The Log of My Blog

My SSIT project is a blog. The topic is about journalism. As a journalism pathway student, I learned a lot about journalism through this one year’s study. Journalists is not a simple job as I knew before, there are many theories, debates and changes            related to journalism. 

I am trying to cover the journalism issues from different aspects. I set my articles into three main categories. Firstly, introduction to journalism. Some basic information about journalism is essential for readers to  know. What is news? What is the production and construction of the news process? What is the differences of journalists specialized in different aspects?

Secondly, traditional journalism. In this category, the topic including music journalsits, war journalists, and photo journalists. I upload a interview video of Ben Gilbert, who is a famous music journalist works for Yahoo Music. Also, I introduce two typical war journalists. One is the greatest photo journalists  Robert Capa. The other one is a famous female Chinese war journalists Lvqiu Luwei. Write some stories about real journalists could leave a direct and deep impression on readers, and could reflect the true life of journalists. 

The third part is online journalism. With the wide application of the Web 2.0 and the large amount of bloggers, traditional journalists have been changed a lot. Citizen journalists has an increasingly role in the report of breaking news. DIY media and User-generated content make it possible for ordinary people to control and participate in the production of news, not only passively received it as before. Compared with traditional journalism, online journalism has lots of advantages, such as the immediacy, interactivity, and the unlimited space. On the one hand, traditional journalists start to adopt to online platform. On the other hand, people are worrying about citizen journalists will replace professional journalists.

A good blog is not just about writing and posting, the whole design is also very important. I add the links to other journalists’ blogs. A list of my category is on the right side of blog, readers could find the related articles easily. Also, I put the RSS of BBC news and Twitter of a journalist from the Guardian. 

Most people think write blog is an easy and interesting job. I keep writing my Chinese blog for more than 2 years, and also think there is no difficult for me to do that. However, to set up a relatively professional blog and update regularly are not as simple as I thought. I have to choose a certain topic of my posts which could fit the theme of my blog, not whatever I like.

What’s more, compared with paper writing, blog is a multimedia platform. Apart from writing about the topic, images and videos must be provided as well. As a result, readers may have more choices and know much more background or depth information.  At the same time, it enables blog to become interesting and attract readers. 

Copyright is an important point when download pictures and videos from the Internet. Most of my videos are from YouTube, two of them are my original videos. Online image sources are together with URL. Meanwhile, some pictures are taken by myself. 

Blog, as an online platform, is easy for readers to comment on it and exchange ideas. I reply the comments of my blog and also visit other blogs to leave my comments. 

There are the links of my comments.

http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2008/04/30/how-journalists-can-master-twitter/#comment-81361

http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2008/03/06/ten-ways-journalism-has-changed-in-the-last-ten-years-bloggers-cut/#comment-81364

http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/students/2008/02/08/five-things-student-editors-should-do-with-facebook-in-2008/#comment-1747

Overall, the final project is a good chance for me to review and apply the knowledge I learned about journalism in the SSIT module.  Meanwhile, have the ability to operate a theme blog is also an essential skill for online journalists.   

Best Things of Journalism

Best Journalism Books

1. “In Search of Light” edited by Edward Bliss Jr. (Knopf, 1967).
2.  ”Not So Wild a Dream” by Eric Sevareid (Knopf, 1946).
3.  ”A Child of the Century” by Ben Hecht (Simon & Schuster, 1954).
4.  ”The Front Page” by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur (Covici Friede, 1928).
5.  ”Sarajevo Daily” by Tom Gjelten (HarperCollins, 1995).

 

Best Journalism Films

1. “Sweet Smell of Success”
2.  ”All The President’s Men” 
3.  ”Paper”
4. “Deadline U.S.A.”
5. “His Girl Friday”
6. “Foreign Correspondent”
7. “Front Page”
8. “Broadcast News” 
9. “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”
10.  ”The Big Clock”

 

Most VIsited UK Newspaper

1. Sun
2. Guardian
3. Daily Mail
4. Mirror
5. Times
6. Daily Star
7. Independent
8. Telegraph
9. News of the World
10. Evening Standard

A List of The 51 Best Ever Magazines

A List of Best Journalists

A List of Best News Websites

Magazine Journalism or Magazine Advertising?

 

 

People in the UK spend around £2 billion on magazine each year. 2.600 magazines are sold every minute of every day in the UK. Obviously, magazine is a popular media product in the UK. 

Magazine are generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles, and financed by advertising. 

However, there are some traditional criticism of magazines. In the first place, magazine is a commercial market driven for. It don’t just sell journalism to readers, but also sell readers to advertisers. 

In magazines, advertising could reach the target audience, educate them about their products or services, and move them closer to making a purchase. The whole idea of advertising in the magazines could sum up in one word: Image. Different from the limited space and certain page structure in the newspapers, it is possible for advertisers to print more complex layouts of their products. It could be reflect in one whole page with a full-colour and glossy format. 

In addition, most magazines have specific market demographics based on different location, occupation, age and gender. In this case, advertisers could choose the type of magazines which are related with their target consumers. For instance, the make up advertising will focus on female magazines.  

Magazine advertising is one of the most powerful marketing tools. Therefore, it is not a simple journalism product which could provide information for citizens to participate in democracy. To some extent, magazines are vehicles for consumer capitalism. It encourages lots of false needs.  

Furthermore, the feminist media theorists argue that magazines promote stereotypes. 

Women in magazine advertising are always presented as beautiful and sexy. The female models are all gorgeous.They dress well with expensive jewellery and perfect make up. They are looking good and charming in the advertising. Sometimes, people buy the magazine just for looking at advertising and try to change themselves as the model. 

Another representation of women is domestic. They are often described as housewife to stay at home. Their jobs are looking after kids, washing clothes and cleaning the house. Therefore, many advertisements related to foods, kitchen and bathroom staff could be seen in magazines. 

Take the In Style magazine advertising as an example. Only a Body, In Style.One of many gender stereotypes, this advertisement depicts women as mindless figures, present only for sexual display.  Her eyes and head are left out of the photo, thereby focusing attention on her sexuality. 

Nevertheless, people are not meant to be put into categories or definitions. Stereotypes limit human potential, individuality and creative thinking. 

Image source:

https://e-folio.web.virginia.edu/E-folio-Archive2/1/EDIS542/2004Fall-1/cs/UserItems/Resources/rej9u_542pg6.jpg

DIY Media For Journalism

When talking about the online journalism, we cannot neglect the importance of Web 2.0. Web 2.0 became notable after the first O’Reily Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004. It was caused by the movement to the Internet as platform and based on network effects created by‘architecture of participation’. It is a social phenomenon aiming to enhance the creativity and functionality of the web.

Significantly, Web 2.0 promotes the changing attitudes and improved freedom of sharing and re-uses information.  There is an increasingly “DIY media” in an automated age. Once people participate in the activity, they could become experts through their involvement. Web 2.0 reflects the shift from HTML to XML, which allows individuals to extend the hunting-and-gathering abilities via Internet. Compared with HTML, XML focuses more on content rather than formatting and it leads to easily transferred and indexed information. “DIY media” has spread widely over the traditional media.

These DIY culture and User-generated content media has huge influence on both ordinary people and professional journalists.

Firstly, YouTube is a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips. People could broadcast themselves to the whole world and develop their own audience. Meanwhile, if you are interested with other videos, you can communicate with users about shared interests. (YouTube Website) YouTube provides chances for expressing yourselves through video. Further more, it is also a social networking tool to meet new people and be part of a community.

Secondly, Facebook makes possible for a group of people who want to enjoy a more open and connected world. Millions of people keep in touch with friends through Facebook. They could write diaries, upload daily photos, and share links and videos, and join different groups.  

Within a group, users are able to start a conversation to discuss the issues. In addition, users could express opinions in the diaries and readers could comment on them just as the blog. With functions of uploading photos and videos as YouTube and Flickr, users are constantly interacting with User-Generated Content (UGC). To some extent, Facebook is bringing web 2.0 mainstream. It is educating mass to understand what web 2.0 technologies are.

The most typical latest example of the influence of Web 2.0 and DIY media is the victory of Barack Obama. The most famous one is Chris Hughes, who is one of the co-founders of Facebook.

Obama set up his personal brand through web 2.0 and DIY media, and spread it to the whole country, even the world. Obama is popular in the virtual community such as Facebook with more than 2 million friends. According to demographic segment, his team mainly targets people age from 18 to 25.  By comparison, the figure of McCain is only 560,000. Another statistics shows that on YouTube, videos related to Obama’s campaign have been viewed 92 million times, more than triple the times of McCain. Just in one week, Obama’s team uploaded 70 videos. A speech video about race made by Obama has been watched 5 million times since March. Democratic strategist Joe Trippi said, “ The networks would never give the president that much television time each week, but the press is still going to have to cover what he says on YouTube.”

Another Web 2.0 communicate tool is Twitter. It is a service that allow people to post short updates (max 140 characters) about what they are doing. People could follow each other’s status.

Though it is really simple, journalists are thinking about how to use it in a professional way, as a tool to report the latest news to readers and ask for help from contacts and sources.

Twitter could be used for newsgathering. The more people you follow on, the more chances you may get the useful content.  Twitter was used in the Sichuan earthquake in China and the terrorist in Mumbai. The Labour Party and conservatives both have their own Twitter accounts.

In order to use Twitter better, users could use Twits Like Me to fine people who have similar interests. Tweetscan is for searching key words. Twitterlocal could help you to find twitter in your local area.

In addition, Twitter is a platform for news publishing, distribution and creation. Many newspapers have separate Twitter accounts for different sections, such as business, traffic and sports.

Here is A guide about how to use Twitter , and  a list of ten Twitter users that journalism student could follow.

10 things could do on Twitter

1. What you are doing right now
2. What you will be doing later
3. A useful link you‘ve found
4. Retweet something interesting someone else has tweeted
5. Something you’ve done
6. Something you’ve seen
7. A message to someone else on Twitter
8. A quote
9. A question
10. A call for assistance 

         (Written by Paul Bradshaw)

Last, here is a video project I made for multimedia journalism course about Facebook. 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgw_s2FsVqs]

Online Journalism

A large amount of traditional media has already figured out how to do journalism online. They operate the news website and allow journalists to write blog for supporting website.

 

Online journalism makes possible to update news continuously. A single news website could post hundreds of latest information on news stories minute by minute. Particularly for breaking news such as Gaza Crisis. Readers could know the news through the front page of newspaper, and then they could follow the latest results of Egypt and Syria negotiations with Hamas, the decision of the United Nations and the amount of death people on the news website.

 

Moreover, online journalism allows readers to interact with news stories. They could make comments on the news immediately or exchange opinions with others through message boards. In the Guardian’s newsUnlimited site, readers could start a debate about certain issue. The site provides links of other evidence and conclusions arguing by both sides of the debate.

 

Journalists always summery the news on the limited space of newspaper, but they could provide more background and details of the news story on news website or their blog. As a multimedia platform, news website also can offer a variety of pictures and videos. People can hear the interview while reading the report.

 

The Iraq War began at 2003 was a time for many journalists to report it online. In Britain, there were about 4.5 million readers click the Guardian newspaper’s website at the first day of the war. The statistics from Hitwise research reflect that the leading online newspaper website was the Guardian’s site with 7.26 per cent share of the market. It was followed by FT.com of 5.17 per cent.

 

Some traditional journalists start their blog reporting as well. Not all the information from the Internet were reliable, news-oriented blogs which consist of participatory reporting, commentary and news analysis  were receiving a high attention.  Kevin Sites, a journalist of CNN, apart from his television reports, wrote ‘behind the scenes’ features on CNN website. At this blog, he published his personal commentary, his witness of the day, and with photos and audio. Similarly, MSNBC started blog reporting. One of the blog producers Joan Connell said “It can be used to great effect in reporting an unfolding story and keeping readers informed”, and “MSNBC’s blog is edited. Our editors scrutinize our blog for accuracy, fairness and balance, just as they would any news story”.

 

On the one hand, online journalism needs to be revised further more. The rules developedn from tradtional media may be not appropriate for the Internet. On the other hand, it should be noticed that the online journalism expands the quality, range and choice of entertainment and information for the ordinary people. They could control the media content rather than passive receive as before. More competition will be put on the tradional journalists, because their readers and audience are able to select the suitable news.

Citizen Journalists VS Traditional Journalists

With theorists of mass media regard news as unsatisfactory and the wide application of the internet and blog, some argue that bloggers and citizen journalists could generally replace journalists in the production of news.

However, though the use of blog has dramatic influence on news, it still cannot totally replace professional journalists.

 

The most significant point that blogger cannot replace journalists is the content of the news stories. Most bloggers do not report news on their own, while they usually write comment based on the  news produced by professional journalists. There are five basic factors of news, namely, what, where, when, who, and why. It is impossible for bloggers to cover all the five factors in their articles.

 

Take the Hudson airplane event as an example. In this breaking news, citizen journalists(eye-witness) could post where(Hudson), when(the time of the accident) and who(pilot and passengers) immediately through blog or Twitter.  Nevertheless, when the news moves to a part of ‘News Analysis’, it is difficult for citizen journalists to answer the question of how and why. By contrast, professional journalists have chances to attend press release and interview the officials from airline company, read related reports, and interview participants. Then, journalists can finish a completed  news story.

 

News are data. Citizen journalists may have opportunity to be in the right place at right time and provide raw data. However, this is not enough. News analysis requires historical, theoretical, economic, political and sociological knowledge.

 

Moreover, the style of writing between bloggers and journalists is different. Plenty of blogs is a platform for bloggers to deliver with opinion. But express personal thoughts is not the same as objective news reporting.

 

Compared with the unexpectedness of breaking news, predictability is an essential skill of reporting news. Journalists could know some newsworthy events will happen at a particular time and place, in order to prepare for the equipment and report it in real time. Professional journalists always write diary to record predictable news, such as political issues ( American election, G20 meeting), social and sporting occasions ( the Nobel price-giving, the Olympic Games). Some institutional sources of news are from the bureaucratic organisations. 

 

Another advantage of journalists is expertise.  Journalist who have worked for the largest news organisations several years, gained lots of writing and interview experiences. Therefore, no matter it is an international news or a local story, they could report it in a high quality because they know the subject. Meanwhile, the job of editors in the news organisations is also necessary. The accuracy of the news is guaranteed. Journalists and editors are applying the same principles, write in an objective and impartiality way, avoid inappropriate pictures and illegal information.Impartiality and 99objectivity are proposed as the result of the journalists’ expensive education and professional training.

 

One sense of professionalism is someone who earns their living from an occupation. Journalists get paid from their writing. On the contrary, many of bloggers could take both roles of consumers and producers of news. On the one side, bloggers may become citizen or accidental journalists  in certain circumstances to provide information others cannot. On the other side, blogger will not regard journalist as an occupation and earn money.

 

Nevertheless, the point must be noticed is that the internet and blog help journalists to improve their work. Being  professional in the 21st century, journalists should have the ability to work for alternative press and the internet. At the same time, they should be able to write in opinion-driven formats especially for blog. Bloggers and citizen journalists supplement the work of professional journalists.

Citizen Journalism

 

Citizen Journalism

In the 21st century,with the wide application of technology and Internet, there is a dramatic revolution happens in news industry. 

Different from traditional media, audience are seemingly passive receive and consume news and information. By contrast, new technologies such as blogs, news sits, and social networking environment, enable users to become creators and active manipulators and texts. An increasingly number of people set up their own blog, where individuals could post any material they gathered with their interpretation of the news story. 

On e typical example of citizen journalism is the London bombings. On that day, for many Londoners, the effective way to know about the attacks was the internet. The BBC News was almost the first to report this break news online. Many BBC reporters wrote their observations in blog titled: The BBC’s ‘Reporters’ Log: London Explosions. Also, online spaces were created for ordinary citizens who witness the scene. In the BBC News website, citizens could send their experiences and photos to the page ‘London explosions: your accounts’, by asking ‘Did you witness the terrorist attacks in London? How have the explosions affected you?’ BBC received over 1,000 pictures, 20 pieces of video, 4,000 messages and 20,000 emails. Though some of them are just general comment, many are first-hand evidence and materials. The significance of citizen journalism is that ordinary people are able to report their stories online. It can not be done in television or newspaper.

CNN has officially launched the citizen journalism site called  iReport. It is part of an ongoing effort from CNN to integrate user-generated content both online and in the news network’s on-air coverage. According to the company, they’ve already received 100,000 video, photo, and text submissions since first launching iReport on CNN.com in 2006.

War&Peace, War&Journalism

Robert Capa, who was the greatest photojournalist in the 20th century. In his life he covered five different wars: the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino Japanese War, the Second World War across Europe, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the First Indochina War.

 

 

To Capa, technical considerations were secondary to catching a dramatic moment.

 

Robert Capa’s pictures would not make people feel aware of the importance of photo taking techniques but the courageous which can only be exchanged by a life. Because of this enormous courageous, his pictures are regarded as classics. No one criticizes whether his pictures are dedicated, whether the meaning could be delivered correctly, whether crops are compact, whether shutter opportunities are neither more nor less, and the tones of pictures are rich. Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death, with bad quality, deserves to one of his most famous pictures. And in the D-Day landings, even the objects are really blurred. Focal lengths, shutter speeds, apertures are meaningless nouns. He took pictures by his life, but not by cameras.

 

 

Robert Capa is the most famous war correspondent in people’s memory, and his career was gambling. However, on May 25, 1954, Capa stepped on a landmine and died with his camera in his hand.

 

People will never forget him. His photos have become a symbol of humanity and war. He hated war during his whole life and looked for peace. He tried to use his photos to record the war and awake people’s conscious to stop killing each other.

 

The most sentence of Robert Capa is that “If your pictures are not good enough, you are not close enough”. Through his photos, people can hear the sounds of bullets and bombs. Every photos prove that the war is the most foolish and brutal thing made by human beings.

 

 

Image sources:

http://www.guycollierphotography.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/robert-capa.jpg

http://designblog.uniandes.edu.co/blogs/dise2510/files/2008/11/robert-capa.jpg

Photojournalism

Language is something linked with words and grammar which could present meaningful statement and enable us to communicate with each other. Journalists is a kind of job to write and report truth to the public. However, is language the only thing we can use as communicate tool? Actually, visual language could also be structured in journalism.

A photojournalist is usually a type of reporter that works for a certain publication and goes out to get images for a story. Earlier it used to mean only still photography. But now in broadcast journalism, when the electronic media has become more powerful, video photo-journalism is also included.

Especially, photojournalism covers the report during the war. Even though sometimes photographs are often printed in black and white, they are widely accepted as standing in for the real thing. These photos could be regarded as objective records of the real world.

 

 

Similar as traditional print journalism, newspapers also turn photojournalism into a routine production.

The images created in photojournalism are part of a news story, or feature in a magazine. Photojournalists must supply pictures which are in focus and have sufficient tones to reproduce well in newsprint. They are helped by using standardized film and equipment. They know that editors demand impact or shock-value related to the story. photographers place the newsworthy event in the centre of the frame, look for dominant verticals and an even surface pattern. Once the pictures are processed, the phtotgraphers’ work is reinforced by the choices of picture editors, who crop and retouch pictures to ensure they match the conventions of realism.

P.S: Light and colour have specific symbolic connotations in the photography. There are some explanations for different use of light and colour.

Darkness suggests fear,evil, the unknown.

Light suggests security, virtue, truth and joy.

Cool colours(blue, green) suggests peace, distance and silence.

Warm colours(red, yellow) suggests aggressiveness, violence and mature.

 There are a lot debates about photojournalism, and we will discuss that later.

 

Image resources:

http://vervephoto.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/hoopen_afgan3.jpg

http://old.thecompellingimage.com/image/src/5/0/6005/large/Photojournalism_002.jpg

http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2008/03/images/00016216-INN-001.JPG

Journalism in Wartime

How is war  tranformed in to “stories”?

War is narrative. The story of war as told by the journalists in a narrative structure: it starts with a problem and ends with a happy result. At first, there is a threat and a loss. However, a new hero and a victory will appear. Then, a serious of trials and defeats is following. In the worst moment, the hero will lead to final victory with order restored.

Language of War

The bias of news is reflected more obvious in the process of reporting wars. The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict has never stop, meanwhile, the biased treatment accompany the conflict consistently. It is not difficult to find some specific examples. Usually, journalists refer ‘refugees’ to Palestinians, however, few audience know that it was caused by Israel occupied their land to established a new country. In addition, journalists use different type of language to describe Israeli and Palestinians. Compared with Palestinians, the news emphasised a lot on the death of Israeli. Moreover, certain words such as ‘murder’, ‘lynching’ and ‘savage cold-blooded killing’ were always related to Israeli deaths, but not those of Palestinians. The purpose of this kind news is to be eye-catching and attention-grabbing; nevertheless, it neglects to report the truth to public. Another possible reason is that Israel has an allied relationship with US; as a consequence, the bias appeared.

War Journalists

Where there is a war, where there are journalists. In order to report the war and get the first hand news, many journalist sacrifice thier lives. For example, in the Iraq War, 12 journalists died in only 20 days. Even though, many journalists still take their responsibilities and report the latest development in Iraq.  There is a debate about whether it is valuable for journalists to lose their lives in the war. They use pictures and words to record the war. But who could protect them? Here is a link to a commitee to protect journalists.

I’d like to introduce a famous female war journalist in China. Luqiu Luwei, who works in Phoenix Television.  Duringthe Iraq War in 2003, she was the only one Chinese journalist who entred Baghdad  and  obtained a lot  attention froChinese audience even the govenment leaders. She is refered to “A beautiful rose at battleground”.

Image Resource:       

 seefestival.org/programme.php?event=29