Moral minefields: legal and ethical dilemma

Its hard to fathom a time where ethics is not important, to anyone, including a journalist. Surely, many of us has ethical principles regarding various situations, and journalism is no exception. Probably the hardest would be interviewing relatives who have lost their loved ones. Journalists are seen by many as hard-headed vultures waiting to pick on the dead's flesh. The "dead" analogy can be used both literally and figuratively.

For me, ethics is a priority in my life. Being Christian, there are many morals and ethical codes that I have grown up with, and i feel some of them cannot go unfounded. If you would have to break the laws to get the information, it probably would not be a good idea. Examples include using zoom lenses to spy on celebrities' on the off chance of a "scoop".  Very simply i live by God's greatest commandment, that i would do unto others as how you want others to do. 

However, i know i'm speaking slightly romantically as well,  as i am not a journalist yet. A journalist would face issues as to releasing data that may destroy careers, or undermine people's reputation, stuff in which you would not want others to do unto you. 

So what does that mean? I shouldn't be a journalist to avoid all this trouble? However, it would remain an issue throughout my career in media communications. Therefore i would like to leave with this conclusion, that it depends on every situtation, but to remain true to yourself.

Truth & objectivity: post modern casualties or victims of PR piracy?

This is a pickle definitely. Which is more important, truth or objectivity? as journalists, we are compelled to be objective, but when it comes to the truth, would our objectivity be the barrier instead of the catalyst?

Being a Singaporean, this issue does speak volumes into the journalistic industry in Singapore. With the fast-paced society, and the censorship and oppression, its hard to find the unrefined truth of anything on the journalistic view. because of this,  many Singaporeans have resorted to the on-line political dissent websites. The journalistic profession has been severely weakened, and scholars who won their scholarships can also be front-page news in Singapore. It is relatively easy for PR agencies to gain coverage via the newspapers that most PR agencies rely on the press-agentry model in Singapore, according to Sriramesh (2007). 

Should either truth or objectivity be compromised? I am of the belief that if the truth has nothing to hide, then it should be the raw truth, only then can we talk about objectivity. How can we be objective if we do not have the necessary information to make an objective decision? Bill Moyers sums it up nicely when he says that objectivity is only longer possible in today's society. here is his link.

Privacy: a thing for sale or a private thing.

Quite possibly many journalists have struggled with this issue for many years. Its either more copies for the newspaper or a preservation of the privacy of whoever it is. Many journalists have gone past privacy issues of the person or organization in question, and changed the worlds of others, sometimes even the world itself. Most notable privacy issues involve the Watergate scandal involving the then-US president Robert Nixon, to the countless paparazzi with celebrities, and sex scandals which tabloid newspapers print with gusto. 

So where's the limit? honestly, i do not know. every journalist as a different threshold ethically, but in my opinion the most important factor to note would be how important would the story be to your audience. If it involves a matter of government corruption, it probably would be essential to break the story to the audience. A journalist's job is to be the gatekeeper of information and the choice of which information to give to the audience. Therefore, i would say if it involves the audience to a large scale, privacy shouldn't be the issue.

The same theory cannot be put to action where celebrities are concerned. To be famous, it is only natural that people would want to know more about their lives. And being famous only allows more scrutiny as the older generation would want to know more about the "idols" their children are listening to. therefore, every scandal wouldn't be small. 

what does it mean for us journalists? can we delve deeper into the celebrities, just because we can? or do we remember our audience? i remember a previous module i had took that posed this exact question. our professor then, prof steve mcilwaine (i can't remember how to spell it for the life of me) answered it succinctly. privacy or sales? "it boils down to who you're working for. if you're working for the newspaper, sales." so yeah, my answer to privacy would boil down to the sales that i may achieve, if it does not impinge on my ethics and my editor. :)

Wk 6: We're all a twitter!

The "onslaught" of Twitter was quick indeed. Twitter was founded shortly after Facebook and blogging, and had all the reasons and premises to fail. However, the power of Twitter was apparent to all. Many PR and advertising campaigns rely on Twitter to spread the news, as do the popularity of the many celebrities. 

I myself recently started a Twitter account just to have a experience on what Twitter is all about. Well, my experience was not that positive, but i do see the importance of Twitter in the future, especially since i may deal with PR campaigns.

Twitter functions essentially as a micro blogging website, where anyone can just send a short "tweet" to their twitter for their followers to read. anyone can follow anyone too, which allows a direct link to celebrities to their fans, who would love to read every single aspect of the celeb's lives. you could retweet tweets that you like onto your tweet and all. Here's where my experience went a little off the track. I added like 5 celebrities of whom i have respect for, but in doing that they flooded my twitter page with advertisements of upcoming gigs and TV shows, which was an obvious ploy by their publicists to increase their profile in the Internet domain. 

To get a good twitter experience i guess i must also have an adequate number of friends who use Twitter. However, i find that Facebook serves this purpose well for me, and having Twitter would probably be overkill. 

Whether Twitter will be more involved in the society, i cannot say for certain, but we do know that the Internet is expanding at a rapid rate, therefore Twitter would also grow with it. Some of us may not like Twitter, but it looks like Twitter is here to stay, with the fans wanting more of their celebrities, and as a campaigning tool for companies.

There's a funny clip that I saw on Youtube a couple of years back, so here's the link for you to watch! :)

week 5 globalization vs localization

ahhh Singapore. My beloved country. the perfect case study to globalization VS localization. On one hand, you were so successful in finances, business, and creating a tourism hub in Singapore. On the other, you do have a stunning resume of blocking everything unsavoury to your eyes, be it political, gory, sexual, and so on and so forth. 

I did say much in my presentation, and i know there may be so much more than i can say. However, i did say much about the negative side of our censorship laws and journalistic approaches towards other politics and what not. However, the reason behind all this censoring and regulating was because of a few reasons that may have happened in the past. Firstly, the Mari Hertogh riots in 1964, was one huge reason why racist remarks was taken down and fined swiftly. Singapore prides itself in her image, therefore having a strike would cause the reputation to decrease. Also, Singapore has a very clean record, in terms of racial violence, and emphasizes racial harmony, even having a day dedicated to it. (dates usually changes, happens during the month of july)

However, the only thing that i still cannot understand is political censorship. as the years and technology progressed, many of us Singaporeans have a different opinion as to how we want our country to be managed. Even in our country, in the 21st century, we still more or less have a hypodermic needle media for us. I mean it is to Lee's credit that we are what we are today, but would we be the same if Singapore were to have 2 political parties like Australia and USA? Lee Kuan Yew said no, that Singapore cannot survive with 2 parties at the helm. 

Owells, guess i wont know for certain till i have ridden the journey. Over my years of research of this topics, i have come across many hilarious videos, and the many banned films that Singapore did ban. here are some examples.

This is the film by Martyn See, about SDP opposition secretary-general, Chee Soon Juan.

This is a short film by Royston Tan, which he made after his movie, "15", was cut 27 times, because it supposedly does not depict who Singaporeans are. The short film is about how the Board of censors in Singapore cuts various films and movies, to a funny extent. If you could catch up with the Singlish and the speed of his speech, you're in for a treat! :D

Joel

Week 4 The future of Journalism: could it be my future too?

well well week 4 was amazing. lol. A trio by the names of ben o'neill, ben murphy, and nick scully turned in a thought-provoking presentation regarding the future of journalism. 

there has been a lot of growing concerns that print magazines, newspapers, are all reaching a early demise. due to things like citizen journalism and the ease of "free" news that would be able to find in the Internet, has the world lost its need for print journalism? 

here is this cool video that i found that kind of predicts the future of mobile communications, and also the spread of the Internet.

i mean if their predictions are correct, its is going to be scary, with so many people able to access content, and even news agencies cannot keep up to second by second news, except those who would already be at the news sites, the citizens. my own opinion on how newspapers should survive is to retain the professionalism of journalism by retaining journalists, however having the speed of the citizens and people who were already there. I.E. when something happens, the citizens would tape it down and note down any other information which wasnt captured on the video, and then send it over to the journalist. the journalist, now in no need to go to the site and take their notes, just need to clean up the video that they have and come up with a story in 10-15 minutes. this can even be done on the way to the site if the issue is a massive cover story. the most important thing that newspapers can do now is to get the story out in the quickest and most professional way possible. 

I'm not saying that this is fool-proof and is guaranteed to work. Even I can see the various flaws that may befall this elementary model,  not to mention if it is put to practice. However, as O'Neill says, new models to help fund journalism and its newspapers has to be found, if not we may see journalists going without food, operating at half their capability. I shudder to think when my turn comes. Hopefully there would be a turnaround soon. 

Joel

Wk 3 Citizen Journalism

Hey all! its Citizen Journalism Week here. The presenters built up a suitable presentation both to combat and confirm the theory that citizen journalism is beneficial to us journalists out there. 

Citizen Journalism, as my experience tells us, is fast growing due to the technology advances that our society is making today. As one of the presenters did put it, that Australia has not really set the wheels in motion for citizen journalism. However, I can mention the 2 places where citizen journalism is blossoming, USA and Singapore.

For USA, it is a haven for citizen journalism, probably because of the First Amendment. CNN has a citizen journalism site called iReport. I believe that in USA, there is many things going on in many different countries, and to some people, they believe that certain news should not be limited to their local news reporters, but deserve to be broadcast nationally, or even worldwide. However, on the iReport website, many of the videos that are 24 hours old have only on average 400 views, besides one incident where a oil pipeline burst in Iowa, which garnered 110,000 views.

For Singapore, the reason why citizen journalism is making such a huge wave here is because of the media industry. Singapore has only a solitary player within the media industry, and it is the government. Although it is made up by two companies (MediaCorp, Singapore Press Holdings), the government has a majority share in each of them. Singapore, in previous times, has moved to struck down any possible comments that may have deviated from the "Singapore" theme. Racist comments on blogs have provoked indictments from the government. Anti-political themes in website, blogs, and news reports given by anti-governmental protestors highlighting their rallies have been taken down or struck off the Internet. Foreign journals such as the Far East Economic Review have been awarded fines because of their material which is against the government here in Singapore. There are so many different examples that I can post, but we get the picture.

However, the government is not catching up with technology, as there are too many different blog sites to screen through, and as a result, there are many new websites and blogs that you would never be able to see 5 years ago. In response, the government did put up a few websites to aid citizen journalism their way, namely STOMP, and RazorTV, both of which has not really taken off yet, with each video gaining only approximately 500 views. Only the videos featured in the newspapers itself gain slightly more coverage. Otherwise, the many videos people post up are of girlfriends kicking her guy's crotch in public, unacceptable behaviour in public trains, and so on, which has nothing to do with real news I suppose. Established bloggers like Xiaxue and mr.brown garner almost 20,000 hits a day. Some of there bloggers like the above mentioned have also received endorsement deals to put on their website. 

It is obvious that I have a lot more to say for Singapore because I have lived there my whole life. However, my opinion regarding citizen journalism is that it needs to have boundaries, although it may be tough to do so. if there is no regulations, especially in Singapore, where racial harmony is paramount, this harmony may fall apart because of a few people who do not think before they post. 

Joel