Ken Paulson, editor and senior vice president of USA Today, said movies portray journalists as invasive and unethical reporters during a speech last night in the HUB Auditorium.
"Well, the news media don't always do a good job," Paulson said.
Paulson was the second speaker in a three-part lecture series this week that marks the 10th anniversary of the Penn State Student Newspaper Readership Program.
Before becoming the editor in chief of USA Today, he was the executive director of the First Amendment Center, was the host of the television show Speaking Freely on PBS and was a team founder of USA Today in 1982 along with Penn State journalism professor John Curley.
He said two major problems with media are the coverage of stories he doesn't feel are newsworthy and the use of anonymous sources.
"If you do not know who we are getting our information from, you will trust us less," Paulson said.
However, he said newspapers have an important role as a watchdog on American government.
"It would be a mistake to blindly trust our government. There's a lot of talk about media bias, but it's not against any particular political party," Paulson said. "It's against whoever's in charge. Journalism is about challenging those in charge."
He also said there's nothing wrong with covering lighter stories.
"There could be a front page that has stories about both foreign policy and American Idol," Paulson said. "The average American cares about both."
He said despite the current negative outlook on news media in popular culture, he was influenced to go into journalism through the popular culture of superhero journalists. Superman, as Clark Kent, was a newspaper reporter; Spider-Man, as Peter Parker, was a photographer; and the Green Hornet, who was Britt Reid, a newspaper publisher.
Paulson said he believes newspapers have a bright future.
"Newspapers were the iPod of 1690 -- that's the last time they were trendy," Paulson said.
Paulson spoke about the survival of newspapers in an age of technology. He said there are several benefits newspapers have over news on the Internet, including their lack of viruses and pop-ups, their relative resistance to rain and their portability.
He also left the aspiring journalists in the audience with some advice.
"Let me challenge you -- let us give our readers, our viewers and our audience a daily report we are proud of," Paulson said. "There are people counting on us."
Rebecca Frack (sophomore-communications) said she found Paulson's speech interesting.
"I really liked the way he compared the newspaper to the Internet," Frack said. "There's a worry that no one will want newspapers in the future, but even if the Internet goes down, newspapers will always be there."
