Madison College held the first 2013 lecture of A Writer’s Life series on Feb. 7.An impressive panel of local reporters and journalists spoke at length to a well-attended group of journalism students at the Madison College downtown campus. The panelists discussed the importance of journalistic standards, the role of media and other perspectives on journalism and political writing.

The four panelists were:

• Mary Spicuzza, a state government reporter for The Wisconsin State Journal.
• Bill Lueders, veteran journalist and reporter for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.
• JR Ross, editor of WisPolitics, former reporter for the Associated Press.
• Shezad Baloch, a Madison College journalism student.

The four panelists began the evening by sharing their early experiences of what inspired their interests in journalism. Wisconsin State Journal reporter Spicuzza began writing after a particularly harrowing experience in Timbuktu as a young college activist. She became very ill with typhoid fever and this near-death experience inspired her to begin writing. “It really made me want to write for a bigger audience and kind of uncover things that people didn’t know about.”

Ross, editor of WisPolitics spoke of his early childhood experience working on the school paper. “I wanted to be a reporter my entire life.” Ross describes the student run paper and how much it meant to him.  “We had a newspaper in my grade school that reported what the fourth, fifth and sixth grade produced. I was crushed in the seventh grade when they cancelled the program.”

For veteran journalist and reporter Bill Lueders, becoming a journalist  “was never an aspiration.”  He explains that he entered the field because he was “a good writer and it was a way to be a writer and to communicate.”

Some of the most compelling parts of the discussion came when Madison College student Shezad Baloch spoke about his own journalistic experiences in Pakistan. Pakistan is one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists today. During his three years of work in Pakistan, Baloch reported on human rights violations, targeted killings, explosions, and militant extremism.

On the topic of media bias, Spicuzza championed the idea that, “Your job as a reporter is to be fair and ask questions.” She went on to say, “We’re not here as reporters to have all the answers or to think we know the story before we report it.”

Lueders discussed the importance of understanding “media spin,” and how journalists and reporters need to “learn how people are using language to convey a political message and gain political advantage from all kinds of situations.” He went on to say that you can, “become very sophisticated in being a consumer of political dialog, and understanding how spin comes into the equation. Reporters are privileged to develop a skill set that allows them to see through it, and to see how things work with that, and despite that.”

Panelists also discussed their experiences using social media. Mary Spicuzza related her experiences during the Valentine’s Day protests at the Capitol in 2011, in which she used Twitter to gather information and fact check during that pivotal time at the Capitol. “I find it very usable.”

Ross related an instance during the 2012 Presidential debates, which he describes as Twitter “jumping the shark.” “Twitter jumped the shark for me during the 2012 Presidential election because you saw 10 minutes into the debate an opinion poll about what was happening, and that shaped the coverage coming out of it.”

He explained, “It showed how dangerous the ground swell could be with one person’s opinion that gets re-tweeted and re-tweeted and starts shaping what’s coming out before the debate is even done.”

The presentation was open to questions from students, and panelists showed examples of various news platforms to show the differences in content and news flow.

Lueders spoke about “developing a solid basis of knowledge about how government works,” and the work of a political writer as, “a good way to be a citizen and a knowledgeable citizen.” Lueders also spoke about his experience working for alternative media at the Isthmus. He stressed the importance of stories by and about ordinary people. “I think there’s a real value in that.”