Thoughts on Lecture 8

The 8th lecture in this course was media ethics, and a guest lecturer came in to apply media ethics to real-life ethical conundrums that you face as a journalist. She first explained that in Australia, the ethicalness of a journalist's actions is based upon the rules set by the Media Alliance Code of Ethics. The three basic principles of this code of ethics is honesty, fairness and independence, which are all, in my opinion, nonnegotiable tenets. The news is only as reliable as the journalist who presents it, so those three principles are paramount to keeping the idea of 'news' alive.

She told us the story of how she was able to get an interview with the mother who suffered an unimaginable loss. The mother had recently lost her three children, all of whom died from rafting in a lake and being exposed to a live electrical wire. The guest lecturer referred type of interview as a 'death knock' because she  had to visit the home of the grieving mother and father uninvited and try and land the interview then and there.  This style of interview seems very invasive to me, but the mother consented to the interview, so I guess it was ethical.

One point she told us that really grabbed my attention was that she doesn't over-think the more depressing aspects of her career. She elaborated that coldness is the best remedy for not being overwhelmed by tragedy and despair, which makes me have a little bit more sympathy for journalists.

Assignment 3 - Factual Storytelling Exercise

Interview: ColbyCheeZe

The MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) gaming genre has become increasingly mainstream over the last few years, with the free-to-play video game League of Legends being the most popular. ColbyCheeZe is an internet personality who has been making commentaries and guides for LoL since it's early days. His YouTube channel now has over 100,000 subscribers and his livestreams on his Twitch.tv channel has had over 1.2 million views. 

Here is an edited version of the interview. This is what I am submitting for the factual storytelling exercise. 

Here is the whole interview; sorry that it cuts off abrubtly, blame the recording software. 

Thoughts on Lecture 7

Last week’s lecture was on public media with a specific focus on Australia's. Bruce kicked things off with a hilarious video by British humorist Charlie Brooker, who parodied the tired news report
formula ironically through a self-referential and cliched news report. It has nothing to do with the topic, though.

Back onto the topic at hand, Australia's public media, the ABC and SBS, have an interesting history. First and foremost, the ABC, founded in 1923, was designed with the intention to serve the public good of Australia through creating an unbiased and non-partisan medium for the public discourse. SBS followed around 50 years later, in 1975, with the goal of allowing the voices of Australia's
multicultural landscape to be heard, and is tailored for all cultural communities. Both are not meant to be corrupted by the forces of enterprise or politics, always being objective.

The problem with these two media groups is that, because of their social function, they are not allowed to create drama when their is none. They cannot sensationalize the news in any way, unlike Channel 7, 9 and 10 which have always done this and will continue to do so. I remember, I think, last year when the ABC television channel aired a hour-long documentary on the Global Financial
Crises. This particular documentary received a lot of criticism and outright backlash for being too flashy and dramatic, essentially using cheap emotive tricks and not being fact-driven. This little controversy shows how much the Australian public look towards the ABC for being 'dry' in the sense that they, the viewers, never need worry about being manipulated. This affair was, of course, featured on Media Watch, which is surprisingly on the same channel that aired the documentary. Something like this would never happen in a million years if it happened to a for-profit media group like the News of the World scandal and News Corp.

Interview: Four Court Jester

Four Court Jester is a part-time video game shoutcaster and commentator who specializes in MOBA (multiplayer online battle area) matches, similar to being a sports commentator who covers physical team-based sports. He has recently commentated live for a high-stakes League of Legends qualifiers tournament in Australia. You should also check out his Youtube channel and Twitch.tv channel. 

Below is the edited version of the interview. Unfortunately, this is not my submission for the factual storytelling exercise, but was still nevertheless a great time.

Thoughts on Lecture 6

Yesterday the latest JOUR1111 lecture was on commercial media, and it explored it's role, function and purpose in Australia. Bruce kicked things off by saying that all the commercial media conglomerate's goal is to make money and more money. This is, of course, nothing new to me and not that interesting to learn. The way in which they make profits - or lack thereof - is what sparked my interest, though. The most surprising piece of information I learned was that major news outlets cater more to the advertisers rather than the readers, viewers or listeners. The more you think about it, though, the more it makes sense.

It was also interesting to learn about all the big players in Australia's commercial media and their respective subsidiary groups. For instance, I didn't know that many of the media conglomerates such as Fairfax Media and News Corp. have their hands in more than just one medium. Television, print, radio and the world wide web are their primary domains. Some of these mediums are more profitable than others. In fact, News Corps.'s involvement in newspapers is rumored to be not a money making scheme, but rather a platform for the partisan agenda of the Murdoch empire. If you ever watched Fox news, this is not hard to believe.

The social role of commercial media has always been at odds with their profit-orientated mission. Unethical media practices such as distortion, miscommunication and sensationalism of the news will always attract more eyes and ears - and more ad revenue - but is counterintuitive to correctly informing the masses, unfortunately spawning an unworldly public-sphere. This, of course, defeats the purpose of news, which is to communicate an accurate recounting of the important stories of the day.

Thoughts on Lecture 5

Last week's lecture was on factual storytelling with pictures, and provided a rudimentary overview of photography. Buzz words such as viewpoint and light were mentioned, unlike in COMU1999 were it's as common as the word 'the'. It was, however, also heavily focused the history of photojournalism, which was surprisingly the most interesting thing I've learned all semester. In the realm of traditional media, black and white illustrations in newspapers were the norm for a very long time  It wasn't until a few years after photography was around, it then become a very commercial and economical method to use photos to capture images for important stories.

Even more interesting to learn from the lecture, though, is the history of visual media on the internet. For instance, the first picture ever uploaded on the internet was this:

Behold! The majesty of the internet.

This goes all the way back to 1992, making it two decades ago that this historic milestone of the internet occurred. In the same light, the first ever video uploaded on Youtube - which is now seven years into prime - just happens to be an impressively unimpressive, less-than-twenty-second video of a guy at the zoo talking about elephants.

Thoughts on Lecture 4

The last lecture was on sound and could only be accessed on Blackboard as an audio file. The whole thirty minute lecture is two interviews with people in field of radio. The first interview is with a man, who as apart of his career, conducts long-form intimate interviews with generally interesting people such as famous sportsmen and politicians. He discusses some of his techniques that he uses to get the most out of an interview, making it more organic and natural, and really have a deep discussion with interviewee. One that he highlights is the power of listening, ensuring that when the interesting person is divulging a meaningful anecdote or some other private information, that he/she is not interrupted. The general rule is that when an interviewee fondly reminiscing, bombarding them with follow-up questions is the worst thing for the situation. Another good point he made, was the beauty of silence in radio and how it can be used for effect. He recounted when his former co-host - unfortunately - frantically talked during a silent moment in an interview because he thought that was ruining it.

The other man of the two interviews is better known for his role in talk-back radio. The only reason I remember his name, Steve Austin, is because it's the same name of the famous "professional" wrestler. He talked about how he tries to discuss important topics of the day on his radio program, with some being more serious than others. Austin made the interesting observation that on his program, the vox populi is more vocal towards more trivial things like the feud between cyclists and motorists rather than big affairs such as the War in Iraq. I found this to be very interesting. The interview also gave me some intriguing insight into the selection process for callers who want to voice their opinions.