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May-12-2011 15:29 
Op-Ed: How to Know What's True In Age of Information Overload
Henry Clay Ruark Salem-News.com
Pragmatic, Serious, Sensible Guiding Steps To Navigating Blur of 21st-Century Media Terrain.
(SEASIDE, Ore.) - Seldom, these days,. do I ever find any book, even the most professional-level ones, of such overriding importance that it requires me to write essentially a book-report in place of mine own "informed opinion" as an Op Ed. But it does still happen --very occasionally indeed.
This one is simply titled "BLUR". That one-word title truly characterizes the universal and ubiquitous general feeling inevitable for most of us facing the frustrating --sometimes even infuriating-- task of making common sense about the encompassing "blur" in which we find ourselves when contemplating --as responsible citizens surely must-- the onrushing near-tsunami/depth and impact of the now well/recognized "information overload", from which we are entirely unable to escape these days.
The second cover-headline further reveals what the nature --and the great realistic accomplishment, too-- of this thin-but-mighty book does for every serious reader: "How to know what's true in the age of information overload". The book is: BLUR; Bill Kovach, Tom Rosenstiel; Bloomsbury USA, 2010, 225pp; and Its ISBN is 978-1-59691-565-7. Together, previously, they published "The Elements of Journalism" and "Warp Speed". Kovach has been chief of the Washington bureau, New York Times, Editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Director of the Nieman Fellowship Foundation at Harvard, and is founding chairman of Committee of Concerned Journalists and senior counselor for the Project for Excellence in Journalism. Rosenstiel has an illustrious thirty years in the profession, as media critic for the Los Angeles Times, chief Congressional correspondent for Newsweek, and founder (1996) of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, among other challenging and shaping assignments,
The two authors are probably the only two long-career journalists in our nation who, together, could produce such an insightful, sensitive and sensible handbook for ready and rapid reference to the changing patterns of the realistic sources for "news" --read: essential information-- open to most persons these days: Our sometimes distorted and manipulated mainstreamer dailies, our overwhelming crowd of constantly changing magazines and journals, and unavoidably the Internet --the wellspring and streaming source of much mis- and disinformation at recognized readinesss for too-easy, too-constant, too-everything involving the open communication this new Century surely doth demand.
That, friends, is a very large promise. Only someone who has personally and professionally attempted to breast that overwhelming tide, driven by the inescapable driving motivations of managing its meanings and then summarizing and analyzing those meanings for a demanding public, could contemplate risking the difficulties and dangers of such a task --much less reporting in helpful detail and useful patterns and approaches for serious readers.
Yet that is precisely what this masterwork for your shelf does accomplish, in such chapters as these: 3. The Way of Skeptical Knowing: The Tradecraft of Verification. 4. Completeness:What is Here and What is Missing. 5. Sources: Where did This Come From ? (HCR: "and WHY" !!). 6. Evidence and the Journalism of Verification. 7. Assertion, Affirmation: Where's the Evidence ? among others; and finally, with extreme prescience, an Epilogue, crowning this very special achievement with "The New Way of Knowing".
Throughout each of its very practical sections this book provides not only extremely informative and highly useful "insider"-examples --story/content analyses, incidents, quotes and the reasons for them-- but the authors share their mutual massive knowledge of the working tradecraft they have accumulated in their various and adventurous careers.
American journalism is alive-and-well, despite many declarations of its arrived-or-coming death, sure to be extremely detrimental to our conception and fragmentary practice of true democracy. With the streaming flow of information now making it imperative for each of us to be our own editor and to make running judgments long demanded only of practicing journalists, this slim volume may well be our best possible ticket to those choices fundamental for our own lives in this new 21st Century.
Per our long-practice here at Salem-News, seek it out for "see with own eyes, judge with own mind". Find it at the library, skim it at the bookstore, check it out on Amazone via Internet; but do not miss contact with its insightful, sensitive and sensible information and methods. You will be first amazed, then gratified you did; and then, surely, much better qualified to cope with that onrushing, overwhelming tide of information-flow we all must face today.
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 At 21, Henry Clay Ruark was Aroostook Editor for the Bangor, Maine DAILY NEWS, covering the upper 1/4 of the state. In the ‘40s, he was Staff Correspondent, then New England Wires Editor at United Press-Boston; later Editor for the Burlington, Vermont 3-daily group owned by Wm. Loeb, later notorious at Manchester, New Hampshire UNION LEADER for attacks on Democratic Presidential candidates.
Hank returned to Oregon to complete M. Ed. degree at OSU, went on to Indiana University for Ed.D. (abd) and special other course-work; was selected as first Information Director for NAVA in Washington, D.C.; helped write sections of NDEA, first Act to supply math, science, foreign language consultants to state depts. of education; joined Oregon Dept. of Education, where he served as NDEA administrator/Learning Media Consultant for ten years.
He joined Dr. Amo DeBernardis at PCC, helping establish, extend programs, facilities, Oregon/national public relations; moved to Chicago as Editor/Publisher of oldest educational-AV journal, reformed as AV GUIDE Magazine; then established and operated Learning Media Associates as general communications consultant group. Due to wife’s illness, he returned to Oregon in 1981, semi-retired, and has continued writing intermittently ever since, joining S-N in 2004. His Op Eds now total over 560 written since then.
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Hank Ruark May 17, 2011 7:20 pm (Pacific time)
Lynn et al: Thank you for your points, most already in work here, including your new links on opinion re Klein. Regarding unions, that's part of real problem driven by social/cultural trends and power struggles within both NEA and teachers union, also in work, with some previous contacts on both sides but some years ago. moresoon...first draft of No. 1 in new series almost ready...
Hank Ruark May 17, 2011 2:54 pm (Pacific time)
Lynn et al: Parentadvocates.org will bring up their website and easy to find the solid report reflecting some opinion on Klein work in education there. Worth seeking for opposite viewpoint and for info on charter schools.
Lynn Simmons May 17, 2011 9:19 am (Pacific time)
Hank I typed in the earlier address provided on my browser and it came up error. I did it again and it went through. Maybe try the below method and you'll have some success.Type in: http://www.google.com/search?hl=enandsource=hpandbiw=1003andbih=543andq=joel+kleins+criticsandaq=fandaqi=m1andaql=andoq= (Then go down the page to the title: Joel Kleins Performance Review- Parent Advocates. Also you might find this link illuminating re: Mr. Klein...http://nychold.com/let-carson-040621b.html ). This gentlemen no doubt has praisers and detractors, but it is his actual record that speaks volumes, as does the prevailing history of public education and the declining literacy rate. I see in Detroit "Sometimes you can't grasp how big a problem is until you say it out loud. Nearly half of the adult residents of Detroit are functionally illiterate. That's right -- 47 percent cannot use reading as a tool in everyday life. They cannot fill out employment applications or read the newspaper or understand signs that warn of danger in workplaces -- if they work." (Which also means they are easily susceptible to propagaqnda). http://www.detroitliteracy.org/faq.htm Of course comparing funding with performance quickly dissolves the notion that more money is the answer, which goes against prevailing wisdom, and herein lies the problem, and that is, "prevailing wisdom" is the problem! Time for a paradigm shift, and that means a shift of power and external/internal influences that unions have, which in my opinion, is the crux of the problem in regards to implementing a successful paradigm shift. How to do it is beyond my pay grade, but using the current professionals has not worked out too well. Time to listen to the taxpayers, collectively, they are the real providers of prevailing wisdom.
Hank Ruark May 16, 2011 7:34 pm (Pacific time)
Lynn: Sorry your link came up "The specified FUSEACTION was not recognized. (articleandarticleID)" since I wanted to see what comments were made re Klein. If you can send again will try once more at least...thanks for your kind comment re Blur, and look for more on education in much more critical vein...have ten-foot shelf of ongoing books studies, reports et al from the '70s onwards, and find Howard Gardner, among others, in agreement with my main points to-come. Send link again when you can...
Lynn Simmons May 16, 2011 6:16 pm (Pacific time)
The link on my below 10:45 AM post came up in error, this one did work a second ago: http://www.parentadvocates.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=articleandarticleID=2300
Hank Ruark May 16, 2011 10:59 am (Pacific time)
To all: Just discovered this special-note card "Who'll Watch the Watchers ?", dated 1968 (!), in special-report book " Innovation in Education: New Directions for the American School" from the Committee for Economic Development, a private and highly influential group of 200 educators and businessmen: Who'll Watch the Watchers ?" Washington: A panel of the Committee for Economic Development has asked Congress to establish a Commission on Research, Innovation and Evaluation in Education to oversee change in education. "If past trends continue and increased money is expended on the present conventional format of education,," the panel warned, "there is little assurance that significant gains will be made." ----------------------------- Is THAT "old hat"-enough ? Experience sinc clearly shows the complexity and near-immovability for easy-change in "the system" --what is needed is radical remediation, the components for which we will examine in upcoming Op Ed-series...
Lynn Simmons May 16, 2011 10:45 am (Pacific time)
Hank "right on" about your praise of The Blur, an excellent read, and if not required reading for journalism students, must certainly be included on supplementary reading lists. Joel Klein has a rather long list of impressive critics by those who actually worked with him, and know him best within the New York school system ( below link..."based on statements from parents, teachers, regional supervisors, and other city employees and taxpayers...") who repeatedly year after year he was running things in New York, wanted him removed post haste. Of course we can look at the educational record in New York during his tenure, and as we say "proof is in the pudding" when we see his accomplishments, or lack of them. Please note he was a potential candidate to take over as Education Department head in current administration, but job went to Mr. Duncan, who has similar record of performance in the city of Chicago. Though there is a redeeming quality about one of Mr. Kleins views seen at below link (#7): " Joel Klein supports Charter Schools, and believes that the public school system is a terrible place to get an education." (He has a well-documented history of conflict with school-related unions). Ironic perspective, no? Maybe that's what allowed Mr. Duncan to win out, especially when you see who Mr. Moneybags is? I have found that informed first hand opinions are far more accurate than those that are based on supposition and/or sharing similar agendas. http://www.parentadvocates.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=articleandarticleID=23007
Hank Ruark May 16, 2011 10:28 am (Pacific time)
To all: I wrote above to Mycah: "That is NO EVASION of the worst situation in the system since the early days of our new democratic republic, but only pragmatic recognition of the realities demanded for any conceivable set of remedial steps..."old hat" to most of us who have been in the profession for decades, but hard to accept for those who have only public channels for their information." For the serious reader, esp. in preparation for upcoming Op Eds re educational chaos today, "old hat" translates nicely and neatly into classic volume by Howard Gardner, copyright 1991: " The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think and How Schools Should Teach"; Harper/Collins-Basic Books; ISBN 0-465-08896-1. Cognitive research over the past 30 years shows unmistakably that it takes ten to twenty years for basic new findings to permeate the hampering and delaying elements of our culture and work their way into public understandings, even when driven via deep public interest in areas and issues of painful concern. In current concentration by the public on the plight of the school sysrem, we are seeing an historic confirmation of that cognitive finding...perhapas hastened somewhat by tremendous new impacts from the technologies for information sharing now at hand.
Hank Ruark May 15, 2011 8:16 pm (Pacific time)
Mycah: Since you mention both Washington D.C. and Klein in yours, you might wish to check out one of those 50 refs. I noted, since it goes to the heart of the matter on both remedial programs: By Amanda Paulson, noted educational writer, it appears in the new Christian Science Monitor weekly news-and-issues publication, in the March 21 issue, surely available at your library if, indeed, you do not subscribe. It is cover feature under heading 'Turnaround Schools" --and its content firmly supports approach that we have huge impact on educational system from many complex social, economic, fiscal, regulatory and other major issues...which may well be the main conclusion upcoming from our exploration via this new series of Op Eds. That is NO EVASION of the worst situation in the system since the early days of our new democratic republic, but only pragmatic recognition of the realities demanded for any conceivable set of remedial steps..."old hat" to most of us who have been in the profession for decades, but hard to accept for those who have only public channels for their information. Which identifies our interest in your qualifications for what you choose to write here, just as we seek same from all others... IF you wish to question findings of such as Klein and DC supt., that seems to me eminently fair..."life experience" and personal "research" takes us only a short distance on the complex long journay now demanded for real remedial action.
Hank Ruark May 15, 2011 8:02 pm (Pacific time)
Mycah; Thanks for your calm, rational tone and comments. More-soon on the points you raise. You wrote: "...pursued illumination by experience coupled with research with many current and past teachers, administrators, and educational researchers." That nimbly avoids any factual statement re your qualifications and your definition of research --pursued here simply to nail down from whence we cometh...and mine on public record in S-N Staff Page, as well as in some 675 Op Eds so far, morecoming, many on educational issues. Where's your record ? If you claim more than general knowledge from daily press, notably very poor on educational matters, why not so state ?If you have grad-level work in field, tell us...if simply citizen with life experience, we all mature enough to recognize great worth when well presented with more backup by links to evidence. Documentation so far on upcoming series of Op Eds on educational status and remedial action demanded now number over 50 from a variety of sources, some of them the ones you mentioned. Will list some of the ongoing national reports used here soon to give others full time to find, read-digest-comment...which is why open, honest dialog works as heart/soul of democratic progressivism. See Op Ed above for insistence by leading lights in journalism on identification of sources, to provide foundation for evaluation of the worth of their comment...evasion of full-id/statement when requested is brroadly recognized for what it is: Curtain drawn over basic information owed to all to whom the statement is made; the Op Ed explores what this significant book teaches us on how to avoid that dilemma in any pragmatic judgement of comment and its worth...
Mycah Morrison May 15, 2011 6:47 pm (Pacific time)
Hank I have pursued illumination by experience coupled with research with many current and past teachers, administrators, and educational researchers. Regarding Mr. Klein or DC former school chief (which is a location that has been literally the lowest performing urban school district for many long years)remarks on the failing public school system, opinions and actual measurable evidence are sometimes at odds, as I'm sure you must be aware of. I have found that those who have had success within the educational profession are far more interesting when it comes to addressing problems and developing realistic solutions, not glib responses coming from administrators who have a failing record. And whose response to fixing the problem is to request more money from the taxpayers. A process that continues to yield por results. When one is focused on blaming, wouldn't you say energy is better used in creating solutions? Of course one must recognize the causal reasons for the problems, and then that is the major problem isn't it? Do you know that our national literacy rate has been going down since 1940? "WWII military tests, NAEP, Regna Lee Wood Literacy 98% 1940/ 80% 1988/ 76% 1992/ 75% 1994/. Of the 40 nations in the Western Hemisphere, only seven — including the United States — have work force literacy rates below 80 percent. Leery Of National Tests? Not To Worry, "The Kids Can't Read Them!" http://www.arthurhu.com/index/literacy.htm Have you used any of the mega databases that address the public educational system? Even a casual correlation with student performance and socioeconomic variables promulgates some shocking reality for some it appears. Hank looking forward to your views in this very important area, but keep in mind the downward trend in some urban areas has been documented going back over 7 decades, so the 1980's is pretty recent in terms of failing trends in the educational arena by about 40 years. Maybe FDR and his educational personnel need some reviewing? Or at least that could be a good starting point, for he was president when the illiteracy rate started going up.
Hank Ruark May 15, 2011 9:08 am (Pacific time)
To Mycah and All: Here's next-up reference I want to share re educational reform as it now shaping up nationally: "How Some of the Worst Schools in America Have Actually Begun to Get Better" ---cover feature in March 21 issue of The Christian Science Monitor, new magazine of news-and-features now awakening some of our esteemed but near-dead mainstream dailies. Mycah, please find-and-read,,,then explain whether or not you feel this one is "glib" and perhaps make some of your own cogent reasoning on how to fix our ailing system. For your further guidance, I repeat that the whole educational system from K through grad school is badly and with great damage to democracy very seriously under-funded and near-death under-staffed, too... It is all too easy to fire off "flamer comment" --as in yours ending with "glib" ref,-- without any following responsibility or accountability --even before the actual dialog to which they are presumed to refer. Here's your personal chance to reverse that trend and lay on the line your own UN-"glib" and "fully-informed" opinion on topic of sustained great public interest. That's whole intent-and-practice of Op Ed system here at S-N, and we all surely do learn much from its ongoing impacts...not only about the topics but also about the comment-eers, which may in the long run be the more valuable information. We'll await your responses re the Klein and CSM articles, Mycah....direct to me if you have any hesitance about statements made in this public channel.
Hank Ruark May 15, 2011 8:28 am (Pacific time)
To all: Mycah wrote: "Glib responses no longer work.: Thus must ask if he considers Klein, and coming ref. by D.C. former schools chief, as "glib responses" ! But that naturally demands he have contact with them, and possibly even understand what they really now state, after direct experience far beyond what we can whomp up via our own. OR --if words meant to apply here-- he surely welcome to come direct to hankatlma@ipns.com to make sure to lay out for me precisey what has been "glib" here, as distinquished by his analysis from open, honest intent as demonstrated now for nearly 700 Op Eds here. Time has long ago arrived when glib negativity spouted as if hard fact --and aimed at honest, open, democratic dialog because of its inherent dialog- strength and accompanying large efforts to become informed by honest participants-- can any longer be permitted without direct continuing and very strong challenge. For all, differing points of view and dissent proven by facts of life and from research --including profuse preparation of sources and their inevitable evaluation-- are now and have always been welcome here. But "glib-shot-and-run" time is long past...
Hank Ruark May 15, 2011 8:11 am (Pacific time)
Mycah M.: You may not yet know it, but you playing part of my song, sir ! Now, if you will simply read Klein in the ATLANTIC --and other preliminary and preparation references yet to come as we prepare for coming dialog here-- you may be able to achieve some sensible, helpful participation rather than merely adding to conflated charges and confusion already damaging what must be a pragmatic and provable remediation for the good of our democracy and our world. It is NOT a simple systematic failure, sir, but rather a set of conflicting and competing economic, social --and psychological--traps into which we have plunged ourselves via the painful process delineated in Op Ed(s) re "CHOICES" and others here preceding this next go-round on how to reform, remedy, repair, readjust and rebuild what we should have had in full place ever since the early '80s. SO --have you read items so illuminated here, including past Op Eds, esp. on LNCB, in S-N Archives, and current references such as Klein ? Unless and until you have, you operating at disadvantage since simply UN-informed, as in basic tradecraft of BLUR-book just reviewed....have you checked that one out yet ? OR perchance do you offer us now specialist training, wide experience and broad contacts across the profession under examination --coupled with current research ? I hope so... should make for more intriguing open, honest, democratic dialog...!! especially if you share those readiness components in full in advance, rather than simply regurgitate what the Far Right has been peddling and promoting for 50 years vis-a-vis the large costs we must now face, made more so by those very actions. Please be sure to note, for coming reference, what and where friend Klein is now at work, and what he proposes --both by statement and by inference-- in this significant article, very similar to others for whom references will follow.
Mycah Morrison May 14, 2011 6:20 pm (Pacific time)
"...and it is neither union manipulation nor teacher greed and incompetence..." Yes there is a direct correlation to teacher incompetence, union interference and many other causal variables that have caused the incredible deterioration of the "public" educational system since the mid 1960's in many area's of the country. Not all, that's for sure, but enough failures that we need to bring out the scalpels. The private sector and those in the home schooling education area are "thriving!" When you have an opprotunity to compare same age cohorts as we do now in terms of those succeeding and those who are in many cases failing, all the spin in the world does not work anymore, for the evidence is there, and I would like to see the spin just the same, for that just adds more evidence as to why the downward trend exists. Glib responses no longer work.
Hank Ruark May 14, 2011 10:56 am (Pacific time)
To all: We'll proceed to urgent dialog discussion of the current status including deterioration of our educational system, soon.
For the serious reader, seek out the current issue of ATLANTIC (June) and see extremely significant report on the New York City school reform under Joel Klein, during last eight years, which includes strong examples of each social and economic trend now forcing the deterioration we can all agree is happening...article content offers prima example of dialog strength in investigation of the WHY, which is what we are all seeking...and it is neither union manipulation nor teacher greed and incompetence...
Hank Ruark May 13, 2011 7:58 pm (Pacific time)
Vik: Yours seems misplaced here, sir, making absolutely no sense for me in relation to this book report.
Try translation-ap to see if it will move you into ordinary English, perhaps good enough to use here rather than waste time on trashing the English language.
If by any odd chance I misread your msg feel free to talk to me direct on hankatlma@ipns.com, where we can further strip away dunnage and perhaps extract some meaning from your words.
Vik Sanski May 13, 2011 12:49 pm (Pacific time)
Hey Hank, Socrates weeps..., for as you know, competition kills inferior products/services/organizations. Whether mainstream news outlets, public education, far left reporting, unions, books, most anything that liberals (as little kids they always "pulled the finger") have connection with. Just look at the evidence. Sales receipts just like elections make for excellent evidence, especially in terms of trends...for the public smells out the bad stuff eventually. I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776
Hank Ruark May 12, 2011 7:44 pm (Pacific time)
Colli: Don't usually glow --at least this way !-- on book reviews, but this one deserves every good thing I could say about it since it definitely shares deeply from tradecraft, with specifics on how to put it to work. Will appreciate your comments after you sample the book...
Colli May 12, 2011 4:10 pm (Pacific time)
Henry: After reading your glowing "Book Report" I am off to my local bookstore as fast as the speed-limit will allow (+ or - 5 MPH). I have a lengthy plane trip coming up soon and this one sounds like just the ticket. Thanks so much for the tip. Colli
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