Week 13 - We f*cking did it!

Those weren't my words but those of a certain valedictorian at a prominent university who blurted the exact phrase out in her conclusion - not that I care or fuss about it anyhow. I honestly felt it was ok for her to say it since Singapore's a relatively-open society now but that's another debate for another day although she has my support no matter what!

Anyway, coming back to the relevant topic, I'm done with my feature article! After 12 hard weeks of toiling, I've finally submitted the final assignment of the module.

Not sure how I'd do but fingers crossed it's good enough.

There's one more assignment for me in another module but the buzz of finishing a journalism feature - awesome!

And to think I was worried about hitting the word count of 2,000 initially - I ended up writing over 2,000!

To conclude this module, it was a blast being under the tutelage of Jimmy Yap, himself a former journalist with The Straits Times and currently a successful social media entrepreneur in his own right.

I've said this to him and I'll say it again - this module should have come a lot earlier in the life of a communications student in the University. With something so theoretical, it could have come before a practical module like Broadcast Journalism - graduating with practical skills still fresh in the heads of soon-to-be media practitioners should be the way to go instead of theories/subjects we might not require in the near future.

But, this module has indeed triggered a lot of thinking and reflecting with regards to the seminar topics. From the laws/purpose of privacy laws to the economics of journalism, it covered a broad spectrum that had a nice flow to it from start to finish

With that said, till the next time we meet, hang loose and take care of yourself!

Week 12 - Putting the finishing touches to my feature article.

Or rather, the title should be read as "interviews done, now to start writing it!"

I've conducted my interviews - and all of them were sporting enough to reply with length and elaboration instead of the perennial one-or-two-worded replies.

Have read through them all and have even gone back to one of my interviewees for further elaboration on one of his answers.

Before I go on, let me briefly describe my interviewees:

- a social media manager at one of the local football clubs
- a general manager at another one of the local football clubs
- a social media architect with an international communications group

With that out of the way, here are some of the questions I've done up:

• Why do you think clubs are going online to interact with their fans instead of newspapers etc?
• How does the Twitter account allow fans to interact with the club?
• What else can be done, in terms of social media engagement, to allow fans to get involved with the league?
• Why the huge popularity over social media?
• How big an impact has social media had on news-reporting and interactivity between organizations and people?
• Some people are terming social media as the new journalist - quick updates and accessible anywhere. What are your thoughts on this?
• Do Twitter trends usually come about from followers or the followed? (creation of hashtags vs public announcements)

So now, it's about time to get things written out! Wish me luck!

Week 11 - Laying the foundations of a feature article (wait, feature article!?!?!?)

Yes, please do not panic - for I am one with the Matrix of Leadership...

No, not really one with the Matrix yet - although I'm close.

The cause for panic from me was my decision to change my final assignment from a video news package to a feature article.

The reason behind was the change was because I felt I wouldn't have had enough time to run around and film the different interviewees. As such, an email interview would have sufficed for a written feature article + I was able to get more feedback from the interviewees if required so it wasn't a huge decision to switch over.

And oh, in the meantime, I've decided on my topic and news angle.

Focusing on "We’re All a Twitter! Journalism and its negotiation of online, the blogosphere and social media".....The angle I'm gonna talk about is on Twitter and local football - the former being the new sports journalist.

I touched on this topic as I'm a huge football fan and am a regular Twitter user as well. Having said that, I realized that the prominence of local football - be it the S League or the national team - is a lot stronger online than offline. The mainstream media doesn't carry it as much as citizen journalism, where fan blogs are a lot more informative than the newspaper archives.

Coupled with the fact that Twitter is a huge thing in the European football community where journalists and even players own Twitter account that allows them to engage the fans, I decided to run with this.

Ok, now time to go formulate the questions and email my interviewees!
(Yes, I have found/secured them for the interview already!)

Wekk 10 - Embarking on the major assignment

So, after 6 engaging seminar presentations, it was time to drop back to reality of actually doing something instead of just laying back and interact with the information presented through the eyes (and mouths) of my classmates.

It was time to start thinking about my final assignment!

So, after surfing around the web garnering ideas...I finally decided on what I was gonna do...

I WAS GONNA EMBARK ON A VIDEO NEWS PACKAGE!

...this, after talking it through with my tutor (Jimmy Yap) on what was required of both the video interview and video news package.

I didn't fancy editing and presenting an Oprah-like talkshow clip for my final project + I needed a video package to replace my rated-P (as in Pass, just passed) news package from the semester before where my ending Point-to-Camera shot was severely overexposed!

Time to get the angle and questions sorted out - Jimmy's pressing all of us to show some sense of urgency.

Terence...OUT!

Week 9 - Moral Minefields: Legal and ethical dilemma

"What is legal does not necesarily mean it is moral"

This sentence stood out for me in this week's presentation on the legal and ethical dilemma a
journalist might face.

It brought me back to an earlier scandal in Britain that got ALMOST everyone talking - yes, if it made it to Parliament, you can be sure it is big news.

Welsh footballer/superstar Ryan Giggs was named (and shamed) as the party who applied for a gagging order over the media with regards to the revelation of the Manchester United winger as an adulterous individual who slept with his sister-in-law. Although the mentioning of this particular incident was shot down by the Speaker of Parliament, the Opposition MP who brought this up wanted to highlight the enforceability of such a privacy law that didn't garner enough public support anymore.

A privacy law like this should exist to protect the secrecy of situations such as journalism and its sources or maybe a high-profile business deal involving two companies - not to maintain your popularity in wake of an exposed scandal.

Whilst it may be Ryan Giggs who warranted so much media attention. it can be suffice to say that the privacy law has got everyone listening as well. Laws of privacy are meant to protect those who really need it for serious matters, not to cover up an act of infidelity.

Week 7 - Public Interest vs Public Prurience

The presentation topic opened up quite a discussion in the tutorial session. Where do we draw the line between public interest and privacy rights?

I believe that everyone deserves the same amount of privacy due to them - unless they personally vetoed it. Personalities, from showbiz celebrities to politicians and right now, sports athletes, are still the same as us normal lot despite their tremendously publicized ability - human. Don't they deserve the same rights to privacy both in weal and woe?

Unfortunately, this debate is only existent due to the element that killed the cat. Curiosity (or as most Singaporeans will call it, kaypoh-ness) is essentially what spurs the papers/paparazzi on to get as much news as possible. Afterall, if they don't sell their stuff, who's gonna pump the moolah in?

With that said, if the papers were to be ethically responsibly and choose not to go down the route of the paparazzi, there won't be a big demand for news of such a genre. Coming from a sports (fanatic) background, I've seen how the media has destroyed matches, tournaments and even the careers of professional players with their incessant focus on a scandal - and that is just not right. Sports personalities are only extraordinarily-talented individuals who chose to pursue their dream, not to be plunged into a Hollywood-like world.

Week 6 - Journalism and its negotiation of the online, blogosphere and social media

Social media is running rampant amongst, errm, society these days. Made all the more accessible through a huge smartphone demographic around the world, social media has managed to find its way up to the top as a competitor to mainstream media outlets.

With journalism looking to embrace social media these days, it is clear that social media has a huge role to play in the future not just in allowing the common folk to become virtual farmers or mob bosses but also to contribute to journalism by being in the right place at the right time.

This photo, taken by Janis Krum back in January 2009, was the first documentation of the US Airways plane that crash-landed in the Hudson River on the 19th of January 2009. Posting it on Twitter through the photo-uploading service TwitPic (URL: http://twitpic.com/135xa), Krums' main intention was to notify his friends about this and about his attempt to go rescue the stricken passengers. But little did he know that this photo will end up being on the frontpage of many major newspapers and used on many television networks for its news programme.

The above-mentioned incident showcased one attribute that is probably the gamebreaker for social media to be around for a long, long time - speed. Journalists aren't superheroes or deities so the chances of them predicting a tragedy and being there to cover it is close to ziltch (then again, I don't think any of them will want to predict one anyway). As such, normal citizens like you and I can play a huge role in journalism by just being there, coincidentally or psychically.

Afterall, journalism is defined in the Merriam-Webster dicitonary as a form of writing that appeals to public interest.

Week 4 - is Citizen Journalism really necessary?

Whenever someone poses the question of a journalist's credibility to me, I tend to jump right onto the side of fence where a billboard reads, "A journalist must be trained with the proper technique in order to bring out the best story."

However, after going through 2 years in journalism school and unwittingly 24 years in a 'uniquely-Singaporean' journalistic setup, I've come to realize that being a journalist doesn't require one to be trained in techniques such as writing in the Inverted Pyramid format or remembering the 5Ws and 1Hs when formulating the perfect news story.

Ok, maybe the 5Ws and 1H is essentially crucial for anything to be considered a news story, what's more important in a proper piece of journalism is....cue drum roll....the truth,

In a lot of places, the mainstream news outlets don't always carry the full picture of a certain situation or story. Take the recent General Elections in Sngapore for example and it's hard to ignore the rise to prominence of alternative-opinionated website The Temasek Review.

Journalism came into importance due to its role as a public guardian and informant - protecting the common folks from corrupt government officials while at the same time informing them of significant happenings, events and issues.

As such, outlets such as The Temasek Review and Ohmynews provides a platform for usually-unannounced events and happenings, thus painting a complete picture for the public.

Another reason why citizen journalism should not be ignored is the timeliness it can provide for breaking news. Events such as the London bus bombing in 2005 and the 2007 political crisis in Burma were fine examples of citizen journalism at its best - members of the public providing pictures in the form of self-taken photos and videos on their mobile phone.

No one can predict the timing of an unfortunate event happening so it'll be unfair to expect mainstream news outlets to be at the scene of every disaster or riot immediately upon happening.

Yes there are drawbacks to allowing citizen journalism to flourish, such as the lack of credibility in the news story or the abuse of such a system that turns it into an outlet of rants and complaints (as like how Singapore's very own citizen journalism site, STOMP, has turned out to be)

In spite of this, it is almost impossible to disregard the impact that Citizen Journalism has now made on society. Giving a new meaning to Media Pluralism, Citizen Journalism can be, in itself, a strong catalyst for Cosmopolitanism. By offering the chance for one and all to not only debate current issues but also to give voice to new ones, Citizen Journalism has rode well on the wave of technological advancement and can only portray more of its potential in the years to come.

Week 3 - The future of journalism

The state of journalism is changing - no more is the reliance just on the newspapers we read or the journalists that write them.

With the advancement of technology, the consumers of news have been exposed to a situation where sources of information need not be confined to the timeframe or the outlets of exposure. Through the Internet, consumers will be able to grab any news they desire at the speed of a snap of their fingers (ok, maybe not that fast but you get my notion ;))

Putting this scenario in a local context, an event that was suppose to write an entirely new chapter in the history books of Singapore did more than just that – it heralded a new source of news-gathering.

The 2011 General Elections in Singapore was earmarked as a watershed election due to the potential that the various opposition parliamentary parties were displaying in the contest against the ruling party in Singapore, the People’s Action Party. That, and the go-ahead for the various parties vying for a spot in parliament to engage its supporters and voters through social media, ensured a whole new experience and story for the citizens of Singapore. While the elections did yield a few surprises, the real prize in this election is the rise of social media.

Not only did Singaporeans throw out the assumption that they were a politically-apathetic lot – the Prime Minister of Singapore acknowledged himself that the ruling party can do more to engage its citizens through the Internet – they also dealt a blow to the respectable news outlet in Singapore. On the aftermath of Polling Day, as Singaporeans gathered in front of their televisions to await the televised results as past generations did too, it appeared that the local television stations were relatively slow in releasing the results.

With the telecast of the polling results slated for 11pm but the Returning Officer only coming out to officially declare the results around the 12.30am – 1am mark, many viewers who were connected to the local Twitter community were left disappointed and angry that they actually found out about the results online a lot earlier than the usual media outlets.

This saga even prompted an apology, and explanation, from Mediacorp that they were only able to released official results from the Returning Officer and releasing unofficial results like that on Twitter were against their practices.

As exemplified above, the future of journalism has seen the focus shifted slightly from the official media sources to alternate ones like social media. Social Media has shown itself to be a very current tool that the official news outlets can learn to embrace itself. However, as shown by Mediacorp’s handling of the above situation, there is still a need to stick to the proper ethics of newsreporting for fear of information misrepresentation.

(Picture from http://www.markevanstech.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/social-media-consultant.jpg)

Globalization vs Localization

Globalization against localization - not really much of a contest, is it?

The rise of technology has paved the way for globalization, or quite simply the shrinking of the world.

Right now, anyone can be connected anywhere, anytime. With the Internet having seen a phenomenal growth with the ad-hoc dialup internet connection to the always-connected broadband technology, one can be far away from home yet still be 'at home' in that sense.

It might not totally be a bed of roses though. The struggles in the Middle East all started with the Egyptian people overthrowing its government. I can't comment if it's the right thing to do or not but hey, millions of people against one individual or rather, one group of people in the form of a government - what are the odds that the majority are wrong?

While Egypt might have been better off with the corrupt government now gone, the incident has also translated to similar revolts in the neighbouring countries. We've seen Libya and Tunisia even engaging in the same behaviour.

Integrity aside, the influence of technology has truly reared its head in a time like this. The revolt might not be wrong, but imagine if a wronged revolt inspire others to embark on the same path - what will become of the world?