Investigative Journalism

Of all the journalism lectures this semester, the ones I looked forward to most were the ones on photojournalism and investigative reporting. 

The photojournalism is probably easiest to explain. I've been interested in photography for years. I bought a camera, learnt the basics of exposure and composition and studied the works of the great photographers to learn how they captured their images. The ones that fascinated me the most were the photojournalists and the war photographers. Robert Capa. Don McCullin. Larry Burrows. James Natchwey. I loved the way Burrows and W. Eugene Smith told entire stories with their photo essays. 

As for the investigative journalism? Well, that seems to be a natural extension of an interest in whodunnits, cryptic crosswords and sifting through documents looking for lost relatives. I also get pretty cranky at the various abuses of power that occur in society and I'm a firm believer that one of the main roles of the press is to hold the powerful accountable for some of their less reputable decisions. It's an area of journalism that I'm certainly interested in pursuing, though according to the books on investigative journalism in the uni library I'm not alone; just about every other journalism student sees their future in it too! 

John Pilger believes that the term investigative journalist is wrong as every journalist is, in theory, supposed to investigate and check facts before publishing. Other authors however disagree and consider that investigative journalism differs completely from general news reporting. Investigative reporters have to take their suspicions of wrong doing, whether it be an abuse of power or an official cover-up, and then find the evidence to prove their story. It's a long term process, one that requires evidence gathering and fact checking. If you read "All The President's Men" you'll discover the meticulous care that Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward took in trying to ensure that their facts were correct in their Watergate investigation (you'll also discover the consequences too when they slipped up). 

In the lecture we looked at the attributes an investigative journalist needs to possess. An interest in whodunnits, cryptic crosswords and sifting through documents looking for lost relatives wasn't specifically on the list though having good research skills was, along with determination, patience and good reporting skills.

Marie also spoke of the need to ensure that a story has public interest; a community should either benefit from a story, or be disadvantaged by not knowing it. She gave us a few examples of stories and we had to decide if they could be classed as examples of investigative journalism. I have my own example, one that appeared in the Sunday Mail last year. At the time I wasn't too impressed with this story; it seemed to me that listening in on a driver's phone call was more an invasion of privacy than investigative journalism, especially if it was recorded so it could be translated later. Looking at the whole story again, I think I can add a lack of public interest to my list of objections, though at least they didn't call it Currygate.

Let Me Sell You A Story...

Our last two lecture sessions were spent presenting our final journalism assignment for the semester, the story pitch. 

We had to develop a story idea, find all the information and sources needed, figure out the best type of medium to use in telling the story and then decide on the most appropriate media outlet to approach with our idea. We also had to identify the associated news values and outline any ethical dilemmas.

After gathering everything together, we had to present our story idea to our classmates - and Marie - who played the role of the editorial board for our chosen outlet. They then picked our idea apart, looking for glaring omissions or errors in judgement. If that wasn't enough pressure, the story pitch assignment was worth 40 percent of our final grade and we only had four minutes to make our presentation.

I initially thought of a story explaining the benefits of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, but the 2018 implementation date didn't make it a timely enough story, one that is relevant right now. Of course, the week I made my pitch, the increase to the Medicare levy to pay for the scheme had just been announced, making my untimely idea one of the hottest stories of the week. 

I found another story idea, a convoluted tale full of intrigue and political dealing, possibly even political misdealing, though my dilemma was how to present it. I felt that to understand the parts of the story that I wanted to investigate and report on, the editorial board would need to know their relevance in relation to a complex chain of events. 

I bought a book on presentations which recommended writing a single word summation of your key points on Post-it notes to get your thoughts in order. This worked well until I turned the fan on and my supposedly super sticky little yellow squares fluttered around the room like jaundiced suicidal butterflies. Still, they'd stuck long enough for me to work out what I wanted to say, my next problem was how to say it.

My book said to forget torturing your audience with PowerPoint presentations, an idea I whole-heartedly agreed with. I'd had enough problems fighting an uncooperative Excel spreadsheet during my media diary assignment, and certainly didn't want to wrestle with yet another recalcitrant Microsoft product during this one. I decided to write a script and read it out. The book said not to, but I have trouble remembering a drink order at the pub (except my bit, I always get that right) and there was no way I'd remember the entire story pitch.

I practised reading my script out in a strong, clear voice until I could do it flawlessly. My ideas flowed, my story had impact and I could explain it all in under four minutes. I was pumped, I was primed, I was ready to pitch. Of course, on the day, my new found presenting skills deserted me and I stuttered and spluttered my way through my pitch before gratefully collapsing back in my seat, happy that the easy part was over. The hardest part, that nerve-racking wait for the result, had only just begun...

Finding My Voice

Today in our journalism tutorial Marie set up a press conference. We had to ask our volunteer interviewees enough questions to enable us to write a story about them. For the most part we only had five minutes and were allowed to ask five questions each.

Our press conference was a very sedate affair, no shouted questions, no camera flashes, no pressure. And I struggled. I really had trouble coming up with questions that were open-ended enough to gain material to use in an article.

I've always admired the journalist who can think on his or her feet. They ask a question, listen to the answer and quickly analyse it to figure out the next question to ask or point to refute. I worry that I don't have the analytical mind to be able to do this. Or I worry that I'm just too polite. How many times in my life have I met someone, listened to their views and decided that I totally disagreed with them but have just nodded and walked away? Is it because I don't feel that I can adequately argue my point or is it because I just don't want to make a scene? 

During our lecture this week, some of us (the rest do it next week) had to present a story pitch to an editorial board. We had to find a news story that we wanted to report, identify why it was important in terms of news values, ethics, etc and then speak about it in front of the class who were playing the role of the editorial board for our chosen media outlet. 

While researching my story pitch, I'd emailed the senior reporter of the local newspaper for some information. During our email exchanges he wrote about the perils of the press conference and recounted how he'd asked the Premier an important question during one such event. The Premier apparently decided not to answer the question and went off on a tangent instead, forcing him to keep asking the same question until he had something that resembled an answer. He says he then spent nearly all of the next week defending claims by the Premier's senior media advisor that he'd misrepresented the Premier's remarks. He advised me to remember that journalists in training need "courage under fire" in these situations, especially when, as he found on this occasion, other journalists were quite happy to sit back and watch him go it alone. 

It's a good point to consider. If I want to be a voice for the voiceless, I have to speak up, possibly even shout. Since being at uni, I've learnt that people there are prepared to listen to me. They may not agree with what I have to say, and I have to be ready to back up what I do say with evidence (political science, PL1001!), but they will listen. Maybe this is exactly what I need?

I've already surprised myself at how many times I put my hand up and speak during journalism classes, I even to do it in political science lectures now, somewhere I feel less confident in my abilities. I've always believed I'm much more articulate in print than in person, which is possibly a slight problem for someone doing multimedia journalism, but I'm at the point now where I don't care about embarrassing myself, if people want to teach me, then I want to learn. 

I figure I've got things to say, and I'll be standing up to say them. I'd just appreciate it if they'd give me a few minutes to collect my thoughts, I've still got my L-plates on. 

My Thoughts: Ethics and Kevin Carter

In our lecture and tutorial this week we were talking about ethics and Kevin Carter's haunting Pulitzer-prize winning photo came up again. 

Some felt that the photograph illustrates his psychological state, saying that he had to have been mentally ill to sit for twenty minutes waiting for the vulture to spread it's wings behind the little girl. I don't agree.

Carter was an experienced photojournalist and had documented the violence and suffering of South Africa's township wars. He knew the news values of a good photograph, and all about the so-called rules of photography. If you examine the photograph with the rule-of-thirds in mind, the girl is at the bottom right intersection, the vulture is at the top left intersection, with room around it to spread it's wings and still keep them in the frame. Photographically, it's a strong enough image to win the Pulitzer prize, how much stronger would it have been with the vulture's wings spread? 

The West suffers from compassion fatigue. We tend to switch off when we see the familiar photographs of refugee camps and lines of people queuing up for water or rice. If you're a professional photojournalist looking to make an outstanding photograph, one that will move people and make the world take notice of the Sudanese famine, you have to come up with an image completely different to the ones we've seen a hundred times before. 

Stalin said that one death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic. I believe that Carter used one girl's misery to highlight the suffering of millions. 

Having said that, personally, I couldn't have left her there. Marie said in class that Carter had been told not to interfere or help any of the refugees. If I want to sleep at night, I have to operate by my own moral code. I'd like to think I'd have somehow managed to get her to the aid station, but I'm enough of a realist to know that terrible situations lead to equally terrible outcomes. Sometimes in life, there are no happy endings.

Ethics in Journalism: Black, White or Shades of Grey?

I sat in the uni library tonight with a stack of books in front of me and wondered where to even begin writing about ethics in journalism. 

The ethical implications involved in producing main stream media seem large enough to be almost overwhelming: plagiarism, cheque-book journalism, invasion of privacy, libel, confidentiality, celebrity. I decided that staring blankly at the books wasn't helping and it would be better to put them back on the shelf and start again. A book on multimedia journalism seemed a better bet, after all it's what I'm there for but that only complicated things further: problems with attributing social media, image manipulation, gaining permission to use material across various media platforms. Aghhh!

Of course, not having any experience in the industry leaves me feeling less than qualified to comment on the issue, especially when professionals with years of experience can't always agree on ethical points. In a hypothetical situation it's easy to say that you'd stand up and be counted, but if it came down to keeping or losing your hard-won, just finished three years at uni and now have to pay for it job, would you actually do it? 

Maybe if your editor wanted you to go out a rob a bank so you could write a story about what it's like, then the choice would be easy, but I can't honestly see that being a daily dilemma. I suspect the ethical problems are more pragmatic; I want 300 words about the car crash story by 5pm, make it so. Any ethical concerns are yours to deal with as long as you come back before 5pm with the required 300 words. 

 Various codes of conduct have been developed for journalists to follow and can help up to a point but, once again, nothing is ever straight forward. David Salter, in his book "The Media We Deserve" points out that the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance's Code of Ethics gives journalists leeway for all manner of interpretation. An industry built on words and the art of stringing them together is going to find plenty of interpretive scope in a code of conduct that uses "strive for", "guard against" and "do your utmost".

I guess that's the problem in making ethical decisions. Everyone has a different opinion, there's often no right or wrong answer, though I'm prepared to go out on a limb here and say that journalists shouldn't rob banks. Maybe the answer is to write every story with the thought that you may have to stand up someday, either in court, a disciplinary hearing or even in front of your mum, and defend your actions.

War: What is it Good For?

This week in our journalism lecture we looked at war and disaster reporting. Marie spoke of the dangers involved, both physical and psychological, and the problems of remaining impartial when journalists are embedded with military units and rely on them for protection.

Over the last century the role of the war correspondent has evolved from a soldier with a camera or typewriter under direct military command to a civilian journalist either working as a freelancer or for a news organisation. 

Military control over reporting has also changed. Previously, stories that arrived back home were filtered through military censors and editorial systems supportive of the war effort and were usually up-beat stories of how the war was being won

During the Vietnam War  this began to change. Accredited civilian journalists were given an honorary military rank and were allowed great freedom in their ability to move around the war zone, hopping on and off military transport as space allowed. Photographers and journalists could be in the middle of a jungle firefight and yet still be back in Saigon in time for drinks a few hours later. This freedom, along with improvement in communications systems, meant that TV viewers back in the US could see the death and destruction of war for themselves the very next day. Journalists were also no longer relying on military press releases for their information. They'd seen first hand how events had unfolded in the field and began to doubt the official record on how well the war was going. This discontent spread to the American people and the US government started to lose support for the war.

The negative Vietnam War reportage led military commanders to try to limit reporting during the invasion of Iraq in 1991 and Afghanistan in 2001. Strong media criticism followed and so the US military began the practice of embedding journalists with military units in the field for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Many questioned the impartiality of these reporters, who now relied on the soldiers around them for food, transport and safety. John Pilger's 2010 documentary "The War You Don't See" is also heavily critical of the role the media has played in recent times, a media that seemingly never questioned the evidence presented by US and British governments in their justification for war.

Of course, the problems of being allowed to get close enough to the action to report is not new.  Martha Gellhorn, already a seasoned war correspondent who'd reported on the horrors of the Spanish Civil War and the Japanese invasion of China, had problems getting access to the front line in 1944. US army public relations officers felt women needed to be kept away from these areas. Gellhorn had other ideas and smuggled herself on-board a hospital ship to witness the Normandy invasion for herself, and later reported on the atrocities of Dachau. She was also a correspondent in Vietnam. Highly critical of the US war machine, her reports from that time are still powerful pieces of journalism.

If you want to read some great war and conflict reporting I'd suggest Gellhorn's "The Face of War" and "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq" by Dahr Jamail. If you want to read about photojournalists then try "The Bang-Bang Club" by Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva. The authors and their friends, Ken Oosterbroek and Kevin Carter, were photographers covering the township wars in South Africa during the early 1990s. And of course, read and watch John Pilger!

Storify and The Feast of the Senses

This is something I put together while learning to use Storify. It's a service that allows you to pull information from various social media sources and then link everything together into a story which is published on the Storify site. It can then also be posted into your blog posts. 

News Photography

This week in our journalism lecture we examined the use of photography in the media, discussed the elements of a good news photo and reviewed news values regarding photojournalism. I've long been fascinated by the work of photojournalists, not only do they have to consider the news aspects of a story, they have to juggle camera settings, lighting and composition all while getting as close as possible to the action.

Sometimes during war, they get too close. Injuries are common and the risk of death ever present. British photojournalist Tim Page was wounded four times in Vietnam and fellow Briton  Don McCullin was threatened with execution after being imprisoned by Idi Amin's troops in Uganda. He once avoided death after the camera he was putting to his face was hit by a bullet fired by a Cambodian sniper. Talented photojournalists killed in war zones include Robert Capa, Larry Burrows, Henri Huet, Sean Flynn and recently Chris Hondras and Tim Hetherington in Libya.

Not that the dangers of photojournalism are confined to war zones. Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, police officers and security guards have clashed with photographers over the rights photographers have when taking pictures in public places. During the London riots in 2011, rioters even targeted press photographers, fearing that photographs and video footage could be used by authorities to identify them.

We also looked at the ethical implications of photojournalism. Marie showed the Adnan Hajj photo of the aftermath of an Israeli bombing attack on Beirut to illustrate how digital imaging software can be used to manipulate a photo and put a different spin on a story. There are fierce arguments about the editing of news photographs, some regard even basic adjustments such as cropping to be too much. Other ethical implications include the use of posed photos, how photographs  portraying death or nudity are published and whether photographers should just document an event or become involved it. 

Two photographs mentioned during our tutorial highlight this last point. Kevin Carter took a Pulitzer prize winning photograph in Sudan in 2003 showing a vulture standing behind a little starving girl. He received worldwide condemnation when it was later revealed that he hadn't taken the child to a nearby aid post and, already suffering personal issues, committed suicide a few months later. Nick Ut took an earlier Pulitzer prize winning photo of a Vietnamese girl with severe burns running down road after a napalm strike on her village, though in this case he helped her and took her to hospital before developing his photographs. I hope that if ever I'm faced with the dilemma of missing a deadline and helping someone in need, I'm in a position to make the right ethical choice.

Phil's Tale: A Story in Three Acts

I thought I'd post last week's journalism tutorial piece about my classmate Phil. The idea of the story was to write a 500-word profile feature using a three act structure. We had to grab the reader's attention with Act 1, tell the story during Act 2 and then end with Act 3 linking the story's ending back to the beginning and "closing the circle".

Adventures in Academia 

If you’re in a hole and want to get out of it, the first thing you should do is stop digging.  As a plumber and gas fitter, Phil felt he was knowledgeable enough about holes to know that he was in a deep one desperately trying to climb out. He felt the need to do something worthwhile with his life, he just didn’t know what.

He began looking through the careers pages of the local newspaper and quickly found that he wasn’t qualified enough for any of the well paid and interesting jobs that caught his eye. All of those jobs needed a degree. There was only one thing to do. He’d go to university and get one.

But what would he study? He wasn’t sure what career path he eventually wanted to take. Spending years studying for a degree that left him stuck in another, albeit well paid hole seemed a waste of time and money. He read that studying another language was not only good for your cognitive function, it didn’t do your career prospects any harm either; maybe he could do that and work overseas somewhere.

Phil thought back to all the places that he’d visited. China is Australia’s largest trading partner and he’d enjoyed walking on The Great Wall and seeing the Terracotta Warriors but would he want to live there? It’s overcrowded, polluted and the language is very hard to learn. Maybe not Chinese then, what about a European language?

France was the first country he’d visited when he went to Europe and had always been one of his favourite destinations. He could just picture himself in the City of Light, sitting outside a little bistro near the Seine, sipping red wine and watching the world go by. A job in Paris, maybe at the Australian embassy, or working for a non-government organisation, sounded ideal. He could hop on a train and be in London in a few hours, catching up with friends and watching the footy at Twickenham. That would be perfect. He’d learn to speak French. Trés bon.

He looked at what else he could study. What about anthropology? On his travels he’d loved exploring new cultures; getting off the beaten path and mixing with the locals to see how they lived. What better way to get a degree than studying the science of humanity itself? He enrolled in the Bachelor of Arts programme at James Cook University.

Initially he was worried how he’d cope with going back to full-time study as a mature age student and he’ll admit to a few sleepless nights before handing in his first assignments. All that’s in the past now though and Phil is enjoying his time at uni. He’s found that the stress of a looming due date is nothing compared to the worries he had when he was self employed and trying to find money for his suppliers, in fact the only holes Phil finds himself in these days are excavations during anthropology field trips.

Blogging Ethics: My First Dilemma

While reading the news last week I saw stories from the UK about an Australian entertainer who'd been arrested during Operation Yewtree, the Metropolitan Police operation into Jimmy Saville and alleged paedophilia. 

Mainstream media (MSM) in Australia and the UK hadn't named the man but a quick search on the internet soon showed that social media sites didn't have any qualms about doing so. I considered writing a blog post about the implications of how our media had decided not to report this fully as it seemed relevant to my earlier post about agenda setting in the media.

I knew that mainstream media organisations have codes of conduct to follow when it comes to reporting certain types of information involving celebrities and I wasn't sure if their reluctance to name him was because they were just following those. People on the internet have no such restrictions and report whatever they want. I certainly didn't think it was for the vague legal reasons cited in a few of the newspapers. 

The ABC's Media Watch covered the story last night and said that the British media hadn't named the man due to rule changes in the wake of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal. Presenter Jonathan Holmes then goes on to question why Australian media haven't named the man either.

I didn't write the blog post. I didn't feel I had enough information about why MSM hadn't named the man. Was it due to a code of conduct or was it for another reason? I wondered if highlighting the story without knowing the full details would leave me feeling ethically compromised. In the end I decided that as I'm not a journalist, I still have a choice on what I write about and chose to write a different post.

Using change.org for Story Sources

A few weeks ago in Cairns I saw a sign on a noticeboard asking people to sign an on-line petition in support of getting fairer home insurance for people living in Far North Queensland. 
I took a photo of the sign and have finally just got around to looking at the website.

Our journalism lecturer Marie has said that we need to always be on the lookout for new story ideas and change.org might be one such source. It's an on-line petition page where people can set up petitions in support of their own campaigns. 

Obviously there are going to be some petitions that don't go anywhere or are overseas, though there does seem to be some local content. The Tips and Guides page at the bottom of the page shows petitioners how to get their campaigns out to the media. 

In this article from journalism.co.uk Rachel McCathy suggests ways a journalist can use the site.

Journalism Fundamentals

This week in our journalism lecture we looked at some writing fundamentals. Marie talked about information attribution and the dangers using anonymous sources and discussed the nuts and bolts things such as spelling, punctuation and grammar. 

In their book 'Blur: How To Know What's True In The Age Of Information Overload',  authors Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenthiel tell a wonderful story about a journalist named Homer Bigart. During military press briefings in Vietnam, Bigart would ask countless seemingly dumb questions before going out with military units into the field. Other less experienced journalists would return to Saigon and file stories recounting the official version of the events, but Bigart's stories were different. The answers to his seemingly dumb questions, now on record, along with his own eyewitness accounts enabled him to refute the official line on how the war was progressing. The book quotes Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Halberstam who described Bigart's style as "portable ignorance" and William Prochnau, who said of Bigart, "He shows up knowing little and then finds out everything".

In their book "All The President's Men", Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward detail the tremendous difficulties they had using anonymous sources in their investigation of the Watergate Scandal. Unless two independent sources confirmed their information, they wouldn't use the material.

We also looked at a video called Caine's Arcade and had to write a story using the inverted pyramid style, where all the pertinent information of who, what, when, where, why and how is contained in the first few lines. After 17 years as a paramedic, figuring out what to write in a short report isn't usually too much of a drama, however in our tutorial, we had to interview a classmate and write a 500 word article based on that interview. What I've discovered is that knowing what to ask in an interview when you don't have time to prepare is difficult.  In the ambulance service I had a safety net, we ask standard questions for each type of case. If you attend a patient who's had a fit, then you'd want to ask how long the fit went for, what it looked like, what happened before, what happened afterwards. Someone who's had a fall gets questioned about being knocked out, do they have dizziness or neck pain? For a patient with chest pain, you'd ask a different set of questions. What I'm finding now is that I often don't have a clue what to ask someone now it's not ambulance related. Until I gain some experience, maybe I can specialise and be an on-scene car crash reporter?

Consequences

Just a short post today. Well, that's the plan, I sometimes get carried away on a rant, as you know. I just wanted to follow up on a few things that I've blogged about previously and to share a couple of links for those of you who may be interested. Our lecturer Marie says we have to consider the wider impact our stories can have, and I think that these illustrate her point.

After my Is nano a no no? blogpost, here's an article from The Age. Apparently fear about nano-particles in sunscreens is causing Australians to give up on sunscreen altogether. Sunscreen fear a risk to health

Maybe it's me, but I think I'm seeing a link between the silliness of a story and the outrageousness of the comments that follow it. This is a follow-up to the story I blogged about on Friday, Commenting on Comments  The usual public support for ambulance officers seems to have changed after the story's portrayal of them complaining about not being able to eat lollies and drink soft drink. After reading this story will someone decide that driving a person with chest pain or severe bleeding to hospital is better that waiting for an ambulance?  Ambulance dispatchers do their lolly over eating ban

The library socks are packed and in a few hours I'll be on my way to Townsville for this week's uni, either swerving around the potholes or sitting at the various roadworks. I must say I do agree with the woman in The Cairns Post the other week who, when asked what was the worst part of the Bruce Highway, answered "the bit between Brisbane and Cairns." 

Commenting On Comments

The Courier-Mail published a story this morning about a man dying of a heart attack due to delays in an ambulance being dispatched to him. As a former paramedic it's certainly a story that interests me, though I don't want to comment on the actual case. I do have a few issues with the actual reporting of the story, for instance if an Intensive Care Paramedic and a medical officer are called for at 12.24pm and they show up at 12.35pm and 12.39pm respectively, then they've taken 11 and 15 minutes to get there, not 15-20 minutes as reported in the body of the story. 

In journalism classes, we've looked at how modern media has had to adapt to the

Agenda-setting in the Media

Traditional media has had a gate-keeping role regarding the news that's presented to us. Thousands of stories happen everyday but only some of them make it into our newspapers and onto our television screens; media organisations filter what we see. This filtering depends on a range of factors including the media organisation's own ideology and bias, pressure from outside interest groups such as political parties and even the journalist's own personal views. Sometimes it'll depend on what other organisations are reporting on; even newspapers bow to peer pressure and follow the herd. 

Modern mass media experts now describe agenda-setting as a two layered process. The first layer refers to how the amount of coverage an issue is given in the media can change people's perception of how important that issue really is. This idea is often referred to as one in which the media doesn't tell people what to think, but it does tell people what to think about. If people see lots of media coverage about youth crime then they will tend to think that this is a major problem even if that may not actually be the case. Conversely, if the media doesn't give much coverage to an issue such a famine in Africa for example, people may not consider it to be important.

The second layer of agenda setting looks at how a story is presented; at how the media decides to focus attention on parts of a story that it decides are salient or important. To get a better understanding of this concept, I read a journal article that looked at the Australian media's coverage of

Twittering About Tweeting

Now, I don't want your eyes glazing over but I want to talk to you about ....Twitter. Yes, yes, you don't use, you've no need for it, you're not interested in what other people had for breakfast.  I thought that once but I've certainly changed my mind in the past few weeks. For my journalism course we had to set up a Twitter account and have to tweet (see, four weeks in and I've picked up the lingo already) about news that interests us, as well post updates about our blog pages. Now, even if you're not doing a journalism degree, you still might be interested in the latest news and Twitter is certainly an easy way to find it. There's a lot of it on there.

Last week I submitted my first journalism assignment, a media diary where I logged my media use for ten days then 

News Values

In our journalism class this week we looked at news values, the things that make news important enough to be news. We covered the cult of celebrity, looked at drama and quirkiness and considered the way in which news needs to have some degree of proximity to us to be considered newsworthy. Our lecturer Marie used the example of how after an overseas plane crash, local news agencies will always mention Australian casualties. While Hurricane Sandy was battering New York, local media used the fact that footy star Jonathan Thurston was coincidently visiting the city, to try to add an Australian connection to their story, something I found superfluous considering the size and impact of the main story. (In relation to Marie's point, I often find myself sarcastically muttering "that's all right then" after hearing that 400 people have died but none of them were Australian.)

Timeliness was also mentioned. A story has to be new or at least have a new approach or angle to have news value, something that was certainly demonstrated to me yesterday as the day's news unfolded. 

Inverted Pyramid Writing Exercise

Here's my very short inverted pyramid story attempting to cover the who, what, where, when, why and how of Humpty Dumpty's great fall.

'Humpty Dumpty fell off a Toytown wall yesterday and despite the efforts of all the King's Horses and all the King's Men, he was unable to be put back together again. A witness to the incident said Mr Dumpty was "Just sitting on the wall and then fell." Police aren't treating his death as suspicious.'

Media Convergence: More than a notebook and pen...

This week in our journalism lecture, we looked at media convergence. For those of us studying multimedia journalism, it relates to our core purpose, it's what we're here to learn. 

In the book Convergent Journalism - An Introduction (Quinn and Filak: 2005) the authors say that modern journalists need to "think multiple media" and be comfortable working across several media platforms. Widespread adoption of high-speed broadband, coupled with fragmenting media audiences - asset rich, time poor users that want news when they're ready for it regardless of TV schedules or newspaper printing times - have created the need for multi-platform storytellers.

Citizens or Consumers?

The growth of the internet has changed how print media does business. The traditional view of the newspaper tycoon using his wealth and media influence to pressure governments is changing, and while there is no doubt that Rupert Murdoch is still a very powerful figure, some would argue that these days making money is a more important consideration than political influence. Despite superficial media arguments over whether broadsheets are better than tabloids, or tabloid newspapers care more for their readers than the so-called quality papers, commercial media's chief concern is for it's profit margin.

Falling revenue from decreased advertising income has led to major cost cutting measures by newspapers, including