Our Seminar in Journalism class has been privelaged with many distinguished guest speakers, such as Eugene Kane, Mike Gousha, Sharif Durhams, and Charles Franklin. But our guest speaker this Tuesday, Dave Umhoefer, may have been my favorite yet.

Umhoefer gave us some behind-the-scenes knowledge on what goes into Politifact Wisconsin and the statements they rate. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Politifact team consists of three writers (one does not write full-time for Politifact) and an editor. They scour everything from speeches and political ads to podcasts and talk show appearances and flyers. Over 90 percent of the statements they fact check comes from their own research.

What does it take to be a PolitiFact reporter? For one thing, you need to be interested in politics. Umhoefer and his team have to find and read through of documents, and that would be very boring if you were not even interested in its content.

"It's about being smart, and open-minded, and fair, and willing to do the research," Umhoefer said. "It's very researchy. We stop when there's no longer a dispute."

Their standard for choosing statements: Anything that has them asking "Really? Is that true?" They look for claims or statements that are interesting and/or ridiculous. If they are genuinely wondering if a statement could be true or not, they assume their readers are too, and they do a fact check.

If there is evidence that the candidate knew better when he or she made the ridiculous claim, it is kind of an automatic pants-on-fire rating, Umhoefer said.

Umhoefer had great things to say about his readers. He said his team gets lots of thoughful suggestions from readers who want to get to the bottom of the facts.

"People really care about this stuff, they really want to get the answers, and they're very appreciative when they do," he said.

But how do they make sure that they are not using either too many Republican or Democratic statements, which would give the appearance of biased, partisan writing? Umhoefer said they don't really keep track of Republican verses Democratic statements they've fact-checked, or if they have focused on one candidate. If they did, it would negatively affect their reporting and research.

When a guest speaker shows a clip from Jon Stewart and shares some of the funnier statements made by politicians, it will be hard for other guest speakers to top that. But in additon to providing some humor, Umhoefer shared some great information on the inner workings of PolitiFact Wisconsin and the responsibilies of its staff.
 
Today, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Eugene Kane paid a visit to our Seminar in Journalism class. Our main topics of discussion were what it takes to be a columnist and the Trayvon Martin shooting.

Kane has been a columnist at the Journal Sentinel since 1995, when he was offered a column upon his return to Milwaukee. Kane gave some words of wisdom to our class of budding journalists. He said if you can find your own stories, the newsroom will appreciate it; otherwise, you are at the mercy of the editor who picks your stories for you. Columnists have to choose their own stories.

Columnists do have more freedom to write stuff. "You are writing it in your voice," Kane said. "It's your audience." Kane said that most journalists are subjective anyway simply by what stories they choose to cover or not cover.

Our class discussed having a voice quite a bit, as class members asked several questions on the topic. Kane mentioned some of his journalism idols from Philadelphia, where he was born.

"Their voice was so distinctive, sometimes people could just read it out loud and you could tell who had written it," Kane said, as our professor Herbert Lowe nodded along in agreement (Lowe is also from Philadelphia)

Kane says having a column can also be difficult because of the background work it requires. It is not just writing everything off the top of your head, Kane said. You have to keep your eyes and ears open for what people are talking about. It is not hard coming up with story ideas; the difficulty lies in turning those ideas into good columns.
 
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Mike Gousha, Distinguished Fellow in Law and Policy at Marquette University's Law school and host of "On the Issues" and "Upfront" visited our Seminar in Journalism class on Thursday.

Gousha talked about the great distrust of the media today, but how that it is part of the landscape when you try to cover politics. Both sides, Democrats and Republicans, like to bully the media, so political reporters need thick skin.

It is also hard to cover politics because, as Gousha said, "Peoply today do not want to be informed. They want to be affirmed." This is why cable channels like Fox News and MSNBC are successful. They see themselves as news operations at night, but "when the sun goes down, they see themselves as something else," said Gousha, referring to the distinguishment between the news programs and opinion shows that these channels offer.

"I think that gets a little dicey," Gousha said.

Gousha also discussed the value of talk shows like his "Upfront" or national shows like "Face the Nation" and "Meet the Press" to candidates. Gousha believes that candidates have moved to other platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to get their messages across, but these talk shows still hold some value to them. They tend to try and go on the programs that will be sympathetic to them.

Gousha looks to have his programs be a place for serious civil discourse and "a force for public good." He likes to use "old school journalism," in which he asks the tough questions, but in a civil way. Gousha said it is not his job to be prosecutor.

"There's a lot of fire, and sometimes not so much light," said Gousha. In other words, sometimes programs become all about the ratings-friendly shouting matches and disagreements, rather than facts-full and productive debates that helps viewers find the answers.


 
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Charles Frankin, Visiting Professor of Law at Marquette University's Law School and co-founder of Pollster.com, visited our journalism class Tuesday to discuss polling and its relationship with politics.

"How do we know what the public wants otherwise?" This is the question Franklin asked us as to why polling is so important, especially in politics. However, polling is not very cheap, and many newspapers will only publish polls if they get it for free.

Franklin created Pollster.com in 2006 with Mark Rosenthal in 2006 after finding an investor. His relationship with Pollster.com ended when it was bought by the Huffington Post, but he was still around when the website received 20 million hits in November 2008, the month President Barack Obama won the presidential election.

Franklin discussed some of the duties of a pollster. For one thing, polling is journalism and it gives real information to people, but they can be misused. He gave the example of Bush approval ratings from February of one year to May of that same year. The reports in May said that his approval rating had been falling since February, but in reality, his polling had reached a low between those months and had been rebounding. So while his approval rating overall was down from February, it had actually been going up at the time it was reported his approval ratings have been going down since February.

Franklin also shared some debates in polling, such as whether or not "don't know" should be provided as a choice or if pollsters should just note when respondents says they do not know. He used this example: When asking who is prime minister of Britian or Speaker of the House, men seemed to be more knowledgeable than women. This is because so many women were choosing the "don't know" option. However, when the polls were repeated, and the don't know answer was taking away, and women were encouraged to take a guess, they proved just as knowledgeable on the topic.