Annotated Bibliography Assessment

Rocamora, A. (2012). Hypertextuality and Remediation in the Fashion Media. Journalism Practice, 6(1), 92-106. doi: 10.1080/17512786.2011.622914

The author of this article, Agnes Rocamora, is a Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Historical Studies and a Senior Research Fellow at the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts. She has written many other journal articles and was a contributor to two fashion books. This academic and practical experience, along with the extensive use of sources throughout the article demonstrate that she is in a position to comment and pass judgement on issues that come under her expertise and that she has found many examples to corroborate her view. The article itself discusses the fashion blogosphere and its impacts on old media, whilst also investigating how traditional media is affecting this new form of fashion journalism. Two particular aspects are examined, hypertextualisation and remediation. She discovered that the rise of blogs has caused fashion magazines (traditional media) to include pieces of journalism that seem highly blog-influenced and, that blogs themselves have risen in popularity due to the idea of the ‘semantic’ web, with users having a great degree of control when searching through posts. The only point lacking in this article is that ‘traditional fashion media’ are discussed only as fashion magazines and as text; no strong mention of photography/illustration can be found. Overall, the discoveries discussed in this article (hypertextualisation and remediation) can be seen, to a certain extent, in the following three news media pieces.

Weiss, P. (2012). Vogue Bans Underage Models, Calls for Healthy Fashion Reform. At Last. Retrieved from http://shine.yahoo.com/fashion/vogue-bans-underage-models-calls-healthy-fashion-reform-235800554.html

This online article discusses Vogue’s decision to stop using models under the age of 16 and those who appear to have an eating disorder. The beginning of this piece seems extremely biased towards Vogue, focussing strongly on quotes from Vogue magazine themself. Towards the end of the article however, there are some questions raised as to whether Vogue will actually commit to their stated goals, and there is a small amount of criticism of the magazine. These negative comments seem weak compared to the heavy praise contained at the start of the piece. There is reference to the fact that Anna Wintour’s biggest competitor is now a blogger by the name of Tavi. This is strongly in line with Agnes Rocamora’s piece on the fashion blogosphere. Weiss hints that the statement about models by Vogue is a strategy to gain more readers and perhaps gain an advantage over bloggers. The author is an editor of Yahoo! Shine, and is heavily involved in fashion writing and photography which would lend her to be quite informed on fashion issues. Yahoo, however, is a commercial form of media and scattered throughout the page and in the story itself are links to other stories that are only loosely related to the main point. This may frustrate readers and it seems like a deliberate attempt to make readers more exposed to advertisements. This causes a lack of credibility to the site.

Landers, K. & Voloder, D. (Presenters), & Clements, K. (Interviewee). (2012, May 4). Vogue decides to ban underage and skinny models [Audio Podcast]. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2012/s3495563.htm

This source is in the simple form of a radio interview (archived as a podcast) and in contrast to the Yahoo! Shine piece, there is heavy questioning on Vogue from the beginning. Similar points are discussed in this piece, such as the timing of the decision and the questioning of how it will be policed, but the ABC version seems to address them in much more substance. The ABC is generally held in high rapport with the public and they are trusted to deliver news that is factual and truthful, which they seem to have done by going direct to an Australian source on the issue. Although they questioned Clements quite thoroughly, there can be no guarantees to the truth of her statements and it would be a stronger piece overall if the presenter did more research on the topic or interviewed an opposing source in addition to the Australian Vogue editor. This would have given a wider view on the topic. It was aired on the ABC radio show The World Today which prides itself on analysing, interpreting and encouraging debate on events and issues that are important to Australians. This is a respected news program and Australians would, due to historical reputation, place more faith in this source than in Yahoo! Shine.

Next Media Animation. (2012, May 7). Vogue: Underweight Models Need Not Apply [Video]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KM_BuuGSnE

This video provides an extremely crude angle to the story and it should not be considered a credible news piece. To begin with, they provide only one source to back up their story, which was the press release itself. There is nothing to back up other claims stated throughout the video, unlike the two previous reports on the topic. They do question Vogue’s ability to police the topic and comment on the history of the industry but the hosts, who go by the names of Jen-Jen and Vanessa, have no credentials and their only aims for news-reporting are that it is ‘sexy, eye-popping and fun’. This would leave the viewer to be extremely critical of whatever they hear from this source. In contrast to the previous two sources, visuals are included in this medium. However, this only detracts even more credibility from the news piece; it is animated and grossly exaggerated in order to shock the audience. The author’s heavy bias is displayed in the visual content. An example of this is: when underweight models are not being used, the only alternative appears to be plus size models that are deemed by the authors to be ‘wide-loads’. Hopefully traditional fashion media will not follow Rocamora’s prediction of remediation with Next Media Animation in mind.

Almost 18 :)

Hey hey hey!


I believe the last time I updated you on my day to day life was last Tuesday. :) So here we go again!


On Wednesday night I went and watched King's vs Leo's in a fresher rugby game. And in case you're unaware, those two colleges have some INTENSE rivalry. It's because they're the only two all boys colleges on campus and traditionally Nudgee boys go to Leo's and Churchy boys hit up King's. Of course I go for Leo's, Duchesne's brother college. BUT they were annihilated by Kings's...didn't even get a score on the board. Poooor Leo's. Oh, and they lost AFL on Friday night as well. Good work boiz.

On Thursday night, I missed out on another College exchange. I watched people get ready for it and then hung out with a pal from another college while our (slightly older) peers were out having some good times. 

Saturday, YAY! I went to the Gold Coast with one of my best mates to visit our friend from back home. For some reason he decided the Gold Coast was where he wanted to go to uni and our 'crew' has been broken up since then. Not to worry though as the three of us were reunited once again as we hit up Dreamworld for some crazy fun times. I think we went on every single ride (the Claw twice), saw the tigers, avoided overpriced food and overall it just felt like we'd never been apart. :)







The other college kid and I headed back home to Brisbane that night, and after a cute lil catch up with my boyf I had to have a bit of a sleep before starting on another hectic day on Sunday. 


I met my brother and his girlfriend for breakfast at the Regatta. SO YUM. Watched a delightful little guitar concert at Customs House, which also happens to be the location my brother is thinking of for his wedding reception. Ooh la la, I know. 
Queen Street Mall was our next port of call. ;)
A couple of hours there and I was sooo ready to head home for a sleep but then in comes a text message oooof: "Guess who's in hospital?"
Yay, good one boyfie. He got his head split open while he was playing hockey. Person in the other team swung their stick, decided they didn't want to hold on anymore and bam. Stick to la face. (As a note: my boyfriend isn't even in the hockey team, but he decided to play?) haha. 


So instead of sleeping, I went and saw that he was alright, he got let out of hospital and now has seven lovely stitches right across his forehead. 


Mum and Dad came down yesterday! Dad had to work so they got put up in the very nifty Stamford Plaza, so I went along for the night and stayed for the delicious buffet breakfast. We payed for my extra though, don't worry. We are not scammers! Haha. And that pretty much updates you to today. :)

OKIE DOKIE. My news story for you. Darned Facebook was so cocky with their IPO and now it's not looking to flash. Classic Commerce student update, huh. Haha. I actually read this while on the CityCat back to UQ this morning, but got the full story, here, from the ABC. I think Facebook could have been extremely successful in the stock market, and I guess there's still hope that things will improve.The shares started decreasing in value because of the simple fact - there was just too many shares. I think the ABC decided to include this story on the front of their online news page because it holds the news values of unexpectedness and continuity. People are actually interested in this topic because Facebook was supposed to be such a Wall Street hit. 


Anyway. I think I'm gonna head off and grab my lunch. :)
x. 


PS I'm 18 next Tuesday. Yew!

Week 12. Investigative Journalism

I must admit, I was happy that this week’s lecture changed to Investigative Journalism. As exciting as Political Economy sounded, I think it was pretty worthwhile learning stuff that will be useful to people in the class next semester. Maybe not me directly, but for others I’m sure it will help. J

It does sound like a bit of a double up when you say ‘Investigative Journalism’. At its very core is journalism not meant to be investigation? But, I do understand how it is just the term for a single type of, perhaps, further investigative journalism work. Going above and beyond the straight daily news!  Once again we were introduced with some thought-provoking quotes by the Red Man himself (my new name for Dr Redman). My favourite of the first three was the one by Hugo de Burgh:

 "An investigative journalist is a man or woman whose profession it is to discover the truth and to identify lapses from it in whatever media may be available.”

This is spoken so directly and clearly that even me, a relatively new face to the journalism scene, can feel a confident grasp on what is meant by the term investigative. Simply, you must seek the truth and you must work hard to get it.

Funnily enough you can define and break down INvestigative journalism into 5 IN words. As you can see below!

• Intelligent
• Informed
• Intuitive
• Inside
• Invest

I’ll discuss and analyse each of these individually as well.

1. Intelligent – Some topics that might be considered for an investigative piece will most likely revolve around either money, sex or power. You can’t just be writing willy-nilly about this stuff! Every investigative journalist must consider carefully and INTELLIGENTLY everything they write.
2. Informed – Before beginning an investigative journalistic piece you would want to ensure you were as well-read on the topic as possible. If you plan on covering a topic at great depth, not doing the early base work could actually be of great detriment to you later down the track as you could miss the whole point or ‘main story’ of your investigation.
3. Intuitive – This will likely come with experience. Intuition about story angles, story ideas and even situations you find yourself in because of your job as a journalist will be honed through years of practice in the field.
4. Inside – This refers to the idea that, in order to get a good/worthwhile story you must be given access to the truth and to the necessary information. The person you are interviewing must have complete trust in you and this can only be built through rapport and your historical reputation as a journalist.
5. Invest – Investigative journalism is heavy business. You must realise the impact of accepting a task that may take years to complete, cost lots of money, consume a crazy amount of resources and could affect your relationships.

Another aspect of Investigative Journalism that was discussed in today’s lecture was its deeper meaning and purpose in society. These can be described by the following:

• Critical and Thorough Journalism: This is all about ‘active intervention’. The journalist has to actually be an active participant in the story and contribute substantial effort. I would imagine that being involved in such a project would consume a massive chunk of your life. It is a lot to sacrifice.

• Custodians of Conscience: Think ‘exposure’. It allows public scrutiny of morals and norms that would never normally be questioned. Once a really critical piece breaks, it can and most likely, will, change the world

• Provides a voice for those without and holds the powerful to account: In the ‘public interest’. Without investigative journalism so many social justice stories would still be kept under wraps. An example of this being “Syria Exposed”. An investigative piece that discloses the mistreatment of Syrian people.

• Fourth Estate/Fourth Branch of Govt/Watchdog: Represents the interest of those without power to balance the authority that the government has, makes public figures accountable and hopefully exposes corruption wherever it is involved in a public organisation

An example that always springs to my mind for some reason is the Four Corners investigation on ADFA. I can’t actually imbed the video here, but it can be viewed from this link. I can’t imagine the defence force would be too pleased about being investigated in this manner, but that is where the beauty lies in in the investigative journalism process.

An extra note that was given to us by the Red Man was to have the attitude of scepticism but not cynicism. I thought that this was actually an extremely interesting point to raise. A quick comparison of the definition of the two shows:

Sceptic – a person who questions opinions generally accepted.

Cynic – a morose, surly, or sarcastic person.

Wow, I didn’t actually think that would clear it up so well for me. I understood for the most part the difference between the two. But when you compare those definitions to the possible mindsets (cynical or sceptical) you could have when beginning a journalistic venture, it is clear how being sceptical is actually so important to the task of investigative journalism.

Later in the lecture, Red Man told us that if “your mum says she loves you, check it out.” I checked that out! It’s true J. Haha. In addition to that he told us that the point of that statement is that when it comes to investigative journalism you have to check EVERY fact, you assume NOTHING aaand maybe expect your whistleblowers to be a little crazy.  I’d say the first two are definite important ones to keep in mind. Imagine the hit a journalist’s reputation would take if it’s discovered they have used the wrong information for even a small part of their story? The whole report would be undermined.

As usual the lecture was ended with the potential threats to the topic, this week clearly being Investigative Journalism. Many of these seemed familiar because I believe we discussed similar topics earlier in the semester. Once again, online news seems to be an evil force to the future of quality journalism. People want their news quick, and news companies have the facilities to provide that. The resource they don’t have, however, is the cash to pay for lengthy investigations that could actually get them in some legal hot water at the end of their investment. It is difficult to see commercial news companies fully sinking their teeth into investigative journalism in the future as they are all about the economic profits and the amount of eyes they have on their screen.  

The other threat is Public Relations. With PR statements coming out so regularly, it is the quick, cheap and easy way for news companies to fill up their content. None of this investment of time, investment of money or investment of journalists is necessary when words are delivered to you. Herein comes the dreaded churnalism. No substance, no fact checking, no investigation.

But check this out. Hopefully it raises your hopes like it did mine for the continuation of investigative journalism. 

x.

PS. Are you as sick of the word investigative as I am right now?

Wazzzzzup

Here I am again. Weow. This will simply be a top up yet again of what has happened in my week and what I have watched and read in the news! I'm feeling pretty darn sleepy actually so watch out for some sway to sway of topics y'all.

Since last speaking to you, I have seen a friend from home that I haven't caught up with in ages! It really was just the best sitting down and chatting for hours on end about gossip from not only here in Brisbane but back home as well. I may now mention that the friend was a boy, and yes, he indeed did have his fair share of gossip to offload. Boys are just like gals, they just don't show it as often!

This paragraph I have debated about whether I should include it or not. It's just so shameful! There was a sick party on Thursday night. For over 18s. As I have not found myself a fake I.D myself and a friend were left here at college with very few others around us. We began talking and soon discovered we both shared a dark childhood secret. Our love and passion for the internet world of Neopets. There's games, lands to explore, shops, even a stock market! Everything you could ever ever ask for!!! And in looking at the massive array of games, it was so creepy how the games we remembered playing the most reflected what we're studying at Uni. My friend for example is studying Pharmacy and luuuurved playing the games with mixing stuff and all science orientated games. I, on the other hand, was all up in the Stock Market and money/numbers games. This finance interest has crazily followed me through to my Commerce degree here at UQ!

I went late night shopping at Queen Street on Friday night and boy was that a big one for fresher spread. I ate dinner before I left, right...yet still downed half a pizza from Vapiano and a German sausage from the stalls that were set up. I am still hanging my head in shame for that one. On the other hand though, I should have earned some good karma! I bought my mumma's mother's day present, my friend's 18th birthday present and my boyf's 19th birthday present. And I can proudly say, nothing for myself. Except for the extensive filling of my gut region. Wow, that was a terrible way to word it. Haha.

My printer broke. :(

BUT my brother took me to Officeworks on Saturday morning and no questions asked they just gave me a new one! It was siiiiick. And they had a delicious sausage sizzle on. AND I got to spend the whole morning with my brother who would have to be one of my bestest friends! It's crazy because he is 25 years old but as soon as we get together we're just turn instantly stupid and immature. That sounds so corny, but it's so true! Another positive to my printer breaking is that my brother revealed the goodness of this video to me:

Hopefully, you will find it as appealing as I did. :)

I haven't done much else up until today. I had 7 hours and 20 minutes of uni today! So, so tired. But I do have the capacity to talk about one more thing. My news story of ze week. 

I personally am happy with the decision the courts made. Bringing in what I've learnt from journalism this semester so far, what News of the World did under Rebekah Brooks' guidance was so crazy unethical! Tapping people's phones and concealing evidence is not the journalistic practice we have been taught at all. It just shows the extremes that news companies are now going to in order to get ahead on news topics. And that is so sad.

Also, just to be a little clever clogs. I think the news values that the ABC considered when deciding this was worthwhile news was stuff like: follow-up, magnitude, perhaps even the 'elite'. All I can say is that I think it is a very newsworthy topic, but is this only due to the agenda setting theory...? I mean, this issue has been broadcasted over and over and over again. Is that why it seems like such an important issue to me? That is certainly some food for thought. I'm heading off for the night. 

Bye bye

x.

Lecture 10 - Agenda Setting

Lecture 10 has come upon us, and confusingly it’s Week 11 due to that pesky holiday last Monday…darn! But we delved straight on in to this week’s topic, Agenda Setting! Before today’s lecture I had my own conception of what agenda setting was; it was when news companies had a certain ideology they wanted to portray and their news followed that ‘agenda’. I guess I was wrong. Haha. Luckily I learnt differently today and this blog post will summarise the enlightenment that I now feel!

To begin with, agenda setting is a theory. It is all about the idea of mass media having an influence on what and how the public feel about news stories and current affairs. Have a think about reality. The way people look at certain events is unique to each individual due to past experiences and the way they’ve been raised, right? Well the media is just an extra ‘mediator’ of reality. They (the media) have to make a decision into what goes into the day’s news and what doesn’t and how they portray it. Even if the public don’t realise, this affects the way citizens perceive reality.

There are four different types of agendas:

1)      Public agenda

2)      Policy agenda

3)      Corporate agenda

4)      Media Agenda

The names relate to who it is that thinks the news is important. For example, if someone was following a corporate agenda it would include news that big businesses and corporate companies find important. Of course, these four different types of agendas are not exclusive and overlap within each other. This topic is actually in extremely close ties with last week's topic of news values; news that is important to a certain target will only be deemed to be so using news values. Seeing topics tie together like this really gives a better overall feel for the journalism industry, and makes it much easier to understand as a whole.

There are two assumptions made by the theory and these are that:

• Mass media do not merely reflect and report reality, they filter and shape it.

My thoughts: It would be pretty much impossible for the media to simply reflect and report, which I believe a large section of the public actually thinks the media does. I mean A LOT of people generally just use one source as their daily shot of news and they would have it subconsciously in their mind that, that is the be all and end all of the day’s news. The truth is though, that every single media organisation is leaving out a certain news story/is telling a story with a different angle.

• Media concentration on a few issues causes the public to perceive those issues as more important.

My thoughts: I think I’ve seen evidence of this one occurring also. Consider the issue of refugees and boat people. All of a sudden this issue sky-rocketed in the amount of press it received and suddenly it seemed like this massive, scary situation that sent many Australians into a moral panic. In reality though there was really no giant increase between the day before the issue was reported and the first day the story hit the headlines.

There are two levels of agenda setting theory:

First level – Suggests what the public should focus on.

Second level – Suggests how the public should think about a certain issue.

So the second level is pretty much just narrowing down, and ‘framing’ the issue for the audience. It is up to the audience to critically think about what they are viewing and this being done by a viewer is rarely the case.

Time for the big topic that was covered in the leccy! The ‘family’ of agenda setting.

1. Gatekeeping

-          This is how much, if anything, of an issue is exposed to the public. When you think about it, the media are actually, liiiiike, totally in control of what we get to hear and see. Pretty scary!

2. Advocacy

-This is the promotion of a message that has a purpose. This includes stuff like anti-smoking and other health topics! This actually sounds like a pretty decent family member if you ask me. J

3. Cutting

-This is where most of the truth or reality isn’t represented. This happens EVERY day. Because really, all the news stations in the world could not report everything that happened in a day. And the sad thing is that, some of the most obscure and unimportant topics like…oh, the Kardashians, get more press time than issues that could actually have a massive impact on people’s lives!

4. Surfing or the ‘bandwagon’

-A news item is mentioned in an opinion leading media and BAM, hello everybody. It’s just when the wider media follows others and certain trends to fill up their news time. And it isn’t just when major media organisations comment on a story, the same goes for something that has gone viral on the internet. Take our good pal, Kony, for example…

5. Diffusion

-This is the process through which an event is communicated to the public. This includes how, where and when news is released. To sneakily snatch Dr Redman’s example from class:

Sensitive topics such as this must have a carefully timed release date to confirm that the risk of backlash in minimised and/or that the safety of those involved in the story is ensured.

6. Portrayal of an Issue

-Alrighty, say there is a certain group of people or there is an issue at hand. There will be MANY different ways to approach the topic or even many different sub-topics within it. How the issue is portrayed will greatly influence how it is perceived by the public. This could be considered a bad thing, but the upside is that if people are exposed to many different portrayals by a variety of outlets they will begin to think for themselves and form their own perspectives.

And I can actually use my own example here! Here is a report about Anh Do and his book the Happiest Refugee in contrast with a report shedding bad light on asylum seekers:

Well, I can’t actually find the contrasting video, but click here to see Media Watch’s analysis of it.

7. Media Dependence

-This one is pretty simple, it’s just that the more dependent you are on the media, the more susceptible you are to their agenda setting!

Coming to a wind down now and getting near the end of the lecture, Bruce discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the Agenda Setting Theory and as always I will outline them below. J

Pros

- Explanatory power

- Predictive power

- Organising power

- Can be proven false (not everyone is under the complete control of the media, we have our own minds you know!)

Cons

- People may not be well informed, engaged, thoughtful and sceptical (apparently some of us don’t have our own minds…Awks).

- The effect weakens when people have made up their mind previous to watching the news (sorry, but I don’t get how this is a weakness if a strength to Agenda Setting Theory is that it can be proven wrong?).

- Cannot create or conceal, only alter (agenda setting doesn’t mean you can make stuff up just that you adjust the way you present or don’t present DA NEWZ, yo).

Oh dear, you can see my mind slipping away. But hold up, I’m going to pull it all back together for the final mini topic!

The 24 hour news cycle. Da da dum! Okay, I promise I’ll write normal again.

This is all caused by convergence of media. The internet, mobile devices and digital channels with 24 hour news is putting massive pressure on news companies to constantly pump out the new content. How is this related to agenda setting you may ask? Well, in the past, newspapers would set the ‘agenda’ for the day and TV and radio stations would follow suit. Now though, who is the first to break a story? Who is setting the agenda for the day? It’s all very mysterious and confusing when it’s muddled up into a constant turnover, isn’t it. Decisions for stories have to be made quick smart and whether this has an effect on the type of agendas we’ll see in the future, will only be told by the test of time.

Bye! J

x

My Week :)

So another week has passed me by...It was a great week though.

Last Tuesday night, myself, a gal pal and two BOOOOOIZ saw The Avengers at South Bank. I thought it was actually really good! Despite the fact I didn't know the guy who was turning green was the Hulk...Trust me, the people I went with are never going to let me live that down. All the references about, "don't make him angry" and "how do you stay calm?", went COMPLETELY over my head. After grasping that fact about 3/4 of the way into the film though, I thoroughly enjoyed it!

To further reinforce my stupidity over the past week, a friend and I bought tickets to what we thought was a very general 'First Year Dinner'. Turns out it was for the Law Society. Once we discovered this fact on the day of the dinner (last Thursday), we rang to check if it was alright if we still came despite not being Law students. 

Man on the phone's response: Oh, but you would have friends that do Law?

Us: No...

Man on the phone: ...Well, if you bought tickets feel free to attend. 

We knew it was going to be a great night. 

Turns out it really wasn't that terrible. We owned up to the rest of our table that we weren't actually studying law when they began questioning us on whether we're enjoying it so far. Hahah. The food turned out to be awesome and we actually made some friends! :)

Sucked to be our table when Trivia time came around though, the law portion of the questions really hammered us and it was no surprise our table came a sad and sorry last place. 

And Friday night, oh Friday night. That was a great one. We had the annual college event, Bandfest! So how this works is, each college forms a band (vocal, guitar, bass, drums and any other crazy addition they please), they rehearse and rehearse and rehearse THEN COMPETE.  It's pretty much just Battle of the Bands. The winner was our brother college and they were actually really friggen awesome. They literally had everyone supporting them, whereas other colleges only got their own crowd interested. Worthy winners, I'd say. 

Nothing amazing has sparked my interest in the news over the past week, but perhaps I'll keep a much keener eye out over the next few days. 

Farewell.

x

I got 15 minutes til dinner!

Ok, so you may not know this but college serves dinner at 5:15. I need to be there at 5 in order to secure a spot somehwhere near the front. I know, right? How hectic is that! No wonder Duchesne has been touted the fat college. :(

So what I've been up to this past week iiiis. I managed to secure myself and 3 friends Ed Sheeran tickets! YEEEEW. No one else at college got them in presale or general public so I am actually feeling a little bad they missed out...But July 31st is going to be the best night ever!

Aw, look at him. :)

We also had a formal dinner on Thursday night, so all the girls were fully academically robed up! The food was...you know that kind of food that tries to be so fancy that it is just ridiculous? Well, yeah that's what the dinner was. But then I went to the city after and chowed into some pancakes at Pancake Manor to fill my belly that was left so undernourished by the formal occasion previous. This was followed by a hectic water balloon fight at South Bank before we (me and a pal) realised that it was actually really late. And all the buses had finished. And all the ferries had finished. And so we had to get a taxi home.

And last night, oh last night. We versed our rival college in netball so you should've seen us all decked out in our crazy blues. The atmosphere was tense and competition was sky high. It was honestly neck and neck the entire time, until our girls lost by a measly two points! Two points and the whole competition was lost haha. And even though our girls played awesome, I'm pretty sure there were a fair few consolation McDonalds trips.

News:
On a completely different and devastating note, it was heartbreaking to hear that the body of Allison Baden-Clay was found in creek. To think that this mother of young girls will not be around to watch them grow up and that the girls won't have the guidance a mother usually provides is a terribly sad reality.

In regards to the way different news companies have broken the story, I see that news.com.au has embraced some technology and that technology in general is finding its way into more and more news tales. Have a look here.



I'm off. Talk next week. :)