Joe Cutbirth

Last updated
Joe Cutbirth (2019) Denius Symposium on News Integrity 2019 (48896870758).jpg
Joe Cutbirth (2019)

Joe Cutbirth (born 1956) is an American scholar, journalist, and media critic, who currently teaches in the communication and journalism programs at The University of Texas at Austin. He is a former editor-in-chief of the Texas Observer , political blogger for The Huffington Post , and was a recurring analyst for ABC News Now during the 2008 presidential primaries and general election. [1] He has taught at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, New York University, the University of British Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, The University of Virginia, and The New School. He was a statehouse reporter and political writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and served as the communications director for the Texas Democratic Party coordinated campaign during the Clinton-Gore 1996 and Ann Richards 1994 reelection efforts. [2]

Contents

Scholarship

Cutbirth's research examines the relationship between satire and journalism in American politics. He is working on his first book, Fake News, Real Politics: Jon Stewart and the New Political Press, an extension of the doctoral work he did at Columbia University under Todd Gitlin, James W. Carey and Herbert J. Gans.

He has lectured on the topic and offered a course, Fake News, Politics and Popular Culture, (2004–07) at the New School and NYU. He expanded the course in 2010 to include the Anglo-Irish tradition of satire and the reciprocal comedic tradition between Canada and the United States. He renamed it Satire as News, and offered it as a graduate seminar at UBC. [2]

In explaining the course to Fox News in 2007 he said, "We examine what's gone wrong in the country, not in the relationship we have with politics, but in the relationship we have with mass media." [3] When Radar Online in 2006 skewered Fake News as one of the top 10 "flimsiest classes" offered at an American university, Cutbirth told a reporter from the NYU student paper: "That's great news. It's not every day a slow white guy gets on a list with Tupac," referring to another course on Radar's list, The Textual Appeal of Tupac Shakur. [4]

The New York Times , [5] The Globe and Mail , [6] Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, [7] CTV, [8] and Postmedia News [9] all have cited him as an expert on fake news.

Cutbirth has presented his work at meetings of the National Communication Association, the American Political Science Association, the Midwest Association of Public Opinion Research, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication and at conferences at Georgetown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [1]

Cutbirth paid homage to Carey in James Carey and the Columbia School, [10] an essay he wrote and delivered as a representative of Carey’s Columbia students at Conversations & Communications: A Conference in Memory of James W. Carey. [11]

Politics and media criticism

As a blogger for The Huffington Post, Cutbirth has supported and criticized President Barack Obama, for whom Cutbirth voted in both the 2008 New York primary and general election. [12] [13]

In 2009 he chastised reporters traveling with Pope Benedict XVI for not pressing evidence when the Pope claimed condoms actually spread AIDS. [14]

Cutbirth called on John McCain to apologize to Obama for racist overtones in the 2008 campaign, [15] and he criticized Texas Governor Rick Perry for "secessionist demagoguery" at the Texas Capitol. [16] He also questioned the veracity of reporters who allow Perry to call health care reform "socialized medicine", [17] and he argued that ESPN ethics in the case of Craig James and former Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach "stink". [18]

Other columns have offered commentary on media coverage of Sarah Palin, [19] Harvey Milk, [20] Caroline Kennedy [21] and Pat Tillman. [22]

He made the switch from journalism to political operative and pundit in 1994, when Governor Ann Richards hired him to be spokesman for the Texas Democratic Party and effectively "go one-on-one with" Bush Spokeswoman Karen Hughes. [23]

Journalism

Cutbirth spent more than a decade as a daily newspaper and wire service reporter, largely covering government and Texas politics.

He began his career at The Wichita Falls Times . In his first year there he won the International Reading Association Print Media Award for Why Can’t Johnnie Read?, an investigative series on illiteracy in America. [24] He also received the Texas Women’s Political Caucus Chrysalis Award for exposing the city’s long-term disregard of a federal court order to counter decades of discrimination in the hiring of women police officers. [2]

He worked briefly at the Morris News Service state capital bureau, where he covered Lloyd Bentsen’s 1988 vice presidential campaign until he was hired to cover state government and politics for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram . [25] There he covered the Branch Davidian siege at Waco, Ann Richards’ successful 1990 gubernatorial bid, and the grand jury indictments on ethics charges of both Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. His story on Hutchison's acquittal received top statewide honor for deadline reporting from the Dallas Press Club, and his work on Lewis and the ethics climate in the Texas Legislature received a statewide citation from the Associated Press. [2]

In 1992 he represented journalists from 10 Texas newspapers at the founding board meeting of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and served as the first chair of the Texas NLGJA chapter. He later was appointed to the board of NLGJA's Roy Aarons Education in Journalism Program. [2]

His work has also appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle , Northwestern Magazine, Education Daily, the Texas Observer , the Texas Triangle, Wichita Falls City Magazine and on DogCanyon.org. [1]

Personal

Cutbirth was born in Wichita Falls, Texas, and graduated from S.H. Rider High School. He was an Eagle Scout and was state-ranked four times (in 14-and-under singles and doubles, and 16-and-under singles and doubles) by the Texas Tennis Association. [26]

As an undergraduate at the University of Texas, he was a member of Kappa Alpha Order, served on the student government, was on the editorial board of The Daily Texan and worked on the Cactus (yearbook) staff. [26] In 2018, Cutbirth formally severed his affiliation with his college fraternity, citing its historic association with Robert E. Lee as incompatible with his values and beliefs.

Cutbirth holds a Ph.D. in communications from Columbia University, an M.A. in communication, culture and technology from Georgetown University, and a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin.

He lists Richards, Milk and Bobby Kennedy as his heroes, and he describes himself as "a staunch disciple of the European Enlightenment; an unabashed fan of the University of Texas Longhorns football team; and an enthusiastic gourmand of Tex-Mex". [1]

Related Research Articles

Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation, the methods of gathering information, and the organizing literary styles.

<i>The Washington Times</i> American broadsheet newspaper

The Washington Times is an American conservative daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It covers general interest topics with an emphasis on national politics. Its broadsheet daily edition is distributed throughout Washington, D.C. and the greater Washington metropolitan area, including suburban Maryland and Northern Virginia. It also publishes a subscription-based weekly tabloid edition aimed at a national audience.

<i>Houston Chronicle</i> Daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, US

The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, United States. As of April 2016, it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. With the 1995 buyout of its longtime rival the Houston Post, the Chronicle became Houston's newspaper of record.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Remnick</span> American journalist, writer and editor (born 1958)

David J. Remnick is an American journalist, writer, and editor. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for his book Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire, and is also the author of Resurrection and King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero. Remnick has been editor of The New Yorker magazine since 1998. He was named "Editor of the Year" by Advertising Age in 2000. Before joining The New Yorker, Remnick was a reporter and the Moscow correspondent for The Washington Post. He also has served on the New York Public Library board of trustees and is a member of the American Philosophical Society. In 2010, he published his sixth book, The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama.

The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is located in Pulitzer Hall on the university's Morningside Heights campus in New York City. Founded in 1912 by Joseph Pulitzer, Columbia Journalism School is one of the oldest journalism schools in the world and the only journalism school in the Ivy League. It offers four graduate degree programs.

WND is an American far-right news and opinion website. It is known for promoting fake news and conspiracy theories, including the false claim that former President Barack Obama was born outside the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leroy F. Aarons</span> American journalist, editor, author, and playwright

Leroy "Roy" F. Aarons was an American journalist, editor, author, playwright, founder of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA), and founding member of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. In 2005 he was inducted into the NLGJA Hall of Fame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Breitbart</span> American conservative writer and publisher (1969–2012)

Andrew James Breitbart was an American conservative journalist and political commentator who was the founder of Breitbart News and a co-founder of HuffPost.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ezra Klein</span> American journalist (born 1984)

Ezra Klein is an American journalist, political analyst, New York Times columnist, and the host of The Ezra Klein Show podcast. He is a co-founder of Vox and formerly was the website's editor-at-large. He has held editorial positions at The Washington Post and The American Prospect, and was a regular contributor to Bloomberg News and MSNBC. His first book, Why We're Polarized, was published by Simon & Schuster in January 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas B. Edsall</span> American journalist and academic

Thomas Byrne Edsall is an American journalist and academic. He is best known for his weekly opinion column for The New York Times, Previously, he worked as a reporter for The Providence Journal and for The Baltimore Sun, and as a correspondent for The New Republic. In addition, he spent 25 years covering national politics for the Washington Post. He held the Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Chair at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism until 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ari Shapiro</span> American radio broadcaster (born 1978)

Ari Michael Shapiro is an American radio journalist. In September 2015, Shapiro became one of four rotating hosts on National Public Radio's flagship drive-time program All Things Considered. He previously served as White House correspondent and international correspondent based in London for NPR.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sharyl Attkisson</span> American writer, journalist, television reporter/correspondent

Sharyl Attkisson is an American journalist and television correspondent. She hosts the Sinclair Broadcast Group TV show Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe the Plumber</span> American conservative activist (1973–2023)

Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, commonly known as "Joe the Plumber", was an American conservative activist and commentator. He gained national attention during the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign season when, during a videotaped campaign stop in Ohio by Democratic nominee Barack Obama, Wurzelbacher raised concerns that Obama's tax policy would increase taxes on small business owners. Wurzelbacher was a member of the Republican Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PolitiFact</span> American nonprofit fact-checking website

PolitiFact.com is an American nonprofit project operated by the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, with offices there and in Washington, D.C. It began in 2007 as a project of the Tampa Bay Times, with reporters and editors from the newspaper and its affiliated news media partners reporting on the accuracy of statements made by elected officials, candidates, their staffs, lobbyists, interest groups and others involved in U.S. politics. Its journalists select original statements to evaluate and then publish their findings on the PolitiFact.com website, where each statement receives a "Truth-O-Meter" rating. The ratings range from "True" for statements the journalists deem as accurate to "Pants on Fire" for claims the journalists deem as "not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim".

The Daily Caller is a right-wing news and opinion website based in Washington, D.C. It was founded by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and political pundit Neil Patel in 2010. Launched as a "conservative answer to The Huffington Post", The Daily Caller quadrupled its audience and became profitable by 2012, surpassing several rival websites by 2013. In 2020, the site was described by The New York Times as having been "a pioneer in online conservative journalism". The Daily Caller is a member of the White House press pool.

Peter W. Klein is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, documentary filmmaker, professor, and media leader. He was the founder of the Global Reporting Centre, a non-profit organization dedicated to innovating how global investigative journalism is funded, produced and finds audiences. A hallmark of the centre is collaboration, as well as experimentation with new forms of reporting, including empowerment journalism.

Comedic journalism is a new form of journalism, popularized in the twenty-first century, that incorporates a comedic tone to transmit the news to mass audiences, using humour and/or satire to relay a point in news reports. Comedic journalism has been applied to print media in the past but has experienced a resurgence through the medium of television with shows such as The Daily Show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and The Rick Mercer Report. Conversely, there has been much criticism about defining these media outlets as “journalism”, since some scholars believe there should be a distinction kept between comedy and journalism.

The Mirror Awards are annual journalism awards recognizing the work of writers, reporters, editors and organizations who cover the media industry. The awards were established by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Solomon (political commentator)</span> American media executive, political commentator, and conspiracy theorist

John F. Solomon is an American journalist who was a contributor to Fox News until late 2020. He was formerly an executive and editor-in-chief at The Washington Times.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Joe Cutbirth". The Huffington Post.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Joe Cutbirth". UBC Graduate School of Journalism. Archived from the original on 2011-07-06.
  3. ↑ Catherine Donaldson-Evans (November 1, 2007). "Superhero Science? Zombie Studies? Colleges Offer Offbeat Courses". Fox News. Retrieved February 27, 2011.
  4. ↑ Siva Vaidhyanathan (September 27, 2006). "Right-wingers attack Fake News course". Sivacracy.net. Archived from the original on July 24, 2011. Retrieved February 17, 2011.
  5. ↑ Bill Carter and Brian Stelter (October 28, 2010). "Jon Stewart and His Rally May Shun Politics, but Attendees Are Embracing It". The New York Times. Retrieved February 18, 2011.
  6. ↑ James Keller (January 5, 2011). "Politicians go mobile with iPhone apps". The Globe and Mail. Toronto. Retrieved February 27, 2011.
  7. ↑ "Highlights of UBC media coverage in November 2010". publicaffairs.ubc.ca. December 3, 2010.[ permanent dead link ]
  8. ↑ Megan Stewart (February 16, 2010). "Will Colbert make amends with 'ice holes'?". ctv.ca. Retrieved March 1, 2011.
  9. ↑ Sheldon Alberts (October 30, 2010). "Comedy and U.S. politics central to Jon Stewart rally". The Vancouver Sun. Archived from the original on October 21, 2012. Retrieved March 1, 2011.
  10. ↑ "Remarks at Conversations & Communications: A Conference in Memory of James W. Carey". joecutbirth.com. Archived from the original on 2012-07-11. Retrieved 2011-03-10.
  11. ↑ "Conversations & Communications: A Conference in Memory of James W. Carey". deepdyve.com.
  12. ↑ Joe Cutbirth (January 22, 2010). "Open Letter: From Sam Houston to Barack Obama". The Huffington Post. Retrieved March 7, 2011.
  13. ↑ Joe Cutbirth (December 18, 2010). "I Voted (Twice) for Obama, and Apparently I Lost". The Huffington Post. Retrieved March 7, 2011.
  14. ↑ Joe Cutbirth (March 18, 2009). "The Pope Can't Get Away With This". The Huffington Post. Retrieved March 7, 2011.
  15. ↑ Joe Cutbirth (October 15, 2008). "McCain's Racist Surge". The Huffington Post. Retrieved March 7, 2011.
  16. ↑ Joe Cutbirth (April 15, 2009). "Rick Perry Should Stop Embarrassing Texas". The Huffington Post. Retrieved March 7, 2011.
  17. ↑ Joe Cutbirth (March 27, 2010). "A Socialist Primer: Rick Perry, Health Care & the Texas Governor's Race". The Huffington Post. Retrieved March 7, 2011.
  18. ↑ Joe Cutbirth (January 2, 2010). "Leach Incident Shows ESPN Ethics Stink". The Huffington Post. Retrieved March 7, 2011.
  19. ↑ Joe Cutbirth (September 4, 2008). "The Incredible Lightness of Being Sarah Palin". The Huffington Post. Retrieved March 7, 2011.
  20. ↑ Joe Cutbirth (May 21, 2009). "Happy Birthday Harvey Milk (and thanks for giving us hope)". The Huffington Post. Retrieved March 7, 2011.
  21. ↑ Joe Cutbirth (December 17, 2008). "Vet the Princess Before She's Crowned". The Huffington Post. Retrieved March 7, 2011.
  22. ↑ Joe Cutbirth (April 25, 2007). "Kevin Tillman, Your Big Brother is Proud of You". The Huffington Post. Retrieved March 7, 2011.
  23. ↑ "Meet the Faculty: Joe Cutbirth of Columbia Journalism School". blogtalkradio.com. June 21, 2008.
  24. ↑ "Print Media Award". reading.org. Archived from the original on 2010-12-22.
  25. ↑ "Joe Cutbirth". The Huffington Post.
  26. 1 2 "About". joecutbirth.com.[ permanent dead link ]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.