late post: Privacy vs Public Interest

I wrote this back in week 9 but forgot to post it, woops!

Today we had a seminar on the public’s right to know and the individual’s privacy, and if they are mutually exclusive.

There was discussion on where the line was drawn between the two, with a general conclusion that if it affects the public or the way in which the individual can do their job (like politicians), then the public should know.

This is still questionable with health issues, though, such as past presidents that had health issues that were kept quiet. Although it never affected their job, should the public still have been told?

One point Christina raised was that a journalist needs to be ready to bare everything in their own lives if they start exposing other people’s lives.

Should people that choose to be in the public eye still have the right to privacy?

One last interesting question was where we, as future journalists, draw the line on privacy and what we see as the future line between public interest and privacy.

Personally, I think the pressures of a journalism job would force many to reveal things they wouldn’t normally be inclined to do. Christina said that in her career she had moments where she drew the line and turned the camera off, and was lucky to keep her job through those moments.

I think on a personal level as journalists, we don’t have the final say on what will go to print and what doesn’t, but we can decide where our own individual line stands and how far we would go, and stand by those decisions, even in it means losing a job.

That’s the idealistic view, anyway.

Major Project: Local print or local online?

For my major project I wanted to focus on the topic of how the online world has changed the landscape of local and regional news, namely newspapers.  I’m yet to narrow my field to find a story, so more research is needed. I do know I want to aim it at the Walkley magazine, which has an audience of journalists.

One interesting article I found online suggests that as print is a ‘push’ medium, the role of print articles is to lure a reader to read something they may not be particularly interested in. This is different to the online world, which is considered a ‘pull’ medium: users seek out the information they want to read, therefore being a more ‘niche’ medium. Although this is the case, online also contributes to gathering an audience.

One idea is to focus on the coverage of events in print vs online, and what issues this may create or solve in the areas of bias, widening an audiences education on the topic and allowing the audiences viewpoint to change.

If there are differences in the above areas, what would be the impact of the slow decline of newspapers in the Western world? How would this change society and therefore the way that culture, economy and political agendas are changed?

In Universities, journalism students are taught technological ways of gathering and producing news as they’re at the forefront of this change. But should this be the focus, or should we be learning the impacts of how writing a story online is different to print?

Altogether, does the change in medium ultimately change the way a story is portrayed, or even the way a story is received??

How far does freedom go?

This week we talked about freedom of the press, in regards to the phone hacking scandal. One of the opening statements was that freedom of the press is one of the best safeguards for democracy, which was said by former Prime Minister John Howard.

One important question asked was how far does freedom of the press go?

Things that hinder press freedom include privacy laws and sometimes government or policing authorities. While the press work independently of judiciary and legislative state powers, there are still situations in which information is hidden from the public eye. An example was given of the shooting of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005, where no evidence could be given of him being a terrorist. Police confiscated all footage, so little was publicised.

On the flip side, there are examples of the press going too far, such as hacking private conversations on phones. In this situation, it is the media which have moved to far out of line, whether it be due to unethical employees, the pressures of work to have good stories or both.

While the media is considered the fourth estate, keeping people accountable by putting them in the public eye, how far is too far? When do private matters need to be made public, and when is prying into private lives sharing things that should stay personal?

It appears that although the press pride themselves on keeping others accountable, it is in fact the public that keep them accountable when they take freedom into their own hands.

The Fourth estate and de Menezes

Keeping the press accountable: Phone Hacking Scandal

WIKILEAKS: Is Transparency the New Objectivity?

Transparent: Easy to perceive or detect (Wiki, 2011)

Objective: Based on observable phenomena; presented factually (Free Online Dictionary, 2011)

From these definitions, transparency and objectivity aren’t at all mutually exclusive.

The seminar presented today was on WikiLeaks and their ideal of transparency, with the question of would if replace objectivity?

For starters, a lot of the discussion at the end centred on that while WikiLeaks broke stories and provided lots of document information, most of the class still heard about these stories through traditional news sources, which provide the objectivity as well as the information.

In fact, WikiLeaks feed their information to major news organisations such as NY Times for them to wade through the masses of documents to find the story. Although WikiLeaks will report a story themselves, they also provide the documents online for all to see.

I for one have never visited WikiLeaks to wade through the masses of documents to find the truth. I’d prefer to wait for professional journalists to do the hard work and give me an objective summary.

One thing I think is missing in the ‘transparent world’ ideal is a little bit of context. Its one thing to provide masses of information on scandals or government documents, but this doesn’t necessarily provide the whole story. An objective view is needed to give context to its readers.

Another thing hindering context, and hindering the public hearing the full story (or total transparency) is the fact that while submitters to WikiLeaks remain anonymous, we cannot be sure of their motives or even further information they might have that they might be leaving out.

The WikiLeaks website states that ‘publishing improves transparency, and this transparency creates a better society for all people’ (WikiLeaks, 2010).

Personally, I think this ‘dumping of information’ may be effective in getting a reaction in the short term, yet in the long term, its accuracy, balance (or objectivity) and value should be questioned. 

Citizen Journalist or Eyewitness?

Today in class there was a presentation on the Journalism in the 21^st century, which talked about citizen journalism.

The Internet has produced the first generation of interaction between journalists and citizens, in the form of feedback, opinion and posting media, like ‘eye-witness accounts’.

One thing I thought was interesting was the conversation between whether citizens whose videos etc. were used in news were considered ‘citizen journalists’ or simply ‘eyewitnesses’ using technology.

I tend to side with the latter.

The way in which media uses citizen’s footage is consistent to an eyewitness account.

Take the example of the London Bombings in 2005. This was one of the first times where big news channels such as the BBC used citizens’ footage, such as the photo below.

From the BBC

 The photo shows people walking out of the underground after the bomb went off. While the photo was submitted to the news, it was in fact journalists who packaged it around a story, with other information, footage and quotes to make it a piece of journalism. Just like people in the underground would have been interviewed to get their perspective of ‘what it was like’ when the bomb went off, this photo is simply a first hand account of that.

This is just one example where it is possible that the person involved may not have captured the situation for the sake of news, yet simply because it was an extraordinary event. Perhaps if citizens were to take their footage and post, broadcast or package it themselves, we could call them citizen journalists?

On the other hand, the fact that technology has enabled citizens to capture events in way that would be considered for broadcasting may prove otherwise.

I believe that sometimes news stations use these eyewitness accounts, footage and photos for their unprofessional, rough-edged style, which tells the story more intimately (and perhaps realistically) than a high-tech professional reporter could.

Wanna know more about citizens ‘committing acts of journalism’? Learn more from professional Arianna Huffington below.

...But I thought I was a Journalist!

One of the first things I learnt when I started University was that there was a difference between ‘being’ a journalist, and ‘doing’ journalism. I was reminded of this when our tutor Christina did a presentation on ‘Who… Is a Journalist?’ And I have to say, after studying it for almost three whole years and starting to get into the industry myself, I’m still a little bit confused.

I’m not sure if I’m meant to aim to ‘be’ a journalist, or ‘do’ journalism. From my first-year perspective, I was meant to ‘do’ journalism, and the three-year slog through Shannon & Weaver, Zolberg, Thussu (and many other German theorists whose names I have trouble pronouncing during presentations) was meant to filter out the wannabes from the gonna-bes.

But new technology, media convergence, and a tech-savvy generation who know how to get their voices heard has meant an uprise in the amount of individuals participating in journalism, without even having a degree!

These days, University isn’t the only path to getting where you want to go. If you can use a computer, operate social media, post on Youtube and know how to edit along the way (which includes the latter half of Gen Y) you’re halfway there!

There are pros and cons to media convergence, like a lesser need for journalists, a greater need for current journalists to know how to do everything, and a more competitive market, but the plus side is that us Gen Y’ers may have a little head-start over the older crowd who’re used to writing in shorthand instead of recording interviews.

Which leaves me to wonder; perhaps I’m more drawn to the romantic journalist – getting out of the office to chase a story, writing in notebooks, ‘handing in’ stories to the editor, even reading the newspaper each morning!

The elusive journalist must look different to each person, and will continue to change as fast as Facebook replaced Myspace.