Some Say Newsworthy, Others Say Privacy

By Jon Rehagen

Obviously living in America differs than living in France. For one, there is a language barrier that many people in the states would try to have you not believe is present. That is wrong. Another is the way in which the French and Americans interact with each other when it concerns the way in which a person is thanked. Adding up all the other obvious cultural differences between the two countries would more than likely result in a hard time for any regular citizen from either country to live in the respectable opposite nation. However upon receiving more knowledge, the information seems to lead me to believe that one of the hardest transitions between the two countries could fall on journalists. I know “not journalist” professionals would simply say that as a journalist I’m paying more attention to this area than others, and that might be true. Why would I say this?

Well, upon attending a lecture at Sciences Po University in Paris I was exposed to an idea that pushed an intriguing button of my mind. The idea simply knocked the foundation of all my journalism education to pieces:  privacy supersedes newsworthiness on a particular subject, sex. Yup… let that sink in. Any normal Joe may simply laugh at my reaction of this, but to all you journalists unaware of French journalistic principles, pick your jaw up off the floor and open your ears. In France the invasion of personal privacy in regarding sex is simply sought as one of the vilest things a journalist could do. Now, I’m not suggesting that in America journalists are told to feast on the private sex lives of its citizens, but I am saying that should something come up that may be considered a public concern journalists in the United States are encouraged to let that story take them as far as it can. 

A European Atmosphere

By Emily Brown

After three years of taking classes in the journalism school at the University of Missouri I can tell you one thing I have learned for certain: J-schoolers are a proud and close-knit clan.  We walk in packs to the J-Café for coffee, proudly display Missouri School of Journalism apparel, and can frequently be heard boasting of going to the best school around.  Many critique these behaviors, but I ask why shouldn’t we be like this?  The journalism school at Mizzou, often revered as one of the best in the nation, provides us with a phenomenal education, no matter your emphasis, and offers fantastic opportunities that other majors can only dream of.

One such opportunity is the Europe Tour study abroad program.  Students from each journalistic sequence get to experience the sights and wonders of Europe while getting a taste of daily life and work abroad in their emphasis.  Various visits to media outlets and agencies allow students to not just feel pride in their own major, but also to appreciate all the other sequences that their journalistic comrades are involved in as well.  As a strategic communication major, I was much more enthusiastic about tours and lectures from advertising agencies like McCann-Erickson and public relations firms like Hill+Knowlton, however, upon entering various news outlets and getting the chance to be a fly on the wall for a couple hours gave me more appreciation for my fellow journalists in their respective emphasis areas.

Each agency or news organization was unique with its own characteristics and mannerisms, however, after visiting a handful of places I began to notice a pattern.  Each sequence of work has similarities in the type of people that work there, the speed of duties carried out, and the overall atmosphere.

French Journalism vs. American Journalism

By Jessica Park

Paris, also known as “The City of Lights,” is famous for its monuments that bring together people from all over the world. The Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral and The Louvre are just a few renowned sites visitors put on their agenda to see when they visit Paris. However, for our group on this trip, along with those popular sites, we were given the chance to visit different news and ad agencies and visit the school we would be studying at if we chose to study abroad in Paris.

Journalism, journalists, and reporters all seem to have the same definition no matter where you go. They all either describe the people who inform and notify people of all the information and news that are going on locally and worldly or the act of reporting the news. However, even though those words may stand the same and have the same definition in television, newspaper and radio stations all over the world, the fine lines between them change based location.

Following Journalism Religiously

By Victoria Guida

Our two-week trip was a whirlwind of beautiful buildings, fun outings and media visits. Translation: an amazing experience for a journalism nerd who loves to travel. I learned some new words — “pain” means bread in French and doesn’t sound at all like our less pleasant word of the same spelling. I ate some new food — like goulash, Fidorka (look it up on Wikipedia) and those tasty, actually Belgian, waffles. But I also got to experience firsthand how Europeans cover the news.

St. Peter's Basilica.

During our visit to the school of communications at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, I was intrigued by David Kerr’s take on coverage of the Vatican. Kerr, a friendly Scottish man who reports for Catholic News Agency, said that while Vatican correspondents shouldn’t just produce propaganda for the Catholic Church, other news outlets often present the Church unfair.

This is interesting to me because the Church is an entity based around a religion with which people either agree or disagree based on deeply held beliefs. The Church’s positions on any topic would be expected to come back to, “It’s what Jesus would want,” and that’s something that’s based more on faith than on reasoning. But it’s not like the Church doesn’t use reasoning, and maybe that’s something that is often overlooked. For example, the Church doesn’t continue to condemn the use of contraception because it has ignored the benefits of using it, but because it decided a long time ago that humans should not interfere with the natural process of producing children; a position that still holds no matter the perceived benefits of contraception.

It’s moral decisions like this that could make covering the Church more complicated in a modern world. Is it okay for the secular world to condemn the Church for a position it sees as harmful to the future of the world? I suppose the answer should be: as long as the Church’s position is properly explained. Kerr seems to believe that too often this does not happen, and I decided to see whether he’s right.

The Importance of Languages

By Sydney Berry 


If there was one theme that repeated out throughout our entire trip through Europe, it was the huge role language plays in each region, be it political, social, religious or within the media. Each city we visited has a certain representation that I took from it, and I’m going to explore the role language played in each. In Prague, it was social.  In Paris, it was the media.  In Brussels, it was political, and in Rome, religious.

The Czech’s Effect on McCann-Erickson Advertising

By Sarah Tillou 

Before departing on our two and a half week long endeavor across Europe, I prepared a mental note regarding which cities I was most excited for, which food I craved most, and of course which media visits I anticipated visiting. As a strategic communication major, I looked forward to the visits that would be applicable to my interest and knowledge of advertising and public relations. One of these happened to be McCann-Erickson in Prague, Czech Republic. I looked forward to seeing how advertising was done in different countries and was curious to see why these changes occurred.

One World

By Ashten Travis

Flying across the Atlantic, halfway around the world I had no idea what to expect. This was my first adventure in Europe and I was curious to see how the world exactly worked in another country. Although I experienced millions of changes and culture shocks, one thing was universal, the love for our planet.