All the News That's Fit to Print

News values are one of the most opaque 

structures of meaning in modern society … 

Journalists speak of “the news” as if events 

select themselves … Yet of the millions of 

events which occur daily in the world, only 

a tiny proportion ever become visible as 

“potential news stories”: and of this 

proportion, only a small fraction are 

actually produced as the day’s news …

That's what a news value is. What deserves to receive attention.

I don't really know how to feel about that... I mean, I understand that there is just too much going on for it all to be reported. But everything that happens is going to have an affect that will impact someone. So shouldn't people know about this? What do I know? I'm a first year uni student, I'll learn in time.

In this modern age we need to make everything appealing, even the news, because lets face it, people need to know what's happening around them no matter how dull it is. So everything is transient according to the general public. Life is only a series of unrelated events...

As Arthur Evelyn Waugh puts it:

News is what a chap 

who doesn't care much 

about anything wants to 

read. And it's only news 

until he's read it. After 

that it's dead.

There are four main aspects of news values:

IMPACT

AUDIENCE IDENTIFICATION

PRAGMATICS

SOURCE INFLUENCE

These aspects result in what news values is all about

NEWSWORTHINESS

Despite all sources of media trying to be relevant to the public, we can't say that news values are universal across all cultures and societies. And to me, that will make working in the media fun. I intend to travel and work overseas after uni, so I'm really looking forward to the challenge of working with a new culture and new people. My education is going to teach me to how report what is worthy of people knowing about, while travelling is going to teach me what is worthy to different people.

But there are two values that people who work in media across different cultures believe in:

If it bleeds, it leads

It it's local, it leads

People are drawn to tragedy. A sad and morbid fact. So, serious hard hitting stories are going to get people's attention. And of course, people want to know what's going on in their local community.

News values shape these ideas because news values determine them. News values are what makes journalists chose stories full of blood and tragedy, and at the same time, stories close to home. Values vary from place to place, but they serve the same function: to keep an audience.

I think John Sergeant sums up news values pretty well:

Journalists rely on 

instinct rather than 

logic when it comes 

to the defining a 

sense of news 

values.

There have been three main hypothesise about news values. Firstly by Galtung and Ruge, second by Golding and Elliot, and third by O'Neill and Harcup. They all try to explain what is newsworthy, essentially. And my first thought about them is that they appear very Western in their outlook... But that's just me and I haven't read anything else about them to really back up my claim.

However, news values have been threatened over the past couple of years by three factors:

Commercialisation of of Media and Social Life

Public Relations

Journalism's Ideals/Journalism's Reality

These three factors are limiting the reliability and quality of news in various forms of media. This then makes people question the values held by journalists and discredits the field.

One particularly interesting threat to news values is something called 'churnalism.' This is when journalists just churn out information from press and media releases by PR companies rather than write original reports that contain relevance to an audience.

Like I said in a previous blog post, I'm a massive fan of British comedy. It's just so much better than American comedy, and most Australian comedy for that matter. My favourite British comic (and lets face it, my favourite comic of all time) is Stephen Fry. I'm sure most of you know him from shows like Blackadder, A Bit of Fry and Laurie and QI. But he was in another show called Absolute Power, which is my favourite show with Stephen Fry in it.

Absolute Power is about a PR company, headed by Stephen's character Charles Prentiss, who disregard all forms of ethics and morals in order to do their job. I find hilarious as well as a quite thought provoking about the media. And it wasn't until I started JOUR1111 that I really began to fully understand the dynamics of the company and media in general.

In this episode, they are hired by a right-wing political party to handle their PR. Absolutely hilarious and raises questions about values in the media (sorry for the awful quality)

Part 1

Part 2

Another questionable client. They go ahead with it, by the way.

Another episode about politics

Part 1 This time with people that matter

Part 2 Taking it a step further...

Shaping public opinion

And my favourite episode. A comedy actor beats his heavily pregnant girlfriend in the car park at Ikea. And Charles takes on the challenge to sort out the wife beater's PR, with absolutely hilarious results.

This episode needs to be watched to be believed. The degree of manipulation and moral cowardice is enough to make you cringe yet piss laugh hysterically. Truth be told, Absolute Power is what got me interested in the media. I was really tempted to study PR. But I decided against because I knew I would never be as brilliant as Charles Prentiss, even though I lack a moral compass.

In our tute for JOUR1111 on ethics and news values, Carmel showed us this video about churnalism and the relationship between PR and journalism (I couldn't link the video like I did with the others for some reason...).

See any connections between Absolute Power and Chris Atkins' investigation?

Watch a full episode of Absolute Power. It will blow your mind how similar it is to Chris Atkins' video. And it's bloody hilarious. More than anything, watch it because it's funny and has Stephen Fry in it.

Values underpin everything in society. Not only do I have values as a (future/aspiring) journalist, I also have values as a student.

I went with good grades and enough sleep. I'm going to be a socially inept journalist/foreign affairs adviser one day. I try to make the right decision and I'm still disadvantaging myself.

My Dream

Forget about being a journalist or working for the UN.

THIS is what I want to do with my life.

This is probably one of the best things I've ever seen.

James 'Spoons' Turner ;-)

They Didn't Change My Mind About Climate Change

I can't sleep and don't want to work on my International Relations essay so I'm just going to blog some stuff and listen to All The Rowboats by Regina Spektor on repeat.

Because I've been busy I only watched the ABC's documentary I Can Change Your Mind About Climate and the following Q&A discussion last night.

My God, that was a PAINFUL two hours where I had to resist yelling at my laptop...

I seriously had hope for this. The ABC usually produces balanced and intelligent programs. Yet they cast two polar extremes in the climate debate where there was absolutely no chance that either of them would change their minds.

Nick Minchin is a moron. There I said it. And Anna Rose is annoying, despite myself being a member of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition.

They both arranged meetings with people that agreed with their respective views. It was pathetic.

Nick was just facetious the whole time and did nothing but try to discredit legitimate science with some of the most absurd claims I have ever heard.

His first interview with 'experts' was a couple in Perth who used to believe in anthropogenic climate change but are now sceptical of the idea. They said that one of thermometers that they use to measure temperatures around the world is located next to an airport and that the results are skewed. That means that every thermometer in the world can't be trusted...

Yeah, because scientists are that stupid...

And that atmospheric physicist who has taken money from groups with agendas about climate change. Nick only furthered Anna's point by not being able to produce anyone really reliable. Although his last guest, Bjorn Lomborg, suggested an investment over time in green technology made the most sense out of them all.

While Anna did have a lot of respectable scientists to help her case, she herself didn't do much for it. She just repeated herself over and over again. But I will concede that once you state the science behind climate change, there isn't really much else you can say.

The thing that annoyed me most was when Nick brought Marc Morano on...

Anyone who knows who Marc Morano is knows that he is definitely the most UNreliable source when it comes to ANYTHING to do with climate change.

Morano has been called one of the 25 most influential right wing journalists in the world. So clearly, the fact that he has a bias shows that he isn't a good journalist. He runs a blog called Climate Depot that only spreads climate change denial propaganda.

According to Source Watch, Morano has no scientific qualifications whatsoever. He has protectionist views of American industry and thinks that regulation for sustainability will endanger 'American values.' Morano continuously lists costs, figures and statistics that he does not reference. And a simple search for his information reveals no source. Morano lies in order to push his agenda. He is a narcissist and a disgrace to journalists everywhere.

My favourite guest on the show was scientist and writer Ben Goldacre. He said that anthropogenic climate change is almost universally accepted by scientists. Very rarely is there completely universal acceptance of something in science, so this is as good as we're going to get. Goldacre said that we shouldn't waste our breath with climate deniers. Debating something that is pretty much universally accepted only creates room for scepticism.

This raises an important point, should journalists allow for both sides of the argument to be represented in the media?

I think climate deniers should be kept out of the media. Yes they have the right to free speech and should be allowed to make their voices heard as that is a core tenet of liberal democracy that I hold dear. But, the media should only report on actual scientific evidence that supports anthropogenic climate change. I don't think this because I believe in climate change, I believe this because journalism is about reporting the truth. Anthropogenic climate change is pretty much universally accepted in the scientific community. You can't really get much closer to complete acceptance when you deal with idiots, and some scientists are idiots.

So, I Can Change Your Mind About Climate pissed me off unbelievable as the debate went absolutely nowhere. They came to 'common ground' at the end and then just went back to their polar extremes on the following Q&A discussion, which just rendered it pretty much pointless.

I can feel the rage build inside me as I write this so I'll be brief about the Q&A forum. Anna and Nick annoyed me because they just repeated themselves again. Chief executive of the CSIRO, Dr Megan Clark, social researcher and writer, Rebecca Huntley, and all round corporate fat cat Clive Palmer joined the panel.

Megan and Rebecca were by far the best that night. They were respectful with their answers, to the point and thought provoking with their commentary. Clive Palmer, don't get me started. And then to find out today that he's challenging Wayne Swan's seat... The last thing we need is his agenda being supported by Australian politics.

My opinion about the debate between climate alarmists and deniers can be summed up with the eloquent, funny and oh so true words of Ben Goldacre:

"I would rather slam my cock in a door than debate with someone who doesn't believe in anthropogenic climate change!"

Regina Spektor Obsession

IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE IT'S ALMOST HERE 

29 MAY

I MUST SHARE THIS WITH THE WORLD!!!!!

ENJOY FRIENDS!

Is it Acceptable to Kill a Whale in Order to Save Two Pandas?

Well, is it?

Five years of Catholic education and learning about morals and ethics, I'm an atheist and lack a moral compass...

I guess what this lecture asked us to look at is whether or not media is unethical or just in bad taste.

I am very hard to offend due to my amoral status (if anything Catholic education just makes people more cynical, that was definitely the case with my school). However, I understand that other people have different feelings and thoughts than me, so I do try to tread lightly around controversial issues.

Returning to the media, I think there's a weird juxtaposition when it comes to ethics and taste.

Take for instance this ad for the World Wildlife Fund.

To compare an act of violence against civilians to a natural disaster is immensely insensitive, even I know that. And this doesn't even help the cause of WWF. They talk about how the world is more powerful than people (using the worst analogy ever) and then say that we have to conserve the world... Following the logic of this ad, the world should be able to take care of itself (I am all for ecological sustainability and conservation don't get me wrong, this ad is just stupid).

Now, I'm going to keep talking about the media but I'm going to bring up something personal. In any religion class I did at school we learnt about ethical and moral frameworks, and we were given real life examples were we could apply them. Every example was abortion. Abortion is the easiest thing to condemn using an ethical framework.

People are allowed to have opinions and views that differ from me, I'm not expecting everyone to be pro choice like me. However, I won't stand by and let people be indoctrinated into following something that they don't understand fully. Admittedly I was at a Catholic school where life is considered sacrosanct. However, I won't stand by and let biased opinions (be them religious or otherwise) try to persuade our secular media.

There are so many things surrounding the issue of abortion that we can't just have a blanket rule that says they shouldn't be allowed. Why should women who have been abused have to have a child that will remind them of that terrible experience? Why should a woman give birth if it is going to endanger her own life?

Thinking about it maybe I do have some sort of moral compass... At least some sort of egalitarian one.

I think it comes down to this:

Media is meant to be unbiased and secular. People can use media to represent their ideas, but not to indoctrine people or force their agenda upon them. I think in the case of the Ron Paul ad, he is trying to appear both rational (as a doctor) and moral (as a Christian) which shows that he is trying to push his agenda by hiding behind this facade. 

I'm in a weird place when it comes to ethics and morality. I don't really follow any moral codes apart from respecting others and treating others as I want them to treat me. I think when I work in the media one day I need to understand the various views and perspectives in the community or order to convey information and ideas properly. I also want to one day work in foreign affairs (hence doing an arts degree) and that too requires a moral approach. I have an obligation to do what is best for my country as well as for others in this world.

Ethics and morals are both the bane of my existence and what underpin how I act and view the world... 

R2P

Here's my factual storytelling exercise.

I'm not interesting enough to have a feature story about and I don't know anyone who would want me to share their story with my cohort (or the rest of the internet for that matter).

Instead I chose a group that I first heard about on Market Day during O Week. Seeing as I study International Relations and Peace & Conflict Studies in my arts degree it makes sense that I look into groups like this and explore my interests. I'm already really interested in areas like human rights and human security.

Learning about R2P has really inspired me to achieve my study goals. One day I want to work with someone like them and try to make a positive difference in the world.

Getting a 7 on this assignment isn't important to me anymore (even though I would love one) because I've learnt more about myself and where I want to go in life. So enjoy and tell me what you think!

Why is this Lying Bastard Lying to Me?

From one extreme to the other, we move from commercial media to public media.

Contrary to popular belief, public media isn't owned by the government, it's owned by the common people. I didn't know that until this week.

Used at the beginning of the lecture, I think this quote pretty much sums up everything:

'The difference between commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting is the difference between consumers and citizens.'

The point of public media is to support social and democratic processes. It does this through 'public value':

1. Embedding a 'public service ethos'
2. Value for license fee money
3. 'Weighing public value against market impact'
4. Public consultation

Even though we don't have licence fees in Australia, the point remains the same. Public media is meant to be value for money, by providing people with everything from entertainment, to interest to useful information.

The Australian public media is primarily made up of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and Special Broadcasting Service (SBS).

ABC and SBS are considered public media because they fit the criteria that has been set out for them:

• Geographic universality
• Universality of appeal
• Special provisions for minorities
• Special relationship with community and nation
• Liberate rather than restrict broadcasters
• Distanced from all vested interests
• Competition for good programming rather than competition for numbers

The function of public media is provide a forum for discussion and debate about topical cultural, social, political and economic issues. There is also scope for local and regional issue to be discussed with various branches of public media.

Even though ABC and SBS receive government subsidies, they do have a commercial aspect. However, in my opinion, this hasn't hindered their performance for delivering outstanding programs. They have separated their business interests from their social functions which doesn't damage their integrity or quality.

News and current affairs are an integral part of ABC and SBS. ABC provides local and national news at a very in depth level. While SBS covers national and international news at a very in depth level. Not only is the quality and content of their news better and more informative than that of commercial media's, but they have another advantage. ABC and SBS provide a forum for people to openly debate social and political issues where they can be respected. Q&A on ABC and Insight on SBS are the prime examples of this. These two clips illustrate their commitment to discussing key issues and topics.

These clips also illustrate the style and form of public media, which is: serious, importance over interest and considered (not quick and unchecked).

However, public media has been criticised for being boring, elitist, of limited interested and poorly presented.

I don't believe these criticisms as people these days just don't seem to care enough about real issues and won't give money to public media to provide this information.

Public media actively encourages people to make their voices and opinions heard, while commercial media just promotes its own agenda and even tries to force it upon people.

Public media also aims to promote political neutrality, while commercial media has a specific view that it will try to put forward. While both ABC and SBS have been criticised for being left wing, they still do give time for every opinion to be heard. And Bruce pointed out that no government has ever really supported either ABC or SBS due to this stance, even left wing governments...

Once a political party or government likes the ABC or SBS due to their portrayal of politics, then neutrality is gone. Politicians hating public media is actually a good thing. It shows that they are critical and will try to find answers to questions and point out the flaws of governments and political groups.

Jeremy Paxman from BBC Newsnight said this about interviewing politicians, regardless of their political stance:

'I always ask myself, "Why is this lying bastard lying to me?"'

This shows that public media treat every politician and group the same and will not try to put a particular agenda forward. Take for example of Q&A, every week they have someone from Labor and someone from the opposition as well as other analysts, commentators, journalists and policy makers of various political persuasions. On Insight they consult a range of people relevant to the topic at hand in order to gain the most comprehensive insight that they can into an issue (see what I did there?).

I love ABC and SBS. They have to be the best part of Australian media in my most humble opinion. Or maybe I'm just a commie for believing in all their left wing propaganda...