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.
Hello,
hello, hello. I’ve made it to Lecture 9 of Intro to Journalism! And I actually
remember mentioning today’s topic in one of my (much) earlier blog entries. If
I do recall correctly, Skye Doherty, our guest lecturer for Telling Factual
Stories using Text mentioned the term ‘news values’ and I was a little
confused. I mean, I got the general gist of what it meant, but I didn’t really know what they were or how they
were used in newsrooms.
Today I
learnt that there really isn’t a cement definition of what news values are.
They are many things to many people, and the week’s readings and lecture described
several of these. First of all we were given a list of four (don’t worry
Carmel, I’m not going to post every single list!) that looked a little like
this:
Impact
Audience Identification
Pragmatics
Source Influence
Looking at this
first list alone I was able to grasp a little better what the whole concept was
about. I think though that it would be a difficult task as an editor to make
decisions on what to cut down and what to leave in, but I’ll return to this
point a little later.
These
values or similar lists of values are what underpin news journalism. When a
potential story comes up it is critically considered as to whether it will be ‘news
worthy’. But will what is newsworthy to me, be the same as what is newsworthy to
you? No, of course not and the same can be said across different news services
and across different countries or cultures. In fact, what is newsworthy to an
Australian middle-class audience could be completely inappropriate or offensive
to an overseas nation. This is what
makes observing news values so intriguing I think.
The above
(source: http://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/304/210) is just one comparison of what type
of stories feature in publications in different countries. From this it is able
to be extrapolated what type of news values are held in the respective nations.
While Canada and the US are not extremely different to each other, there is still
quite a difference in their news values. For example, English Canadian press focuses more on Human Interest than the US and the US has just under double the amount of war stories then English Canada (percentage wise). You can only imagine how extreme the
differences would be between nations such as China and the US.
The
inverted pyramid was once again discussed today, and it seems that more and more, the
punchy headline and opening sentence is being relied upon. To lure readers in the first place and to urge them to continue reading the story. Sites such as Twitter may be a factor at play in
this. Media consumers want to get straight to the point and know what’s held in
an article in a succinct manner. In summary they want...TO. THE. POINT.
To the side are just two more lists of news
values created by academically minded fellows:
Galtung
and Ruge went one step further in their creation of a list, they made some
hypotheses! The first being the Additivity
hypothesis:
The more news value factors a story
includes, the more popular the story will be.
There
is the Complementarity hypothesis:
Certain factors will tend to exclude each other. So it generally
isn’t possible to have a news story that ticks all the boxes.
Aaaaand,
last but not least the Exclusion hypothesis:
Pretty obvious one considering the
two above, BUT, this one pretty much means that if a story doesn’t fulfil any
of the values it’s probably not going to make great news. Weow.
Craig
Thompson (no, not that Craig
Thompson), an editor at a UK newspaper talks about news values below:
I include this
video because, while watching it I noticed he actually mentioned many of the
values in the lists of news values given in the lecture. Impact, locality,
emotion. It demonstrates that yes, in fact, news value are a high consideration in actual day to day newsrooms. In fact, Craig Thompson, is a ‘human sieve’!
Like the Harold Evan’s quote referred to in the lecture. A lot of this ability
to decide what should or should not go into the day’s would come from
experience but I think in order to have a real knack for it you’d have to have
some degree of natural instinct.
Although
these news values may seem pretty steadfast, I can say that I never really
considered them when I looked at newspaper headlines or what was on the local
news every night. It is due to the fact that average, everyday citizens don’t
critically analyse news that threats to newsworthiness are coming about. Australia
and the world all over are not demanding enough of high quality news and so
what is a result of this? I’ll tell you what a result of this is! …Well
actually Dr Redman told me, but I can tell you as well.
‘Churnalism’ and junk news is clogging our media
Too much lazy journalism
Influence of public relations are causing tabloidisation
AND there is a hypercommercialisation of outlets
A big
reason all of those above things are happening is that press releases are just
being cut and pasted, no facts are being checked, and no analysis is being done
by the journalists.
We need to
somehow start returning to the idealised journalistic world of obligation to
truth, independence and fact! If we don’t our news and public knowledge in general
is going to start going downhill stat! And while returning to this world we must
adjust to new aspects of a changing world. One where the audience are no longer
silent bystanders. The can comment or perhaps even write stories themselves on
blogs. There’s a new balance of power and media organisations have to work with
the fact that the ‘audience’ is not less fictional, more able, less predictable
and they’re realer! People may start to define their own news values in blogs and find that the larger public connect with them, over the traditional values. Or some people could hold some extreme values and get a small but loyal following.
Only time
will really tell what the new balance of media power will mean for news values
or whether it will really have an impact at all.
Navigating her way through dark Japanese streets, a girl of merely
15, attempts to find her way home. Home is a term used very loosely. Disregard
thoughts of warm, enduring hugs. Eliminate feelings of relief as you step over
the threshold. Coming to this home
after a day in the real world offers no respite. Home in the sense that Hannah
feels, is just an extension of darkness, if not the source. She isn’t abused
and she isn’t neglected but she is not where she belongs.
Travelling from Australia on her own, Hannah took a risk that many
wouldn’t. So many elements were left up to chance when she decided to go on
Student Exchange – language barriers, home stay families and schooling life. If
considered as a whole, the trip was a remarkable experience. Only one element
could truly be faulted, and unfortunately it was the family of whom Hannah’s
care was in the hands.
All seemed fine at the initial meeting. Awkward but friendly
greetings in stunted English and Japanese were what Hannah had been expecting
and it’s exactly what she got. The initial politeness lasted only a couple of
weeks into Hannah’s six month stay. Soon she began noticing trends in the
dynamic of the household. Hannah’s position in the pecking order was quickly
determined to be at the very bottom. Bullying from her siblings made school
life difficult, and lies spun by her host mother added to the difficulties at
home. The trip quickly seemed to take the form of a generic fairy tale, but
would it end in happily ever after?
After Hannah was welcomed to join a student club that had not
extended the same invitation to her ‘sisters’, things quickly spiralled
downhill. Meetings were held after school, and Hannah felt it would be a good
way to escape everything at home. It was agreed she would be picked up at eight
when the meeting finished. For once Hannah had something for which to look
forward. The two hour gathering gave her the chance to make friends without
patronisation personified (aka, her host sisters) that usually stalked her. On
Hannah’s way out, she waved goodbye to her newly made friends as they were picked
up before she set out to find her own host parents for a lift home.
It became evident though, that as the last cars drove away the
street was eerily empty. There was no one left to pick up Hannah. She thought
maybe if she waited for just a little while her ‘mum’ would come around the
corner. It was only a matter of time she told herself. Waiting for a couple of
minutes quickly turned into waiting for half an hour, and it was downright
terrifying to be alone in a foreign country, let alone at night. She didn’t
want to ring her house, but wasn’t confident in her own navigating abilities.
Hannah decided to call home but instead of being met with
apologies and a story of sincere mistake, she was confronted with anger and
frustration that had become a regular occurrence. She was told that nobody
would be leaving to pick her up that night and that it was selfish of Hannah to
expect such actions. This was followed immediately by a dial tone. After this
conversation she went into a state of almost complete panic. Her heartbeat
increased, her breath quickened and she felt that if her body underwent any
more stress it would simply stop functioning altogether.
She looked around her and tried to shake away the mental blanket
she felt covering her brain, making it impossible for her to make any rational
decisions. There were three directions Hannah could choose from, and in the
dark none of them seemed familiar and certainly none of them seemed welcoming.
Standing alone had been scary enough but there had been something of a safety
net with the street lighting near the school. Attempting the journey home would
no doubt lead to streets of complete darkness.
Hannah knew though that a decision had to be made. She stepped out
blindly, using no logic in her choice of direction. The further she walked the
less familiar the streets became. The further she walked the more she jumped at
the smallest sounds. Japan’s reputation for street safety has always been among
the highest in the world, but in her situation Hannah found no comfort in this.
She didn’t know who was behind every corner she approached and worse still, she
didn’t know whether she was headed towards her home or not.
She turned a corner and uttered a massive sigh of relief when she
recognised some of the houses. This wasn’t to say she had found her street, but
to see something familiar was the best feeling she’d had since the meeting that
afternoon. Hannah’s stride became a little more confident and thoughts of
wholesome Japanese families in the houses she passed gave her a bit of
backhanded comfort.
She’d lost track of the time she’d been wandering blindly, but she
knew it had to have been near two hours. A car rounded the corner and Hannah didn’t
really think twice of it. But when the car began to slow and maintain a pace
that allowed it to remain behind her, she felt the same panic come over her
that had she felt leaving the school. Should she choose a house and run in or
should she play it cool until she was actually in danger? The decision was made
for her when she wasn’t even given the opportunity to pick a household.
The car sped up slightly and pulled over beside her. The tinted
window was wound down, but Hannah didn’t know whether to feel relief or fear
when she saw the face inside. A familiar face so contorted with rage gives
perhaps the same comfort as a stranger’s. Getting into the car with the host
mother from hell, Hannah’s night of fright was at an end but she knew there was
months of it still ahead.
At the time of this story Hannah Mossman was
a 15 year old exchange student from Tannum Sands, Queensland. She participated
in a six month student exchange program to Hiroshima, Japan. She returned home
one month early as she was not coping with her homestay family environment.
Hannah is now 17 and is studying Bachelor of Secondary Education/Arts majoring
in Japanese and Drama at the University of Queensland. She hopes to one day
return to Japan for a more pleasant experience.
Okie dokie, let's get down to business. I had my college ball on Friday night and it was incredible! I got to dress up all in my prom dress and got whisked away to a secret location (Mt Cootha Botanical Gardens in fact). Everyone was in high spirits and the amount of spirits drunk was also high. Here are just two little pictures from the night:
And then of course the day after was my economics exam whilst the rest of the college and their partners went on to celebrate an event by the name of 'Recovery', aka get even messier than you were last night. Me and a couple of the other girls watched them leave on the buses and were feeling a lot less than happy.
I also got to go to my brother's house for dinner and catch up with a friend from home on Sunday so my weekend all in all was pretty stellar.
Yesterday I went to a talk by Daniel Flynn, who, when he was 19 years old created the brand Thank You Water. It's pretty much a company based on the idea that bottled water is stupid but we may as well do something good out of this stupid purchase. The only reason I had even hear about this product was through commercial media. Both Channel 7 and Channel 10 ran stories about it, on Sunrise and the The Project respectively. Without the platform that commercial media supplied, Daniel admitted that Thank You Water may never have taken off in the way that it has. He was an excellent public speaker, got the crowd laughing and involved. Plus you can tell he has a massive heart and a great mind for business which is a winning combination, that one day I hope people say that I have.
...How awkward, I didn't even know you could put in videos to your blog until just then. That's terrible. Haha, oh well I've been linking to them.
I hit up the dawn service this morning in the city so I'm feeling pretty exhausted but I best go do some study.
Today we
had a guest lecturer, Dr Harrison, and he introduced the topic of ethics by
drawing our attention to some ‘controversial’ ad campaigns. As he showed them
to us we were asked to rate each on a scale of ethical to unethical and also
whether they were in good taste or were downright tacky. After this activity he
then asked us how we judged the ads on that scale. What makes things good or
bad? What makes an output of media ethical or unethical? Who judges the
difference between right and wrong?
Giving my
personal answer of how I judged and how I think others judged the variety of
ads, I’d say it was all about my personal values and what I was taught growing
up to deem right and wrong. Take for example the Sam Kekovich ad that was
shown. I find that ad to be in pretty poor taste. I wouldn’t say it is to the
degree of being unethical but I certainly don’t think the creators focussed on
making an ethical ad. Some of the statements and just the general…atmosphere, I
guess, that the ad creates doesn’t appeal to me in any way. I know it’s a
different story for many other Australians, because as Dr Harrison said, the ad
has become somewhat of a legacy.
To relate
this back to journalism he discussed three ethical theories which were:
Deontology
Consequentialism
Virtue
Deontology
is the one that follows rules and principles. These rules are external to the
individual so all ethics codes on journalism, advertising, business, etc are
deontological. This theory requires little independent thought and no strong
character values because as long as you can comprehend the rules and stay
within the guidelines you’d be fine.
Consequentialism
focusses on the idea that all that matters is the outcome. It doesn’t matter
how, for example, a piece of journalism was uncovered as long as it was ‘for
the greater good’. This one seems a bit dodgy I think, as so many things could
be conducted poorly throughout the process. But then again how can you define
what ‘poor conduct’. I guess that is the very essence of this theory, nothing
is deemed wrong along the so long as the final product will benefit the
majority.
Virtue
ethics is what Dr Harrison said was essentially,
the most important theory type to understand when it comes to being a
journalist. Sure, it isn’t what the journalists’ codes are about, but the very
backbone of this theory is that “goodness” comes from good habits of character.
Courage, justice, temperance and prudence are all internal values that guide
you in your work. Compare these internal values to that of deontology where you
are given the guidelines and there is no need for you to think for yourself. In
order to be an efficient and truly great journalist these values must be second
nature to you and you won’t learn them from memorising any code.
There was a
little controversy back in 2011 about
whether The Australian had acted unethically when they received sponsorship by
a pharma industry group that directly funded their health journalism. The
Australian insisted they maintained editorial independence throughout the
partnership but it was heavily questioned by others in the media saying that
the drug industry having any influence in public discussion was a dangerous
thing. There was sympathy though towards the idea that journalism must be
funded one way or another, but perhaps it was a poor choice by the newspaper. Crikey goes into more detail here.
I'm just writing quickly so say what's been happening in the world of college after the mid-sem break. :) Pretty much the over 18s have been going out to the strictly over 18 events, while I've been working hard but tomorrow night is our College Ball! So I get to whip out my prom dress again and get my hair and makeup done all fancy, invited a lovely boy to attend with...but I have an economics exam on Saturday! Such a bad timing, seriously.
I know so many people who have an exam actually tomorrow so they can actually enjoy the night knowing their exam is finished but mine's the next day - waaaah!
AND my brother bought me Flight of the Conchords tickets for my birthday so I cannot wait til July 7th! I actually performed one of their songs for my music assessment in Year 11 so they have a special place in my heart for those New Zealand boys. Let's hope they live up to all the expectations I have of their live shows.
Lately I've definitely been trying to have a read of the ABC news more regularly as doing these type of courses has opened my eyes to the differing quality of news between stations. Looking around the ABC website I think this: 90 Second News will definitely be something I'm checking everyday for a quick update.
In today's particular upload (as linked to above) there is a story about a Catholic priest. I always get a bit iffy when people are talking about Catholic Priests being child predators and all that. Obviously I was raised in a Catholic home and so this blurs my objectiveness substantially but EVERY single priest I've met has been nothing but kind and generous and news stories that kind of make all priests look bad gets under my skin. Obviously this particular man committed heinous crimes and I am in no way condoning his individual behaviour but the way these stories are always presented puts all Catholics in a bad light. It creates a divide and perhaps people will unfairly associate terrible things with priests when the majority are in no way deserving. Just tell the story without that focus, please!
Anyway, that's enough of my ranting. I'm gonna go prepare for this econ exam.
Public
media, public media. It will be disappointing to my tutor but growing up I was
pretty much only surrounded by commercial media. I hardly even watched ABC kids
shows like most of my peers. I feel this, though, was the result of having
three older brothers who had solid control of the TV remote throughout my
childhood…haha. I feel in the past 7 weeks I’ve been at uni I’ve learnt more
about public service media than I knew in the whole 17 years before I came.
So, at the
start of Lecture 7 we were told that the mission of public media is to serve or
engage a public. It seems in my very narrow case that it hasn’t engaged me
whatsoever but I do understand the service it provides in top quality news and
offering a wider diversity of programming. I know that most students enrolled
in journalism have aims of working at the ABC as it seems to be one of the most
respected news outlets in the country and I feel slightly disappointed that I, as of yet, have never fully exposed myself to it.
I found the
list of what public media should involve pretty interesting:
Geographic universality
Universality of appeal
Special provision for minorities
Relationship to sense of national identity and
community
Distanced from all vested interests
Universality of payment
Competition in good programming rather than
competition for numbers
Liberate rather than restrict
From what
little exposure I’ve had to the two main channels in Australia (ABC and SBS) it
seems they both live up to these ‘goals’. If I’m able to bring up another
class’ discussion, we were talking about how successful both the ABC and SBS
have been in tailoring their programming to include ALL Australians. The result
of the discussion was that the SBS are leaps and bounds ahead for minority
groups whilst ABC may have some issues in their schedule looked like it was ‘designed
by middle aged men for middle-aged men’ (quoted in Inglis 2006, p.476). I think
that was how the ABC had always come across to me as well but after watching it
more often I don’t have any difficulty enjoying its content.
I’ll move
on now to the challenges that public media faces. Apparently it needs audiences.
Well of course it does! After having a chat to a few of the girls that live
with me, a tiny minority deliberately watch the public media channels. I think something
that will be a big issue in the future for public media is the capturing of my
generation as an audience. As depressing as this sounds, ABC’s and SBS’ current
audience won’t be around forever and hopefully my generation will fill the gap
they leave or the public sphere of the nation will be greatly disadvantaged.
Public
media also have to deal with the constant scrutiny of whether or not they are
politically independent. This has been a constant plague for the ABC as they have
to juggle the fact that the government are the ones who fund them but their job
is to be critical of them. As Dr Bruce said, it is a delicate balance when you
are biting the hand that feeds you.
I followed
up the point of the ABC being bias and out of all the snippets I read, this one
caught my attention but mainly the few points raised at the end. ABC bias?
It seemed
pretty far-fetched to me at the beginning but then when the point that it is
tax payer funded is brought up I can see how it is important that the
journalists leave out their personal opinion and focus on fact. But who’s to
say that this Mark Hendrickx is really telling the truth. It’s an interesting
business!
Anyway I
think that’ll be me done for Week 7’s lecture and now all my blogs
are up to date for the assessment this Friday. J
