Fake it till you make it?

This is a saying that I have heard numerous times in my area of study, 'Journalism.' And to be honest it has got me thinking quite a lot. Should we make it till we make it?

3 Channel 9 reporters faked important information about a story just to get the story. They faked it and didn't quite make it, so did it work for them?

The 3 reporters claimed they were reporting from a location. 'near Beerwah' over the search site for Daniel Morcombe's remains, when really they were 80 kms away above the news station in Brisbane.

Photo: Footage of the live fake broadcast.

In this instance this obviously was not okay. It was not okay to fake this a situation like this, which resulted in the 3 of them losing their jobs.

In another instance, David Attenborough was in the middle of filming his television series of 'Frozen Planet.' In one episode he gave the impression that he filming of a polar bear birth was conducted in the Artic when it was actually filmed in a zoo.

Photo: An image that was shown on 'Frozen Planet.'

 



Photo: The location that the birth was actually filmed.

David Attenborough noted this information on his website and unless you visited the website you would never have known. This instantly sparked controversy over the impression that he was giving. Mr Attenborough claimed that informing people while the birth was taking place would have ruined the atmosphere and mood that he had created.

So is this faking it? I'll let you decide.

So was this actually good advice or not? Should we fake it till we make it? The power of online journalism will catch up on us if we try to take short cuts.

Maybe it is smarter just to be good at what we do and make it.

Small town set to shine at Relay for Life

The small South Burnett town of Kingaroy has been long preparing for a big event that is set to begin in a couple of weeks.

The South Burnett Relay for Life is back on October 13 at the Kingaroy Show grounds where thousands of people will walk around a track for 18 hours, to celebrate cancer survival and fundraise to fight back against the disease.


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The event began in Australia in 1999, when the Victorian community of Murrumbeena raised over $75,000 for the Cancer Council. Relay For Life is now run in every state and territory, raising over $14 million each year for the cancer fight.

The South Burnett holds the event in a different town each year, with Kingaroy having the honour for 2012. Teams of 10 or more will gather at 5am to set up tents lining the show grounds oval before the relay begins.


Photo Gallery by QuickGallery.com

Slideshow: Images from Relay For Life.

Click the link below to see a rundown of the event’s activities. http://www.relayforlife.org.au/

The South Burnett Relay for Life sees an increasing number of participants each year, with this year set to break another record. Each year the event in the South Burnett sees an extraordinary amount raised for the Cancer Council which is around $80,000 - $100,000.

This year the towns hopes to far exceed this amount with teams working harder than ever to raise as much funds as possible.

Participating in the event each year is ‘Birds of Feather’ which is a team of strong elderly women who have all survived cancer and now dedicate their lives to raising money to help find a cure.

Photo: Relay for Life team, Birds of a Feather.

Vice president of the team, Jan Lamborn sheds some light on how important this event actually is.

Photo: Birds of a Feather Vice President, Jan Lamborn.

 

“The most important thing to me is that we raise as much money as we possibly can for the research for cancer. It won’t happen in my lifetime, it probably won’t happen in my daughter’s lifetime, but it will happen in my granddaughter’s lifetime,” she said.

But it doesn’t stop there; Birds of a Feather hold various events and participate in many meetings throughout the year to help raise the vital funds.

The team hold garage sales, cake sales, ticket raffles and clay target shoots to help raise money for the Cancer Council. The team also attend many cancer seminars and travel around the South Burnett to increase awareness about the disease, the team and how they can help.

Mrs Lamborn says she can already see the difference that the money raised for this disease has had.

Jan says while the event raises these much needed funds, it is a whole lot of fun.

Each year the Birds of a Feather team raise approximately $8,000. This year the team hopes to increase this number and raise as much money as they possibly can. 

The South Burnett Relay For Life Co-ordinator, Jen Davis says the Birds of a Feather team play a very important role in the region.

Jan says, one of the most emotional parts of the evening is where everyone unites for the candle lighting ceremony.

“All around the whole of the showgrounds, on the inside of the showgrounds is candles. I get very emotional when I think about this,” she said.

The people of Relay for Life gather with lit candles in a paper bag with messages written on the front to those who have lost their lives to the disease. These bags are then lined around the edge of the oval lighting the path of the people walking through the night. This is said to be where the people who have lost their lives to the disease come to help and guide the people through the darkness while watching over them.


Photo Gallery by QuickGallery.com

Slideshow: Relay for Life candlelighting ceremony.

Ms Davies says the candle lighting ceremony really is the crux of the event.



“We light a candle for those who have passed, for those who are fighting and it’s a little bit of hope,” she said. 

For more information about the event or to get involved, click on the link below. http://www.relayforlife.org.au/

Be careful what you say...it's here to stay.

My mother told me, ‘if you haven’t got anything nice to say then don’t say anything at all.’ Now I’m pretty sure Alan Jones’ mother forgot to tell him this little bit of information and as a result he’s in a bit of strife.

 

I’m sure we’ve all heard the story by now that he said Julia Gillard’s father died from shame because of her lies on LIVE radio.

What was he thinking?

These comments went viral in minutes which resulted in a huge negative public reaction.

Now the radio host has lost sponsors and the radio channel is losing money due to the comments made. This story has been all over the TV, Internet, radio and now Facebook pages are popping up dedicated to the hate they have for Alan Jones.

These couple of words have literally changed Alan’s life.

He has said sorry but maybe sorry just isn’t enough anymore.

We try to teach kids that bullying is not okay, but how are they meant to learn if the grownups are doing it?

This brings me to another story.

A twitter member tweeted horrible things about Robbie Farrah’s mother. The kind of things you should never hear anyone say. Robbie fought back and pledged to the Prime Minister that she should combat against cyber bullying and introduce new laws.

Maybe Robbie should have dug a little into his tweeting history before making this pledge.

Robbie himself is an offender of bullying by tweeting that the Prime Minister should buy a noose for her birthday.

It’s always a different story when the shoe is on the other foot.

With technology evolving every day, it’s so important that we understand that anything we say or put on the Internet will be there forever.

This goes for radio and television as well, as whatever you say or do on the broadcasting shows will end up on the Internet and be there forever.

This is just the power of online journalism. We need to learn how to work with it, not against it!

Newspapers...relevant or irrelevant?

My boss said something to me the other day which really made me think

 

He said:

“The only newspaper I buy is the Sunday Mail and the only reason I buy the Sunday Mail is for the TV guide.”

 

 

 

                    VS.

 

 

 

 

 

Now this is not the first time I’ve heard this, but this is something I’m beginning to hear a lot more.

I know my mother won’t buy a Sunday Mail without the TV guide in it. She always checks to make sure there is one.  

Is this what most of us are doing and not even realising it? Are newspapers only being bought for the TV wguide?

This brings me to something else about. What if you could buy only the TV guide? Would you buy the newspaper as well? Ask yourself that.

With the TV guide available online and more people connecting to the Internet the number of newspapers being bought has the potential to decrease.

It was once such an enjoyable thing, waking up on a Sunday morning, sitting down in the sun with a coffee and reading the Sunday Mail.

What will happen if online journalism continues to evolve?

Will the new enjoyable thing be to wake up on a Sunday morning, make a coffee and sit at the computer to read the news or on your smart phone or your iPod or your tablet?

 

VS.

 

 

With all these options now available it seems only sense to be buying the Sunday Mail just for the TV guide.

What will be the next thing to decrease? Magazines? What will happen if all the magazines become available to view on the Internet?

Well there isn’t much we can do, but sit back and watch the world of online journalism evolve.

Truth or Hoax?

It was a Saturday morning and I was just waking up when I jumped on Faceboook to catch up on all the latest goss that happened overnight while I was sleeping. And there it was. Pages and pages dedicated to the death of Adam Sandler! I was shocked and texted a few friends to see if they knew. A couple had and some others hadn’t. But then I switched on the morning news and not one thing was said about the ‘death’ of the celebrity and then I started thinking. If someone as famous as this had died, I’m pretty sure it would be on the news. So I Googled the claimed ‘death’ of Adam Sandler to get to the bottom of it. And I did. There were news stories everywhere about the Adam Sandler death hoax that had fooled the world. This hoax had such an impact that Adam Sandler himself had to come out and confirm that he was alive. Now this hoax just goes to the bottom of a long list of other celebrities that have been reported dead on the Internet which have turned out to be a hoax. Just this year alone there has been many including, Morgan Freeman, Bill Cosby, Paris Hilton, ReeceWitherspoon, 50 Cent, Channing Tatum and Eddie Murphy.

These death hoaxes cause such an impact that television news stations around the world report the story due to the increased news worthiness. 

These hoaxes are fuelled by online social media sites as they generate word of mouth. Take my situation for example, just lying in bed on a Saturday morning checking the news on a portable device, contacting friends to see if they have heard the news. Right there I increased the attention surrounding the hoax by contacting friends to see if they heard. The friends I told who hadn’t heard the news would have then passed on the information to more people that initially came from me.

An online journalism lecture titled ‘New Media, New Issues’ contained some important points on how to pick the truth from a hoax.

Some of these points included:

-          Does the story sound possible?

-          When was the web domain registered?

-          Have the photos on the site been ripped off?

-          Does the phone number given appear anywhere else on the web?

-          Does the address listed on the website actually exsist?

Now if I followed these points as soon as I discovered the news, I wouldn’t have contributed to the attention of the hoax. But we all know that this hoax will definitely not be the last.

It just goes to show the power that online journalism has on the world. The death hoaxes are primarily generated on the Internet and as the attention surrounding those builds, news organisations begin to take on reporting the story. In this case and in many other cases the Internet was the first source to report the death as a hoax, before the newspapers and before the television news channels.

I guess this just illustrates the power of online journalism.

News apps for news junkies.

Now I know last week we spoke about the best news sites on the Internet, but how about the best news apps?

All the news junkies out there would be loving the amount of apps that are available at the push of a button, wherever they go.

It’s amazing how advanced online technology is nowadays with all the news you could ever want on a small device in your hot little hand that can connect to the Internet. That’s all you need.

So what are the news apps to have on these devices?

Well I’ll let you in on the ones that I believe should be at the top.

BBC News

This app has everything that you would want. The variety of stories is great, the amount of stories is great and it has all the different news groups you could want; sport, entertainment, lifestyle and weather. I would give it 4 stars!

7NEWS

This is a great app as it has everything you want and more. The app has a great variety of stories, it is easy to navigate, the weather is right at the top as soon as you open it up, with the latest news story the first thing you see.  A very well constructed news app! I would give it 4 ½ stars!

9 Newsbreak

This app is a pretty good one. As soon as you open it up the first thing you see is the latest news story with video links to watch more. There are more news stories as you scroll down the page. However it does not have an entertainment, sport or weather section. Still an effective news app, but I would only give it 3 stars!

These news apps are only three out of many others. I picked these ones as they are currently on my iPhone and iPad. They are my go to apps when I am catching up on the news. Online Journalism has transformed. You can say goodbye to newspaper and hello to more news apps.  With more and more people becoming technology savvy, I would not be surprised at all if newspaper were eventually phased out.

This would be a huge move and cause drastic changes to not only Australia, but to the World! But this is a whole other topic to discuss.

For now we just have to sit back and watch the power of online journalism rise!

From paper to pad...

Its 7am in the morning and what do I do? I roll over and grad my iPad to catch up on all the latest news. No need to drive to the corner store to pick up the paper, no need to wait for the paper to be delivered. All you news that you could ever want is right there in YOUR hands.

Who would have ever thought that this was possible? Certainly not me. Online journalism has taken off with more and more people adapting to the popular news gathering method. The Online Journalism week 5 lecture provided a real insight into this by stating:

“...one thing is certain, viewers will be consuming more and more journalism content on mobile devices  and it only makes sense that journalists will create that content on mobile devices.”                                                                          Richard Koci Hernandez, UC Berkeley

Now because of this, the number of news sites on the Internet has grown and are able to be accessed from anywhere that can connect to the internet. Nowadays we carry around multiple devices that can do such that. Mobile phones, tablets, iPods and daily planner handheld devices can all be taken with us anywhere and can all access the Internet. Too bad we can’t say the same for stores that sell newspapers or news channels on the television.

So what are the best sites to go to for the best news coverage and variety?

Well I’ll give you my top 3!

Coming in at 3^rd place is ABC News

ABC News has a well constructed news website. The most popular story is seen at the top with a big image and the tabs at the top help the viewer to navigate their way around the site. However the site does come across a little confusing in some areas. As you scroll down you come to a list of popular stories with a whole heap of text. Not very attractive and not many people are going to be interested in reading all of it. They should have a tab at the top of the page for this information which would increase the impact of the site, engaging more viewers. Overall a pretty good news site.

Coming in at 2^nd place is News.com.au

This website gives you everything you need to know. It’s easy to navigate your way around the page using the tabs at the top. It gives you a great variety of news stories with the most important always at the top with a big image to grab your attention. A pretty good news site if you ask me.

And finally...

Coming in at 1^st place is Ninemsn!

This site has it all for me! It has the most recent, important story at the top with a large image. The tabs at the top make it easy to navigate your way around the page. The news section is at the top but as you scroll you reach the sport section and the entertainment section with links to more stories regarding that section. There are a lot of images grabbing viewer’s attention. The eye is automatically drawn to the top left-hand side of the page as most people read left to right and in the top right hand corner of the site is the weather which is a popular element that people look for but is not the most important. It is well spaced out, well thought out and well constructed! The site gets a 10/10 in my mind!

Blogs are another thing that is beginning to take over the Internet. We all heard about the Charlotte Dawson incident and I spoke about it in my last post. But the attention that the incident received far exceeded my expectations. I did not know the power that words can have on a person and because of the ‘twitter trolls’ Charlotte attempted to take her own life. She spoke about the incident on 60 minutes, in which the interview actually went national, appearing on every news channel.

Blogs are taking off with some people even having a full time job as a blogger. The Online Journalism week 6 lecture was given by one of the successful ones. Nikki Parkinson is her name and she has managed to turn blogging into a fulltime profession. Something I also didn’t see happening anytime soon. She asked the question:

‘The media landscape is changing. Are you ready?’

A question that I haven’t really thought about until now and my answer is – we have no choice BUT to be ready. The world off the Internet is taking off and if we don’t keep up, we will be left behind.

The power of the Internet is increasing.

And if you ask me..this is just the beginning.