The inside scoop on election coverage: With the election less than two weeks away, those who attended the October meeting of Monmouth Associates got to hear some insight on the media’s role in election coverage. The speaker was Joe Angotti, visiting distinguished professor of communication at MC, who was a producer for NBC News for 20 years and served as the network’s chief political producer of election specials. Angotti addressed the common charge of “the liberal media,” but also noted there is a more serious problem today – “point of view” journalism. “The devil is in the ratings,” he said. “Particularly in prime time, networks are more interested in giving the people what they want, not what they need.” The networks, he said, have determined that “people want conflict, they want to be emotionally involved. They want people interrupting each other.” Perhaps Angotti’s most telling observation regarding liberal bias came from mail that NBC News received. He said that during one election, he vowed to keep all the mail the network received, and he put it in two stacks – one that said the network was showing a bias for the Republicans, and another that indicated a Democratic bias. The stacks wound up being even. “Viewers saw the same words and the same pictures and reached a different conclusion.”

The secrets to his success: Monmouth native Steven Skinner has accomplished quite a bit in the 28 years since he last called the Maple City home. During his Whiteman Lecture on Oct. 16, he told the students about some of those experiences and also provided several self-help tips in a talk titled “Ten Keys to a Successful Career in Business.” He broke the keys up into four categories: manage yourself; manage your personal brand; be a leader – not a manager; and empower yourself. “You need to show some vim and vigor in your brand,” Skinner said, “otherwise, you’re hard to differentiate. People are attracted to your passion.” He also listed his three critical success factors: education, not being fearful of risk and having fun.

Emeritus professor of biology David Allison talks with some of the students who helped clean up the college’s Ecological Field Station

Field station gets deep cleaning: Fourteen students from a variety of campus organizations, including Beta Beta Beta, Students for Environmental Awareness and Circle K, recently devoted a Saturday to cleaning up the college’s Ecological Field Station. “They worked their little hearts out,” said Kathy Mainz, the college’s lab manager. The students were not only accompanied by Mainz, but by emeritus professor of biology, David Allison. “He looks after the field station for us,” said Mainz. “The students showed him a great deal of respect.” Located on the banks of the Mississippi River between the communities of Oquawka and Keithsburg, the station, which was constructed in 1969, has been the focal point of several courses and research projects through the years, and it’s now ready for even greater use.

Students hear Supreme Court justice’s speech: Several MC pre-law students traveled to Drake University in October to hear a speech by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. The students were accompanied by assistant professor of political science Tobias Gibson, who organized the trip for them to visit a first-class law school and hear Roberts deliver the 11th Annual Dwight D. Opperman Lecture in Constitutional Law before a crowd of approximately 2,500. “His speech was important because he stressed the importance of law’s history and how it has helped shape the current way law is practiced and researched,” said sophomore Olivia Leonard. Classmate Jennifer Hess said the Drake Law School campus had a familiar feel. “It reminded me of Monmouth College because of how nice the campus is, and how current students say that the professors are helpful and know the students’ names.”