What I've learned from JOUR1111?

JOUR1111 opened a door for me to the world of journalism.
Things that I've learnt is immensely useful for me! I love how Dr. Bruce Redman made this course informative yet relax.

I like how this course is structured introducing the basic elements of what a journalist should know.
What is news to the importance of text, how does a picture tells a thousand words, the difference between commercial and public media, what they do and the roles they are playing in the society, how a journalist's ethics affects the world, what is agenda settings and what it do to influence the world, and lastly, investigative journalism.

Can't believe it has been one semester. I still remember the first time I walked into the class without seeing any familiar faces. As I'm majoring in Finance, I always take courses that I have friends taking as well. But in JOUR1111, I walked in and left without knowing any new friends.
Setting up a blog for assignment is a new things for me! Unlike assignments in other courses where you'll have to print a hard copy, analyze situation and case studies, this course offer me something that I always do like blogging and tweeting!

Although I did not know any new friends in the class, but I 'know' some new people via their blogs & tweets! Of all the blogs, some of them are really up-to-date and they talk about issues that they concern! I really enjoy reading it.

Besides knowing more about journalism, I know more about what I want to do in my future and fear less about it.

Thank you Dr. Bruce Redman and my tutor Marie for this amazing course!!

Here's a photo of me cycling around the city under the wonderful CityCycle program and it only cost me $2 a day! Cycled around New Farm, city and Botanic Garden with my best friend and brother. The weather was lovely.

Lecture 12 Last Lecture

To be frank, I did not like the last lecture by having a guest lecture. I was hoping Dr Bruce Redman to tell us more about journalism and stories about it as a wrap up! 

I like Steve 'Molks' Molkington because he is a professional blogger that runs his own site www.molkstvtalk.com/ and talks about TV show. I'm really amazed by his courage of changing his pathway from an undergraduate degree in chemistry. 


In short, he talks about how he use the social media platform effectively to spread his ideas and opinions.

Lecture 9 News Value

If it bleeds, it leads!


What's the value of the news that you are reporting and who will be concerned?

There are few definition of news value
1. IMPACT on readers
2. AUDIENCE IDENTIFICATION what's happening in the area of culture - feels ownership of the story
3. PRAGMATIC ethics, facticity, practice/practical current affairs, and the 24/7 news
4. SOURCE INFLUENCE

There are few ways to decide the newsworthiness.
Firstly, the 12+ factors by Galtung and Ruge - Negativity, Closeness to home, Recency, Currency, Uniqueness, Simplicity, Personality, Expectedness (predictability), Elite Nations, Exclusivity and Size.

From O'Neil and Harcup, the Power Elite, Celebrity, Entertainment, Surprise, Bad news, Good news, Magnitude, Follow-up, Relevance, Newspaper agenda.

Also the Murray Masterson "Big 6" Significance, Proximity, Conflict, Human interest, Novelty and Prominence.

Coincidentally, two news that happened in my home country, Malaysia on late April proved that. Both issues 'bleed' but the news value wasn't different to Malaysian.
The first one is the abduction of a Dutch national boy Nayati in a supposed-to-be-safe residential area at 27th of April. Normally news like this will grab the headline for days even though there are more interesting news in politics. But, a national event happened on 28th of April beat the kidnapping news and this issue was so important that it was topic on every local media for weeks. Any follow-up about that event is reported in details and I could feel the impact on the nations based on all the activities on social network. That is the BERSIH3.0 rally. This event is organized by 3 main opposition parties and the purpose of this rally is to demand clean and fair election. All the Malaysians united regardless races and all came out to show their unsatisfactory to the Election Commission of Malaysia. The rally was held in Kuala Lumpur and other major cities in the country. Besides that, Malaysian around the world also organized rallies in the city they stay such as USA, Australia, Canada, UK, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, China, India, Russia, South Africa and many more. They all came out to show their support ant their heart for Malaysia.
The news value of BERSIH3.0 is the biggest of all and most concerned among all the news.
People felt related and close to the news as it matters the destiny of future Malaysia.
Although Nayati's news is suppose to be a big social news, but it didn't stays on the first page one day after that because the value is not big enough. However, his news were mentioned everyday until the day he returned to his family safe and sound.
What I want to say is, even though both news are societal and important, but journalist will delivers what their readers want to know. After all, news value is socially constructed.

One more issue I'd like to point out is I personally thinks that nowadays news value are abit messed up and bias towards gossips. Don't you think so? People do not really care what charities or the positive effect of a politician but if he is involved in a sex scandal, I'm pretty sure the people will follow the news on daily basis.
As I said, what news and how it is reported is very important on shaping a society with good morality. Let's hope that one day it will find it's way back.

Lecture 8 Ethics

Guest lecture Dr John Harrison started the lecture to ask us decide whether it is ethical or unethical. He wants us to know how we measure the ethics from our point of view before telling us what ethics is.

As I always know ethics is plays a very significant role in journalism. A journalist with a heart for people, reporting the truth, revealing hidden facts and want to contribute something positive to the world can live the name JOURNALIST. 

If a journalist lost his ethics by reporting news to create chaos or misguide the public.
This lecture talked about ethics especially in the advertising.

Everyone's perspective on ethics is different, so how to the regulators measure what's good or bad? Ethical or unethical? Right or wrong? 

Ethical theories can help to identify all these. There are 3 paradigms of these theories. Dr John Harrison said every ethical theories fits into this three categories. 
This first framework is about rules, principals and duties. Deontology basically sets a guideline for people who practice journalism on what they can do and what they cannot do. By following it, you will do the right thing. For example, MEAA, PRIA, AFA, AANA CODE. Second, Consequentialism, is all about the root word - consequence. It did not concern on how you do it. As long as the outcome of the situation is correct and benefits the majority and what most people thinks is right, you are doing the ethical things. The greatest good for greatest number. Last but not least, Virtue. Unlike deontology which is sets externally by people, virtue is implicit value that derived out of human behaviour such as habits, moral value and characteristic. So if you think you are doing the wrong thing, you're unethical! 

He also talks about The mean. Courage is the mean between rashness and cowardiceJustice is the mean between the in-justice of overzealous and excessive law and the injustice of lawlessness.


As the guest lecture said, there will never be choosing the best framework. Each of them are equally important in journalism. 
Virtue ethics drives a journalist to reveal and report the ugly truth even though they may not follow the legal ways. As long as the consequences is the best for all, the news should be exposed. Deontology has to exist to control this profession so that people don't make up stories out of nothing.

Lecture 11 Investigative journalism

'Most good journalist is investigative journalist' Couldn't agree this statement more.
Bruce started the lecture by showing some quotes of what is investigate journlism by Rose Coulthart, Hugo de Burgh and Lord Northcliffe.

There are many ways to define investigate journalism
INtelligent
INformed know the facts, what's the story about and who's involved.
INtuitive rely on your guts
INside know what's going on from inside, get what you need to know form the participant, people trust you for revealing the truth
INvest it can be difficult that not only cost you money and time, also you mental health. There's uncertain risk. Make sure you have people to help you to hedge it.

Bruce then talked about the deeper definitions and purpose. Critical and thorough journalism where critical is the journalist is an active participant, the key idea is active intervention and the substantial effort the journalist make. Custodian of Conscience where exposure is the key idea. To provide a voice for those without one and hold the powerful to account social justice is the power to the powerless, the voice to the voiceless. Public interest is the key idea. For an example, KONY2012. Fourth estate/ fourth branch of government/ watchdog Fourth estate is when journalists represent the interests of those without power to balance the power of argument. Fourth branch of government is when journalists ensure free flows of information necessary for the functioning of democracy by interrogating the judiciary, executive and legislative. "Watchdog" is when journalists make accountable public personalities and institutions whose functions impact social and political life.

Bruce then introduced the trailblazers where these interesting people wrote something that exposed truth. What they have in common is they changed the world. They are Edward Hall Smith "The Sydney Monitor" (1826) , W.T. Stead and the Salvos "The Maiden of Tribute Modern Babylon" (1885) Bob Woodward and Carl Beinstein"Watergate" (1972-1974), Chris Masters, Phil Dickie, Shaun Hoyt "The Moonlight State", Julian Assange "Wikilieaks"

I'm a reader of TIMES magazine and I always love the stories published in there. Especially those about woman power in the middle east countries. Without these brave investigative journalist, I'll never know what's happening in there and no women from those countries dare to stand out and fight for their rights! These journalist speak for them, investigate the truth, risk their life of being killed by local authorities and lastly, open the door for the world to see what's inside.
That's why investigate journalism is very important to actually show the world what is happening.

Lecture 10 Agenda Setting

How the media construct the reality?

Agenda setting is social construction of reality. Reality exists but the way we come to know it, talk about it, understand it, is mediated through social life. 

Bruce also introduce 4 types of agenda that is interrelated :

Public agenda - what public think it is important

Policy agenda - what 'decision maker' think it is important

Corporate agenda - what business and big corporations think it is important

Media agenda - what media think it is important

Then he talked about the definition of agenda and the relationship between reality, media reality and public perception of reality. The concept of agenda settings comes from few people. In the 1920s, Harold Lasswell said that it is what the mass media' injects' direct influence into the audience. In 1922, Walter Lippman argued that people rely on the images in their minds in formulating judgement rather than critical thinking. And lastly, in 1968 Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw said the mass media set the agenda by emphasizing specific topics. One example is how Hitler used it to rise his power. The media has huge influence on the public. 

There's two levels of agenda setting theory.First level of agenda setting  theory talks about what the public should focus and the second level is about how people should think about an issue. 

I also learned about the agenda setting 'family', the strength and weakness of agenda settings.

Agenda settings plays an important role in politics. If some parties have control on certain media, they will get to decide which news to be published or which to ignored or belittle. Maybe they will focus on how good they are and talked about the flaws in opposition parties. It all depends on how ethical is the journalism sector in that particular country. If it is abused, it will hide the truth from the public and influence their ability to make the right choices. 

Assessment 4 : Annotated Bibliography

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

With the increasing choices of platform like social networks, blogs, private paper and online media, citizen journalism has becoming bigger in journalism than 20 years ago. Now everyone can be a journalist as long as they have a place to publish their words and unfettered access to internet. Public has now learn to get news and information from various form of media rather than newspaper itself. Instead of wait for the news to be published. This way of getting news is permeating everyone's life.  Acceptance level of aggressive thoughts and expressive comments are higher in the public. However, citizen journalism is different than public journalism. Although citizen journalism is based on public journalism principles, the participation levels are different. From profit maximization point of view, can these types of journalism do well from that. Apart from that, public journalism wasn't well accepted by career journalism at the beginning.
Here I pull out several articles of opinions from renowned journalist - Leslie Walker, Philip Meyer, Bonnie Bressers and last but not least, father of civic journalism, David Merritt.

Walker, L. (2004) On Local's Site, Everyone's a Journalist. The Washington Post. Retrieved from ttp://www.writersforliteracy.org/onlocalsites.pdf

The writer, Leslie Walker is an journalist specializes on multimedia news and digital media trends. She is also a Knight Visiting Professor in Digital Innovation at the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism. She took an incident in Brattleboro, Vermont as an example of how fast news were spread before the reporters manage to collect, edit and print it on local newspaper. The availability of a local site - iBrattleboro.com whom claims to be Brattleboro's original and authentic citizen journalism news site allows people to publish news on the next second it happens. From this local site she then talked about how profitability it can be to the founder especially on advertising. She also mentioned there are many more companies out there planning to launch local citizen journalist site and only publish printed media fortnightly. It will be a good news for small or medium size business. As advertising on major newspapers are very costly, these tailored and localized site will cost lesser and have more significant effects as the readers are locals which fit their targeted market segment. Walker did mentioned a little about how these websites work. Besides few full-time employees that hired to screens submission and publish them, other reporters are all citizens. Founders are providing space to post journals or blogs so that readers or users can enjoy the freedom of journalism. Walker also talked about why demands of citizen journalism is expanding and why readers are shifting their preference from big newspaper to local ones. Lastly she concluded the article with iBrattleboro.com's founders comments about how the interest of citizen shifts all the time as observed about the trend on the website.

Meyer, P ( September 1995). Public Journalism and the Problem of Objectivity. Based on a talk given to IRE conference on computer assisted reporting in Cleveland.

As an expertise in journalism quality, civic journalism and newspaper industry, Philip Meyer is a Knight Professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This article is based on a talk Meyer given to IRE conference. Meyer provided an insightful opinion of the impact of public journalism to career journalism. Started the talk by addressing the discomfort feel over the concept of public journalism. As the definition for public journalism wasn't clearly define on what it does and the theories behind it, Meyer pointed out the key elements public journalism should fit to be supported by career journalist. He suggested that public journalist can diversify the problems of information overload. As mentioned in Leslie Walker's post, public journalism proven to be able to draws in profit as the problem is highly concerned by newspaper agency. Two theories that has been tugging journalism are well explained and how public journalism should be performing on both theories. As we thought public journalism is much easier than career journalism, he pointed out in fact, it is very difficult and expensive. Quoting Senge's words he finely explained the three levels of abstraction to see the possibilities for shaping the future. As the proper goal of public journalism is to create a learning community, Meyer explained the importance for the public journalist to have the same objective and believing the same philosophy as investigate journalist. Meyer concluded the talk appealing his final stand and addressed his optimistic opinions that public journalism and investigate journalism are able to coexist and cherish one another.

Bressers, B. (2003). Civic journalism goes online. The Quill, 91(2), 25-25. http://search.proquest.com/docview/219778400?accountid=14723

The author is an assistant professor of journalism at the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Kansas State University. While civic journalism are beginning to spread, numbers of local interactive forums are set up. Bressers interviewed Chris Hardie, the local news editor of La Cross (Wis.) Tribune who recently set up an online interactive boards. He wanted to cover an issue that will be explosive, and he believed that organizing a space for local citizens to discuss and comment will make a better impact of this news to them. Hence, Hardie got grant from the Pew Center for Civic Journalism to  launched a website that is a combination of interactive message board. He also talked about his purpose of setting up and the positive effects on the society. Although this space is owned by the newspaper, users are allow to comment freely and raise up issues that is concerned by the locals. To the larger extent, Bressers also took the online edition of Capital Journal as an example and once again proven these sites not only increase the participation of public in these issues, they also brings out citizen that is actually committing and concerning about social issues. By providing a platform like this, people with opinions can express their thoughts without having to attend meetings. She concluded the article by quoting the executive director of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism saying the potential for civic journalism has a lot and it seems unlimited.

Merritt, D. (2009). Chapter 3 : What Citizen Journalism Can Learn from Public Journalism. In Public Journalism 2.0 : The Promise and Reality of a Citizen Engaged Press. Routledge. Retrieved May 24, 2012, from Ebook Library.

Davis Merritt, father of civic journalism who wrote the book Public Journalism and Public Life: Why Telling the News is Not Enough that solidify the theory of public journalism. Internet's Big Bang has brought journalism to a whole new level and became easier to access. Citizen journalism has emerged and he raised the question of how citizen journalism define it's philosophical base is still unanswered. In this chapter he mentioned Jay Rosen, another significant journalist that has helped to built the philosophy of civic journalism. "This was not something journalists could easily address from within. They were accustomed to covering the news, not rebuilding the logic on which the news was based" (Rosen, 1999, p.25). Merritt discussed how public journalism slowly evolved into citizen journalism with the vast advancement of internet. He also pointed out a threat of information maybe biased as it can be repackaged by people who isn't intellectually honest. While public journalism concerns about the viability of public life, citizen journalism may only concern about individual issues or specific interest. Barriers of citizen journalism like the fragmentation of internet, individualized problems and decentralized conversation and also effort needed to put in in order to reach cohesive theory and philosophy. At the end of the chapter, Merritt pointed out that newspaper companies may be shifting to new media (eg, Internet websites) from printed version but their ability to preserve the level of journalism they have traditionally provided is worth concerned. Although there is so many things citizen journalism can learn from public journalism, Merritt expressed his opinion about how both can help to improve journalism in a public and individual way.

Assessment 3 - I will always love you

“Why God doesn’t want to come and take me away. I’m done suffering with all these.” She said that with shaky, slow, rough and deep voice. Sitting on the cane chair, she was sad, crying and telling me why God had to torture her. This was what I always heard from her at the last year of her life. I was scared. I was too young and immature to think correctly.  All I know is I hated her for saying that and I was terrified to lose her. Instead of accompany her as much time as I could, I avoided. Instead of visiting few times a week, I made it once a week.  And I regretted so much for doing that. I did not understand why she wanted to leave us so much. But now, I do.

She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever know.  Not just she survived 3 strokes at the last stage of her life, she raised 12 kid by herself and made sure they are all healthy.

Her husband died when she was 40, few months after she gave birth to her last son, who is my father. She raised her children independently with love. She went through the terrible World War II era and forced to separate with two of her eldest children. She had no choice but to left them with the relatives in China and came back to Malaysia. But she never gives up getting them back to her side. Hardship never beat her down.

She was 70 years old when I first know her. Age had done something on her face with the wrinkle and scars on her body tell stories. 70 may be a big number but she’s young at heart.  Moving around actively as she is ten years younger. I was told that she worked hard after the death of her husband in a rubber plantation from dawn till dusk. I have no idea where she got the unlimited energy to keep her active. After one whole day of work, she had to cook for the entire family and did house chores with the help of her daughters.

The Chinese Malaysian still practices the tradition. As a Taoist, she lit up 19 joss sticks as a respect to the every God every single day, twice a day and never miss a day. When she’s out of town, she’ll make sure someone at home will do it for her. Chinese believes that if you respect your God, your generations will be blessed with prosperity and health. She loved her family more than she loved herself. Her enthusiasm was answered. Market in the Malaysia language is ‘pasar’. There is one morning ‘pasar’ nearby my house.  Every morning she woke up before the cock crows and breaks the dawn. One cup of ‘kopi’ (Americano coffee in a Malaysian style) and biscuit started her daily routine. She walked to the ‘pasar’, picked up newspaper, bought groceries and our breakfast, talked to the neighbours, visited her son and daughter-in-law who owned a grocery store in the market and helped them out. She never stopped moving.

Wise and well respected in the town for her generosity on offering her help, I grew up many people coming in and out, most of them are family friends. Either they looked for traditional medication treatment or choose a decent date to get married. Chinese believed that having an event on an ideal date will help ensure that everything is going to be smooth. I could not thank her enough for giving me such a big happy family. I vividly remember where every Sunday night, all the family members gathered around in the house. There are about 50 of us, filled up the entire living room with laughter. Something I look forward to every week. She did not just influence the outsiders; she did it on me too. She always tells me to be a good girl, study hard and do not disappoint my family. She told me the stories during the hardest part of her life, said that I am very lucky to be born at this time. She wanted me to be grateful of what I have now. I remembered everything that she taught me.

Did I mention what an excellent cook she was? Growing up in a Hokkien family, she had responsible for my taste buds preference. I cannot find anything similar outside there in any restaurant. Even my mom and aunt said they cannot do better than her. Now that she is gone, she left no recipe but a great memory to be remembered.

I lived in the same house with her until I was 14 when dad got us a new house right behind her house. She refused to move in with us as she said she earned and bought that house with all her hard-earned money and it is hard for her to leave it. We thought it would not make a difference as we are still near to each other and we can visit her frequently.

Being stubborn made things worse, she was old and needed to take care of. She refused to be taken care by full time maid and insisted that she can do it by her own. One fell on the stairs triggered her first stroke. Slowly she recovered from the first and she could not wait to start walking. This time, she had to walk with a stick. I always visit her and she never stop telling me her progress of how she can walk without stick. Another stroke hits when she tried to let of the stick when she was alone in the house. That took away her mobility.

Being unable to move no matter how hard she wanted is killing her. She used to be so active. Now I understand. She was losing her memory and ability to talk like a normal person. Her pessimism scared off some family members. People did not visit her like how they did anymore. My father felt he had to be responsible for all these. He visited her on daily basis after he finished working. He hired a full-time maid to take care of all her needs. I rarely visit her by myself like what I used to do. To distract her from that, sometimes I brought along my dog or my rabbits to cheer her up. I updated her news of family members or current news. I hate her for being pessimistic but I tried my best to make her happy.

Not sure when the last stroke hit but she had to lie on the bed since and lost most of her conscious.

On January 27^th 2010, she was brought away peacefully. I was far away from home when mom called and delivered this sad news. Tried my best to hop on the first bus back home. When I finally got there, she was still breathing vaguely without conscious. Doctor told us that she will leave in an hour. I was sad but feeling happy at the same time. Now she is in somewhere happy and freed from suffer.

News spread and all the family and friends came back. Funeral was held, everyone attended to paid their last respect for this woman whom played such a remarkable role in our life. I didn’t know what her last word on her death bed was, nor told by anyone about it. One thing I know is she never stop loving us nor loved by us.

Grandma, I will always love you.

Lecture 7 Public Media

As opposed to commercial media, public media is defined as media whose mission is to serve or engage a public. Public media include traditional publicly-funded broadcasters and networks ... as well as public uses of new platforms and distribution mechanisms, such as the internet, podcasting, blogging. Increasingly, the term ‘public media’ is less associated with taxpayer supported media; it may be for profit so long as its ultimate purpose is to serve the public and not to turn a profit.


Quote from Nigel Milan, 'The difference between commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting is the difference between consumers and citizens' 
Their main goal is to connect to their audience, not to make a profit from it. Make no profit means they need some help and in this case, they are mostly funded by the government. Isn't that a dilemma? They want to deliver true
and trustworthy news to the viewers but they are receiving help from the government. They cannot criticize the government's mistake publicly but they want their audience to know. How can they draw a clear line between government and citizens? Now that I see commercial media has their challenge to choose between quality & profit, public media is facing this too. 


Back in my hometown, I did not spend much time on TV station that is categorized under public media except for prime time news. Mainly because they are biased towards major political party, didn't report the big news truthfully and often send wrong, biased messages to the audience. Anyway, they make better quality program such as documentary and heart-ripping stories to the audience. While commercial media may neglect these social news, public media will cover it for us. 


I can't help but to compare and try to choose which one is better. Commercial or public media? I have this pros & cons list in my heart. In the end, I found the existence of both media are equally important. They need to be there to balance the choices of audience where they want more entertainment or information. Let's hope the commercial media will find it's way to make a show that is profitable with good quality and public media will be cleared from it's dilemma.

Lecture 6 Commercial Media

Commercial Media, a whole new vocabulary to me. This lecture is very informative even though Bruce is talking about the names of commercial media whom 99% I've never heard of. It was all Greek to me but I know to keep up with the pace I have to know and understand it.

Bruce talked about what is commercial media, who are they, how they make money, what do they produce, their form and function, social responsibility and the challenges they are facing.

Apparently commercial media made their money through advertisers and they are profit-driven. Not funded by government, they have to create interesting program to attract audience so that they can sell these advertising slot! It made them do what the audience wants to see and sometimes biased to the powerful people.

I paid extra attention on this part of lecture : the social responsibility of commercial media. As profit comes before quality, how can commercial media actually deliver quality material to the audience? It made me thinks about nowadays commercial media often deliver news as entertainment because people want to see that instead of a form of information. Over the time, it became more like tabloid instead of news reporting.
To balance well quality and profit, commercial media is struggling to come out with something that is informative and profitable. They need to put in extra effort so that they don't lose audience. Unfortunately, by far there's no commercial media is doing a great job on reaching the equilibrium state.

Commercial media has to be responsible for the social. As they create what people want to see, they should deliver the correct messages of what people should know. Of course, profit is very important to the media but they shouldn't let some powerful people control it and use it as a media to control people's mind.

Lecture 5 Sound

Initially I thought this lecture of 'Sound' will be something Bruce pre-record and talk about this topic. Turned out it is an interview of Richard and Steve. Didn't really enjoy it because I find it not easy to stay attentive. But there's a few take offs.

I agreed with Richard's point that radio is a more intimate media in our life. Growing up, I get most of my information from the radio as I will on it and let it play in the air while I do something else.

Tracing back the history, radio is inseparable to someone's life. Tell you a story of mine.
My grandma told me about her life with radio. When she was in her mid 30s, which was 70 years ago, she was struggling with everyday living. As my grandpa passed away early, she has to take care of 12 kids and raise them up by her own. Before the sun breaks the dawn, she had to get up to work in the rubber tree plantation and work until the sun sets. After she went home, she dealt with alot of housework and she didn't really had time to sit down and update herself with news. She got this second hand radio from one of her relative.  The first thing she did when she reached home is turn on the radio and like everyone else, let it play in the air. It pretty much eased up her little bit. She said without it, she'll not be able to know what's going on in this world.

Richard mentioned that because there's no visual, the host need to make sure his listener feel connected to him. Whatever he says has to, in some way, effectively pass on the message and emotion.

The host has to be very alert during interview because the subject may take a long pause during conversation and he has to fill in these empty spaces with words to make the interview lively and interesting. Yet, there's advantage of conducting interview with voice. Because the interview is not visualize, subject tends to feel more comfortable and open up to the host.

Voice expression is extremely important. If the host is feeling empathy, he can lower and soften the tone. If he is excited, he can talk faster and louder! By this way, your audience will feel more connected.

Overall this lecture is quite informative, even though I already have knowledge about it. Although now I didn't listen to radio (refer to my media use diary), I still love to listen to radio.

Lecture 4 Picture Stories

A photo is worth a thousand words.

 That's the magic of  a single still image that has conveyed meanings inside it. A great photo can capture the emotions of the subject at that moment and share it with the viewers. Great photo can even affects the viewer's emotion and give a visual idea of what is happening.


Bruce walked us through the history of picture. From the ancient cave painting to glass paint in church, from the one of the oldest pictorial book - Book of Kell's to the first illustrated newspaper, and now, all with digital. 
He also mentioned nowadays how fast photojournalism has developed from the first printed photo on newspaper to people can capture an image an post it online within a second. 

He also discussed the good and evil of digital manipulation (Photoshop) and showed us a video about faux-tography. That is my first time watching it and very interesting! With the help of technology advancement, we can now manipulate the photo digitally with photo editting software. I have to say the freedom of journalism in my hometown is not publicly known especially when comes to politic. News and photos of major media are often twisted and biased to what their boss wants them to write. For an example, the 20,000 people anti Lynas rally back in my hometown, the photographer took a whole view of the events and cut off half of the people, replacing it with green field grass. This photo was printed on main press and it gave the public a wrong impression. 

So what makes a great photo? Bruce taught us some basic technique of photography to make the photo looks more interesting and captivating such as the framing, focus, angle & POV, exposure, shutter speed, rule of third 

and last but not least, being able to capture 'The Moment'

Capturing the moment is so important that it made the photographer a good one. Is it so important? What about all the skill that mentioned above? 

Let me show you some photos that captured my attention and I always remember it. 

At 1951, Arthur Sasse took a photo of the legendary Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out. Not only it showed the playful side of him, it also told us he is not some serious science maniac. If Arthur doesn't know how to capture it in that second, Albert will keep his tongue back and people will never see this side of him.

Next on, 'The Kiss' taken by Alfred Eisentaedt. It became of the most memorable photo of post WWII. In thie photo the soldier and the nurse doesn't even know each other and he randomly kissed her. As a good photographer, Alfred managed to capture that moment with a perfect pose! The pose might have changed the seconds after that!

Therefore, being able to capture the moment make you a good photographer.

When Bruce showed us this quote "If it makes you laugh, if it makes you cry, if it makes you rip your heart out, then that's a good picture." this photo came up to my mind. Taken by Kevin Carter during the Sudan Famine. A vulture was behind the skinny and helpless children, there's a thousand message in this photo such as desperation, hunger and hopeless. It did ripped my heart out. I can never forget the first time I saw this photo. Sudden emotion wave rushed into me and I almost cry.

Show you a photo I saw recently that almost ripped my heart out, taken by unknown photographer.

Didn't it made you think deeply what has global warming done to them? And what can we do to help them?

Great photo makes you think.

Nowadays capturing 'The Moment' is more easy than ever. With the popularity of smartphones, people no longer has to carry a camera with them. Photojournalism is now very advanced and easier with the social networking. Now everyone can snap, upload and share. 

Are you a good interviewer?

A great journalist should equipped themselves with great interview skill. 

Yesterday I came across this interesting article :

9 Tips on Conducting Great Interviews

How to dig up interesting and exclusive stories form subject? How not to get common and scripted answers like other press got?

I always know that the person who conduct the interview is the key person who decides what kind of story he will get. Especially when the subject is having few interviews in a day, if his questions are boring and ordinary as other people would ask. He'll lost the news value. Hence, his question has to be interesting enough to capture the subject's attention and willing to answer more and it's better if they give out more extra stories!

This article is short and informative. Worth a read.

4 days till assessment due and 4 lecture reviews to write!!! My time management is really bad.

Highlight of my last 3 weeks.

It has been awhile since I blog something! Can't believe it has been 3 weeks since the last assessment due. Felt like it just happened yesterday. This week is by far the most heavy week of my new semester as I have 2 mid terms on weekend and an assessment of this course due on Friday!

Recalling this few weeks, it was very eventful. I didn't really have time to stop and rest.


One of the highlight is I finally got myself a camera. As I want something that's almost professional and not too bulky, the compact ones fits the best. It has been a tough decision because I had find a camera that balances both quality and quantity(price!). Lumix GF3 in Rose Pink! I'm still getting use to it as there's so many things to play with! Here's a shot I took from Surfers Paradise :) Woke up early in the morning with my cousin sister and watched an amazing sunrise.


Another photo I took. I'm going to practice as much as I can so that I can always capture 'The Moment' !

Media Use Diary

Before analyzing my own media usage, I'd like to talk about the media usage survey result of students of JOUR1111. I know the result isn't 100% accurate but personally I find it interesting.


Just to mention a few, first of all, there's only 6% of international student in the class and I'm one of them. I thought there's more than that. How little and I haven't spoke to anyone in the class. Always alone.
Next on, blog and twitter account before they started JOUR1111. I'm blogging & tweeting since 4 years ago, and this two thing is pretty common among my social circle so I thought it's something everyone has to have! Surprisingly, majority doesn't even have one before starting it especially when Twitter is quite a big thing around young people.While I was doing the survey, I thought I'm the majority. Turned out I'm in the 30% that owned one blog and twitter account.  Facebook, which combines everything including blog & twitter, still rule as almost 95% have one.

Back to my media use diary. 
Instead of logging 10 days continuously, I split it to half. Logged the first half from 17th March till 21st March, take a one day break, then 23rd March till 27th March. Here's an overall of my media use data.

In general, my media usage pattern wasn't in a regular pattern as it changed during weekends. One thing that I didn't realize that I was doing all the time until I log my media use is the amount of time I spent online. Apparently I spent most of my time in a day (provided that I stayed at home all day) on the internet! Beside having meals, sport games with friends, reading a book, and other minor stuff, I spent the rest of the time online. That proved that I'm truly someone from this era.


Noticed that I didn't even read a newspaper, watch the tv or even listen to the radio?
As an international student, I stayed a single room and sharing the house with 6 people. It's a really big house so everyone is comfortable with their own space. There's a TV in the house but no one's touching it unless we rent DVD and watch it together on the couch. But that only happens once in a blue moon.
Not a fan to any radio station, so I only listen to my favourite songs or play a list on Musicovery


Although I spent most of my time online, I read. Reading is still something I'd hold on to hard copy. Reading online is never going to be something I like. On average I spent about 1.5 hour a day to read. Be it bed time reading or somewhere between day time. Read 2 interesting book on the past 2 weeks which is Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer and Onstage Offstage by Michael Buble. Both are based on true story, inspiring and something that I'd love to keep it.


Back to online, I visualized the where I spent most of my time online into a graph. Although they are not equally spread, I took average of every aspect just to have a whole view on that.

As you can see I spent most of my time on music but most of the time I let it play in the background so that I can go on to Facebook, read the news and browse the website.

Having a smartphone and an iPad, I get online very frequently. Whenever I feel of knowing something, I'll get it online and it is just one click away. The apps on iPad made accessing to news even more convenient. Just subscribe to any of your favourite news agencies, it sums up the news daily and even rank it with popularity!

Apparently my source of news are fully online. I do keep a habit of reading news online when I wake up or before I go to bed. My must-visit sites are Bloomberg, TIME, Brisbane Times, Sinchew-i, Twitter and Flipboard app in my iPad. Although I don't read the newspaper, I'm well-informed with all the major news.24th of March is the Queensland State Election 2012, but I paid some attention of what's going on even though I am not a resident here.

From the graph, I spent most of the time browsing the web. Carrying a motto 'Learn something new everyday' made me curious about everything. That's why I love to go around the web to learn new things. From astronomy to zoology, the internet is definitely something to satisfy my curiosity. Just to name a few, most of the time are spent on Googling, Youtubing and blog hopping!

Beside music, my life is inseparable with movies. I don't know about other but I watch movie almost everyday. The sources are either online or rent it from somewhere else. On the past Monday & Tuesday, I don't have to go to class so I spent long hours on catching up with the drama - New Girls because I heard that it's nice and rewatched some cheesy romantic comedy. 

Come to the king of social network. When I first started with Facebook, I'm so addicted to it and I spent more than 3 hours on it just to wonder around and make sure I'm updated with every single news. Growing up, my Facebook friends grew from less than 100 to 1700. As time past I realized how childish I was and also understand that the irrelevance of being informed with acquaintances' news. I still check Facebook regularly on daily basis but what I do on it is just to upload some photos, check my notifications, chat with my friends and get updated with people that I love. I'm glad that Facebook allows us to bookmark who is our close friends and family. Other than that, I'll just ignore or maybe click a 'like' if it is interesting.

Internet is definitely a big source of content and it's slowly replacing the old media. I always read news about how bad the printing media is doing and the trend of moving to online. Even Encyclopaedia Britannica stops printing encyclopedia and goes online as now people don't keep a space-consuming hard copy at home! Everything is available on the internet and it takes no space!

This assessment is not difficult but the result is surprisingly interesting. Not only it pointed out how relying I am to the internet, it also made me realize how close I am to these media. Doesn't matter if I get out of the house or not, I can hardly survive one day without getting in touch with news and people out there.

It also clearly shown that my ambition of being a journalist. From the habit of getting in touch of news daily, I love to be informed with facts and hope one day I can be one of them that brings out the true story to the people. 

Week 3 Lecture

We had Skye Doherty as our guest lecture on L3. Topic is TEXT. 

I learned that she is an editor, digital producer and media consultant. She focused on news journalism and how to take news to people.

Although this lecture's content is pretty straight forward,  to me, it is fruitful. I took away a lot of important stuff. How a journalist can excel without writing a great and influencing article? Or at least, a sentence that catches people’s interest. I always know how important text is in journalism because to build a career in this business, you have to be really good at it.  

First she told us how amazing text is because it is portable, controllable, can modify it anywhere and anytime. Also, a journalist must be aware of the news value. Then this 'Inverted Pyramid' theory that I'm getting familiar with came up again.

It’s important to know how to craft words. Although in publishing news, a photo does help a lot. By crafting the words may affect readers' view and change perspective of public towards a certain issues if your article is powerful enough. Text is significant in publishing. She said we have to be good in using vocabulary.

“Headline writing is an art.” She talked about how can an interesting headline captivates reader. It doesn’t need to have puns but it has to be true and correct. One of the biggest advantage on online media is you get to search articles by typing keywords into the search engine.

Tag your article with correct keywords and come out with a beautiful headline. Also, she spoke on how headline may changes according to the media. I'm following couple of news agencies on Twitter and also Facebook, if the headline isn't appealing, I'll just ignore it. 

I didn't realize there's difference between headline formats on these online media, from that day on, I paid attention to the same news on Facebook.

She also compared the difference of the articles of same issues on printed media and online media.As there's limited space on newspaper, the editor has to choose carefully which news to be published on main pages and also the size of the column whereas the unlimited space online allows to put any news on it. Online news is broad and has higher accessibility as they have these bullets that link to other related stories.

She showed an article from TheSun online and talked about how informative an article should be at the first paragraph to tell the whole story efficiently. Then gets into more detail in the rest of the article. Usually you get information of the 5 Wifes (Who, What When, Where and Why) and 1 Husband (How).

  

Honestly, after this lecture I felt more insecure than ever as I don't know how to play with words (or craft it), and shoot a captivating headline. Through blogging on my personal blog, I realize my weakness is to summarize the article and give it a beautiful title. Gotta work harder!

Lecture 1 Introduction

I always feel great on the first week of each semester. After a long eventful summer break, I can't wait for the classes to start! New faces, new course and so many new things to be learnt.

My first lecture of this semester is JOUR1111. As mentioned in my first post, this is my elective. Apart from my major, this is definitely something new and exciting to me. 2pm lecture is in Forgan Smith building, talked to a girl when I reached there and she said she had a hard time finding this place. Lucky for me, I attended Corporate Finance lecture last semester in the same lecture hall so I got familiar.

Our lecturer is Dr Bruce Redman. This quote kinda printed into my mind when he showed it to us. 

Am I? I don't find myself fit into this quote. Hopefully by the time I done this course I'll feel more towards it.

Yes. People expect it to be true. I come from a country where freedom of speech is something worth to be questioned. With politic parties controlling major media, resident have limited access to what it is really going on. 

But, how can you call yourself a journalist where everything you write will be monitored?

I always know that journalist is a mighty job. War journalist, travel journalist, business journalist, fashion journalist, and many more,countless field. Even the paparazzi is one of them. Being a journalist you have to write about the truth from your perspective. Some of them risk their life to photograph events and some risk the chance of getting arrested of revealing the truth. Everything they do is to get things out to the world for readers to see. 

What I think after lecture 1? This course is going to be fun!

45 mins with J.P. Morgan

As a finance major, I often come across article with data base on research from J.P. Morgan. It gave me an impression of they are a firm that do a lot of research and very influential in this business.
Also, people who works with them are elites and proud of who they work for.

Beg my pardon, I had no idea what they are doing before this. An investment bank? Consultant? Not a single clue.
*feeling guilty for not knowing what they do even though I'm aware that they're in this business for more than 200 years*

I didn't know there's an evening talk in campus from J.P. Morgan at Innes Room until an hour before it started. I was having coffee with my friend Liza and she mentioned that to me and invited me to go with her. I felt the chill in my back when I arrived. Everyone was in office wear and they looked so professional. Suddenly I filled with guilt for not knowing what they actually do. Like frog in the well.
We're given a stack of empty cards to fill in our names & contact details for networking purpose and an information booklet with this line "Our success depends on our people." Well said as human resources is the most important asset in a company.

Reading through the booklet I learned that they have different division - Investment Banking, Sales & Trading, Research, IB Risk, Private Banking, Treasury & Securities Services, Operations, Technology, lastly, Finance. I carefully read through the short introduction of every division and see where I'm interested with.

Before it started, a tall, suited-up man walked towards us and naturally we formed a circle. Slowly, this circle grew bigger as there're more people joined in. From the conversation, questions were asked and answered accordingly. He also shared his working experience and how we should be to fit in this competitive environment.

Not long after that, a smart and young woman got our attention. If I'm not wrong, she works in the HR department. That moment, I realized how packed the room was as there were just few of us when we arrived.
After a short introduction of the purpose of gathering everyone around, she introduced the Vice President of the Investment Bank division to give us a short speech. This is the guy that we've talked to. No wonder he seemed confident with what he was talking.


One professional from each division stood in designated corner to interact with us after the short speech.
We just have to gather around at the corner of the division that we're interested in and get to know more about that.
I asked a question that I've been wondering all the time.
"How did you start a research or studies? What drives you to do it? Clients or it is just to fulfill your curiosity?" My question was clearly answered. Turned out they did their research independently. They even build up their own model base on real life evidence and work on it. It sounded so interesting and cool!
I'm truly amazed by what they are doing.

I can't help but to observe everyone in the room. Some people were well-prepared as they were talking business and they want know these professionals' view on certain issue, some attended to know more about J.P Morgan, some were just there to see if there's any recruitment and some took it seriously like an interview or opportunity to get into this successful firm. Some dare to raise up issues and some just stood aside and listen to the conversation.

This session turned out to be very informative, fresh and exciting.
I'm very happy and satisfied with everything that I've received.

Instead of giving a talk and feed us all the information they want us to know, they provided a platform to interact with us so that we get what we want to know.

I'm motivated and inspired. Hope one day I can be one of them and able to contribute on these meaningful research.

"We are doing first class business in a first class way." 
No doubt they are.


Here's a song that started my day.

Why I take JOUR1111?

Back in Malaysia, I had a great experience and memories with Society of Student Reporter, managed by one of the most popular local Chinese newspaper and our job is to record and report anything activities that happened around the school. So every Wednesday there'll be a full page in the paper with all the articles and photos that is written by us. 

Since then I started a personal blog and I've been blogging habitually about all interesting stuff that happened on me. Although the frequency of updating the blog is decreased when Twitter and Facebook became popular few years back, I still have the passion on writing and recording anything about me that is worth to be remembered.

As a third year finance major student, I took courses about finance or business and learnt how this field works. I love everything that I've been taught because no doubt it is very interesting.
But there's one thing kept bothering me for the past two years is I cannot see myself working in this busy and hectic job field. So I thought, maybe I can work as a journalist that writes things that I've been learning and make use of it. I know that writing stuff like that is a whole different story from blogging my daily life.

That's why I enrolled into this course to get a chance to write and to learn more about being a journalist.r

I still find it interesting after 2 lectures :)

Here's a pic that I took at Hervey Bay :)