Legality vs Morality

I'm in the final trimester of university and I have realised that I've heard, studied, presented and even practiced some form or the other on the laws we have learned since our very first trimester. Legalities have been put in place to protect as well as to punish offenders. However, one point from the readings that stayed in my mind was the line " while some legal principles may be pertinent, the facts of many hallmark historical cases are far removed from the practices of modern journalists and the likelihood of them ever applying to present- day journalism is slim" (Pearson, n.d: 199) Does this mean that present laws are still being used for present day cases in some way to some extent? If these 'older' rules have been used, then they form the basis of defamation suits, contempt of court etc. Newer forms of news reporting have emerged and although newer regulations have been put in accordingly, they are still based on older principles. Does this bring about loopholes in the system? And if so, are the 'journalism law' and 'shield law' for example enough to protect a journalist in present situations?

Journalists have a duty to report the the goings on to the mass public. Journalists also "have no rights beyond those of ordinary citizens" but they are given "some special privileges in order to facilitate their role in bringing information to the wider citizenry" (Pearson, n.d: 199) such as access to court documents and arrangement of better seating. Another privilege journalists are allowed is the ability to protect their sources. However, "Shield Law", as was discussed in tutorial does not encompass every aspect of the possibility of protecting a source. As Leong Ching mentioned in class, in the US, if your don't reveal your source, you're not in contempt of court. I feel that protecting your source matters but to what extent? Is this source's information pertinent to the court proceedings? Will someone be convicted? Will there be people who will affected gravely if this information is not disclosed? I've realised there is a fine line between the legal and moral dilemmas journalists fail, sometimes on a regular basis.

In the public interest: Public vs Private

There always seems to be a debate about the gray areas between what can be considered private and what can be deemed public. There is the notion that people, such as movie stars, popular singers and famous personalities have no choice but to have their lives considered public. In the discussion in class, I've realised that there is much more to this debate than just private vs public.

There has evolved a new means of 'measuring' the types of guidance one can receive when surfing the Internet.

· Authenticator: Help the audience figure out what to believe, what can they trust

· Sense-maker: Help the audience derive meaning from what is happening in the world

· Navigator: Help the audience find their way around a story, point them to the “good stuff”

· Forum-leader: Help the audience engage in a discussion in a knowledgeable way

(Rosenstiel, 2009)

AnUpon reading that piece of information, another area of interest emerged- corporate influences. Corporate influence over editorial content has left the public skeptical of the messages being reported upon, and just how much of the information they are receiving has been filtered through corporate firewalls. Governments have been know to censor information or not reveal under the guise of 'national security' but people, with the advancement of the internet, have done their research and found out possible scenarios that go against what has been said.

So So the qiestion remains, how much is too much? Is the media at fault for prying into the lives of people who don't want to have their lives publicised or are these people saying that to take action against the appropriate parties later on should a disagreement arise. In my opinion, there are boundaries and sitting on the fence on making some issues private while others are not is a form of baiting the media.

How much truth and objectivity do we need?

Dianah's presentation was about truth, objectivity and implications on journalism. One thing I've learnt is that truth does not equal objectivity. Two sides of a coin need to be thought about and evaluated in order for people to "discover and explain the truths about their society and the wider world" (Bowman and McIlwaine). Another piece of information I sieved out from the presentation was that truthfulness and accuracy are not the same thing, nor do they product the same results. One question that was raised that intrigued an internal dialogue in my head was the question Jimmy put forth about "how can you be objective without being truthful?"

There were two points of views on objectivity that were discussed in class during the presentations; conflicting expectations and the need for change in focus. Basically what was meant by this was that old ideas hindered and limited journalists to reactive reporting. This meant that journalists became reliant on sources for information and not fulfilling the 'duty' of a journalist which was to seek out information and check the facts according to what was said or done. Also, "traditional news objectivity disallows interpretation in reports" (Ward, 1999), meaning that all the news presented has to be factual and straight to the point and not for people for infer from. Objectivity in itself, is subjective and in being objective, you don't necessarily get the entire truth either.

I have also realised that bias and subjectivity is inevitable and that truthful may not be equivalent to objectivity. In some ways, by suppressing subjectivity, people and audiences are deprived of what they need to know. The three types of reporting (reflective, reactive and analytical) and the descriptions of each discussed in the tutorial put things into perspective for me. What I took away with Sya's presentation was that "journalists need to remember that they are no longer the main source of news" and that thought mirrored by own perceptions and understandings. The world has proceeded at such a rapid pace at a rate that media outlets are constantly having to come up with newer means of enticing their audiences. And they also have to compete with PR agencies that are the 'creators' of news.

Citizen Journalism: Boon, Bane or a mix of Both?

I've learnt that online journalism is not the same as citizen journalism. And that current journalism (readers/consumers/viewers) versus citizen journalism (contributors/participants) is the way journalism has become. We watched a really hilarious Youtube video in class on how to report the news and I realised how reporting of the news has become more of a template, a repetition of style with just a difference in content. It has also dawned on me that the necessary objectiveness and partiality has started to bore audiences and thus drawing them to the websites of citizen journalists. Even traditional journalists like Anderson Cooper and Katie Couric have Twitter accounts which are updated with behind-the-scenes scoops and pictures that were or could not be published on television. In the past, people were fed the story, presently they are no longer passive audiences and prefer engaging in the story.

Some have jumped ship from traditional journalism to hop on to the citizen journalism bandwagon but with possible reservations. In most cases of citizen journalism, the stories being published have either already been covered by mainstream news, a regurgitation of the news with self-opinionated comments or a different angle on the same story. News is not as easy to come by as what was once considered 'hot news' might have been relegated to "yesterday's news". Another issue I was pondering on while the discussion was ensuing in tutorial was the lack of training citizen journalists possessed.

As a journalism student, I have realised the difference in writing for different types of articles; features have a larger word count with a more soft news approach whereas a news story would likely have facts and be straight to the point as a hard story usually would be. Citizen journalists do not have this experience and although the general public may not know the difference in the styles, the field of journalism gets corroded.

People have also become dependent on mainstream media the reliance is too high for audiences to totally disregard the news from more trustworthy and credible sources. Also, as I found out in class, there is a generally low level of user involvement online.

Is our world defined as a global village or village globe?

The first thought that comes to mind when the word 'globalisation' is mentioned is Marshall McLuhan's "Global Village". The media has become very commercialised and more so since interconnectivity has become a main source of communication. The global media market is dominated, largely, by the American style of commercially driven news culture. MNCs such as Disney, AOL Time Warner, Sony, News Corporation, Viacom, Vivendi and Bartelsmann have become major players in the industry and this influence has stretched across the world.

I believe that instead of increasing the scope of international news stories, the news has become narrower and more localised. Some international news reports seem to have taken on local angles when being reported locally. People have started paying more attention to international news because what is being reported usually has more information that is not censored, angled differently or trivialised. An example would be local Singaporeans are getting more involved in the political arena of other countries such as the US Presidential Election campaign in 2008. Many local Facebook users started up 'pages' for Barack Obama and posted links and pictures in support.

I believe interconnectivity has reached a point where regression may occur. As in in the past, news was on a wire and editors decided if they wanted to run or even pick up the story, then the system progressed to what it is now and it appears that with Twitter and RSS feeds, there's a possibility that people will go back to depending on-one liners or 140 characters-per-comment sites such as Twitter.

Journalism pays for what money cannot

Looking through the newspapers during today's presentation got me thinking about the importance of journalism, rather the lack of importance journalism has been given. I would not say that ads take no effort at all to come up with, but stories written include photographs, side bars, diagrams (in some cases) and more information than an advertisement probably could. Yet, it seems that journalism has become a mere means to fill pages between the ads with articles being fitted around the ads, instead of the other way around. I agree money makes the world go round, but at the expense of a necessity to know what is happening in the world? Even stocks, shares and other economic information are found in newspapers. Also wars and disasters inevitably play a part in affecting the global economy.

However, the reasons for the decline of print media are not so much just about the ads per say. The big word of the presentation was ECONOMICS. Internal factors such as the debt print media accumulate, the decline in print advertising and a fall in subscription and external factors such as the growth of the cable television and the internet as well as the changes in society affect revenue. However, the decline is not a total decline. It is a matter of looking at the media business models that best suit each organisation or company. In the example that was used in class, Singapore's monopoly is not going to be there forever as there are bound to be societal changes such as shifts in delivery patterns or an environmental touch to news dissemination.

Journalistic Tech Buzzwords

When the word 'blog' was added to Merriam- Webster's dictionary in 2004, it became it's 'Word of the Year'. In an article by The Guardian, words like 'v-log' have become permanent fixtures in such dictionaries. "More than 100 new words have gained entry into its Collegiate dictionary this year". It was also mentioned in the article that "a fifth of them (meaning the list of new words) related to technological innovation". This raises the thought that not only has technology progressed at a rapid rate but also at a speed that could eventually overtake and prove detrimental to not only the future of journalism but other industries as well.

It was discussed in class that the consumers of news play a bigger part in news than previously believed. In the past, the press was believed to have worked on the basis that news and the world revolves around it. However this has changed and the press now has to work on the basis that the audience is the "the centre of the universe". And the press is only a player within the whole press sphere. This stage has come about partly because of the advancements discussed in class.

I don't believe that technological advancements are the only reason for the situation journalists are facing but also as consumers, we desire news frequently, in concise amounts and immediately. However, it has to be realised that there is a toss-up for everything, an opportunity loss. With consumers pushing for a 'faster, cheaper, better' mentality, quality suffers in the process. This also affects the reputation and credibility of the news medium. Thus I would agree with the readings and Jimmy regarding moderating the amount of research done and readily trusting online sources. The internet has proved to be a useful source of research avenues in this day and age, however, not all the information online is accurate and could prove to be a journalist's downfall.