Yesterday I was talking to a friend who was complaining about the amount of “depressing news” that is reported every day. In her words; “it’s enough to make you want to top yourself”. A little dramatic perhaps but it got me thinking. It’s true traditional media does report a lot on issues that generally fall into the negative, depressing and unsettling category; however, online journalism has found a way to balance the news scale much better than its more traditional counterparts. The half-hour TV or radio news bulletin doesn’t have time to run anything other than the major stories of the day. They give a quick break-down of national and global events, plus address any local issues, finance, weather and sport and it’s all over. Online journalism has room to breathe; it has an infinite amount of resources, space and time and can give the reader a wide range of stories because of this. The deadline for online journalism may be “now” but the opportunity for updates and expansion are there 24/7 meaning a more consistent form of coverage is available. Along with this, a much wider range of coverage is possible and this is where my friend has got it wrong. Many of the most popular news sites, such as news.com, ninemsn, and yahoo!7, offer an abundance of entertainment and “soft” news. All you have to do is follow on the link and you can enjoy hours of entertaining, funny, and often downright weird stories the news has to offer. While the “real” news may take up the majority of space in most publications, programmes, and websites it’s nice to know that with online news a happy story is only a click away.
Thursday, 15 September 2011
Wednesday, 7 September 2011
Reporting victims names: ninemsn at its worst
Yesterday morning the body of a teenage girl was found in her Paddington house in Brisbane; around the same time her mother jumped to her death from the Story Bridge, leaving her 12 year-old son sitting in the car only metres away. It is not known how the young girl died but early reports indicate she was stabbed.
This is a terrible crime and tragedy and the family involved must be distraught. Mounting interest from the media cannot be helping their situation but surely, given the fact that an underage girl has been killed and a young boy has watched is mother purposely fall to her death, the media would show some respect and honour the families right to privacy.
Some news organisations, like the ABC, have shown a high level of respect, reporting on the incident while excluding the names of those involved. Others, like ninemsn, seem to have forgotten their journalistic ethics and morals and have splashed the victims names all over their news site. While there is legally nothing wrong with reporting the names, it is highly unlikely that the family involved is comfortable with this.
Journalists are often privy to sensitive information, whether it be the name of a victim, the details of a crime, or off the record comments and it is their duty to respect this information and display empathy and kindness to those it relates to.
Publishing the names of the young girl and her mother was not only a gross invasion of privacy; it was a deplorable act of insensitivity and thoughtlessness. Who in their right mind would think that publishing those names would not put more pressure and stress on that family? Publishing those names makes it so much easier for other news organisations to contact them and hound them with questions; it identifies them to everyone who opens up the ninemsn home page, even relatives or friends who may not have been notified yet; it turns something so incredibly hurtful and private into a public forum for the whole nation to comment on.
In my last post, I praised ninemsn for publishing a photo of a man who had just been stabbed because it was an incredible display of photo journalism in action; now I can’t help thinking this was simply another case of ninemsn revealing all the gory details of a crime in a bid to suck in more readers.
Here is a link to the ABC story, sans victims names.
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Photo Journalism
This morning when I logged onto the ninemsn home page I was confronted with the most extraordinary piece of photo journalism I have seen in a long time. The picture was taken at the Notting Hill carnival in London only hours before and shows a young man standing in the middle of the street, arms outstretched as blood pours from the fresh stab wound on the side of his torso. His attacker is running away from him while police look on with obvious shock and confusion. In the foreground of the picture is a middle-aged man sticking out his leg in a bid to trip-up the running man. Despite its graphic nature and intolerable violence, I could not stop looking at it.
Of course we have all seen violent and graphic action shots like this before. Photo Journalists in war zones or at the scene of major disasters often capture pictures that tell the story much better than the accompanying copy; however, something about this particular photo had a particularly strong effect on me. Nothing about it was predetermined. If a photographer arrives at the scene of an accident or is working in a war zone, they are somewhat prepared. They know a little about the kinds of things they will be photographing and the angles and lighting they need to deliver the goods; they are looking for the hero shot to make it to the front page. The photo taken in Notting Hill was the complete opposite of this. It is clear that someone has picked up their camera and clicked the button just in time and at the perfect moment. A second later and the attacker would have run past them and been out of the shot; the man with his leg out would have backed away and the police would have surrounded the victim, hiding him from vision.
For some unknown reason, no other news website was running this picture (ok maybe ninemsn had the rights to it) or a story about the stabbing. I spent about 20 minutes flicking between abc.net.au, news.com and channel 7 news but to no avail. I don’t usually praise ninemsn or talk up their reporting capabilities (considering most of the stuff on their site is gossip and hype) but I will give credit where credit is due: good job ninemsn.
Here is the link to the story
Sunday, 14 August 2011
Reporting on the London Riots
Last week we were all shocked by the images coming out of London. Teenagers, young men and women and even children poured onto the streets to wreak havoc throughout the city. Pictures of smashed in shop windows, burning cars and buildings and police desperately trying to gain some sense of control of the rioting youth were streamed over the internet and our television screens.
I lived in London for almost three years, between 2006 and 2008, and was horrified when I heard my old neighborhood, Notting Hill, had been trashed by hundreds of rioters last Monday night. I was desperate for some news on exactly which streets and shops had been targeted but my search for information on all the major news sites gave me little to go on. As is typical for a news website, they simply gave me the basic headlines and information: Notting Hill trashed by rioters. No description of how much damage was done, which shops had been destroyed and how the people who lived and worked there were reacting.
Then, by chance, I came across this post by the Portobelloblogger who lives in Notting Hill and was walking through the suburb when the rioters attacked. The post is close to 2000 words long and gives a detailed description of everything that happened that night. The blogger traces their footsteps through the night, recounting the anxious mood that fell over the usually peaceful streets in anticipation of the rioters approach and the sad reality of the damage done once they had left.
I gained more information and insight into what happened that night from this one post then I did from the six other stories I read on official news sites. Online media does an excellent job at keeping us up to date with breaking stories and developments but when it comes to filling in the details there is often a severe lack of information. I have never followed a blog before or even viewed them as a legitimate source of information but this particular experience has forced me to consider the fact that bloggers are often writing about what they see and experience and nothing, not even a report on a major news site, can trump a primary source.
I lived in London for almost three years, between 2006 and 2008, and was horrified when I heard my old neighborhood, Notting Hill, had been trashed by hundreds of rioters last Monday night. I was desperate for some news on exactly which streets and shops had been targeted but my search for information on all the major news sites gave me little to go on. As is typical for a news website, they simply gave me the basic headlines and information: Notting Hill trashed by rioters. No description of how much damage was done, which shops had been destroyed and how the people who lived and worked there were reacting.
Then, by chance, I came across this post by the Portobelloblogger who lives in Notting Hill and was walking through the suburb when the rioters attacked. The post is close to 2000 words long and gives a detailed description of everything that happened that night. The blogger traces their footsteps through the night, recounting the anxious mood that fell over the usually peaceful streets in anticipation of the rioters approach and the sad reality of the damage done once they had left.
I gained more information and insight into what happened that night from this one post then I did from the six other stories I read on official news sites. Online media does an excellent job at keeping us up to date with breaking stories and developments but when it comes to filling in the details there is often a severe lack of information. I have never followed a blog before or even viewed them as a legitimate source of information but this particular experience has forced me to consider the fact that bloggers are often writing about what they see and experience and nothing, not even a report on a major news site, can trump a primary source.
Thursday, 4 August 2011
New Blog
The first post on my blog for Online Journalism. Sorry if yor reading this, was forced to post it.
My twitter handle is @meaganl86
My twitter handle is @meaganl86
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