WATCHING HISTORY UNFOLD
With impeachment proceedings at hand, Point Park University holds an event to examine the media
It might have been simply a lecture for some of the students who crowded into the big, bright classroom at Point Park University’s Center for Media Innovation Tuesday afternoon.
But for others, it was a political discourse that attempted to bind past and present. Merging political science students and journalism classes to discuss the Senate impeachment trial for President Donald Trump started with big questions: what does impeachment really mean to them, to the country?
There was also a sobering video display of why getting your news from SnapChat is probably not a good idea. Unless Honey Boo-Boo’s mom somehow plays into impeachment proceedings.
At the front of a room flanked by TV and print journalists and camera operators, a number of university professors discussed their takes on this historic event: attorney Nathan Firestone (political science), Dora Ion (political science), Kelly Wilding (media literacy and the university’s department of community engagement), Andrew Conte (the CMI director) and Camille Downing (lecturer, Point Park school of communication).
Measuring the day’s historic weight — Mr. Trump with that of Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton — was a tricky task indeed.
“It’s a different era,” Mr. Firestone said. “We have an era of tremendous polarization. The confrontations are really much worse than in the Clinton era.”
Earlier in the class, he noted that in the days of Nixon (1974) and Mr. Clinton (1999), senators didn’t seem motivated by concern for their re-election chances. “Here, it is quite different.”
Ms. Wilding prompted students to discuss their thoughts on how the media covers events such as the Senate trial. She began with an audio clip from NPR, asking if anyone knew how the nonprofit was funded. Silence. “We’re on camera, people,” she said, rewarded with a few raised hands in response.
This shyness was perhaps the result of having media present to watch them debate the media’s role. The students would warm to it eventually, and Caitlin Wiscombe was a willing Hermione Granger, contributing intelligent answers when the room fell silent.
“Yes, I feel I AM that kid in class,” she said afterward, smiling. “If nobody wants to raise their hand, I will.”
Ms. Wiscombe is a freshman economics and finance major from San Antonio, Texas; she wants to be a lawyer someday. As a Trump supporter, she said she believes it’s important for the sake of diversity to say her piece: “Being at a liberal arts school in a city that is completely different from where I’m from, I like to hear other people’s opinions, and I feel it’s beneficial they hear mine as well.”
There were others who were not fans of the president. When Ms. Wilding presented a recent tweet from the president, the class watched the one-minute, 25second video “The Best is Yet To Come,” and a young African-American woman noted “as soon as he started talking, my eyes glazed over.”
But such public discourse is what the event’s sponsors had hoped to foster. Sitting next to each other were Samuel Williams, a freshman graphic design major from Butler, and Nathan Kelly, a freshman from Wexford majoring in multimedia and advertising.
Mr. Williams described himself as “insanely” interested in politics, someone whose friends are not: “A lot of them are more concerned with joking how Trump is in a peach [a reference to a popular meme] rather than how he’s being impeached.”
Ms. Wilding disagreed with Mr. Williams’ assessment that their peers are not politically engaged. “With notifications coming up on your phone, everyone is [more] aware of what’s going on … but it is based on very short snippets.”
Mr. Conte made a point of explaining that no matter what happens with the Senate, there is a difference between what the newscaster and the pundits would be saying on all of the evening cable shows: “News versus punditry. You’ll see five minutes of news, and the rest is opinion.”
Regardless of how or why anyone interprets the next few days’ events, Ms. Ion said, the important thing is to pay attention.
“The world is watching what is happening in the U.S. In 1998 [when the Clinton impeachment began], I was a citizen of Romania.
“This is a world event that deserves international coverage.”