Inspirational words to live by

Some of my favorite quotes

‘I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of brotherhood and peace can never become a reality…I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word’

-Martin Luther King

‘You see, Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice. It makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties. It doubts our concern. It questions our commitment. Because there is no way we can look at what is happening in Africa and, if we were honest, conclude that it would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else’

-Paul David Hewson (Bono)

‘The traveller is active – he goes strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive – he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes ‘sight-seeing’.

-Daniel J. Boorstin

 The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life.

-John F. Kennedy

 

Lecture Thirteen: Stephan Molks

In our final lecture, we were introduced to Stephan Molkonton, or as he prefers to be called, MOLK. It was a an interesting and entertaining lecture for me, not only because Steve himself has a dry and witty sense of humor, but to see someone who has actually acheived something successful with writing a blog. I have to admit, I never thought just writing thoughts in an online diary on a screen would ever get me very far. Even now, i'm looking at my blog-post count and thinking, yeah - 5 views, that is me checking it four times and the tutor marking it once. Its a lonely and depressing world for a budding jouro with nothing but a blog to pour their heart into. 

My overall blog scrutiny make me remember my woes of my 2010 year twelve maths class, where I would moan and groan about 'When are we going to use this in real life? This is pointless!". I really could have used someone to the likes of Steve to come into the classroom and see a real-life success story. Just, BOOM - in walks a handsome, young successful builder who tells of his mighty tales of fixing houses and measuring things, his career solely shaped by the fact that he completed his maths homework in grade eleven.

I had to laugh at Steve's remark when he admitted , "When I am introduced as a 'Blogger', even I cringe!". Who wants to be introduced as a 'Blogger'?  Truthfully, its an ugly word and many people have no clue as to what this actually means. This is because it is a rather new and generally unknown concept within society, especially among the older generation. However, blogging is slowly merging itself into the media world. It allows someone with no degrees and no qualifications to write about whatever they like, and receive respect and admiration from it. 

Is this fair? I'm undecided. If blogging can get you the fame, money and respect as Molks has received from his website, why should I bother getting a degree in journalism? On the other hand, blogging is only one form of formulating and receiving information. I'm one of those people that cannot yet catorgorize it as 'Journalism', Perhaps because I have too much respect for the title to throw it around at anyone who writes something, somewhere. I don't yet consider myself a journalist, not until I am writing for a company and having my articles published. Its a bit like saying, I can take pretty photos with instagram, therefore I am a photographer. 

Whatever the case, it must be remembered that blogging is just a platform for me. Like they say, in anything you do, one must start from the bottom and work their way up. Some of my fellow classmates might continue to blog long after they have their degree, making a career out of it in the trendy new media world. Some may leave it to rot in the webisphere, a reminder of what they could have been when they are serving customers at KFC. And some, like me, may look back on their blog one day and say, yeah - thats where I started. And I sucked. But it was good experience in achieving what I am today. 

So, I will try and continue with my blog whenever I feel the inspiration. I have no idea where it could lead me, and that is the exciting part about journalism. There are so many avenues it can take you on, so many opportunities to express your skills in a whole range of media platforms. Thank you, class of JOUR1111. I hope to see you all next semester and for the years to come. If not, i'll have an original fillet burger with potato and gravy on the side, thanks ;)

Impartiality: Confusing us yet again.

By now, I have recognised the outright impartiality of the media , who are the ones often  covering the most news-worthy stories. Two different outlets covering the same story can lead to two totally different views and opinions on the subject. This creates two conflicting articles that, if read one after the other, would cause ones mind to form a hovering distrust of journalist’s reports and abandon reading them altogether. 

I’m sure by now we have all heard of the shocking incident of an assault of a nine-year-old girl holidaying in Bali. The facts I know so far is that she was sleeping; a man took her away and did something terrible to her. But that is where it ends. This is because, at the moment, when trying to figure out what really happened to her, I have so many inconsistent pieces of media thrown at me, it’s hard to understand what took place.

So when I first decided to look further into this, I was confronted with a shocking headline:

But then reading further, it was detailed as not actually rape but 'Suspecting of Molesting'. 

Although both are terrible experiences and vile in their nature, the word RAPE springs different images into our mind than SUSPECTED OF MOLESTING. To me, the former is a violent, planned, painful, hate filled experience, while the former could be something  less violent, such as a man on a bus sneaking a quick ass grab. 

Upon further research, I discovered another headline which conflicted with my prior feelings towards the case:

The headline 'BALI DRIVER ACCUSED OF ASSAULTING AUSTRALIAN GIRL', does not connjour up images as vile as the last one. To me, this implies he was simply 'accused', almost as though we should sympathize with him for being 'accused' of such an act. Furthermore, the photos in the first headline convince me that he is more guilty than in the above picture, which almost seems as if he is pleading his innocence to the police. 

Who knows, I supposed it isn't as important as what I make it out to be, but I still thought it was interesting... Do journalists plan their headlines and pictures carefully to sway the viewer? 90% certain. 

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One more thing I would like to mention is the coverage of this story in damaging Indonesia's already tarnished reputation. Although this 'attempted rape' of a white, young Australian girl is tragic, it makes me wonder why there are no articles about the amount of nine-year-old Balinese children being sexually exploited by Australian men.  

I won't sit here and pretend it doesn't happen. I've been to Bali, I've been to Manila. I have seen the young twelve year old girl's dressed to look at least seventeen year old sexual beings. I've seen the hunger in the eye of walking white tourists, every pedophiles playground. 

Just something interesting to let the ethical side of your brain to consider. 

Lecture Twelve: Investigative Journalism

The work of the revered, faithful, true investigative journalist undoubtedly plays a pivotal role in the preservation of what journalism stands for. The determination, integrity and reliability of many writers is rather fragile, with many different version of events spread across different mediums. I feel this means there is a decline by the general public in their faithfulness in everyday news articles.

Enter the investigative journalist, who I feel somewhat reflects the role of a detective. A determined journo will stop at nothing to uncover a nation-stopping story, going to all ends of the earth to find the truth. There are issues out there that your average citizen could have never thought possible in their wildest dreams. To uncover and tell the world of these unjust and often horrific, shocking and sickening stories is in some way, an effective avenue in generating social change.

Public awareness is the key factor when setting out to uncover these elusive stories, to bring a general consciousness to the injustices of the world around them. Without these special kinds of journalists, who knows where we would be today.

Commendable investigative journalists throughout history 

From the work of Julius Chambers, who had himself committed to the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum in 1872. After ten days, he was released and wrote of the amount of perfectly sane people imprisoned at the facility, the general abuses on the patients, as well as the volumes of unnecessary lobotomies being performed on revolting patients. His writings were published in the ‘New York Times’ , which led to dozen patients being released, and members of the administration being dismissed.

Julius Chambers, 1912

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Herbert Swope, who worked as the editor for New York World 's 21-day crusade against the Ku Klux Klan in October 1921, which won the 'Pulitzer Prize for Public Service' in 1922. A fine example of investigative journalism, it was ranked 81 out the top 100 journalism stories of the 20th century by New York University's journalism sector.

Herbert Swope in LIFE magazine

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Seymour Hersh, who broke the story of the notorious 'My Lai Massacre' on November 12, 1969, in which hundreds of innocent Vietnamese civilians were murdered by US soldiers in March 1968.The report prompted worldwide condemnation and dramatically reduced public support for the Vietnam War. The explosive news of the massacre fuelled the outrage of the US peace movement, which demanded the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam.

Seymour Hersh still at work

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Anna Politkovskaya was a Russian reporter on the Chechnya conflict, and covered the terrible Russian treatment of the Chechen people. Her investigations and heroic efforts led to many investigative reports published in Novaya Gazeta, such as the Russian poisoning of children. Her work was widely recognized by international organizations until she was sadly murdered in 2006. She is not forgotten, as today there is a respect award in her name that  honors other women who report under circumstances of great danger.

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The work of these journalists is astounding to me, their determination is so admirable and inspirational, with many bringing essential awareness and social change. A risky career indeed, it makes me wonder if the risk is worth the story. Then I think, where would we be without risk? Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Eddie Mabo, Oscar Schindler, Germaine Greer - some of the most inspirational revolts and saints of our time would have achieved nothing without risk, without sheer desire to uncover truth, banish injustices and achieve a fair, aware and balanced world. 

Lecture Eleven: Agenda Setting

I never quite realised, or wanted to believe, the power media has on our society. One would like to believe that we are all free citizens, with our own mind to make our own decisions and formulate our own opinions about issues and stories circulating our globe today. I’m pretty positive, despite our personal liberties, there is a large number of people out there who believe everything they hear, read and view. Blindly sitting on their couch, watching the evening news, processing the information, formulating judgements and retaining the facts – but never stopping to ask themselves: what am I really seeing here?

There is no doubt that media spin and propaganda has been a valuable tool to infiltrate the vulnerable minds of citizens throughout history. Hitler’s Third Reich spent a large amount of time, effort and money to build a media campaign to spread fear and hatred of Jews throughout Germany, making degradation, torture and murdering of Jewish people somehow acceptable at that time.

Now, of course this is an extreme example. But it does show the power of the media in warping its clientele to perceive something a certain way, in this case, in a manipulative, dishonest and unethical way. Modern journalists, we should hope, do not set out with the aim to destroy our fellow human beings. However, there is always an agenda. It is very hard to read an article, watch a news broadcast or listen to a radio interview without picking up a particular point of view on an issue, a topic or a person. In the journalism world, this is called ‘Agenda Setting’. 

Lippman said “Propaganda is used as a tool to help shape images in the minds of human beings in support of an enterprise, idea or group”. Looking at the image here, can you  disagree with this statement? The cover on the left depicts OJ Simpson as a common criminal, his mugshot is the focus, 'trail of blood' perpetuating his 'murderous' tendencies. Contrary to this is 'TIME's cover of the same issue, idealizing Simpson in a dramatic frame of black, 'An American Tragedy' emotionally entitling the cover. Seeing these two side by side on a magazine stand must make one wonder of the impartiality of today's journalists.  

Now, not all readers are laughably gullible, I recognize that. They're not all as dumb as what I somewhat made them out to be, granted. 

I LOVE THIS QUOTE.

One could say... The media decides what is important in this country and the world. They decide what us readers should be most concerned about. The more coverage an issue or story has, the more public opinion and support there will be towards that cause. One example that comes to mind is the whole KONY phenomena. Notice how no body seemed to remotely care about the plight of child soldiers in Uganda before this aesthetically pleasing and heart-wrenching  film went viral. On one had, I supposes that shows a somewhat positive side of journalism... But i'll bet you a well-written article on starving children in Africa or the AIDS epidemic will be pushed back to page twenty-four of your daily paper, while the front cover bears a photograph of a cute gorilla, headlining "BOOBOO NEW AT THE ZOO". 

Whatever, it's all too politically corrupt and totally messed up for me to even go into that right now. All I can take away from this, is one day, I hope to bring people's attention to the real issues of the world. 

Lecture Nine: News Values

Waugh seems to encapsulate the confronting dilemmas budding cadet journalists need to come to terms with in their first few years. However soul crushing it may be, the articles a young journalist writing for the 'Emerald Post', or the like, are not going to be riveting, life saving or even appreciated by the readers. Your average forty-something year old, alcoholic, all Aussie macho man tradie male is not going to be clutching his heart in emotional distress when you're article about teenage alcoholism is published on page fourteen. 

Truth is, most people don't care about something that doesn't affect them personally or doesn't have much to do with current events. When the man of the house wakes up in the morning, clutching a cup of coffee in one hand and flicking through the newspaper in the other, he wants news. Simple, old-fashioned, straight up facts about what is happening in the world today. News headlines, weather, politics, tax. Interesting things to make him say WOWEE and possible a bit of a chuckle. So yes, I know you poured your heart, soul and a few tears in into your article on AIDS or racism, but trust me - i'm sure that section of the daily mail is either going to be 'saved for later' or recycled as 'old news' at the end of breakfast. 

Don't get me wrong... I am all for those types of world-changing articles and in my opinion, are news worthy and should be highlighted for the public to read. But in terms of news values, of its value to readers on a population scale, they just don't fit in to mainstream news. Not headlines, anyway. Like they say, "If it bleeds, its leads": the horrific beheading, dismembering and peculiar freezer storage of local high school girl is automatically more shocking, interesting and valuable then the fact that 600 people were killed in a bomb blast in Iraq. If it bleeds - it leads. Whatever people tell you, they crave gore, scandal and gossip. Murder, child prostitution and political backstabbing will make the front page every time. This is what is valuable to people of your local or national Australian newspaper. 

However, the Iraqi bombing will not go unnoticed, with local Middle Eastern newspapers and Al Jazeera scooping it up and making it the breaking news of the day. This is what is valuable to them - and this is the pinnacle of the whole lecture, from what I have gathered. 

News values are not a universal truth we can all agree upon. What stories are revered or tragic in one country or community will be rather blasé in another. Honestly, in my opinion, I consider this a rather positive fact of life. It means journalism is a career for writers who are interested in all topics. There is an outlet out there for every issue out there and one day, hopefully you will find a career writing about the things that are most valuable and close to your heart for people who are interested in what you have to say.

Until then, though, i'm afraid us budding journos will be forced to write about the carbon tax, the brutal murder of  local school principal, the ride of pedofiles, the amazing dog who can speak or god forbid, Lara Bingle's new (failing) reality television program.