The Monty Mike Times

The modern man...

2012-02-05T23:25:00.000Z

It's amazing how hard it is for the modern man, at least in my generation, to sit in a quiet room and be content in his own company.

I came across a quote the other day by Blaise Pascal that said something like man's suffering comes from his inability to sit quietly in a room. His mind is so accustomed to thinking ahead to what is next. He can't sit still and so creates all this extra work and stress for himself because he is so discontent with a quiet empty room. There is very little, if any, space in his life for such a concept. Because it is not working towards something tangible, something that he can hear or touch, something with a definite result, it doesn't make sense to him.

This is surely very sad. It's sad that we have been so conditioned to be producers at the expense of so much else, even when that production process is not driven by creativity but instead worry and even apathy.

I suggest you take some time today to sit quietly and see how many minutes, how many seconds, go by before you become impatient and restless. You might be amazed at your inability to sit still and remember that there in the background is the steady rhythm of your breath, the beating of your heart, that hasn't ceased since the day you were born but that you long ago (perhaps) ceased to be grateful for.

Murakami, Carver, Chekhov and Dostoevsky

2011-12-22T11:32:00.002Z

I reflect on my adventures in reading and how I went from Japan to Russia: my discovery of many great authors started innocently with Haruki Murakami in a bookshop in 2007.

An artist's impression of the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. Image source

It started with Haruki Murakami. In 2007, in a Waterstone's bookshop in London (or York, I forget), I was browsing for something new to read. This was when I still bought physical books - in fact only a few years earlier I'd went through a phase of buying more than I could read, usually off Amazon but occasionally in high street shops as well.

In my first year of A Levels I was stupid enough to buy one of Aristotle's works. I must have thought it would be interesting because I was studying philosophy and around the same time had been enjoying some of the work of Nietzsche, who, as Walter Kaufmann said, is "one of the few philosophers since Plato whom large numbers of intelligent people read for pleasure." But I was wrong to assume that Aristotle would be just as enjoyable to read, at least to a 17 year old philosophy student. I probably read a handful of pages and never picked it up again.

But I digress. My point was that I used to buy physical books on a regular basis and often too many to read. It is a particularly painful reflection when you realise how books immediately depreciate in value once they leave the store. Secondhand books aren't worth anything. Just take a trip to your local secondhand book dealer to be reminded of this fact, if there is even such a dealer where you live, that is: I don't imagine it's a very affluent line of business.

Back to Murakami. Browsing through this Waterstone's shop, I came across his novella South of the Border, West of the Sun and was immediately drawn to it. There was something about the description of the book, by way of the blurb as well as other author's comments, that struck me as being quite unusual. Then there was also the comment by one of the big newspapers claiming Murakami to be one of the best writers of his generation.

I bought the book and read much of it on the train to London. Now I remember, it wasn't in London that I bought it but before heading to London by train. Being a small book, it didn't take long to finish. I then, over the coming months and years, went on to read much of Murakami's catalogue, including almost all of his short story collections, of which there are a few - all good.

Enjoying Murakami's work, I discovered that his influences included Raymond Carver and Anton Chekhov. And so I found two new authors whom I hadn't heard about but was willing to try. Carver, I soon realised, was probably the best and most influential short story writer of all time after Chekhov, who was his personal influence. Carver brought short story writing back into fashion in the US after years of the genre being very much ignored. He died famous for his short stories, though it looked like he was working on a longer piece before he passed from some form of smoking-related cancer. He was a very heavy smoker.

As well as Carver, whose work I have read a lot of, I found Chekhov to be great too, and reading him opened my eyes to Russian literature. I never really knew it had had such a prolific history of writers, though of course when you think about it this should come as no surprise: who doesn't know Tolstoy or Dostoevsky? Some of the most influential writers in history were Russian and when you read some of the Russian literature it's not hard to see why.

This year I started Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. There is something about these old, thick, classics that is very intimidating. And yet, I was in complete amazement at how modern Crime and Punishment reads and feels. Also, it's not dry and the language is not in the least bit dated as you might imagine. It really is a pleasure to read. And the topics someone like Dostoevsky deals with are universal questions about the human condition: morals, death, life, all these things. They are still as relevant today as they were 150 years ago.

So from the Japanese Murakami of 2007, I have ended up reading the Russian giants Dostoevsky and Chekhov from the 19th century, and numerous authors in between. And it all started in a bookshop in 2007 when I was still open to taking a chance on completely new authors and seeing where it went. Lucky I did.

Should journalism be free?

2011-12-21T07:54:00.001Z

Here is the full 2000 word essay I did for my university module on the business of journalism. It attempts to look at whether journalism should be free or paid-for.

Journalist protests. Image source

This is clearly a difficult time for journalism. Many are now questioning what the future holds for it as an industry. As old business models begin to crumble, and professional journalists are losing their jobs en masse, there is perhaps no better time to discuss the topics that lie at the very heart of what journalism is today, and what it ultimately stands for.

Should journalism be paid for? Is it even realistic to believe that consumers are willing to go on paying for news when so much has changed over the past half century? I will attempt to analyse the arguments both for and against the question of charging for journalism while considering factors that remain much outside the control of large media firms as they currently exist.

James Murdoch famously argued in his 2009 speech at the Edinburgh TV Festival that "the only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit." Clearly, in this view, journalism is a business just like any other and is therefore unsustainable without profit. Journalists need to earn a living just like any other profession and words are the tools of their trade that they work with and create to strive towards this end.

This has been echoed by the traditional theory of the firm in economics theory: "It is assumed that a commercial firm's every decision is taken in order to maximise profits." (Doyle, 2002) Even though this theory has been criticised as being too crude and simplistic - some firms being driven primarily by alternative motives as defined by their mission statement - it is still relevant in explaining why a business owner or executive would apply the same philosophy to journalism or a media corporation.

The opposing argument is an old one. That is, the idea that journalism should be defended "as a tool for the public use and enjoyment of all citizens and not for the private gain or profit… of businesses" (Keane, 1991). This is, then, quite in contrast to the beliefs held by Murdoch and other businessmen who would have the work of journalists bought and sold in the same way as any other good or service.

But things have been slowly changing in the media landscape, particularly since the early 1990s. Computers went from something developed by the military during the Second World War to much later entering the public domain as highly expensive technology reserved for the rich and powerful.

The second half of the 20th century, during decades such as the 80s and 90s, saw more and more people now able to afford personal computers in their homes. Companies such as Microsoft and Apple lead the way, but it wasn't really until the 90s and well into the millennia that these machines so completely began to transform the lives of the average man and woman across the globe. And, of course, with computers came the Internet.

The birth of the Internet has lead to what Chris Anderson referred to in an article he wrote for the Wall Street Journal as "the biggest store in history… [where] everything is 100 percent off" (Anderson, 2009). This new technology has undoubtedly caused huge problems for the traditional business model of newspaper journalism, known as "dual-product", in which revenue is generated from both the cover price charged to the consumer as well as advertising space bought by companies wishing to attract the attention of bigger audiences.

Whereas, in the past, the work of journalists has traditionally been profitable because of healthy sales in the newspaper industry, today that is no longer the case: "Total daily newspaper circulation has fallen by 30 percent in 20 years, from 62.3 million in 1990 to 43.4 million in 2010" (Kaye and Quinn, 2010). This is the result of the Internet boom which has created a wealth of free news and a culture that thrives on it, as well as citizen journalism online in the form of websites and blogs. People are no longer willing to pay for news as they once were and so professional journalists are paying the price in the form of job losses and redundancies.

In 2011, The New York Times, arguably one of the most successful newspapers and sources of journalism in the world today and historically, introduced a partial paywall to its website whereby visitors could access up to 10 pages per month without paying, but anything over that threshold would be charged for. It was no longer financially viable to go on giving its online content away for free.

Just two years earlier, in 2009, the same newspaper was forced to cut 100 newsroom jobs. This is representative of the difficulties faced within the journalism industry today. All the signs seem to point to the fact that professional journalism cannot survive without charging consumers for content they read and access, and yet this very act is at the same time leading to its downfall.

It would seem, then, that James Murdoch was both right and wrong in his 2009 speech at Edinburgh: profit is needed for journalism to continue under the traditional business model, but at the same time it will require a radically new approach in the way it charges consumers to ensure its survival over the long-term. Content must be repackaged into more attractive platforms and consumers must be persuaded that it is worth their hard-earned cash. So what is the argument for journalism as a tool that is not for "private gain or profit", as supported by Keane?

Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief at the Guardian newspaper, is a champion of free content. He argues: "If you universally make people pay for your content it follows that you are no longer open to the rest of the world, except at a cost. That might be the right direction in business terms, while simultaneously reducing access and influence in editorial terms. It removes you from the way people the world over now connect with each other. You cannot control distribution or create scarcity without becoming isolated from this new networked world." (Rusbridger, 2010)

Rusbridger's argument is as much a philosophical one as it is a practical one. It highlights the problem of bringing an old business model into a new environment, of bringing something that must be paid for into a world where 99 percent of things are free. It equally begs the question of how paid-for content can evolve in order that it may survive in this strange new "land of the free".

What the late Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, called "the post-PC era" has brought with it the emergence of a new type of personal computer: the tablet, most notably the iPad. It is this new digital platform that may come to the rescue of traditional journalism in the paid-for sense. Owners of these next-generation devices are far more willing to pay for news and other media content that can be downloaded in the form of apps and digital subscriptions than ever before.

Ryan Chittum, of Colombia Journalism Review, wrote in a recent article: "A stunning 1.8 million iPhone users downloaded New York Time’s free app last week, eighty-five times the rate of a week earlier... and the iPad app’s downloads were up seven times, to 189,000." This shows the promise that tablet computers hold for the traditional journalism industry if they can successfully take advantage of the new platform and everything that it has to offer.

It would seem that technology and the Internet, which initially threatened to bring about the downfall of paid content, is now the very thing which could be offering an answer to the problem and providing a way to ensure that journalists still get paid for the work they do. But in reality we are still very much in a period of transition and the future is hard to predict.

Digital and online advertising is improving all the time and has become a large source of revenue for lots of freelance writers around the world, with an estimated 1.7 million bloggers in the USA alone making a profit: 452,000 of them using their blogs as their primary income (Penn & Zalesne, 2009). This allows journalists and writers to share their content and work for free whilst making an indirect income from it. In these cases, there is no direct charge to the reader.

Whatever becomes of the traditional business models of journalism, the philosophical and moral question still remains of whether or not journalism should be paid for or free for the benefit of all. This is a very difficult question to answer, but if we have learnt anything from recent years it's that information thrives in a free culture, such as that created by the Internet. You could even argue that "information wants to be free", as Stewart Brand famously did nearly three decades ago.

Brand said: "Information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other." (Brand, 1984)

The two sides of this debate will go on for many years to come and a conclusive answer may never be arrived at. Ultimately it comes down to personal opinion and personal values with regards to the nature of information. Movements such as Wikileaks, started in 2006 by the activist Julian Assange, clearly believe that every individual has the right to information and that keeping it in closed circles or elite groups is irresponsible and even dangerous. The same ling of thought could argue that it is in the public's interest to know what is going on in the world, and that this information be made available not at a price, but for free.

As a journalism student, it is my belief that information should fundamentally be free. I believe "free" is the currency of the new age, where technology dominates and the Internet keeps the world open and connected. I would agree with the principles and philosophy of Keane and Rusbridger over the simple business values of someone like Murdoch for whom journalism is just another good to be traded.

However, the challenges remain no matter what your beliefs and opinions on the topics are: charging for traditional journalism today is getting harder and harder and yet by not charging customers to read the news and content journalists work hard to create it is almost impossible to keep the industry healthy and stop the high unemployment rates among professional journalists from increasing.

I hope in this essay I have highlighted some of the difficulties that are associated with the business of journalism as well as some of the arguments for why it might be better to keep information free, as is being championed by the likes of Rusbridger and the thriving Internet culture of today. It is now the challenge for journalists of the future to find out exactly where they fit in this puzzle and how best to contribute their work in such an atmosphere, while remaining profitable themselves.

A substantial amount of original thinking and innovation will be required for journalism and media businesses to survive, but ultimately I have faith that a mutually beneficial solution will be arrived at for both producer and consumer.

Bibliography

Anderson, C. (2009). The Economics of Giving It Away. Available: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123335678420235003.html. Last accessed 30th Nov 2011.

Brand, S. (1984). Information Wants to be Free. Available: http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/IWtbF.html. Last accessed 1st December 2011.

Chittum, R. (2011). Audit Notes: Paying for Newspapers Edition.Available: http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/audit_notes_paying_for_newspap.php. Last accessed 1st December 2011.

Doyle, G (2002). Understanding Media Economics. London: SAGE Publications Ltd. p.5.

Kaye, J and Quinn, S (2010). Funding Journalism in the Digital Age. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. p.1.

Keane, J. (1991). The Media and Democracy. Oxford and Cambridge, Ma.

Murdoch, J. (2009). The Absence of Trust. Available: http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Media/documents/2009/08/28/JamesMurdochMacTaggartLecture.pdf. Last accessed

Penn, M & Zalesne, E. (2009). America's Newest Profession: Bloggers For Hire. Available: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124026415808636575.html. Last accessed 3rd Dec 2011.

Rusbridger, A. (2010). The Hugh Cudlipp lecture: Does journalism exist?. Available: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jan/25/cudlipp-lecture-alan-rusbridger. Last accessed 30th Nov 2011.

Being thankful for "free" journalism

2011-12-19T08:27:00.000Z

As traditional journalism outfits and newspapers continue to struggle in the current economic climate, it's worth taking a few moments to be thankful for the fact that we still have high-quality sources of journalism... for free.

Image source

I think it's wonderful that a newspaper of such high-quality journalism as the Guardian keeps its website open and free. Unlike most other big newspapers today, such as The Times in the UK and The New York Times in the US, who have all gone behind "paywalls", the Guardian has refused to follow suit. It's one thing to say you will never charge for online content and quite another to stick to your word in these hard economic times, especially when the debate over paywalls and charging for digital content rages on.

I wonder if the Guardian doesn't look at newspapers such as The Times and others who now charge readers to access their websites and really think twice about whether they've made the right decision. With the arrival of tablet computers and smartphones, it seems that there is newfound money in the marketplace for online content. The ability to develop apps that can be accessed on iPads and other portable devices may well be the saving grace for traditional journalism as it transitions over to the online platform.

But the Guardian and its editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, believe that free content is the way to go and where the future is headed. They are worried that by charging for content and journalism you are cutting yourself off from the connected world and making yourself available only to those who can afford to pay. This remains their belief and stance in spite of the fact that they are really struggling, as are all newspapers, to survive and make any kind of a profit from their online presence.

Al Jazeera is another incredible source of quality journalism that remains open and free. Based in the Arab world, I doubt it will ever erect a paywall on its website either. So we are very lucky really: lucky that there are still the likes of Al Jazeera and the Guardian providing us with breaking news from an independent angle; the work of highly skilled professional journalists that are capable of outstanding investigative reporting and story-finding.

But all this has made me think: have I changed my attitude towards paying for high quality journalism such as that delivered by the Guardian and Al Jazeera, among others? If the Guardian went behind a full or partial paywall tomorrow, would I be pulling out my debit card and buying a subscription? I honestly think now that I very well may be. Not only because I am a journalism student, but because I value excellent journalism and do so more and more with each year that passes.

It is because of the work of journalists that I am able to say I know and understand, at least to some degree, what is going on in the world, whether it's at home or ten thousand miles away. Every article that I read and consume in a matter of minutes has taken much longer to research and write. It has taken hard work and in the most extreme circumstances the journalists might have even put their life on the line to get that story out. It bears thinking about. We may be reading all this free content online but "free" certainly wasn't the currency it was produced with. Good journalism is inherently expensive.

So I write this after a few days of regular reading on the Guardian's website and after realising how wonderful it is that something which is so expensive to produce as quality journalism should remain available to everyone for free. It really is an amazing thing that we should all be thankful for.

Globalisation In The Media

2011-12-02T15:30:00.000Z

News looks much the same wherever you watch it. Money and technology are two of the main reasons for why this is the case.

An arial shot of Russia during winter. Image source

Yesterday's lecture, delivered by Megan Knight (@meganknight on Twitter), was on the topic of globalisation and how it's affected the media industry, mainly with reference the news.

This isn't going to be a very long post, but I'll look at the main points discussed as best I can from my notes.

The lecture began with a reference to How To Write About Africa, a satirical essay and commentary on the themes of stereotypes in reporting by Binyavanga Wainaina.

When journalists report on Africa, they will often use similar vocabulary: it's considered a dark and dangerous place. Equally, coverage on China might focus on the military angle or the regimented school system to agree with our preconceived conceptions of the country.

Megan pointed out early on that in news reports,

"You always see Russia in winter. You never see Russia in summer…"

And this is something I think we can all agree on: the news we are given often looks and sounds the same, it reinforces the same stereotypes. So why is that?

Globalisation in terms of the media means that news and reports now all come in a "standard package". There is an accepted format for the way journalists do their work, and an idea that we are all more the same than we are different.

Then there is the question of money which also links into the theme of technology. It is now cheaper to station just one or two journalists in Africa (i.e. Nairobi, Johannesburg) and have them report on stories in a whole range of localities.

Because of the way technology has evolved, a story breaking in the Congo can now be covered from somewhere like Nairobi, even though it is completely "dislocated".

So we still see CNN, for example, "going live to our African correspondent" who is in fact hundreds of miles away from where the story is actually taking place and has himself been getting information from newspapers and wire services. But it looks better and more authentic than having someone discussing it from a studio in Atlanta.

The point is that it is largely for show and a cheap but effective solution to having dozens of foreign correspondents all over a continent such as Africa, or wherever it be that the story is breaking.

I also came across this question of "dislocation" when I looked at narrative in journalism and the reporting from Gaza and Haiti, and how conflict can be the easiest narrative for journalists to impose when the situation is unclear.

Charlie Brooker of the BBC did a brilliant video to demonstrate just how predictable the standard news report package is today. Of course, there are good reasons why this is the case, but it's insightful nonetheless.

Sorry I've made a bit of a hash of this post and it's been pretty disjointed, but it was just a way of throwing out some ideas that were touched on during the lecture yesterday.

Personal Update #1: A Productive Day

2011-12-01T23:56:00.000Z

It just makes more sense to title posts in which I'm reporting on updates in my personal life as "Personal Update" and then what number update it is, right?

Image source

Of course, it inevitably creates the problem of vagueness and ambiguity: it's completely unclear from the title what I'm going to talk about in the post. The simple solution? A colon followed by a few words hinting at the theme of the update.

Call me a genius.

Anyway, I think I'll start doing these "personal update" posts just to make the distinction between posts that are and aren't related to my daily life.

Sometimes it will be hard to make the call as to how much a post is about my life and how much it is about other topics, but if the majority of the content seems to point to my personal life, it will have to be classed as a personal update.

If I only briefly touch on events of the day, perhaps passingly in my discussion of broader topics, it will not be posted as a personal update. So now we're clear on that I can move on.

The update

Today's actually turned out to be an amazingly productive day.

In the morning I had a lecture at 09:00 which resulted in the detailed and huge post on Social Media Tools For Journalists, totalling around 2,000 words. I tried to break it up with pictures and subheadings to make it more readable.

Then I had lunch and spoke with Amy before heading to my 2 hours of afternoon lectures starting at 13:00. I took notes all through these lectures too, given by Megan Knight, the senior lecturer for International Journalism.

The topic was globalisation in the media and though I took notes, I couldn't bring myself to do another journalism post today. It will have to wait for tomorrow, perhaps.

I did a shop at Aldi and had a dinner of onion and tomato omelette with brie, covered in 35 pence beef ravioli straight from the can. Talk about a student meal! What's that, you don't think brie is student food? It is at £1 from Aldi, my friend.

In the evening, I managed to write close to 1,000 more words for my essay on the question of whether journalism should be free or paid-for, taking the new word count to around 1,600. I even sorted out most of the bibliography with the help of a brilliant Harvard reference generator tool.

Later, I watched a BBC documentary on world population and shared what I learnt in a post too. So for all these reasons I'd argue it's been a productive day, at least in terms of writing and university work.

Tomorrow morning I have 3 hours of work in the journalism department and then my friend Shaun is coming to stay for a few days. As of tomorrow he is off work for Christmas and will be driving up from London.

On a sightly lower note, I cut my finger open on a damn yogurt lid. It's ridiculous that it should be so sharp! So now I'm wearing a crappy plaster that will probably come off before long. Typing is a bit of a pain with it on.

So the plan for this weekend is to finish my 2,000 word essay which I will post on here after the deadline has passed (December 16). I also have some other minor assignments to get out of the way before I leave to Hong Kong next Saturday.

Time is shooting by. Thanks for reading.

How Many People Can Live On Planet Earth?

2011-12-01T22:20:00.000Z

Tonight I watched the 2009 BBC documentary How Many People Can Live On Planet Earth? Since then our population has already passed 7 billion, with the United Nations announcing it on October 31 of this year.

Image source

From the documentary I picked up some interesting facts and statistics that I'm going to share with you in this post. I think it's a subject we should all know a little bit about. As one expert interviewed said:

"When the titanic sank, the first-class cabins went to the bottom just as quickly as the steerage."

The message? We're all in this together.

Background

The human population is increasing by 2 people every second, 200,000 every day and 80 million every year. Currently more than 1 million people lack access to safe, clean drinking water.

David Attenborough mentioned in the documentary that he supports the Optimum Population Trust, which set out as its goals the following:

"The education of the public in issues relating to human population worldwide and its impact on environmental sustainability.

Research to determine optimum and ecologically sustainable human population levels and to publicise the results of such research.

Environmental protection by promoting policies in the United Kingdom and any other parts of the world that will lead or contribute to the achievement of stable human population levels which allow environmental sustainability."

Is it really possible to answer the question of how many people can live on the planet? This is the question the documentary wants to look into. It starts with the premise that the three basic human needs are water, food and energy.

So far, we have been able to monitor the human population because over the last 60 years almost every single birth and death has been recorded by the UN.

Growth

They estimate that by 2050 the world's population will hit 9 billion, meaning an additional 2 billion people. Apparently that's the entire population of today's Europe, Africa and North and South America combined.

The figures are staggering when put into perspective. But how do they arrive at this number?

Well, there are around 1 billion teenagers alive today, most of whom will have grandchildren. That's as simple as the calculation needs to be.

By 2050, the UN estimates 10 million more people in the UK and 100 million more in the USA. India will overtake China to become the world's most populated country at nearly 1.7 billion (figures for China sit at an estimated 1.4 billion).

On the other side of the scale, Japan's population is set to decrease, along with Russia, Germany and much of Eastern Europe.

Afghanistan's population will double, as will most of Sub Saharan Africa's. Meanwhile, Niger's will more than triple.

History and resources

Historically, it took until around the year 1800 for the Earth's population to hit 1 billion strong. Compare that with the 6 billion added in the past two centuries and you can immediately see that our rate of growth is unsustainable.

70% of the planet's surface is water, but only 2.5% is fresh water and just 1% is available for human consumption: the rest is locked up in mountain glaciers and the polar ice caps.

"At some time in the future, wars are going to be over water and not oil. But people don't understand: instead of conserving it we just waste it." - An emergency water truck driver in Mexico City

An interesting fact is that the Earth could only sustain 2.5 billion people if they all lived the lifestyle enjoyed by those in the UK, and a mere 1.5 billion if compared with those in the USA who consume 4 times more than their fair share of the world's resources.

Case studies

Famously, in 1979 China introduced its controversial one-child policy. Official figures now estimate that if they hadn't taken this extreme measure, the country would have an additional 400 million people by today.

In the 1970s, India's government made punishment for many minor crimes sterilisation. In the year 1977 alone, over 8 million men were sterilised. This eventually lead to the overthrowing of the government at the time.

These are just some of the facts and statistics that I jotted down whilst watching the documentary: there were plenty others I missed out. So what was Attenborough's conclusion?

He said that he hoped the very traits which set us apart from animals will ensure a solution is found: those trains being intelligence and the ability study and plan ahead, among others.

Although this documentary is by now a couple of years old, I still recommend it to anyone interested in the topic.

Thanks for reading.

Social Media Tools For Journalists

2011-12-01T15:36:00.000Z

If I don't sit down and write this straight after the lecture I'll probably forget a lot of what I was going to put into this post, in spite of having taken down some notes during the one hour session.

I think this is a particularly interesting and relevant topic for me to write about because it cuts straight to the heart of what journalism is really about today: being able to source and find potential stories in the connected world.

Image source

Background

Our lecturer, Clare Cook (@cecook on Twitter), pointed out at the beginning that next semester we, as journalism students, will be expected to go out and find out own stories to populate a portfolio of work.

I think it's fair to say that many people are going to struggle with this daunting task in the early stages. We forget that with every real news story there is background research and investigation on the part of the journalist.

Whereas in the past sourcing stories was very much about making telephone calls and following leads you heard about at the pub, in the office or out on the street, today it's much more about the ability to stay up to date with online sources and leads.

Twitter and other microblogging networks are incredibly powerful tools to the journalist who knows how to use them properly and sees them for what they have become today: living, breathing ecosystems of information, constantly being added to.

But before I head off in my own direction, let's look at some of the things that Clare talked about in the 9am lecture that I rolled out of bed, without even time for a coffee, to attend.

It will, of course, be a mixture of Clare's information and my own commentary. I'm not someone who just regurgitates facts and that's not what this blog is about.

Dot com boom

After the dot com boom, media managers began to realise that their readers often knew more than they did. With the whole connected world as their potential audiences, the expertise often lied outside of themselves.

The ability for readers to engage with and comment on published content on a website meant that suddenly articles could be publicly picked apart and criticised by this new audience. It could mean the success or death of online articles, as decided by readers.

Quality journalism quickly flourished in this new environment and the best stuff went viral as a result. It no longer mattered that something was published by a famous publication or newspaper, blog posts could now also enter the "viral stream" too and be read millions around the globe.

But that's nothing new. We all know the story and how it changed things for the better; how it gave newfound power to the common man who had passion or expertise, or both.

Sources

Recently, the whole question of how journalists source their information has come under tremendous questioning. In the wake of the phone hacking scandal and the Leveson Inquiry into press reform, we are now seeing a testing time for journalists.

How journalists source their information is key. Clearly illegal practices that have been submerged for a long time are now coming into the public eye and must end.

What, then, are the legitimate ways for the honest journalist to find story leads and breaking news online? How can they leverage the incredible force and power of the internet and all that comes with it: microblogging, social networks, directories, etc.?

Image source

Search engines

Firstly, let's look at search engines and remember that Google might be the king, but it's not the only one.

To find information on the "blogosphere" (i.e. blogs), we can use Google's blog search, but there are also other places such as Technorati and Icerocket. These are all great ways of finding niche content, often written by amateur writers or the "citizen journalist".

Then there are engines such as Yippy that allow you to search specifically for meta data, the coding that hides behind the beautiful outer designs of today's websites.

Wolfram Alpha, invented by a British scientist a couple of years ago, works on a similar algorithm to Ask Jeeves, the engine that you put in a question and get out an answer, which most people will be familiar with.

It is also useful to remember some of the ways we can input a search into Google. For example, by typing "link:" and then a website after the colon, it will show you all the websites that link back to that particular one.

Similarly, by typing "filetype:" and then, for example, "pdf", you will be shown only results that are relevant to that format. This can save a lot of time for the researcher.

As we now have instant access to all this information, day or night, it illustrates just how news has changed. Traditional news worked on a 24-hours basis with newspapers and nightly broadcasts. Then the internet came along and websites and blogs took that time down to updates every few hours. Now microblogging brings news to us every second.

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Twitter and microblogging

Moving onto Twitter, journalists can take and should take advantage of the ability to create "lists". You can have lists that bring together feeds on a range of topics, totally customisable, such as politics, breaking news (@BreakingNews), and so on.

Twitter lists can even be created as sources for research (i.e. the student who uses them to get the latest information on a topic he or she is writing an essay on).

More recently, Twitter's developer team also announced its Twitter For Newsrooms resource aimed at professional journalists. As you would expect, it's completely free. This kind of stuff is evolving and emerging on the scene all the time.

So journalists must now learn to get to grips with the power of microblogging. It's gone from something that people didn't quite understand the usefulness of to something that has revolutionised the way we find news.

Twitter is a great place to discover what topics are currently trending in the online world. What is being talked about? Websites such as Tweet Scan and Twellow help provide those answers.

You may have watched the recent video that went viral around the internet called My Tram Experience. It was footage secretly filmed of a woman with a young child shouting racists abuse at fellow passengers on the subway.

British Police announced on their Twitter feed (sorry, I can't find the link) that they had arrested the woman from the clip as a direct result of it being brought to their attention by the online community.

This, then, is a perfect example of how Twitter is often the first point of reference for breaking news today, even among official bodies such as the police.

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RSS, links and alerts

Microblogging aside, how else can journalists stay up to date with the latest and greatest? Well, RSS feeds continue to be key.

RSS, or Really Simple Syndicate, is the easiest way of pulling information from various sources into one feed. Google Reader remains one of the best RSS services around.

To learn more about RSS in simple language, watch the YouTube video by Common Craft Video titled RSS In Plain English. It's really revolutionised the digital distribution of news and information and a tool that every journalist should be using.

Clare interviewed Paul Bradshow from the Online Journalism Blog last week and said he'd made the point that URLs (unique resource locators), or "links" as they're more widely known, have become to the internet what audio is to the radio.

Although I don't know if I'd go quite that far with the analogy - for one thing, radio wouldn't function without sound - I do understand what he's getting at. I guess from an extreme perspective you could argue that the internet would not function without URLs, but I'm not going to get into that.

Google Alerts is another good way to stay on top of news for a particular keyword and the free service is worth checking out if you don't already know about it.

Finding stories

In this new digital landscape, it's all about speed. Without speed and the ability to tap sources of breaking information, you can never be first to write about the latest scoop and stand a chance of going "viral".

Finding story ideas is also a huge part of a journalist's work, whether that be locally or nationally, or even internationally. Let's quickly look at some good places to start.

My Town Live gives you the latest on what's going on where you live (currently US only).

They Work For You lets you find out what your local MP is doing. For example, what they recently spoke about in Parliament or the White Paper they just finished writing.

Planning Finder helps you find information on local house planning.

What Do They Know? searches requests submitted under the Freedom of Information Act. You may find trends here that could help build the lead to a story.

Up My Street is another good resource for information on your local neighbourhood.

Fix My Street shares reports, views and discussions on local issues. Again, great for leads if you're working on a local story.

My Society can help you find special-interest groups in your area, putting you in touch with people who are passionate on a subject. Could be great for quotes or even expert opinions.

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Social networks, multimedia and social bookmarking

yoName and Wink are two ways of finding people's profiles on a range of social networks. Don't forget that although Facebook may be king, it's not the only one. Some parts of the world, such as China, prefer other networks.

It's also worth remembering that sometimes it will be a picture or video that spark a story. As such, keeping up with multimedia networks, such as Flickr and others, is highly important. Don't just think in terms of text.

Finally, and I'm coming to the end of this incredibly long post now, social bookmarking should also be remembered. Services such as Diigo and Delicious are important ways of building an online community around, and sharing information/links on, particular topics and keywords.

Scoop, I'm told, is a useful website for journalists to check out and I'll leave you with the BBC's College of Journalism guide to social media tools, not that you'll want to read any more about it after all this!

Apologies that it ended up being so long. I hope it can at least act as a useful point of reference for journalists and journalism students in the future.

Thanks to Clare Cook for delivering such a useful lecture this morning and inspiring me to write this post.

Abraham Lincoln: Saint or Sinner?

2011-11-30T23:35:00.000Z

I just watched the BBC documentary, Abraham Lincoln: Saint or Sinner?

As someone who knows and understands very little about the history of the United States of America, but is of course familiar with Lincoln as a figure, this documentary was both educational and intriguing.

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Premise

It sets out with the premise that Lincoln was perhaps not quite the character history has remembered him as. In America today he is hailed as "the great emancipator", freer of the slaves, and there is certainly some truth in that. But there was also another side.

From his humble beginnings as the son of a farmer, he was always interested in greater things, always reading books and learning. Of course, he lived in an America that couldn't be more different from that of the present day.

In understanding his story, it's important we place it in the correct context. He was a man of his time and certainly early in his political life harboured racist views, even though he was morally against slavery.

The documentary, and those interviewed for it, took pains to point out the difference between being anti-slavery on the one hand, and believing in social equality on the other.

American Civil War

The north-south divide in America at the time lead to the Civil War that raged between 1861 and 1865 and claimed the lives of 620,000 Americans. Whereas slavery was allowed in the southern states, it had been abolished in the northern ones.

But Lincoln's views on slavery were not what most people today might imagine. They stemmed partly from the economic and practical problems it created for the average free white man at the time.

In slave-states, it was almost impossible for a white man to find work that wealthy land-owners couldn't just have their slaves do for free instead. As such, many had to cross the borders into the northern states.

However, with the Civil War between north and south, Lincoln's views on the question of race were largely changed. One commentator said it was his ability to grow and change that made him so great.

These changes came as black slaves ran away from their owners and joined forces with the northern armies, lead by Lincoln. He was amazed by their courage, loyalty and bravery in the face of battle over the years that followed and by 1865 felt they'd earned the right to citizenship in the new post-war America.

Lincoln also wanted to give the new free black population the right to vote, however he was assassinated before many of these visions could be implemented constitutionally.

Martin Luther King

It was symbolic, then, that Martin Luther King spoke nearly 100 years later on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, in Washington in 1963, to call for Lincoln's vision to be completed. He famously said:

"In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a cheque. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of colour are concerned. Instead of honouring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad cheque, a cheque which has come back marked "insufficient funds".

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this cheque, a cheque that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice."

I would encourage anyone to watch the documentary and learn a bit about Lincoln as he really was: a man who had his flaws and his own personal agenda, but someone who ultimately stood up for, and made a conscious decision to do, the right thing.

Today that's what he has been remembered for, and always will be.

University Essays And The Lost Generation

2011-11-30T17:45:00.001Z

University essays will be the death of me.

Why? Because I'm unbelievably lazy by nature and begrudge work with a vengeance. I've always been a great procrastinator and loath research.

In the end, of course, I will always have a piece of work finished and ready to hand in on time, but getting to that final product will be similar to watching a crab.

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The crab

I am the crab that can only walk sideways, unable to see the straight path, constantly zigzagging over the relatively short distance that in reality lies between me and my goal.

I don't pretend to think I am in any way unique in these matters or alone in being a master of procrastination. I know there are many people my age, older and younger, who feel the same way.

I largely blame the internet. I blame anything but myself. Though ultimately I am not stupid enough to believe it. The problem finally lies with me (and you, if you're the same).

Take this blog, for example: the perfect platform for the procrastinating student who shivers at the thought of writing an essay plan, let alone the essay itself, but will happily waste hours of the day writing nonsense here.

The lost generation

That is what this generation of young people is coming to. This "lost generation" as they are calling us. The 16-24 year-olds who are not in employment, education or training - now estimated at nearly 1.2 million here in the UK.

Sitting on the dole with a first-class honours? Ok, I'm not sitting on the dole with a degree in hand but I know many are.

Take, for example, the chap who started the blog Dole House Blues. He's a 20-something year old journalism graduate with a first-class honours and NCTJ. And yet, even he is unable to find a job.

The essay

The question I have to address in my essay due on December 16 is whether or not James Murdoch was correct when he said, and I quote:

"The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit."

I must argue either for or against this perspective with no more and no less than 2,000 words. Not a simple task. But perhaps students of today should be set to address the following statement instead:

"The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of employment is education." Discuss.

I think those could be some interesting essays, hmmm?

Does Our Writing Evolve?

2011-11-28T20:33:00.000Z

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I recently decided that the easiest way to sit down and write on a regular basis is to take out of the equation the problem of thinking what to write about.

By posing a question at the very start which you will attempt to address in the article, you can then focus your thoughts completely on that topic.

You don't have to answer the question, but you do have to engage with it and make an effort to stay relevant.

This also goes to prove that the more time you spend writing, the more lessons you generate from your own experience, as these are all thoughts I have arrived at independently.

You can listen to advice from any number of authors and watch documentaries on the lives of any number of famous writers, but ultimately you must write yourself.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't heed the advice of others, but you must remember that finally you are the one that must make it happen.

Evolution in writing

So, the topic for this piece is the question of whether our writing evolves?

I suppose, broadly, evolution means to change, usually for the better. It means to become stronger and more adapt at survival. It means to grow.

A writer who is just starting out, such as myself, writing in their free time, trying to commit to it on a regular basis, will soon come to the conviction that it certainly does evolve.

I used to sometimes say in posts earlier this year that blogging allows you to see how you are changing as a writer and, to a small extent, as a person. I still believe the first part, but it remains to be seen about the second.

Back to the old

I've spent some time over the past few days going back over old writing, mostly from my time in China, and breaking it up: creating more white space on the page, chopping paragraphs in half, adding sub headings and so on.

Most of my writing from earlier this year was unbearably long and often incredibly boring, even to myself. So many walls of thick text that even the bravest of readers would be intimidated.

I would also fail miserably at staying on topic, jumping from one idea to the next, and then back to the first, continuously.

On to the new

My writing, therefore, has evolved in that I now make an effort to stay more conscious of the topic I'm discussing and not stray into irrelevant details every other paragraph.

I now try to break paragraphs down into more digestible chunks, also helping to improve the "scanability" of the page.

As I mentioned in my recent post on George Orwell and Journalism, I observe his rule of not using a long word where a short one will do.

These are just a few of the ways in which my writing has evolved for the better since earlier this year. And it's only through making an effort to write consistently that it's been possible.

I still have so far to go and so many ways in which to improve, but as long as the process doesn't become a chore, doesn't become something akin to homework, then there is no hurry.

My writing will slowly continue to evolve and so will yours if you work at it and remember to enjoy it for what it is.

An ending quote

I'd like to finish with some advice from the author Christopher Hitchens that I came across today in a YouTube video:

"You should first ask yourself if you really have to write. In other words, not is it something you'd like to do or have heard to be rewarding or enjoyable. Has it ever occurred to you that you have no choice but to write?

There's always someone when I say this, in a room full of students, who looks at me suddenly as if, "how did you know that?" That's how I do know.

And if that's true then it's fine: it will work, you will get it done. You may not be highly successful at it, but at least you will know you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. It's a pleasure a lot of people don't have."

In other words, if you love writing you will do it in spite of the success or rewards it brings. It is just part of who you are and this made sense to me.

Can you think of something in your life that you feel this way about? If you can, go after it! Strive to bring it consciously into each and every day.

Pictures Never Lie: Narrative In Journalism, With Reference To Haiti and Gaza

2011-11-28T13:54:00.000Z

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The theme of our journalism class this morning was the idea that the same pictures and footage can be played with two contrasting narratives.

Both can be equally powerful in persuading the audience that they are seeing what they are being told they are seeing, despite the fact that the images should allow them to come to their own independent judgement.

Of course, every journalist working in broadcast must construct a narrative to go with the video footage. But the danger is when that narrative is, deliberately or accidentally, not an accurate portrayal of events.

Haiti

The journalist and commentator Charlie Brooker pointed out that a Sky News report on the situation in Haiti during the 2010 earthquakes was in fact a mis-representation of events.

The reporter made claim that crowds were fighting over cardboard boxes which were needed to use as temporary shelter. Because this was said over a scene lasting only a few seconds, it's easy to take her word for it.

However, upon closer inspection it becomes obvious that the crowds are not fighting at all, but having a bit of fun and clearly laughing as they hit each other with the cardboard boxes to flatten them.

This, then, was a perfect example of how narrative can change the interpretation of a scene we are all watching, and the fact that, in news at least, we often don't question what is reported.

Words are incredibly powerful, especially when coming from reporters and foreign correspondents who we believe to be well-informed on the subjects that they are discussing (at least in countries such as the UK).

News companies that spend a lot of money sending reporters and camera teams out to places like Haiti to cover a story want to make sure they get a good return on their investment.

Violence as a potential narrative

But looking for stories among all the chaos is not always easy and oftentimes journalists will therefore take the route of least resistance: violence. Violence is always a potential narrative, even when there's scarcely any of it actually going on.

According to my lecturer, this was certainly the case in Haiti, where some journalists made it look like a dangerous and violent place due to selective filming and reporting.

In the worst cases, journalists can even sit, for example, in London offices, narrating footage from the likes of Haiti or the Middle East without even being present themselves.

This surely raises important questions of context and personal experience, which should be used as an internal reference point by the reporter, that would clearly be lacking in these cases.

Eyeless in Gaza?

During the 2009 Israel-Palestine conflict and the invasion of Gaza, foreign media and reporters weren't even allowed into the city for fear of creating bad press for the Israeli government, as famously happened during the 2006 war in Lebanon.

In a war zone, there is always the potential for reporters to highlight human interest stories and the suffering of victims at the hands of one particular government, whether widely justified or not.

There is almost always bias in reporting, whether institutions like the BBC strive to to stay neutral or not.

Coming back to the Gaza situation in 2009, there was a complete vacuum of journalistic facts thanks to the blockade on foreign correspondents entering the city.

The only source of reporting from inside Gaza itself came from Arab journalists based there. This led to spin stories and a lot of unverifiable facts.

At the time, the death toll was reported to be 1,300 - half of which were children. Many images were not shown on UK television due to strict media rules on taste and decency (dead bodies, etc.), which arguably lead to a lack of context for the average viewer as to just how bad things were.

Hill of same

The one thing all foreign journalists reporting on Gaza at that time had in common was that none of them were inside the city, many coordinating with their London offices to get the latest information and updates for their broadcasts. Ironic.

So, where were these journalists? The only place they were allowed to be was on a hilltop some 1.5 miles southwest of Jerusalem with a very distant view on Gaza.

John Snow, veteran reporter for the BBC, said they could "see absolutely nothing of value", and the hill where they all congregated earned the nickname "the hill of same". It shouldn't be hard to guess why.

This created problems in terms of balancing Israel's account of Hamas because of the lack of reporters there to verify information. The destruction caused by Hamas rockets was widely circulated in Israeli propaganda.

The irony of it all was that there was certainly no lack of pictures or video footage but an undeniable vacuum of hard facts and convicting narrative. And there were very few personal stories or accounts in English for Western viewers.

The question of narrative

This, then, was a summary of the topics discussed in class today. I took notes because I wanted to write a post on it later as personal practice.

If you want to watch the Dispatches: Unseen Gaza documentary, it's well worth checking out, certainly for anyone interested in or studying journalism.

It helped me understand the power of narrative in news reporting and how important it is that the facts and analysis remains as close to the verifiable information as possible. All too often this standard falls short and reporters look for ways to fill the gaps.

Thanks for reading.

Why Did I Choose To Study Journalism?

2011-11-28T00:14:00.000Z

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Journalists Memorial, Arlington, Va

In yesterday's post, I talked about the differences between WordPress and Blogger and how I was considering starting a new journalism blog. Well, today that has all changed.

Instead of starting yet another blog, I'm going to do my journalism writing on this one instead. Why fix what isn't broken, eh? Besides, keeping things in one place is always simpler.

So, the topic for this post will be why I decided to study journalism in the first place.

Love for writing

Looking back over my life, writing is always one thing I've enjoyed. As I grew older, and through my teen years became more involved with the Internet culture, I became aware of blogging.

Although I didn't start blogging seriously until relatively recently, it was a natural result of my love for writing and the easiest way of getting it into the public domain.

I remember from quite a young age enjoying the freedom that came with writing stories and how it allowed me to create. Unlike art, it's a creative outlet that has stood the test of time for me. As you can see, I'm still doing it today.

College

It was actually during my AS Levels at college, when I was around 17 years old and pretty set on studying either philosophy or psychology at university, that I also felt attracted to the idea of an English literature or journalism degree.

Although I always did well in English at school with relatively little effort and usually enjoyed it, with the end of GCSEs and the start of A Levels that started to change.

English as a subject became a bit too dry for my liking. So much analysing of plays and text coupled with no focus on creative writing soon had me bored. And so I quickly decided against English at university.

Journalism was still on the table as a possible degree, but I never considered it seriously at that time. I enjoyed philosophy and psychology as subjects and had no real idea of what studying journalism would be like.

In the end, it didn't matter much because I dropped out of school at 17. In some ways it might have been for the best as looking back I don't know how much I would have really enjoyed either philosophy or psychology. On top of that, I was tired of education and probably not ready to commit to another 3 years of it.

Blogging, China and meeting Amy

A few years later, during my time in China, I started keeping a blog. After meeting Amy and realising that I needed to get a degree to stand any sort of chance at finding a decent job, I began thinking back to journalism.

Amy encouraged me to apply for a degree in the subject and I eventually got an offer from the University of Central Lancashire based on being a mature student. All the others turned me down. That was last year, in 2010.

As it happens, UCLan is the oldest journalism department in the UK, dating back to 1962. Naturally, it has the largest network of alumni journalists as well. Almost every journalism outfit in the UK now has generations of UCLan graduates working for it. And that's no exaggeration, from what I hear.

So, really I was lucky to get an offer from this university and such a good journalism department. I'm enjoying my studies and still continuing with blogging, a platform that has really allowed me to pursuit my love for writing long-term.

Fate, luck or whatever you want to call it

In the end, studying journalism was partly a conscious decision and partly down to fate. If I'd made other decisions earlier in life, I certainly wouldn't be here today. I wouldn't have gone to China when I did and I wouldn't have met Amy. I wouldn't have long-term plans to be in Hong Kong and may well never have went to university.

Alternatively, I could have ended up a 22 year old with a degree in philosophy or psychology by now. I wonder what that other me would be like?

As things stand, I'm on track to graduate with a degree in journalism in 2014. That doesn't mean I'll end up working in the industry or even in the media, but at least I'm studying something I enjoy and that focuses on writing as a primary skill.

Of course, journalism also incorporates skills besides writing such as research and information-gathering, but they're all skills I enjoy learning and ultimately benefit my writing ability.

Conclusion?

Has this been much by way of an explanation as to why I chose to study journalism? Probably not, but it's just the tip of the iceberg.

Who can say why we make the decisions we do? Life is a pretty mysterious thing. All I know is that I've made the decisions that have brought me to where I am today and made me the person I am, and I take full responsibility for them.

I also, of course, humbly acknowledge the profound effect other people have had, and continue to have, on my life, helping and guiding me each step of the way.

Thanks for reading.

George Orwell And Journalism

2011-11-27T19:48:00.000Z

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As a journalism student, George Orwell's name is often mentioned by lecturers. He is a model of political writing. After all, he did say it was his dream to turn political writing into an art. I'm sure many would agree he accomplished that.

It's easy to forget or simply not know that Orwell was a reporter and foreign correspondant. He took part in the Spanish Civil War, fighting on the side of the communists.

This later lead to his writing of Animal Farm, which was banned from publication in the UK until then end of the Second World War for fear of upsetting the Russians. He was, remember, portraying communism by the pigs' overthrowing of the farmer, only to then turn on each other and become totalitarian rulers themselves.

He spent time in Germany shortly before the surrender to Allied forces in 1945, reporting on what had become of the nation that very nearly controlled all of Europe. Memorable lines from his newsreels include the likening of red steel girders among the mountains of ruin and debris to sticks of rhubarb sprouting from the ground.

BBC documentary

Today I watched the BBC documentary George Orwell: A Life In Pictures. I learnt that there are in fact no surviving film or audio recordings of Orwell. A great shame considering he only died in 1950 at the age of 47, shortly after completing his most famous novel 1984.

It is always inspiring to watch documentaries on the lives of famous writers. Orwell's life was particularly incredible, but arguably sad and oftentimes bitterly harsh. For example, the death of his wife due to an overdose of anesthetic before an operation to remove cancerous tumors from her womb. He was abroad in France at the time.

As is famously documented in his book, Down And Out In Paris And London, he lived as a member of the working class for a substantial amount of time, earning a meagre income as a kitchen porter despite being educated at Eton. Then, in The Road To Wigan Pier, he recorded the hardships of Yorkshire miners and the appalling lives of the working class in Sheffield.

Writing rules

Although journalists of today might not necessarily envy his life, there is much we can learn from it. The rules he sets out for good writing in his essay Politics and the English Language are still as relevant today as they were 60 years ago.

I, for one, have tried to observe his rule of not using a long word where a short one will do. He also believed that political writing should be just as easily understood by the uneducated as the educated; by the "idiot" as the "intellectual". These are all sound pieces of advice, particularly coming from an age when there was great deal of pompousness in such writing.

So I'm thankful to Orwell for the lessons he left and to the BBC for their enlightening documentary on his life, despite the fact that there is no surviving video or audio footage of him. To anyone interested, it's definitely worth a watch.

Thanks for reading.

Wordpress vs Blogger: Journalism Blog?

2011-11-27T00:10:00.001Z

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I have a real love-hate relationship with Blogger.

To be honest, one of the reasons that's kept me here all this time is Google AdSense. Because Blogger is Google-owned, they allow you to display adverts on your blogs.

Wordpress, on the other hand, don't allow you to display adverts or monetize blogs that they host in any way - that means any Wordpress.com hosted blog, which sucks but I can understand why.

Undoubtedly, Wordpress is by far the superior blogging platform and that's what makes it all so annoying. If I wanted to show adverts on a Wordpress blog, I would have to buy a domain name and self-host. That would probably cost in the region of £60 per year.

Even my BLCU blog might not be able to pay for itself through the adverts it runs, meaning I'd be losing money. That's why I've always kept it here on Blogger where anything it makes is profit and potential future investment back into the blog. For example, a few days ago I registered blcublog.com for $10 per year through a Google partner which was paid for by Google AdSense revenue generated over the past month.

Journalism blog

The reason I've been thinking about the whole Wordpress vs Blogger debate again today is because I registered a free blog over on Wordpress.com that I'm considering using for my journalism writings. By journalism writings, I mean writing on the subject of journalism, rather than journalism per se.

I even got down a decent sized draft of an article as way of introduction to the new blog. Being a journalism student, I think it would be useful to have a place where I can just write about the subject and my experience of learning about it (here at university).

I do think that Wordpress is the more professional of the two platforms and one I really should be using and getting comfortable with as a journalism student in 2011. It is, for sure, more complicated and tailored to the serious writer. Heck, The New York Times use it for their main site. I bet you didn't know that, did you?

By creating a blog that is just about the subject of journalism, it would give me the opportunity to share what I'm learning with a niche audience (i.e. people who want to read about journalism), rather than putting it here among all the other waffle I write.

An audience is never going to grow around a general personal blog like this one. People go to blogs, usually, because they want to read about a particular topic. Having that focus would also encourage me to write higher quality pieces that require more time and research.

Then the question arises: do I actually have enough interest in journalism to blog about it? I thought this through earlier and it struck me: if I don't have enough interest to blog about it, what on earth am I doing studying it at university?

If anything, I should be making an effort to write about it as often as I can as a way of engaging and learning. Having a blog to maintain would be a good incentive to do more reading around the subject or else struggle for things to write about.

Unemployed Hack

Reading blogs such as unemployedhack.wordpress.com by an out-of-work journalist (who I believe used to work for the now-defunct News Of The World) has also stirred interest in me.

I've been keeping up with his posts over the last few months and find them very interesting, though I'm sure they will promptly stop as soon as he finds new employment. In fact, he has an interview tomorrow from what I read in his most recent post.

But anyway, I didn't want this post to go on too long. Really it was just to ramble some more about the matter of choosing between Blogger and Wordpress and the fact that I might start this new journalism blog over on Wordpress. We'll see what I manage to write tomorrow as, being a Sunday, I should have enough free time to commit to a decent opening post.

I think sticking AdSense on blogs is going to have to become less important to me in the future if I want to get myself using Wordpress as soon as possible and writing on topics for reasons other than their advertising potential. Thanks for reading.

Google+: Dead Or Alive?

2011-11-25T20:24:00.001Z

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Everyone on social media is talking about it and everyone is asking the same question: is Google+ dead?

I just read a BBC article on the subject which made some interesting points and might have you rethinking your quick judgement.

Whatever you believe, it's hard to deny that everyone is still on Facebook and very few are on Google+.

One notable exception is my friend Shaun, who closed down his Facebook account and migrated to Google+ permanently. A brave move.

But as John Abell, New York Bureau chief of Wired.com, points out:

"We're not talking about somebody who has borrowed $10,000 from his mommy. This is Google."

Too big to fail?

Bradley Horowitz, vice-president of product at Google+, said:

"The concept of Google+ dying, it's a misunderstanding of what we're doing. We have not even begun, let alone these reports of premature demise."

So, for now, I'll keep holding my breath and watch with interest over the coming months and years as this new social network finds it place on the internet.

I'm kind of inclined to believe it's here to stay.

Consistency

2011-11-24T21:10:00.000Z

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Consistency with anything is important. Well, anything that brings about a positive change over time. There's little use in being consistent with an anti-productive behaviour.

I stumbled across a video on my Facebook feed that someone I know had posted to their wall. It turned out to be one of seven videos that he's made so far.

The theme of his video is a 30 day challenge. The idea is that it takes 30 days to turn something into a habit and 90 days to turn it into a behaviour.

So this person, called Jon, is taking 30 days to get more comfortable with talking on camera before doing more serious talks as material for a new website he is developing called 21st Century Health.

I found his talks very inspirational and positive and felt like mentioning it here in a blog post.

I'm not yet ready to do video blogging as he is doing - it's actually a very awkward experience for people who are new to it - but I'm at least happy to put my thoughts into writing.

So check out his video and be inspired to try something new!

What could you commit to doing over 30 days that would bring about a positive new habit in your daily life and help you grow as a person?

It's something worth thinking about.

Why Bother With Chinese Writing?

2011-11-23T20:51:00.000Z

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I chose Mandarin Chinese for my elective module this year but I'm starting to wonder if I should've thought twice.

The number of characters we're expected to learn for the writing exam is unrealistic in my opinion. Do they realise how long it takes for foreigners to commit them to memory?

So far we're up to chapter 5 in the textbook and there must've been hundreds of characters in the vocab lists. Even coming from Beijing, I'm struggling.

The end of term written exam could be on any of the topics we've covered. I think they should at least tell us it's going to be one of two or three subjects rather than expect we'll have the time to commit everything to memory.

I guess I'm just annoyed right now because I haven't been studying Chinese enough and the exams are looming. The fact that I hardly remember any characters from Beijing when I invested SO much time in it also makes me wonder if it's worth going through it all again.

The moment you stop practicing Chinese reading and writing, it all just falls away. It's a lot of effort for very little.

Or at least that's how I feel right now. Bah.

Howl's Moving Castle

2011-11-23T20:21:00.000Z

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Tonight I re-watched Howl's Moving Castle... again. There's little doubt that it's one of the all-time great anime films and perhaps one of the few to be widely recognised outside of anime circles.

Have you seen or heard of it?

Of course, there's also Spirited Away which is just as brilliant and arguable even more well known.

Unfortunately, the copy on my external hard drive was partially corrupted and so my re-watch was interrupted a number of times, forcing me to skip segments here and there. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it very much.

In the same way that re-watching old Disney films can take some people back to their childhood, re-watching great anime, particularly from Studio Ghibli, has similar effect on me: I just want to curl up into a ball and get lost in the magic of the world.

Curious as to who did the voice acting for the main character, Howl, I checked IMDB to discover it was Christian Bale. I thought it sounded familiar, but I would never have guessed!

And such is how I've spent this Wednesday evening: in another world, quietly content, my eyes glued to the cartoon images of a wizard and his moving castle.

Javan Roast And Ground Coffee

2011-11-23T09:36:00.000Z

"This Specially Selected Javan Coffee thrives in the fertile, volcanic earth of the Ijen Plateau, on the beautiful Indonesian island of Java. The region is home to some of the world's oldest coffee plantations, which give this coffee it's rich full-bodied flavour with a subtle chocolate finish."

Photo is author's own

Having just finished my previous bag of fresh coffee yesterday, I was looking forward to trying this new offering from Aldi's Specially Selected range.

Unfortunately, it's the worst one yet. Even more of a shame because the packaging is just beautiful. Of course, packaging sells products.

The claims of any chocolate on the finish is drowned out by a bitter aftertaste.

The other two fresh coffees from this range, one Colombian and the other Ethiopian, were also nothing special.

At only £1.99, though, I'm not heartbroken.

If you want an excellent bag of fresh coffee from Aldi for about the same price, try the Metro range, particularly the Italian one. It's full of flavour and bite.

I'll see how this bag tastes tomorrow, but I suspect that bitter aftertaste won't be going away.

Nightclub Bomb Assignment

2011-11-22T20:53:00.001Z

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Police were called to a Preston night club in the early hours of this morning after receiving reports that a bomb had been set off.

Around 300 people were at the Purple Parrot nightclub on Fishergate when a banger-type firework exploded on the dance floor. Police were notified by two separate 999 calls at 12:50am.

Several people, including three students from the University of Central Lancashire, were injured at the scene and later taken by ambulance to the Royal Preston Hospital.

Chief Inspector Anthony Wade, of Preston Police, said: “The evacuation went smoothly but 300 people dashing out of the exists soon spilled out into the road and caused traffic problems.” One student was struck by a car.

A CS gas canister was also recovered from the scene. Police now wish to discuss security arrangements with the club’s owner, Mr Liam O’Keefe, and find out why the large firework and canister were not spotted by doormen.

Mr O’Keefe said: “We have given police footage from two CCTV cameras - one at the entrance and the other beside the stage - which may offer clues about who was responsible.”

Two of the students involved in the incident were later released from hospital after being treated for severe breathing difficulties. The condition of a third student, who suffered a broken right leg and severe bruises, has been described as comfortable.

The club’s owner added: “I suppose we’re lucky it happened on a quiet night. There would have been a crowd of around 600 here on a Friday or Saturday.”

Chinese Portfolio Task 3

2011-11-22T20:50:00.000Z

我住在北京的时候常常生病，特别是我第一次到中国的那几天。

有一次我跟朋友们去外边吃饭，看一个出售小车的人站在路上，好像很好吃也很便宜，所以我决定买了几个东西，把它们快快的吃完。

到饭馆的时候我已经不舒服，马上知道是因为我刚才吃了那些小吃。我们都坐下，然后我说：“对不起，我不舒服，一定不要紧，但我觉得应该回家休息一会儿，别着急，你们吃饭。”

一个朋友想陪我回家可我不同意，告诉他我能自己回去。

第二天我去了大学的医务到看大夫，告诉他哪里不舒服，比如头疼，拉肚子，等。他很认真的听一听然后对我说：“我给你开一些中成药，准备喝，很容易，也很能帮你。应该休息几天，我给你病假条，别上课，好不好？”

我当然同意，事实上我也不想上课，什么劲都没有。

Sorry, I still haven't translated this.

Celebrity Food Poisoning Assignment

2011-11-22T20:22:00.000Z

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At least fifteen celebrities, including a number of footballers, have fallen seriously ill after attending a charity fundraising dinner in Preston on Sunday night.

Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand and Ryan Giggs are just three of the celebrities who have been admitted to hospital with salmonella poisoning.

The event, organised by Cancer Research UK, was held at the Monarch Hotel in Fishergate on Sunday evening and included the auctioning of signed shirts and footballs.

The first symptoms were reported on Monday evening when five of the guests were taken to the Alexandra Hospital in Manchester. Ten more were admitted overnight. All are confirmed to have eaten chicken at the meal.

A senior press officer for the Monarch Hotels group said: “We are deeply sorry that this event has occurred. We are doing everything we can to establish what has caused this... We wish to emphasis that a substantial amount of money was raised for Cancer Research.”

The hotel is currently cooperating fully with the Health Department in their investigation and samples of the meal have been submitted.

All three footballers are expected to make a full recovery though details of the other celebrities remain unknown. Currently no other guests at the hotel have been affected.

Little is known about the meal itself, except that guests were served soup, followed by chicken with vegetables and strawberry tarts for dessert.

At present, the hotel is not accepting responsibility until a full investigation into the cause of the poisoning has been carried out.

The hotel’s press officer added: “Our priority remains in our commitment to our customers and to the community and we hope to continue to be involved in these forms of fundraising events.”

Lying To Yourself

2011-11-22T12:14:00.000Z

"Until you stop lying to yourself, I'll never stop lying to you."

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This is one line from a song by Example that I hear a lot in the gym here in Preston.

As with a lot of songs that you hear in the background, whether it be on the radio or at a bar, you can find yourself humming the tune or singing lines to yourself unconsciously.

I was doing that with this line today.

I'd always assumed the singer was admitting that he was lying, but I didn't understood why he should keep doing it until the other person "stopped lying to themselves". An earlier line in the song even says, "I'm happy to admit that I lied."

But when I was singing the line in my head this morning, I interpreted it in another way: that you can't change another person's opinion of you. If someone else is convinced you're lying, then you're lying.

So now the singer was telling this person that until they changed the conviction in their own mind, he would "never stop lying," no matter what the situation may be in reality.

I thought it was an interesting insight and example of how rarely we clearly see both sides of life around us.

Authentic Chinese Soup Noodles

2011-11-14T16:08:00.000Z

For some quick and easy authentic Chinese soup noodles like I made in the picture here...

You'll need...

From your local shop:

1 pack of instant noodles
1 large tomato
3 garlic cloves
1 egg
1-2 pickled gerkins
Vinegar (either Chinese or normal)

From a Chinese supermarket:

1-2 teaspoons of black bean (comes in a jar with chili seeds and oil)
1/2 packet of preserved green beans (comes in a vacuum pack)

Instructions

Depending on your taste, roughly chop three cloves of garlic and one large tomato.
Stir fry on a high heat in a teaspoon of oil (or less) and add 1-2 teaspoons of black bean. You can also chuck in some vinegar now, maybe just a tablespoon (I do it to taste, usually I like more).
After frying these ingredients for a couple minutes just to take the edge off the garlic, pour in some boiling water (enough to allow the instant noodles to cook in).
Put in the instant noodles and the flavouring sachet that comes with it. Also now crack in your egg and allow it to poach next to the noodles in the soup.
After the noodles have softened, one or two minutes later, pour it all into a bowl. Your egg should cook very quickly, keeping the yolk runny.
Slice one or two gherkins long ways or diagonally and throw them onto the noodles. Then empty half the packet of preserved green beans onto them as well.

That's it. Enjoy!

If you're hardcore like the Chinese, you'll eat raw cloves of garlic with mouthfuls of the noodles and soup!

P.S. Notice that I haven't used any soy sauce. It's generally not used in Chinese soup noodles.