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ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Up in the Air: My Chuck Overby Story

Cothrel, Maxwell M
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ouhonors1366913647

Abstract Details

2013, Bachelor of Science of Journalism (BSJ), Ohio University, Journalism.
Journalism has always been about questions. The fundamental building blocks of standard news stories are small questions with documentary orientations: Simple whos, whats, wheres, whens, hows, and whys that flesh out a story. It is easy to make a case for how basic facts help media consumers understand the world around them through simple documentation. But criticisms of modern journalism often take issue with the image of reality that journalism portrays. Scholars have conceptualized it as incomplete, biased, and unhelpful to society. Such questioning of media products and processes is fruitful. This project questions the media’s reliance on objectivity as its means of documenting truth, and the primary question is whether or not compromising conventional journalistic objectivity in favor of a hybrid perspective that incorporates subjectivity could be a legitimate way for journalists to better represent truthful worldly reality. It analyzes how the elements of literary journalism can enable blending objective documentary impulses with self-conscious commentary to yield a media product that answers more questions. It asks if this hybridity can move journalism toward bigger questions approached on personal levels, thereby taking journalism from a passive reflection to an active representation. Ultimately, it is concerned with journalists’ desire to have their work be a record of human activity and a promoter of democratic freedom and the issue of whether or not journalists have the ability or feel the obligation to comment on big questions and their answers. This project is not the first to question objectivity. It includes a literature review that explores some of the historical and philosophical discourse on the subject of objectivity and its use by journalists as a means to an end of truth. Journalism holds truth as its primary tenant. Objectivity is truth’s twin ethic in journalistic discourse. After defining and critiquing a synthesized concept of objectivity in the practice of journalism, I formulate a theoretical response to objectivity that argues for the inclusion of subjectivity in journalistic writing. My questioning of objectivity and my theoretical response to it play out in a professional project that serves as the bulk of this project. It is a journalistic personal essay that operates as a biography of Athens, Ohio, resident and Ohio University (OU) emeritus professor of engineering Chuck Overby, mixed with my reflections and commentary on the story. The professor is 87 and still lives in the countryside near Athens with his wife of over 60 years, Ruth. They still swim together a few times a week at the OU Aquatic Center and, just as frequently, they visit the school’s library to keep up on their reading. They attend public events with regularity, he often in an Uncle Sam costume, and sometimes, in these forums, she will tug at his sleeve to indicate that he should end another improvised speech. He has delivered speeches internationally, organized a local advocacy organization, and written a book all with two interests in mind: The proliferation of peace and the conservation of the environment. While this commitment in and of itself is not unique or particularly noteworthy, Overby’s efforts at pursuing its fulfillment are. I used journalism’s natural tendency and ability to question the world as a means of exploring the uncertainties I have about the work Overby’s done and, more specifically, about what he perceives as a great deal of difficulty in effectively communicating his ideas in any public forum. After the personal essay comes a section of self-critique, which reflects on the project to analyze my execution of the inclusively subjective theory of journalism I adopt in response to objectivity.
Cary Frith (Advisor)
Bernhard Debatin (Committee Chair)
113 p.
Journalism
biography; personal essay; journalism; world peace; engineering; engineer; first-person; objectivity; subjectivity; perspective; flight; narrative; narrator

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Cothrel, M. M. (2013). Up in the Air: My Chuck Overby Story [Undergraduate thesis, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ouhonors1366913647

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Cothrel, Maxwell. Up in the Air: My Chuck Overby Story. 2013. Ohio University, Undergraduate thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ouhonors1366913647.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Cothrel, Maxwell. "Up in the Air: My Chuck Overby Story." Undergraduate thesis, Ohio University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ouhonors1366913647

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ouhonors1366913647
810
© 2013, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Ohio University Honors Tutorial College and OhioLINK.