Leveson report…hmmmm

In the past week the long awaited report from Lord Leveson has been released to explain his findings and solutions to the British press. Due to a minority of misbehaved British journos the Prime Minister, David Cameron, put together an inquiry into the press standards to see what could be done to prevent any further wrong doings.

The report that came out is long and winding as expected so I am just going to talk about a couple of the main points.

What Lord Leveson proposed was an independent regulator of the press that was underpinned by statute but had no involvement from any journalists or politicians.

To me this line doesn’t actually make sense. No politicians but it’s underpinned by statute laws. Laws and politicians go hand in hand. They may not be controlling the regulator as yet but if anything goes wrong with it they will be the first in to take control. And they will be the ones that have the power to change the law given the right opportunity.

Journalists cannot be accountable to the government. It is journalists the keep government to account it is one of the key roles of the press.

This in itself is worrying and it has worried many newspapers and people in the media industry.

I do believe however a new independent regulator has to come in to place. The previous regulator was the Press Complaints Commission but it pretty much waited for complaints to be made which in affect meant that it was already too late. What this new regulator should be able to do is investigate organisations and their practises before a complaint is made. They should have the power to check up on how the journalistic practises are working in each establishment.

And that is what Lord Leveson is proposing to happen. But, with an underpinning of statute law.

The other problem is that the question remains who would appoint the panel for the new regulator. If it doesn’t have journalistic or political influence, who will be the right person to appoint them. And if they have no motive within the industry who says they will hold the right determination to investigate the industry.

The other important point made was the creation of a whistle blowing hotline for journalists to call if they are feeling under pressure from their editor or colleagues or if they believe there is malpractice within the workplace. The idea of this sounds good to help crack down on issues such as phone hacking from the source itself. But the worrying side is of course what could be the misuse of the hotline as an escape route. It could lead to false claims if someone just has a grudge against a fellow employee. The newsroom sure is a fight-to-the-finish kind of place.

The important thing to remember is the press is free. They have a freedom to write and report without government involvement or pressure. So to have an underpinning of statute would risk possibilities of future censorship. Unlike in the USA, we don’t have the First Amendment to protect our freedom of speech which makes it all the more important to keep government as far away as possible.

The problem now remains as to what the solution to the Leveson report will be. David Cameron has said he does not like the idea of government involvement but he was the one who commissioned this report and will need to find a settlement between the press and the Leveson report.

 

Front page photo? Really?

I recently blogged about the ethical decsions journalists and photographers have to make in real life news situations. I feel this year has been one that has seen the barrier of ethics pushed and not for the right reasons.

A few months back we had the picture of the Ambassador being dragged away as he died published on the New York Times website. We then saw a few weeks back the pictures of the clown in the Macy’s parade dead on the ground as spectators tried to revive him.

And just this week we saw pictures of a man struggling to get on to the subway platform after being pushed on to the tracks as a train approached him. Could you justify any of these pictures being taken? Could you actually take any of these pictures?

I know I can’t and couldn’t.

This recent picture taking scenario really gets to me the most. Eventhough I witnessed the Macy’s parade incident, this one seems all the more horrifying.

After witnessing a man being shoved on to the tracks with the sound of the train approaching the platform in the background, the first thing the photographer though to do was take a picture.

He defended his actions by saying he couldnt have reached the man in time. But he managed to take 49 photographs.

Photographer aside, we now have to look at the justification of the New York Post publishing the photo on its front page. Why oh why do we need to see this picture.

What is it about this picture, as I have formely said, that tells you any more about the story than words can. A man on the tracks trying to get up on to the platform as a train arrives. And even if you can’t quite muster up the scenario in your head, do you honestly want to see the fear in his eyes? Do you want to see how a man looks seconds before his life ends?

I don’t think anyone really wants to see that or needs to see that image.
People have said if it was another newspaper such as the New York Times that the image wouldn’t have been published. Yet they published the pictures of the Ambassador moments before death.

The right to privacy differs when it is a public official versus a member of public. But I don’t think we need to see anyone dying or close to death.

The problem is that the attention diverts from the story and the person involved, to the fact that the picture has been published, and so we focus on the journalistic medium.

In this case we focus on the New York Post and their decision and their paper. They are being talked about all over to the point that it feels almost like a publicity stunt. They want to show their risque and willing to go that extra step.

But that isn’t what’s important about the picture or story. A man has lost his life. We almost forget that that is what the whole situation is about. Our focus instead changes to why take the picture, why publish the picture. Words don’t distract from the focus point. Words tell you exactly what happened and what is important.

So is ethics enough?

If this is the way ethical decisions are going who knows what picture we will see next week. We really have to remember that this is real life, real people and real problems that are shown in the pictures. It’s not an episode of CSI.

Radio Drama

As you may have seen in the news today a nurse in London committed suicide over a phone hoax to the hospital she worked at from an Australian radio station.

The station hosts put on accents and pretended to be the Queen and Prince Charles as they asked to speak to Kate’s nurse to hear about how she was. The nurse, Jacintha Saldanha, believed the hosts and put the call through to the nurse who went on to tell the presenters about Kate’s condition and how she was feeling.

The hoax caused huge controversy all over the world as people felt the presenters over stepped there mark by attaining private and confidential information through false impersonation. Less was said about the security breach with more being laid on the presenters’ thoughtlessness. The presenters defended their actions by saying they never though they would be put through as their accents didn’t seem believable.

An article in fact stated that it was only Britons who took offence to the hoax with Australians finding it a harmless prank and “inoffensive”. Yet in an Australian online poll, 2 out of 3 said that it was “childish and embarrassing”.

Prank calls are common on radio shows and are often referred to as harmless fun. But this prank call was putting people’s jobs at risk and it involved the health of a member of the Royal Family. That is two serious factors to take into the equation. By trying to have a joke they were testing how the nurses would deal with calls, they were in fact testing their jobs which is not a responsibility they hold.

Personally I have never had the Queen phone me, so if someone put on an accent and persuaded me they were the Queen I might just believe that. But the hosts just picked up on the fact that they couldn’t believe they had fooled the nurse.

Of course this is now beginning to fall under a journalism scandal linking it to the phone-hacking days of the British press. But I really don’t feel these presenters can fall under the journalism bracket.

They are presenters of a radio show out to provide entertainment, not reporters trying to find facts to inform the public with. There is a difference and a big one at that.

But for some reason people are taking it out on the ‘media industry’ and therefore saying journalists have to be controlled.

Journalists (the real ones) are the people who are condemning this hoax and reporting on the wrong-doings of the presenters. They are the ones trying to hold them to account which is the job they do, not prank phone calls. They know and understand that information on the Royal Family must come from St James Palace, the media hub. (We’ll minus the little Prince Harry phone hacking incident)

But to see that something of this sort can end in such horrific circumstances is really upsetting. Nurse Saldanha, a 46 year old mother of two, decided to take her life, for reasons not entirely known at this point. What we do know is that it had a lot to do with this prank call and the scrutiny from the world she had entailed.

For most people though, it is the presenters that we see completely in the wrong and they are certainly not journalists.

Lets Unbundle

We’re used to hearing how everything is aggregating, that the way the industry is moving is to aggregate. There’s no other way, lets just make one giant news service that serves everyone (sounds a bit like the Murdoch empire).

But there is hope!

We have seen niche sites targetting specific audiences with news solely for that market but a clever little journalist called Lara Setrakian decided to tell her stories of Syria on a newsite.

Typical Syria Deeply website page

The website is called Syria Deeply and allows all stories of Syria to be published. Not just what the news organisation wants but what the journalist deems important.

These sites  are really important in a news industry where too much is bundled together thus creating stories that are all so similar. From one newspaper to the next there is a definite pattern in the stories as it is only the top news that makes it. But in times of war and political unrest it is the off-beat stories that captivate us the most and deliever us the real understanding of what is really going on.

The Syria Deeply website says that “By mixing user generated content with the insight and oversight of seasoned journalists, we merge the power of citizen journalism with the standards of the professional press.”

That is what makes this site quite different as a lot of niche sites seem to end up more citizen journalism which although can be of good quality, often lacks the journalistic edge.

Oprah Looking for Change

Oprah Magazine

Oprah Winfrey has been known for her successful business’ and positive messages but even she has struggled in the recent years to make it all work. Since her talk show ended 18 months ago the Oprah Winferey Network and magazine have not been prospering as they did before.

A lot of companies have been feeling the strain of budget cuts, loss of ad revenue and such financial difficulties since the recession but Winfrey’s ventures have always been high flying ones.

What Oprah maybe didn’t take into account was the fact that ending her talk show in fact ended her biggest advertismente. She wasn’t paying for this advertisemnent but by having her show she was in fact self-promoting her other ventures such as the Oprah magazine.

Cosmopolitan – popular magazine with the younger generation

The magazine has said to be losing readership because of this which has resulted in Oprah looking to redirect the magazine. Instead of the current readership age which averages at 49 she wants to aim for a younger audience. However there are a few factors that go against that. First of all the price at $4.50 is costly for a younger generation who don’t have extra money to save. Secondly the articles are aimed at the middle-aged person, something that the younger generation aren’t going to want to read.

She wants to aim for this genereation as she feels they are the ones that can really benefit from what she has to share as they are the ones still trying to work out life.

The Oprah Winfrey Network

It is a careful balancing act though providing the right price and the right content to a readership that is more interested in the celebrity gossip magazines and riskier articles that you would see in Cosmopolitan or such.

One advantage to Oprah no longer having her daily show is the increased time she can spend on social media such as her twitter and facebook account. What she has to do now if she wants the new magazine idea to work is to exploit social media as her new way of advertising. It could be equally effective as what her show did.

FCC to Change? Lucky for Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch isn’t someone I really rate too highly. After the Leveson inquiry in the UK it certainly raises questions as to just how involved he is in the news companies he owns. He says he was unaware of the phone hacking scandal but that’s almost more worrying since he owns the company and yet doesn’t really know exactly what is going on at it.

This is the problem with big media moguls and their attempts of monopolising the market. It turns journalism into the business structure that families years ago made sure to stay away from. Journalism should be about the reporting and investigating and holding organisations to account. But we have seen the financial struggles deepen in the past few years showing that the business side has to be a priority.

The Federal Communications Commission

Until now, although there have been conglomerate organisations, the chance of a monopoly has always been held back by the FCC rules. The Federal Communications Commission is in talks to change their media cross ownership rules which could lead to Murdoch being legally allowed to purchase a whole lot more.

The changes in regulation would allow companies to own ‘the major daily newspaper and radio outlets in the same market, and would allow one company to jointly own a daily newspaper and TV stations in the nation’s top 20 markets.’

This allows owners like Murdoch to monopolise markets by gaining a large majority of control. Why this is bad? Well if you look at a few of Murdoch’s acquisitions there is a tendency to have a very biased opinion in them such as Fox News and the Sun newspaper in the UK. He is also out to make money which, as we have seen, isn’t always the best thing for journalism.

Also soon to be under the Murdoch name

Are they ready to change?

According to the article his next big ventures include the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. The FCC regulations as present prevent his from doing so but if they change as reported there is very little stopping him. Could be potentially life changing for the two major newspapers.

Ethical Reality

Ethics and journalism is a difficult subject. We all say we would report, photograph and publish x, y and z but that is when we aren’t actually in the situation. When we know there is no consequences to our decision. I believe that we have to show the public some difficult things sometimes to allow them to see what is really going on in the world. The picture of the child and the vulture? It’s important to show that situations like this actually happen and are happening. The photo of Ambassador Stevens dying and being dragged away? I don’t see the need because I don’t feel the picture tells you any more than what words can, we’ve all seen photos similar to this.

At the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade a 67 year old man, who was part of the show, collapsed and died on the street. He had suffered a heart attack and his wife, who was also in the parade, had to watch the events unfolding. A couple of photographers who were at the parade stood a few metres away trying to get pictures as members of the public tried to save the man by doing cpr. Police officers threatened the photographers telling them to get away from the scene. Members of the public shouted abuse telling them ‘to go get some class’.

The next day photographs surfaced online of the incident showing the man’s face along with images of him being taken into the ambulance.  They also showed the wife sitting in the golf cart crying.

If you read the story and look at the pictures it is a tragic accident and one that you hear of often. For me, unfortunately, I was standing right where it happened. This was my first time attending the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade. I was positioned at the barrier where the man collapsed. I had to watch his wife run over crying and repeatedly saying ‘please no, please no’ as she leant over her husband. I had to watch the lady next to me jump over the barrier and rush to his side where she tried to resuscitate him. I had to watch the photographer come up and try take photographs. I had to endure what felt like an excruciating long time until the paramedics arrived. To hear them tell everyone to stop trying to save him, that he was gone.

It was in that moment the real truth of what an ethical decision really meant hit me. A guy just doing his job versus a man dying with his wife crouched over him. Do we really need to see a picture of that? Or can we gather the basis of the story with simple words. Journalism is very much a business and editors want those pictures so they can sell stories and gain views to their online content. If you are the outlet with the picture, you’re the one that’s going to be bought and read.

But this is where journalism and business may have started to overlap too much. We have always wanted to see good pictures but it has got to the point where it could be considered as crossing the line. Showing pictures of the dead man on a stretcher being taken into the ambulance isn’t something you need to see. But it is what sells the papers. And in that moment I wouldn’t have wanted to take that picture. The picture wasn’t artistic, it wasn’t creative and it didn’t show a new side to something. It was a man having a heart attack while his wife and thousands of spectators looked on. Surely he should have been allowed one last piece of dignity and not had his photo taken.

Campus Censorship a Concern?

Being a journalism student at university is tough. I know once we go out in the big bad real world it is going to get a lot worse with increased responsibility and stress levels that make university seem like a summer camp.

But for now, from my experiences so far in life, journalism at university is tough. You are expected to be a full time student with all the usual essay, homework and reading assignments along with the expectation that you are a full time journalist. Because when you get an assignment to do, it isnt about how long you spend it, it’s about luck and whether those contacts get back to you. Persistence takes you so far but honestly a little bit of luck can get you so much farther.

Although the point of doing journalism at university is to learn how to do the work of a journalist you really are expected to learn this by diving head first to some extent. Article assignments have to contain many sources’ which entails picking up the phone and conducting interviews.

As is with a lot of assignments they can often be university based. Not necessarily directly but the topic you choose can often have a direct link to the university. The problem with this is your story can very often end up as a fluff puff story. In other words a story about how everything is wonderful with rainbows and candy floss. Because when you talk to university officials, they don’t want to say that anything is wrong.

I have come across it myself while reporting on stories. You find students saying one thing, faculty agreeing with the students, but when you interview the faculty they tell you that everything is great and they are happy with the way things are running. They cover their backs. It is a big problem for journalism students as because they are coming from within the institution, people are less likely to want to talk.

Now I know censorship is a strong word. And when we initially think of censorship with think of foreign countries whose government controls what they write and what they watch. But universities have come under some scrutiny as to their censorship.

An interesting article in the Huffington Post described a case where a journalism student was suspended for asking what staff members thought of the hockey coach for his journalism assignment. Wanting to protect the university is one thing but preventing their own journalism students from asking questions is another.

Universities can’t teach journalism if they are not going to comply with it themselves. There is nothing wrong with universities protecting their students and faculty. But they have to allow questions to be asked and answered with the truth. It is not the case for all universities, but it is something that has been cropping up and needs to be stamped out.

 

Oh BBC…

The popular BBC Newsnight with Jeremy Paxman

Well what can I say. BBC is one part of our institution that I can say I am proud of and I trust the BBC’s news reportings. Each broadcast professor says that BBC is the best news service you can watch. There news coverage is like no other it is what you should, and what I strive, to be.

But unfortunately like many other news organisations they had to slip up. This mistake wasn’t a simple apology and over with, it was way more serious.

For those of you following the British news I can assume you will have heard about the recent sex abuse scandal involving the late tv personality, Jimmy Savile. He was an iconic part of British tv history but is now understood he could be the worst child sex offender the UK has ever encountered with over 300 victims.

It has really been stuck in the media cauldron since the story broke and within that has been stirred by every news outlet to extract new information, leads and stories to tell. As is common with UK newspapers it has resulted in the many gossip style stories and as is with stories of such scale, it has brung up a lot of false claims.

We almost come to expect that with our newspapers but broadcast is the sacred heart of our british news. That is one of the main differences between the US and UK news scene. The way americans look at the New York Times is the way the British look at BBC news. Fox news is how we view the Sun newspaper. It’s opposites!

The BBC Newsnight line of responsibility

So, when the BBC is getting themselves in trouble, you know its bad. And when the BBC news director and deputy step down you know its really bad.

The programme under fire was Newsnight which broadcast a segment on the sex abuse scandal which led to false accusations against the former Conservative treasurer Lord McAlpine.

It is worrying to think how a programme of such calibre managed to make such a mistake. This is something you would expect to see in a newspaper not a broadcast on television.

With the Leveson inquiry only finishing in the summer it has brought to question whether newspapers are the only mediums needing more regulations. The Sun newspaper’s associate editor Trevor Kavanagh has said: “I think that what’s happened at the BBC should give Lord Leveson pause for thought before he publishes his report this month. What it has shown is that despite all the legal framework that is attached to broadcasters, that they are just as capable as getting it wrong as the written media.”

BBC is known for its investigative journalism and the public have come to trust what it shows them. With a re-shuffle in the news director positions it will be important for the BBC to regain the trust of the nation and rid of any doubt in what they further report.

People love Social Media, so do Politicians!

In the 2008 election a lot of people said social media really won it for Obama. It helped give him the edge over McCain who wasn’t in touch with the younger generation. This year was definitely going to be interesting but instead of a focus on how social media could aid the campaign, it became much more about how social media would cover the election itself.

Showing Obama still has the upper hand in social media

Twitter had only been around for a couple of years back in 2008 and it was the first time the power of social media in communicating to the masses was really exercised for an event to this scale. By sending out a single tweet Obama would be communicating with his 23 million followers. That is more than a single TV ad would do and twitter was free!

Adrianna Huffington said back in 2008 that; “Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee,”

Big Bird was a trending topic after Romney’s remark in the debate

Although we followed twitter throughout, and were bombarded with many celebrity endorsements for Obama, what was interesting this year was the reporting through social media. From Big Bird to Obama announcing he’d won on twitter at 11:14pm it was social media we turned to to hear the news. What each candidate had said and who was winning on election night. Television broadcast stations relied on social media to aid their coverage. They have had to accept that simply showing video of what is going on in the debate isn’t enough. They need more to be able to pull in decent ratings because the audience no longer relies on the broadcast version. The audience can simply turn the tv off and turn twitter and Facebook on, and be kept up to date with what’s going on, what’s being said and who is winning. It’s tough for broadcast as they can’t compete directly with social media as it is a different medium.

Example of social media incorporated into broadcast

What they can do, and have done this year is incorporate social media into their broadcast. Many stations had on their debate coverage a twitter feed down the side of the screen. The idea being that you then don’t have the need to check social media as they are doing that for you. You only have to look at one screen. And without the social media running commentary, the debates would have been far less interesting. Opinion is what draws us into the social media sites and the reactions from people all across the world. It is something a simple broadcast can’t cover.

Barack Obama shares the news on Twitter

So election night. We want to watch it on TV. We want to have the cinematic experience! But how many people actually found out the results through the TV? Or if they did, was social media what they used to check it was true? With so many stations broadcasting the election there was a delayed reaction to announcing Obama as the re-elected president. A domino effect then swept through the stations as they each learned the news. But in that split second it was Facebook and twitter that became the fact checker. A broadcast station has hundreds of people working for them. Twitter and Facebook has millions. Therefore social media would know. And right enough that was what people believed. The TV is saying yes but oh wait, okay yes twitter says it is true so it must be. And that is the power of social media. Something that broadcast stations’ try to keep up with but due to sheer volume and scale, it’s physically impossible.

In four years’ time, when the next election comes around, it will be interesting to see what the new hype is. By that time we may have exhausted social media for the campaigning and reporting. There may be a new medium we are all fascinated with. Something which the next candidates will be able to use to their advantage. It’s possible, because 8 years ago, the thought of the internet or social media being able to aid a presidential campaign would have been laughable.