The End of the Innocence? By Bill Walsh. After a while, a trend develops. And then it isn't so much every single transgression of ethics that's a concern as much as a whole pattern of behavior that's disconcerting. The recent CNN/Time scandal where Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Peter Arnett erroneously reported that American troops used nerve gas in the Vietnam War against defectors is but the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Getting the Story First . . . Maybe Right. By Bill Walsh. I did not, of course, witness the actual bomb blast at the Olympic Park last Friday night, but I WAS up watching TV at that time and DID manage to catch the live TV coverage of that awful event. And for those of us who watch the media work, it was fascinating.

Information: Role of Western Media Still Questioned By Madanmohan Rao. Twenty years after developing countries first called for a 'New World Information Order' (NWIO), Western media are still being faulted for distorting and ignoring much of the world around them.

Journalistic Ethics and Other Oxymorons. By Bill Walsh. We so often see the evidence of media intrusiveness, media insensitivity and media sensationalization, that it's easy to believe that the media has no soul, no compassion, no humanity.

Local TV Coverage Crossed the Lines of Decency. By Bill Walsh. I know that our moral choices are often varying shades of gray -- that is very little in this world nowadays that's clearly black-and-white, right or wrong. But there ARE some things that are clearly wrong.

Local TV News: What works, What flops, and Why By Tom Rosenstiel, Carl Gottlieb, and Lee Ann Brady. This article covers the state of TV news, the criteria for judging a good newscast, grades for newscasts in 20 cities, four model stations, approaches that work, and bad habits. The authors report that quality sells. Article Source Online: Columbia Journalism Review.

Lou Grant On Media Literacy. By Bill Walsh. There are some things one medium does better than the others. We often use more than one form to get a clearer picture.

News That Isn't. By Bill Walsh. Media has the power to show us things we've never seen before, bring us to places we've never been before, and reveal to us things which we did not know before. That's one of media's strengths.

Newspeople Say the Stupidest Things! By Bill Walsh. On the morning announcements at school the other day, one of the reporters said something stupid. I'm not going to make fun of him - it just got me to thinking about stupid stuff you see and hear on TV.

Princess Di and the Media. By Bill Walsh. The media has compounded the death of this very nice lady with its own special brand of hyperbole and hypocrisy for an entire week.

Shannon Faulkner. By Wally Bowen. The following commentary examines the media coverage of Shannon Faulkner's Aug. 18 departure from the Citadel.

Student-Produced Morning News. By Bill Walsh. Frankly, it's both fun and rewarding to watch them work, these students who run the daily morning announcement TV program here at Billerica High.

What's The Frequency, Connie? By Bill Walsh. The firing of Connie Chung raises some interesting questions about our tastes in news (and newscasters) and the role of women in the media.

Why Don't Kids Know the News?. By Bill Walsh. At times I'm alternately discouraged and/or appalled when I realize how little news some of my students get. From time to time, after reading an interesting piece in the newspaper or seeing something on TV that I'd like to discuss with them, I ask in class the next day, "Did anyone see the story in the Globe (or Herald or Sun or whatever) about such-and-such?" Or "Who saw `60 Minutes' last night?" It's not that there are so few positive responses; it's that there aren't ANY.