July 12, 2011

Week 9: Moral Minefields: Legal and Ethical Dilemma

(Sherry, 2008)


The seminar presentation on this week’s topic started another round of debate over whether journalist should write on issues of genuine public interest or on matters that are interesting to the public. This is an issue of journalistic ethics, yet clearly not the only moral and ethical issue facing journalists.

Many ethical codes provided internally by media outlets, or even the official Journalist's Code of Ethics, merely consist of brief guidelines guiding general behaviours and conducts of journalists (Breit,, 2007), although ideally these codes should have been invincible manuals to aid journalists in dealing with ethical dilemmas.

Journalist may have the rights to information access and freedom to publish, yet, on occasions when these rights conflict with the ethical and moral codes, which side should a journalist take? Taking the case of Singapore, since there is no common law protection for torts of privacy in Singapore, journalists are legally allowed take photograph of anything and anyone so long as the pictures are taken from public places. Journalists may have the rights to report on almost whatever they find newsworthy, but is it right for them to report without any constrain all the time? Apparently not. So, how far should they go?

Keeble (2009) mentioned that ‘public interest’ should be the key guiding principle of whether or not a story should be reported. Especially in situations where harm, physically or an invasion to his or her privacy, may be inflicted to the reported individual, journalist should weigh up the consequences of their action and decide on whether their action are justified ethically and morally.

I guess it may be easy to identify what is ethical and what is not, yet in the real media world out there, where sticking to ethical boundary is clearly not the only concern of journalists, where would ethics stand in the long list of concerns deemed important?


Reference

Breit, R. (2007). Law & Ethics For Professional Communicators, LexisNexis Butterworths, Chatswood, New South Wales.

Keeble, R. (2009). Ethics for Journalists. Routledge, New York.

Sherry, M. 2008. Journalism. [Image] Available from: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTEOsTZWH2kov_H3NRAdsCBP_LDCZ7P6GmG2xw9LdgQcS6idCDMp_nr28m-lyXVLnTHCEcQzj4_2ommSI87FR2csUYl946yvzCY5k_z886dGJ9GdtsKQs0zS_WV7zD_AqeErUTOhcPu_XD/s400/journalism.gif [Accessed 30 June 2011]. 

June 30, 2011

Week 8: Truth & Objectivity: Post Modern Casualties or Victims of PR Piracy?

(Meta, 2009)

Journalists, without a doubt, have a moral responsibility to play in the society. What they write inform their readers of an event, the society or even the world. News are influential to many; the impact may be far reaching to the extent of shaping perceptions, mindsets and behaviours of them. This thus explains the need for a credible and upright news media to report on the various issues, correctly and objectively.

Tickle (2001) stated that the two most important role of a journalist would be to interpret reality as honestly as possible for their audience and create a commonality of understanding for the public. News clearly should contain truth and objectivity, yet, the challenge of news writing often arise as the understanding of these two aspects - truth and objectivity, often vary from one person to another.

There may be thousands of books and journals that discussed on this aspect of journalism; theorists may even put forward a list of factors that affect truth and objectivity - religious convictions, philosophical convictions, personal integrity, lack of time, technology etc., thereby encouraging journalist to pay extra attention on these factors to ensure truth and objectivity in their reports. Yet, in the real world out there, theories do not fit nicely into actual practice; there are certainly grey areas are often debatable.

Some (Bowman, L. & McIlwaine, 2001) propose the need for journalist to stick to a three-stage enquiry process, encouraging journalists to participate in reactive reporting, analytic reporting and reflective reporting to ensure comprehensiveness, truth and objectivity of their writings. Nevertheless, in the modern news media where there is an intense competition over the speed of message transmission, perhaps sacrificing speed for the sake of paying more attention to the comprehensiveness, truth and objectivity of news is way too idealistic.

Moreover, news media may have other bigger concerns, be it for commercial gains or, like in Singapore, to support the government in bringing harmony to and begetting progress for the society. To demand for absolute truth and objectivity in journalism, are we being over-demanding?


Reference

Bowman, L. & McIlwaine, S. (2001), The Importance of Enquiry in Journalism: Theory in Practice, by Tapsall, S. & Varley, C., Oxford University Press, pp. 102-111.

Meta, P. 2009. Truth in News Media. [Image] Available from: http://blog.metaprinter.com/images/qqxsgWalterCronkite.jpg [Accessed 30 June 2011].

Tickle, S. 2001. The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but…, in Journalism Theory in Practice, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne.

June 23, 2011

Week 7: Privacy: Where Do You Get It?

(Cartoon Stock, 2007)

It has been a long debate over which should be of higher importance – the public’s right to know or individual’s right to privacy. Journalists, especially, are often caught in an ethical dilemma while performing their day to day task – news writing. Since a journalist is primarily responsible to the readers, listeners and viewers who have the right to know what is happening in society, invading into privacy of other individuals for the sake of reporting on the truth would seem highly justifiable.

But, what exactly is public interest? Like McQuail (1992) had mentioned, public interest matters may be simply issues that cater to the public’s curiosity, nevertheless, it can be mean issues which the public have a right know, a share in or an expectation of benefit from knowing. Apparently, in situations where journalists are found to have invaded into privacies of others, reporting on issues that that merely interesting to the public and not of genuine interest to the public may seem less justified on ethical grounds.

Yet, is being ethical really an important aspect journalists, or even readers, are concerned over? Perhaps media, being a business struggling to thrive in the intense competition after all, tend to be more interested in selling papers and making profits. Although many may have realised the trend of tabloidisation of media and softening of hard news (Boczkowski, 2009), few are aware of the threat that comes with this unhealthy trend of journalism.

The blooming paparazzi culture and tabloid news business over the years are indications of news media professionalism giving way to the mere curiosity of the public. Since tabloid news media are not aimed at being the fourth estate for the nation or live up to being ‘balance and fair’, the increase tabloidisation of news media encouraged an increase tendency of journalist digging into private lives of public figures to appeal to the prurient curiosity of its readers.

Of course, it would be too idealistic to expect a media to be extremely morally upright and only report on news that are of genuine public interest. I guess journalist ought to remind themselves that even the most legitimate public interest may turn out to be insensitive public prurience when the intention of invasion of another individual’s privacy is for the nosiness of the people, and not exactly for an educative or interest-informing purpose.


Reference

Boczkowski, P. J. (2009), 'Rethinking Hard and Soft News Production: From Common Ground to Divergent Paths', Journal of Communication, 59, (1), 98 - 116.

Cartoon Stock. 2007. Public Interest. [Image] Available from: http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/lfo/lowres/lfon196l.jpg [Accessed 23 June 2011].

McQuail, D. (1992). Media Performance. Mass Communication and the Public Interest. Sage, London.

June 10, 2011

Week 5: We’re All a Twitter!

(Laremy, 2010)


In the present fast-moving world of ours, speed is one of the key factor newsreaders demand for in news media. Online news has long been argued to be a more efficient source of news due to it being seemingly able to provide more updated news to its readers, whereas the mainstream print or broadcast news were only able to provide updates of information periodically. Today, with the rapidly increasing popularity of the various social media tools, online news have clearly advance to a new era; it is no longer provides just faster update of news, but rather, an almost immediate update of news.

Moreover, social media increases interaction between journalist and readers . Mainstream papers and online news websites may have allowed readers to air their views via forum pages or columns, however, only selected feedbacks are published and these published comments usually underwent moderations by the editors. Social media on the other hand, like Twitter for instance, allow comments to be instantly tweeted and shared to the world.

The power of social media comes from its speed of information transmission (Tapsall & Varley, 2006); nevertheless, the speed element is often a major peril too. Inaccurate information being released on these social media platforms often spread like wildfire instantly, and are difficult, or rather, impossible to retract.

Also, with the increasing popularity of social media, not only do newsreaders via social media increase rapidly in numbers, sources of information increase simultaneously. Citizen journalism is promoted with this free platform, in terms of both money and freedom, thereby signifying a major threat to the credibility of news available online (Hermida, 2010). Publishing news via social media platform clearly does not require professionalism of a journalist - it only requires an internet connected and social media account.

Advancement of communication and Internet technology thus has not only demanded journalist to equip themselves with knowledge of the different new media forms, readers have to also be social media savvy enough to source for the right and credible social media new sources for information.


Reference


Hermida, A. 2010, Rethinking the Role of the Journalist in the Participatory Age. http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/07/rethinking-the-role-of-the-journalist-in-the-participatory-age190.html. Sourced 03/09/10.

Laremy, L. 2010. Twitter Response. [Image] Available from: http https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-E4QseyhfXz0/TgCmWQUzsdI/AAAAAAAAA94/3us30bvXPHY/my%252520response.png [Accessed 29 May 2011].

Tapsall, S. & Varley, C. (2006). Journalism Theory in Practise. Oxford University Press, London.

June 05, 2011

Week 4: Globalisation v Localisation

(Buhbing, 2005)

there is nothing bad about sharing a truth across the world
but well... THE TRUTH?! WHO DEFINES IT?

The advance Internet and communication technologies have granted media with the power of global influence. Not only do global readers get to access to the news report from any media almost-readily via the Internet, various media ‘superpowers’ are known to have ‘invaded’ into local news, creating a prevalent worrying phenomenon of the Globalisation of news. We, the global audiences, acquire similar, if not the same, information from these media giant, and are likely be influenced the same way, thereby turning the world into a global village.

Due to increasing competition from various relatively new news media channels, in particularly through the online mode, as well as the increasing commercialization of media environment, many smaller news organisation or ‘forced’, in one way or another, to work with transnational media ‘superpowers’ (Breit, 2001). Yet, despite arguments and debates over the need for a diversity of news so as to provide a more comprehensive and multi-perception of news reports, the impact of globalization of news might not be gravely negative, at the very least, we are given the privilege of knowing more about the world. 

Especially for relatively smaller media corporations like Singapore Press Holdings, as compared to large western media giants, it is practically impossible for the organisation to send its correspondent to every single part of the world, and hence with global news agency, it allows a greater part of the world to be covered in the papers (Thussu, 2006). Moreover, in the field of, say, entertainment industry, highly dominated by the US, a globalised network of news media allows a more ‘credible’ and more coverage of these news of interest to be transmitted to all parts of the world at amazing speed (of a click).

(MediaChannel, 2008)

Yet, the need for localisation of news cannot be neglected. Large global news resources may have overtaken the efficiency of foreign correspondents of local news corporation, yet, foreign correspondents is still significant – to look at an international event in the eyes of the local and to bring out issues that may not be seen as important in the eyes of the other nationalities but are deem as public interest to the locals.

Just like the famous SpiderMan quote, ‘With great power comes great responsibility’. Journalists, in this age of journalism being increasingly shaped by the globalisation of media, now have to account for larger and more complex global responsibilities. The Internet, being one of the greatest sources of news for journalist, may have lessened the tasks f journalists, yet the true challenge of journalism in the present society is the responsible and effective use of such global news resources. 


Reference

Breit, R. 2001, ‘Journalism in the Global Village’, in S Tapsall & C Varley (eds), Journalism: Theory in Practice, pp.213- 231, Oxford University Press, New York.

Buhbing. (2011, April 25). Globalized News Project [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGNTMtEZ970

MediaChannel. 2008. Ultraconcentrated Media. [Image] Available from: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGK7zofkAoRtq-ONoxCng2qRZ76QDpD8QNkJqNMd6fnXtKuP53ioufTSXPZXoFmotxaH_GcGytURYD3-NsHnrrQpxt_LBWRBEb9ZEHt1HYUWPi35kYGBUpA3Ws80TL3SOmc_55PDwpMZvE/s1600/mediamoguls.jpg [Accessed 29 May 2011].

Thussu, D. K. 2006, International Communication: Continuity and Change, Hodder Arnold, London.

May 29, 2011

Week 4: Who will Pay for Journalism?

(Idisarkette, 2010)

"Still", so what about "will be"? 

The Internet has opened up a brand new medium for business, which many, both large corporations and petit home business, gloated over after having evidently profited much from rising popularity of E-commerce over the years. Everything that begins with an “E-” or related to the Internet are seemingly profitable. Yet, journalism, unfortunately, have not been one of the lucky ones seeing big money rolling in although it has clearly developed closely with the various digital advancements.



Statistical reports (Este, Warren, Connor, Brown, Pollard & O’Connor, 2008) have indicated that online news and journalism increased greatly in popularity over the year. This increase readership of online news has however resulted in a sharp decline of the offline readership. Traditional printed news are clearly faltering and in threat of losing their ‘mainstream’ in media.


The switchover from traditional to online news is logical and, well, not-at-all surprising. Firstly, news on the Internet are generally more promptly updated than the offline ones. Online news also allows a greater extent of interaction with its readers, bring about features like citizenship journalism as well as a more open discussion and feedback channels. Advancements in Internet and communication technologies, as well as the gradually improved readiness of Internet service increase the accessibility and convenience to news on the Internet. The global nature of the Internet allows news from all parts of the world to be accessible t almost everyone, and with all the high technological gadgets, literally at the fingertips. Moreover, online news channels are generally free and freer; freer in the sense that news are not longer required to be of formal formats and language, while free simply means that consumer generally do not have to pay for it.


The ‘free-of-charge’ nature may be an attractive encouraging more to read, yet, journalism as a business suffers economically. This hence suggests a heavier reliance of news organisations, especially private ones, on advertisements. Given that the Internet provides organisations with a variety of cheap and far-reaching modes of advertisements, say Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, the competition for advertisers and commercial supports become even more competitive than before. These are all argued to have caused the news business to become overly commercialized thereby putting its focus on the wrong track (O'Grady, 2009). So, do government-owned news organisations seem to be more feasible and fitter to survive in the Internet age? Probably not in the western world where great emphasis is place on the democratic role of news media as the fourth estate.


No matter how much people are in favour of citizen journalism, most would agree that the society still need established and credible traditional news organisations. Yet, with traditional newspapers being gradual driven out of business, be it due to declining profits due to falling readership, intense online competition or lesser revenue earned due to the free-of-charge nature of the Internet, how long more will we have these up-to-standard media professionals with us in news media?


Reference

Este, J., Warren, C., Connor, L., Brown, M., Pollard, R. & O’Connor, T. 2008. Life in the Clickstream: The Future of Journalism. [Internet] Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance. Available from: http://www.alliance.org.au/documents/foj_report_final.pdf [Accessed 29 May 2011].

Idisarkette. 2010. Newspaper Advertising in Singapore as Dead as the West. [Image] Available from: http://www.idrisarkette.com/newspaper-advertising-in-singapore-as-dead-as-the-west/ [Accessed 29 May 2011].

O'Grady, C. 2009. Who Pays for Journalism in the Post Print Era? [Internet] FAIR. Available from: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3900 [Accessed 29 May 2011].

May 22, 2011

Week 3: Journalism as a Public Conversation in the 21st Century: What is the Role of the Citizen?


(WHM, 2008)

The Internet has conquered and revolutionized communication in our present world. In the field of journalism particularly, the swift emergence and blooming popularity of the relatively category of news media -citizen journalism, undoubtedly stand as one of the biggest challenge facing journalists and other news workers. The changing practices of news media indicate changing roles of both journalists and audiences. A prevalence sign of change would be the increase establishment of active two-way interactions between audiences and news outlets – not only do audiences get a say in determine the content of a journalists’ writings, many even get to participate through writing – the work that was once only given to professional journalist (Quinn & Lamble, 2007).

(Brainstuck.com, 2007)

In Singapore, due to the mainstream news media being highly dominated by the two local media giants, Singapore Press Holdings and MediaCorp, such that both have their managements closely linked to the Singapore Government (Ang, 2003), it is a widely-known fact that the news media do not act as a fourth estate watching over the government and authorities, unlike many western countries which stresses the importance of the watchdog role of its news media. Citizen journalism, a freer form of information exchange as compared to the formal news outlets, has undoubtedly increased the freedom of information for Singaporeans, and aids in the establishing of media as the fourth estate for Singapore.

With the Internet being readily available at to all Singapore, and the increasing usage of smartphone among people, exchanging of information via the online mean has grew in popularity rapidly over the years, resulting in a revolution in the way information is distributed to the masses in our ‘conservative’ society. Citizen journalism has grown so fast and so much that even the mainstream Singapore Press Holdings had to established portals that support citizen journalism, like Stomp and Omy, to keep up with the changing media preference of its audience. True enough, contents in these sites may not be completely free, such that the posts still undergoes reviews and moderations by an editor, news media has no doubt become freer as compared to how it is, say, ten years ago.

(Social Connect Blueprint, 2010)

Although citizen journalism has cast a positive impact on many occasions, like the Obama campaign, Haiti Earthquake 2010 and Japan disaster 2011, its unrestricted nature, especially via social networking has also highlighted things in this world that some people would rather not see. Many are obviously overwhelmed by the opportunity to be a journalist, resulting in the great deal of writings posted online daily, which makes it harder for one to search through the Internet for truly vital news. Some citizen journalists may even abuse the privilege given to them.

(Wagers, 2010)

(Renee, 2009)

This hence led to concerns over the professionalism of news media, given the increasing usage of citizen journalism even in mainstream publications and broadcast. Journalist being professionals in the news media plays a much more vital role than to merely contextualizing, editing and proofreading writings of citizen journalist in order to maintain standards and credibility of news media (Tapsall & Varley, 2006). With the rapid advancement of Internet and communication technology, more involvement of audience in journalism would be expected, and since it is unlikely for us to stop technology from progressing, there is a need for journalist and news workers to constantly work on establishing measures to maintain professionalism in news media.


Reference 

Ang, P.H. 2003. Media Law and Ethics in Singapore. [Internet] School of Communication Studies, Nanyang Technological University. Available from: http://www.medialaw.com.sg/ [Accessed 23 May 2011].

Brainstuck.com. 2007. Citizen Journalism [Image] Available from: http://www.brainstuck.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/citizen-journalism-400x336.jpg [Accessed 23 May 2011]. 


Quinn, S. & Lamble, S. (2007). ‘Citizen Journalism and Audience-Generated Content’, Online Newsgathering: Research and Reporting for Journalism. Focal Press, Burlington, 43-57.

Renee, S. 2009. Funny Citizen Journalism [Image] Available from: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlnD5WWCwzU_V2ogoW7PXope6Skb1rayNHzNkZwLUqPN6E8W25KXaP98o3Utyjm7ZUrzW881JnJb2HximwrqXz0Q7kqp7ZVI0VhAB38Px_SQac841WDO8A7Z0p0xdomB729tSjIJV1D9DC/s1600/citizen_journalism_42.jpg [Accessed 23 May 2011].

Social Connect Blueprint. 2010. Crazy Dude [Image] Available from: http://www.socialconnectblueprint.com/wp-content/uploads/crazy-dude-cartoon.jpg [Accessed 23 May 2011].

Tapsall, S. & Varley, C. (2006). Journalism Theory in Practise. Oxford University Press, London.

Wagers, S. 2010. Citizen Journalism [Image] Available from: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PE7HXREVoCA/SZwwxYXm7fI/AAAAAAAABGs/2Ud8JqTnvYo/s400/fucked+up+citizen+journalism.jpg [Accessed 23 May 2011].

WHM. 2008. Fun Journalism Quote [Image] Available from: http://moblog.whmsoft.net/123.jpg [Accessed 23 May 2011].