The new Journalist! - being a 'real' journalist

It was a great experience to have Steve Molk as a lecture for the last lecture. One thing I really liked about the lecture was that he spoke about the real life situation with his own personal experience. After learning about all the basic theories of journalism it was much easier to apply and understand the real life situations of Steve.

One thing that really hit me was how he said, “You have to start now.” I personally always had a thought of working in any industry after I graduate my degree and when I have knowledge about the certain job. Steve, however, emphasised on the fact that building experience is also important and that we have to use our opportunities around us. In this case he talked about blogs, twitter, and online news industries such as fairfax media etc.

Steve focused on social media platform especially, twitter. Twitter is a source where information spreads rapidly to many people around the world. He said that it was loved by many of the journalists due to these characteristics and that we should also be effectively using these types of platforms contact with other experts in the field.

He said during the lecture that it was nothing, and that he was not going to change the world with his radio spots, implying the fact that it is easy to start and encouraging us, as students of journalism, to begin building our experience for our future career. By this I realised that I may have been thinking too much about the core aspects of journalists and was scared to start anything. As I posted on my blog about the lectures, I strongly believe that a journalist should be someone who changes the world. The major reason was because many people consume and are influenced by the media. For now, I don’t want to be a journalist writing news and so on. I want to be a producer for a radio channel. I might change my career throughout however; this is what I want to be. Therefore, I couldn’t perfectly apply myself in Steve’s lecture, but what he was saying and how he encouraged us throughout the lecture is long lasting.

Through this lecture I learnt how the theories discussed throughout the semester can effectively apply in real life and what I should be doing in order to be successful in my career. Steve implied that blogging can be a great help to build experience. When we started blogging to be ‘the journalist’ our selves, I didn’t understand how it was relevant in becoming a journalist. I just thought it was a practice of writing my thoughts and facts. It was, however, clear in this lecture that blogging helps us to build experience and that it can be used in the actual work force. Through the JOUR1111 I have learnt many aspects of Journalism, both good and bad, and I have come to understand ‘journalism’ and ‘journalist’ better compared to the start.    

Investigative journalism - Whats happening now?

The one word that stuck into my mind during the lecture was “trust.” It was stated that we, as a journalists, need trust from the participants. This was due to the fact that there could be a lot of risks while you are inside a certain place in order to obtain information for the general public.

This lecture was contrasting to the other lectures where we talked about ‘light’ journalism such as, churnalism commercial media and so on. Investigative journalism, however, is a critical and thorough journalism which is quite serious. What investigative journalism was different with others that were previously learnt was that ‘the journalists were active participants.’ In other words, they don’t write by copying PR releases or depending on other secondary information they actively search and obtain the information needed for the work.

There are many positive aspects of investigative journalism. It is thorough, thus, a lot of time and effort is put into the work before it is actually released. Also, they check and analyse in order to produce correct information for the public. There are, however, threats to this investigative journalism; the online news and Public relations.

This was a surprise to me as I was someone who believed that every type of news, including online, was researched as thoroughly as investigative journalism before it is posted up onto the internet. Through this, however, it was evident that online news meant less investigative journalism. As technology evolves, old news is slowly dying which meant that journalism industry is slowly dying as well. By this, it seemed like investigative journalism was linked to the old news, as thoroughly researched journalism is somewhat old fashion. There are many social media platforms used in our society today and many of the general public uses these social media platforms as their own journalism site. In other words they post up information or news they think others would enjoy reading or watching. The problem with this is that many of this news maybe false or just a gossip. I personally believe that this development of technology has influenced the journalism industry. Many journalists seem to focus more on entertaining the audience instead of conveying an important message to the readers or viewers. Thus, instead of spending time and actively participating in obtaining information they spend less time writing about gossips and scandal. This is probably why the online news is the most threat to the investigative journalism.

Another threat mentioned was Public relations. Public relations have been mentioned throughout the semester in the lectures as a threat to journalism. I don’t completely understand why as I believe Public relations and journalism are two very distinct categories. I still don’t fully understand how it is a direct threat to investigative journalism, however, due to the characteristic of PR, such as, propaganda by truth which is quite opposite to journalism, could influence some aspects of it. This is something I would like to further investigate throughout my course of journalism and communication.

After this lecture, which is the second last lecture of this course, I came to find myself such a naïve student. News, to me always had the image of being ‘true’ and a source that could always be trusted. This was because the thought of journalists checking thoroughly and only publishing information when it is proved to be true. I guess, this stereotype or image of news has developed throughout the years. I believe journalists and general public should help investigative journalism to endure so the “trust” between the public and news sustain.  

Agenda setting - a manipulation??

At the very beginning of the lecture, it was stated that similarly to news values, agenda setting was a concept that was quite obvious. Which I personally don’t agree with, however, throughout the lecture it was evident that it was not a very difficult idea and that it was very important in journalism.

There were four parts to the agenda setting; Public agenda, Policy agenda, corporate agenda and media agenda, which are all interrelated. To me, agenda setting seemed like ‘how well a media manipulates the audience.’ The media sets an agenda which suggests what the public should focus on and further, how they should think about an issue. So, is this bad or good? Two weeks ago we learned about ethics, so, if agenda setting manipulates the thoughts of the general public ethically, I believe it is good. However, if they set the minds of the audience in an unethical way, such as Adolf Hitler and Leni Riefenstahl it would not be considered as ‘good.’

There were many strength and weaknesses of agenda setting within media, such as explanatory power, predictive power, organising power and many more. There were, however, also some weakness as people may not be well informed, deeply engaged, thoughtful and sceptical. I believe the strength of the agenda setting could also become a weakness depending on what information for what purpose is manipulated to the general public. The strength and weakness seems like it did not really matter, what actually mattered was what information was set to agenda.

Through this lecture, I started to think that the concepts of journalism can be considered as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ according to the journalist. If a journalist only writes for their benefit and manipulate or affect the public in anyways, the strength of any concept, in this case agenda setting, would no longer be considered as strength. Also, it was evident that ethics is everywhere and that if the journalist is ethical, then whatever they write would an ethical product.

New Values - is it obvious?

Personally, ‘news values’ was the easiest concept out of all that was learnt in the lecture. Well, that was what I thought at the beginning. This was probably because it seems like a common knowledge and something you can generally learn outside of the course. Of course, this was not completely true and there were some elements that were completely new to me however, it was still a bit easier to understand (compared to any other lectures until now) and to apply.

One fact that struck me was that the news values vary across the different news services, country and culture. I thought that news values would be similar all across the news industries due to the fact that I thought that ‘new values’ was a generalised concept. It wasn’t. Some news services focus on the importance of the presented information and some focuses on how much the story appeals to the audience. This was not only distinguished between the services but also between the countries and culture. Thus, news values or newsworthiness each news services, country and culture priorities are different.  

There were also threats to these newsworthiness or new values. The fact that Public Relations effected journalism was an interesting fact. I am currently enrolled in COMU1052. Yes, you guessed right, it is ‘Introduction to Public Relations.’ In public relations, you have to work with the media, news, and advertisement in order to achieve what you ought to achieve and these involve journalism. Journalism helps PR but PR threatens journalism. It was hard to understand at first, however, as the concept of ‘Chrunalism’ arose throughout the lecture it explained the basic meaning.

Churnalism was when information like PR releases is repurposed in to an article. The major problem with this was that the person who repurposes such information does not check and clarify before they produce it. This idea of ‘churnalism’ is shown a lot in PR releases however, done in television as well. This is a dangerous act as there is a high risk of releasing a false new out to the public.

Through such concepts that are used in journalism it has come to me to think that what exactly a news value is. Is it something that attracts the audience? Or is it the importance of the information? I personally believe that both of the aspects are a great news values as both audience and information are important within news. Thus, as a general public and a student learning journalism, ‘churnalsim’ is something that is quite pleasant to know. In some sense it could be lying as churnalism has a high chance or producing false information. Therefore, I believe the most important news value all across the news services, country and culture is truth, or the trust between the news and the audience.

ETHICS? ETHICS!

The Ethics lecture was the lecture that made me think about the ‘real world’ journalism. Ethics, according to the dictionary is; a complex of moral precepts held or rules of conduct followed by an individual. Here, the word we should most focus on is ‘individual.’ Thus, the definition of ethics is different to every people.

The lecture opened with different types of advertisements, billboards and many more. Our task was to fill in a chart sorting out whether the ads are good taste, bad taste, ethical or unethical. Through this task it was evident that many people had a similar concept of the taste and the good and bad were quite easily distinguished. Everyone, however, had different ideas about ethical and unethical category. As for me, it was very hard to determine whether the ads were ethical or unethical.

Also, it was raised during the lecture that many people get confused between the unethical and bad taste. I thought that an advertisement was “bad” when it didn’t have a story or meaning in it. Through the statement, however, the fact that ethics and taste are two very distinct concepts it didn’t necessarily mean that the ad is unethical just because it doesn’t have any story. So, what exactly is ethics in journalism?

There are three paradigms; deontology, consequentialism (teleology) and virtue. Deontology was the rules, principles and duties we have to follow when producing the advertisement. Thus, it was stated that when you follow the rules it is ethical. I, however, disagreed with this fact. The rule stated here is the rule of general television broadcast or company. Thus, if you don’t follow the rules it doesn’t necessarily mean the advertisement is unethical. It might not seem ethical due to the images and might be repulsive in some aspects, however, if the message conveyed in the ad is reasonable, it could still be ethical. As previously stated, people have different definition of ethics, therefore, the rule set by an individual may not satisfy others.

Ethics, is something that is broad which can be different to many people. It is something that can be confusing as its borderline is very thin, however, it is something that can change the world dramatically. Also, ethics in journalism may be restricted under some rules, however, the message conveyed should always be considered before determining whether it is ethical or not. We should always consider what we want to say to change the world, not limiting ourselves to the rules given.

Jour 1111- Annotated Bibliography

Gurau, C, & Ayadi, N (2011) "Political communication management: The strategy of the two main candidates during the 2007 French presidential elections", Journal of Communication Management, 15, 5-22 doi: 10.1108/13632541111105222

The two authors, Calin Gurau, and Nawel Ayadi are both experts in the field of marketing who has gained credibility in that certain area. This journal article, depicts the political communication strategies using a case study approach through real life examples; two main candidates in the 2007 French presidential elections. The journal article introduces the readers/ viewers to the importance of political communication and how it is used in order to win votes. The two different types of political communication are portrayed through the article and the preferred strategy is identified. There were three different strategies outlined by the authors which were; the differentiation of the candidate within their party, the presentation of the political programme and the final confrontation between the main candidates. This was a credible journal article as the two authors use examples from the real world instead of just listing theories. Thus, these theories are applicable in actual situations and although the example is limited to two France candidates the strategies can still be encountered in most democratic systems. The article, however, loses credibility in the fact that both authors are not related to a political field. Thus, the political reasoning within the article would be opinionated losing credibility for the article.

Vogel, E (2012, May 12) Same-sex marriage separates candidates. Retrieved from http://www.lvrj.com/news/same-sex-marriage-separates-candidates-152253885.html

The author wrote the article on the Las Vegas Review Journal Article website about the separation between Candidate Mr. John Lee and Mr. Patricia Spearman. This separation occurred due to President Barack Obama’s support towards marriage equality. Mr. Lee disagrees and Mr. Spearman agrees with President Obama. The article depicts the different cultural background the two candidates hold and how this effects their decision. The article conveys both candidates’ positions and their political communication, therefore gaining credibility from the readers. Also, instead of the publishing the author’s own opinions the author only portrays the opinion of the two candidates. This is an example of a recent real life situation thus, depicts the story without being bias. The website the article is from is a commercial media where the audience are the consumers; this is different to the ABC news which is a form of public media. Thus, ABC focuses on the announcement of the President delivering solely facts about the situation unlike this article where it depicts a political fight. This is due to the fact that commercial media focuses more on producing ‘entertainment’ for the readers, therefore, this article loses more credibility compared to public media, ABC news.

  

O’Malley, N (2012 May 11). Obama finally comes out with views on gay marriage. The Age, p.8

The article portrays the fact that president Obama has been escaping in presenting his support towards gay marriage in public. It states, “IT IS a surprise to no one in the US that Barack Obama supports gay marriage,” implying the fact that President Obama has been secretly supporting gay marriage. The one thing it does not state is why he has been hiding his support. This is where the author loses credibility as he says, “That's not quite clear.” The article is opinionated throughout and does not clearly justify the reason for the thoughts. Although the author talks about the political communication and the impact, it is less emphasised behind the author’s opinions. This is another commercial media portraying similar aspects to the online article stated above. This print article, however, seems to have less credibility than the online article as the author of the online article excludes his own opinion. Being bias and opinionated can loses credibility which is not a good political communication. Both articles, created different stories for more entertain the readers/ viewers around the situation and unlike the ABC News tend to focus on one or two politicians.   

Klein, R (2012) President Obama - Gay Marriage: Gay Couples 'Should Be Able to Get Married'. ABC News. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQGMTPab9GQ

The ABC News presented the issue of President Barak Obama supporting same sex marriage. The News not only depicts the fact that President Obama stated that gay and lesbian couples should be treated equality, however, also focuses on the political communication and the impacts this announcement could lead to. The fact President Obama stated the announcement, not any other, earned some credibility to the news. Also, how the news is presents the views of the politicians opposing to marriage equality depicts the fact how the news presented are unbiased, thus, increasing the credibility of the source. Unlike the two previous sources, the news does not focus on the entertainment, however, it focuses on getting the right message across. This is done through the interviews with President Obama himself and neglecting any opinionated views by others. The news portrayed the importance of political communication through the conversation of the new presenters. This however never focused on one politician, instead, they presented a general view on the two sides of the issue. ABC news portray many public media values which is another reason why many viewers would chose ABC news compared to The Age or online review journal article.  

JOUR1111 item 2 - Moments..

Moments are precious..

Moments, are very important part of our life creating memories and changing ones character. Have you ever had a moment where it changed your life in any way? That moment where you are so hurt, or desperate that you just don’t want to experience ever again? Like everyone, I also had many “moments” throughout my life. All the moments of my life are memorable and special, however, there is one moment that I can never forget…

The day was dark and cloudy...

I was eight years old and I remember the day being cloudy and dark and everyone was trying to fight the wind. Despite the unpleasant weather, our family and friends decided to go to the Surfer’s Paradise beach. At the time, the weather didn’t mean much to me, if I could play with my friend nothing really mattered. I recount my friend and I making sand castles at first, then got sick of it and decided that we wanted to get into the water.

“Can we please go down to the water and play?” I asked my mum.

As soon as she gave a positive reply, my friend and I ran down to the waters with my uncle in excitement. Nobody ever knew what was going to happen next.

The waves were high, I couldn't get out...

We arrived at the water and carefully placed our foot into it. Shivers ran down my spine from the cold water and I couldn’t resist getting in further. I looked at my friend and her eye was sparkling with happiness. We immediately ran down to where the waves were and started to splash around. My uncle was watching over us while enjoying the scenery of Gold Coast beach. After a while we realised that the height of the wave somehow shrunk, and in curiosity walked into the deeper end. We were too young to know what was dangerous and what was not. Constantly, we walked deeper into the ocean to catch the wave, then, we were stuck. I was so scared I couldn’t move. I just stopped, everything stopped. Nothing moved around me and the before I could even start to think, I was swept by a wave into the vicious water. I tried to swim back to the shore but every time I thought I reached it, I was pushed further away from the destination. It seemed like there was nothing I could do anymore. I was worried about my friend and was frightened at the same time. Then, the thought of death started to kick in. I started to pray, for my family and for my friend. I don’t know why I didn’t pray for myself, but I just prayed for the people on the shore anxiously waiting for me and my friend. Ironically, I was still desperate to get out of the situation as soon as possible. I know I was only eight, but when I felt like I was actually going to die, my life passed through like a panorama. My bad attitude towards parents, friend and family, things I have experienced, and things I still had to experience. Then I started to think why it was happening to me. By now, I couldn’t really feel my body, my temperature was going down and it felt like I was sinking into the water. At that very moment, when I was just about to give up everything, I saw someone coming towards me. It took me a while to figure out they were life guards on surfing boards. I was out of my mind and didn’t really realise what they were doing until they placed me onto the board. I was safely pushed back onto the shore when I saw my mum. In relief tears started to run down my face and she ran up to me and gave me a hug, I was wet but that didn’t really matter to her and soon after my friend was next to me. The life guards said we were lucky to be found and that they were doing the last check before going back home. All I could hear was mum thanking them and holding me tight against her.

The moment, when my mother gave me hug will always be remembered.

That was the moment that I could never forget. The moment when I realised how precious it is to live and from that day on, I thank every moment of my life. I don’t know why my mother’s hug was more greatly remembered then the actual event. Maybe I don’t want to remember the event. It is, however, all a part of my life and it is a moment that created me to become what I am now. It is a memory to treasure and story to tell and it something that should be special to everyone..