students laughed. He was referring to Vito Lopez, which is the county leader of Brooklyn. According to Barrett, he does not want to give any judgeship to Republicans.

Barrett makes a point the past is irrelevant to journalism today. “It is like we have no respect for the past and only can think in the present,” Barrett said. “To have history of Trump and history of Sharpton and to have them be so important now and not look at the past is intolerably bad journalism. Journalists today have less historical memory than the guy with the scissors back in the day.” He insinuates that we have all this technology but don’t use it in the most effective way.

Barrett expressed how Comcast and NBC merged and Sharpton is very involved in Comcast. He jokingly said that viewers will most likely see more of Sharpton on NBC. FCC approved the merge but one guy did not. His name was Commissioner Crops, according to Barrett. He spoke about investigative reporting and how it is “diminishing because of these conglomerates.”

“We are paid to tell the truth,” Barrett exclaimed. “We hang out with politicians who are paid not to tell the truth. They put a gloss on the truth. They are paid to avoid and dodge the truth.”

“The thrill of defaming truthfully got into my veins,” Barrett said on being an investigative journalist. “It’s a great life to have.”

The Tuition Hike Will Benefit CUNY…Sike!

CUNY students protest about recent tuition hike

Where is the help for CUNY students when they need it? Why doesn’t anyone understand the need for a stand against a further tuition hike?

These are just some of the questions that are probably running through student’s minds as they oppose the recent tuition hike for the Spring 2011 and Fall 2011 semesters for the City of the University of New York (CUNY) schools. According to the John Jay College’s newsroom website, on November 22, 2010 the CUNY Board of Trustees approved a 5% increase in tuition for Spring 2011. During the meeting, the Board also approved a 2% increase for the Fall 2011.

“These tuition increases are unfortunate but necessary for the University to continue to provide the high quality educational opportunity our students deserve,” said Chancellor Matthew Goldstein according to the newsroom website. He also proclaimed that “increases are necessary to stabilize college operations, protect new faculty hired over the last several years.” The site also provides a chart that shows CUNY schools being the most affordable school in all New York City.

What exactly does “stabilize college operations” mean? Obviously, students didn’t want to hear what it meant. During the meeting, there were active protests going on right in the room according to a video found on YouTube.

In early February of this year, Governor Andrew Cuomo and the chancellors of New York’s public universities proposed that there needs to be a cut in CUNY and SUNY’s state budget, according to Syracuse.com, a social news and information website for New Yorkers. The budget cut will decrease financial aid given to students and also cut support to all the schools. The chancellors are also pushing for a new system that would include regular and frequent tuition increases. However, according to Columbia University’s website, the chancellors are raising tuition and also raising their salary.

The problem is so serious that six CUNY students are planning on filing a lawsuit against the Board of Trustees. Liberation, a newspaper “of the party for socialism and liberation” interviewed Frances Villar, one of the student activists apart of the lawsuit. Villar claims that “it is illegal to propose an increase outside the state budget.” She also says that CUNY is becoming more like private schools and since most of the students that attend CUNY schools are poor and working-class students, the burden falls on them and it will be difficult to go to school.

“The lawsuit is just a small step—one way to organize and show students that we are not powerless if we stick together,” Villar says in the Liberation interview. “We hope the lawsuit will be one step in empowering the hundreds of thousands of CUNY students to mobilize and defend what is ours.”