Photo by Ben Weller

FTC attorney Lesley Fair calls herself an "advertising cop" because of the work she does to combat false or misleading advertising.

Lesley Fair, attorney with the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection who specializes in advertising ethics, visited three classes Wednesday to talk about the truth of false advertising.

Assistant professor Tony Fargo invited Fair to campus to talk to his and professor Jon Dilts’ J300 Communications Law classes and visiting professor Craig Wood’s J438 Advertising Issues and Research class. He said Fair’s talk was relevant to students in these classes “because she works with advertising regulation on a daily basis [and] has well-informed and unique insights into the law regarding the marketing of products.”

Fair specializes in advertising and marketing in new media. She has represented the FTC as trial council in cases involving Norelco, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Gut Buster and Synchronal Corporation.

“I am an advertising cop,” Fair began, as she explained the reasons her work affects all parts of media or business-related fields. She talked about the symbiotic relationship between business and journalists and the importance of ethics in the lives of every person no matter the profession.

Fair discussed the ethics of advertising by giving examples of consumer behavior in response to false advertising. She said an ad is “deceptive” if it is likely to mislead consumers who are acting reasonably under the circumstances and if this influences the consumers decision to buy or use the product. An ad is “unfair” if it is likely to cause substantial consumer injury, physical or economic, that is not reasonably avoidable by the consumers themselves.

Fair gave examples of false advertising with familiar advertisements. One ad for Klondike Lite chocolate-covered ice cream bars reads, “If you don’t believe that something lite can taste delicious, then try the new Klondike Lite. It’s 93% fat-free.” But the FTC found that only the ice cream was 93% fat-free.

Photo by Ben Weller

As an example, Fair told about Volvo’s manipulation of cars shown in an ad that made its car appear indestructible. The company said the ad was a joke; the FTC said it misled consumers.

“Unless someone were to buy the product, open it up, slurp up all the ice cream, and then throw the chocolate away, the ad was deceptive,” Fair said.

She showed how false advertising can be seen in all types of media, including print, television, radio and Internet. Her examples included Volvo, Wonder Bread, KFC and Norelco ads that conveyed false or implied messages.

A Volvo ad showed a line of cars in a monster truck rally in which all car roofs were crushed except that of the Volvo’s, with the tagline: “A car you can believe in.” The FTC found that Volvo had severed the roof supports of the other cars and built a steel cage in the Volvo’s roof. Volvo said the FTC had no sense of humor, and the commercial was a joke, but FTC worried that the way the video could make mislead consumers about Volvo’s true safety.

“Many times, it’s not even the company’s fault, but if it misleads the consumer in a different way than the truth, then (the FTC) takes action,” Fair said.

After working for almost two years as a television news anchor reporter, Scott Myrick left his job at a small CBS station in the northeast Georgia mountains and moved to Indiana to work as the journalism school’s new multimedia lab director.

“It seemed like a really good opportunity,” said Myrick, who started his new job Nov. 12. “After I found out about the job, I learned that the position was changing. Traditionally, the lab director was responsible for maintaining the lab, helping people with problems, overseeing equipment checkout and lab assistance. Now, they want me to start doing video productions for the school.”

The Scripps Howard Foundation Digital Imaging Lab, informally called the multimedia lab, is located on the ground floor of Ernie Pyle Hall and houses video and still cameras, audio recorders and lighting kits for students to check out. It also offers computers with multimedia software and provides a staff of student employees who can assist other students in using software and equipment.

In addition to fulfilling all of the traditional lab director duties, Myrick said he also will be working on documentaries and video projects for the school and supervising production.

“It’s a chance to get to spend some time doing really good video projects instead of keeping up with day-to-day deadlines for daily news,” he said.

The lab won’t be a strange environment for Myrick, who worked as a mulitmedia lab assistant while an undergraduate at Elon University. He applied his skills to his TV job, where he said he began to fully understand convergence media.

“Coming out of being part of the working media, we hear about convergence and about how newspapers and TV stations are all kind of becoming one, and they really are,” he said. “It’s happening a lot faster than people realize. TV station Web sites are becoming more important and you have to combine so many different skills, really multiple mediums, into those jobs. Knowing how to do everything is really important in journalism these days.”

While Dean Brad Hamm was not involved in the lab director selection process, he knew of Myrick from their time at Elon, when Myrick was an undergraduate and Hamm was associate dean.

“I heard of him more than I knew him,” Hamm said. “When we were talking about the position, somebody mentioned to me that this guy is a star and that’s what we needed.”

The Public Relations Student Society of America will host a resume workshop Tuesday, 7 p.m. in the Oak Room of the Indiana Memorial Union.

Bruce Hetrick of Hetrick Communications in Indianapolis and columnist at the Indianapolis Business Journal will talk to the group before the resume session.

The School of Journalism Spring Speaker Series kicks off Feb. 11 with broadcaster Andrea Koppel and continues with Pulitzer Prize winning commentator William Safire and historian Michael Beschloss.

Here is a calendar of their upcoming lectures:

Andrea Koppel

Courtesy photo

Andrea Koppel

Andrea Koppel, an award-winning, international journalist with more than two decades of experience, will speak Feb. 11, 7 p.m. at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater in Bloomington.

For the last 14 years she worked as a correspondent for CNN reporting from diverse posts, from Africa to China, covering three secretaries of state and two presidents. Previously, Koppel had served as the network’s Beijing bureau chief and correspondent, reporting on more than half of China’s 30 provinces.

She is the daughter of former ABC Nightline anchor Ted Koppel, who also reported on state department matters, including covering Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. Ted Koppel now reports for the Discovery Channel and National Public Radio.

• Read Andrea Koppel’s bio at IMG Speakers Bureau Web site.

William Safire

Courtesy photo

William Safire

The second of the Speaker Series’ guests, Pulitzer Prize-winning commentator William Safire, visits March 24, 7 p.m. in Alumni Hall in the Indiana Memorial Union.

From 1972-2005, Safire wrote a political column for the opinion pages of The New York Times and continues to write a Sunday column focusing on grammar, usage and etymology. In 2006, he won the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Before joining The New York Times, Safire was a senior White House speechwriter for President Nixon. He has worked as a radio and television producer, U.S. Army correspondent, reporter for the New York Herald-Tribune and as president of his own public relations firm.

• Read more about Safire, read his columns and watch a video at The New York Times’ Web site.

Michael Beschloss

Courtesy photo

Michael Beschloss

Historian Michael Beschloss wraps up the Spring Speaker Series April 14, 7 p.m. at the IU Auditorium.

Author of eight books, including the recent best-seller, The Conquerers: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, Beschloss addresses current election issues through the lens of his own work as an author-historian examining presidents’ actions and reactions during pivotal points in their tenures.

In addition to his writing, Beschloss is the presidential historian for NBC News and is a regular commentator on PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

• Read about Beschloss’ work at the Washington Speakers’ Bureau Web site.

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Associate professor Steve Raymer (left) talked to BBC radio in London about his new book.

Associate professor Steve Raymer traveled to London during Thanksgiving week for a round of interviews, including with the BBC, for his new book, Images of a Journey, about the worldwide Indian Diaspora.

Raymer appeared on the BBC domestic and South Asian networks, and was interviewed by Reuters, Reuters Television, the Associated Press and several UK newspapers.

The previous week, he presented an illustrated talk about the book at the Asia Society’s world headquarters in New York. The event was co-sponsored by the Overseas Press Club of America.

Professor Chris Ogan and the School of Journalism are hosting a day-long workshop for J514 International Communication students Friday in the Dogwood Room of the Indiana Memorial Union. "Media, Hybridity and Migration" is co-sponsored by Western European Studies and will focus is on Western Europe and the Middle East issues.

Those not in the class may attend with prior approval. Students already have read articles and watched movies, and will have a chance to discuss topics with the professors who wrote the articles and will be leading the sessions.

Speakers include Marwan Kraidy, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania; Leen d’Haenens, Center for Media, Culture and Communication Technology, Katholieke University of Leuven, Belgium, and associate professor in the Department of Communication of the Radboud University Nijmegen (the Netherlands); and Deniz Gokturk, Department of German, University of California-Berkeley.

Roy Howard Professor David Weaver and doctoral students Lanier Holt and Seong Choul Hong attended the annual meeting of the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research (MAPOR) in Chicago Nov. 16-17.

Holt presented a research paper entitled "Mercy on the Court: A look at the enduring public support of the Supreme Court." Hong presented "Public Opinion and News Selection: The case of the State of the Union address," and Weaver presented a paper co-authored with doctoral candidate Yue Tan entitled "Relationships Among Media Bias, Public Opinion, and Policy Liberalism from 1956 to 2004: A second-level agenda-setting study."

Photo by Ben Weller

Meyer told students they must be able to sort and present data effectively.

Journalists must be more than “hunter-gatherers” of information, Philip Meyer told students in assistant professor Joann Wong’s J520 Quantitative Research Methods for Journalists Thursday. With the reams of information newly available on the Web, students must now be able to sort and present large amounts of data effectively.

“It’s not enough to get information into readers’ hands,” he said. “You have to know how to get it into their heads, too.”

Meyer is the Knight Chair in Journalism at the University of North Carolina’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He spoke to the graduate class about the importance of data analysis in contemporary journalism.

Meyer is a leader in social science research methods, honing his skills as a Detroit Free Press reporter during the 1967 riots. His application of social science research methods, learned at Harvard’s Nieman Fellowship program, helped the staff win the Pulitzer Prize for general local reporting.

His 1973 book, Precision Journalism, urges journalists to use more rigorously the scientific method and the advances made in the social sciences. The book promotes computer-assisted data analysis and scientific surveying, among other methods, as antidotes to the increasingly sophisticated spin that journalists face. Journalism Quarterly named it one of 35 significant books of the 20th century on journalism and mass communication.

Following are video highlights from Meyer’s talk on computer-assisted reporting and the future of journalism:

Photo by Ben Weller

Data and information must be presented so that readers of all skill levels easily can understand it, Meyer advised.

Meyer’s coverage of the 1967 Detroit riots for the Detroit Free Press helped mark the beginning of a new “precision journalism.” Here, he tells how it happened.

• Lessons from Detroit: Sample survey of riot area (2.77MB) (1:13 minutes, 2.8 MB)

Data analysis has the power to uncover errors in popular assumptions, Meyer said. When Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968, Meyer already was at work on a survey of African-American attitudes about civil rights activism. He disproved predictions about the end of nonviolent activism, as he explains here.

• Social science methods vs. conventional wisdom (2.27MB) (1:02, 2.3 MB)

For a teacher of methods that journalists may find intimidating, Meyer was clear about his philosophy on presenting information: keep it simple. He said journalists should write with the readers’ education levels in mind.

• Write for ‘milkman in Omaha’ (1.21MB) (:32, 1.2 MB)

Meyer addressed newsroom profitability and job cuts by explaining the “sweet spot” on a bell curve.

• Where profit and quality intersect (2.03MB) (:53, 2 MB)

The Internet requires journalists who can engage readers in conversations, but it primarily demands skilled data handlers, Meyer said.

• Get information into readers’ heads (1.61MB) (:44, 1.6 MB)

During his visit, Meyer met with a former student, School of Journalism Dean Brad Hamm, and held informal discussions with students Thursday and Friday.

Video reporting and production by Jonathan Hiskes.

Photo by Rosemary Pennington

As a class, students in J520 critique one another’s video stories. Rob Schmidt, left, and Tian Ming considered a fellow classmate’s work.

Related Ford Fund community specialists discuss strategies for philanthropies (March 30) Students in new course contributing to local news outlets (April 7) New course focuses on multimedia storytelling (March 20)

As the lights came back on in EP 157, assistant professor Mike Conway looked at the graduate students in J520 Video Storytelling and asked, “So, what did you think?”

The students had just watched a story about senior citizens who volunteer to stuff envelopes for area nonprofits. Critiquing – offering comments on the strong points and the weak – is a big part of the class activities.

“I liked how we moved from a wide shot of them stuffing envelopes to the close-ups of their hands,” Rob Schmidt added.

Schmidt and the rest of the professional track master’s students in the room have spent the semester learning how to craft compelling video that, ideally, goes beyond nightly television news fare to tell a rich, narrative story. This is the first time the class is being offered at the School of Journalism, although Conway has wanted to teach it for a while.

“The journalism school didn’t offer video as photojournalism,” Conway said. “The students might get a taste of it in the visual communication classes, but that’s about it. So I thought, ‘Why not a stand alone class?’”

This semester, he got his wish. The students began by learning the basics of using the cameras and framing shots. By the time December rolls around, they will have produced two major projects, one focusing on a Bloomington-based volunteer program, the other on an intriguing area resident.

“The idea is that you come in here with no video skills,” Conway said. “We’ll see how far you get in one semester.”

Conway is a veteran of television news and draws on his experience, which ranges from working as a “one man band,” a TV reporter who shoots and reports, to running a TV newsroom. But he’s also brought in guest speakers such as NBC’s Bob Dotson and WTHR-TV videographer Steve Rhodes to share their video storytelling philosophies with students.

After wrapping up the critique of the senior citizens piece, Conway moved to another story, one about two young men with autism who collect food for the Community Kitchen. When it ended, Conway and several students wanted to know how Schmidt, who produced the piece, was able to capture the light in a particular interview.

“It looked like you were using gels,” Conway said, referring to color filters that can change lighting.

“No,” Schmidt said. “I just got really lucky. That was just the light in the backyard. It took a while to set it up, but I thought it turned out well.”

Schmidt was one of those who had no real experience shooting video before taking the class, although he had done a little editing. Over the last few weeks, he has seen a marked improvement in his work.

“The first story I did was for the student news station. The audio was terrible,” Schmidt said. “I’ve definitely seen a lot of progress.”

And, in an e-mail, Conway said he’s seen a great deal of progress in all the students’ work.

“We watch all of the stories in class,” Conway said, “so I’m seeing their stories for the first time with all of the students. Some of the students had never picked up a video camera before this semester and now they are producing memorable stories.”

Photo by Rosemary Pennington

Assistant professor Mike Conway believes all students should be able to tell a story using video, "one of the skills they can offer a potential employer."

Some of those stories will air on IUSTV, Indiana University’s student-run television station. After the Thanksgiving break, students will be working to develop a Web site to showcase their pieces.

With the emphasis on media convergence, the ability to shoot quality video will be an asset, no matter what medium a student decides to work in, Conway said. Newspapers, magazines and radio stations now are hiring journalists who can pick up a video camera as easily as they can write the words for a story.

“I’m more convinced now than at the start of the semester that this is an important part of the future of journalism,” he said. “Instead of limiting video photojournalism and editing to the broadcast classes, I think all students should have video storytelling as one of the skills they can offer a potential employer.”

Conway said he hopes the class will be offered again and that, next time, there will be a section for undergraduate as well as graduate students.

Photo by Anthony LaPenna

J460 students visited Leo Burnett in Chicago to develop an understanding of how ad agencies operate. They are founding their own agency during a practicum this fall.

Related Ford Fund community specialists discuss strategies for philanthropies (March 30) Students in new course contributing to local news outlets (April 7) New course focuses on multimedia storytelling (March 20)

A new advertising class this fall has laid the groundwork for what will become the School of Journalism’s student-run advertising and public relations agency.

Visiting Professor Craig Wood’s J460 Agency Practicum students have spent the semester creating a brand identity and a marketing plan for the agency. In the spring, many of the students will take the course again and begin seeking clients for whom they will create advertising campaigns and public relations plans.

Four class teams created competing plans for the agency. Earlier this month, they presented them to School of Journalism Dean Brad Hamm, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies Bonnie Brownlee and Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies Amy Reynolds.

Last week, the deans announced they had selected Agency 7, the proposal of journalism majors Amy Goetz, Brittani Hensel, Courtney Rauen and Rebecca Yellin and telecommunications majors John Fitton and Patrick Kent.

“I’ve seen (professional) agencies perform at that level,” Wood said of the group. “It was a great presentation with some really smart students behind it.”

The name Agency 7 refers to the School of Journalism’s location on Seventh Street and the group’s seven core principles: passion, innovation, preparation, collaboration, creativity, integrity and perspective.

“This was definitely stage one,” Yellin said of the class’s progress so far. “You can’t jump into an advertising agency and expect to know everything. We’re still learning a lot.”

The agency will mostly target for-profit companies, Wood said, but it may also work for nonprofits such as the IU Art Museum and the Geography Department. It will offer both advertising and public relations services.

“PR and advertising are combined in the real world, so we wanted to reflect that,” Yellin said.

“That’s where the industry is headed,” said Wood, who spent 35 years working in advertising and public relations. “Many, many companies are approaching this from an integrated standpoint. They can no longer afford the luxury of working with two agencies that are duplicating each other’s work. So agencies have to get into shape.”

He said the integrated approach will set Agency 7 apart from most student-run advertising agencies in the country.

“We think we’re giving students a realistic point of view about what the world’s going to do,” he said. “They can’t just be a silo of expertise and only know one thing.”

The School of Journalism leases space for the agency on the third floor of the Phi Delta Kappa building. Wood hopes to eventually move it into Ernie Pyle Hall. In the long run, he expects the agency to move from a class project to a freestanding organization, like the Indiana Daily Student.

Hensel said she’s enjoyed the focus on learning by working on projects.

“We’re getting real-world experience,” she said. “We’re not really coming in to listen to a teacher tell us what to do. There’s not really any of that. We just come in and get to work.”

The class traveled to Chicago last month to tour an advertising agency and a PR firm. Hensel said the Agency 7 group used ideas it learned there in its presentation. For example, the team asked questions to keep clients involved in the sales pitch “so it’s kind of a conversation instead of just (talking to) them.”

Photo by Anthony LaPenna

From left, students Becky Yellin and John Fitton joined Nikolas Traxler, B.A. ’07 (telecommunications), now a broadcast producer at the agency, in checking out some clients’ products. At far right is professor Craig Wood.

The Agency 7 students made their presentation again to Wood’s J320 Principles of Creative Advertising class last week. They showed the demonstration ads they designed for Oliver Winery, the Cereal Barn and injury lawyer Ken Nunn. Kent spoke of the importance of following the group’s first core principle by demonstrating passion for the work.

“Perception is reality,” he said. “If we don’t look like we’re really into this, it’s not going to work.”

The agency does not expect to charge clients for its work until it gets a year or two of experience, he said. Fitton said this will give it time to gain credibility.

“We’re students and it’s hard for people to take us seriously, even though we present ourselves as professionally as possible,” he said. “But we hope to prove ourselves and show we have as much talent as other companies out there.”