The rise of new media has old media caught in the crosshairs between supporting one of its most fundamental values – the pursuit of perfect information and the fostering of public debate- and fighting for its very existence.

Drastic changes in any industry will always bring resistance. The question is, how much of this resistance to online media is about the defence of quality journalism and how much of it is about the fear of losing control?

In this article, Mathew Ingram, senior writer with GigaOM.com, examines the online media debate between journalism professor Jay Rosen and digital skeptic and author Nicholas Carr hosted by The Economist.

Carr contests that the Internet is damaging traditional media and only benefits the “plugged-in elite”. The people are being starved of “hard, objective reporting”, says Carr.

Rosen relinquishes that there has been an “explosion of questionable online content” but says the Internet is improving journalism – citing the increase in contributors, distribution, and effective tools and a shift in power away from “a small number of gatekeepers”.

“The Internet is simply an accelerator, amplifying the good and the bad,” Ingram concludes. “Whether society as a whole is better off is still an open question.”

Read article here:

Is the Internet making journalism better or worse? Yes

News worthiness can be a cruel creature.

On 11 March 2011, Japan was struck by a giant tsunami that was triggered by the fourth largest earthquake in recorded history, leaving 20,000 people dead and more than 80,000 refugees.

But the humanitarian impacts of the tragedy have been sidelined in favour of a third disaster, the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns.

In this interview, Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, says that comprehensive reporting on the ongoing humanitarian crisis is vital for human recovery.

“We’re missing more of what we need on this horrific human tragedy,” says Dr. Redlener.

Despite the catastrophic unfolding nuclear disaster, Dr. Redlener believes journalists still need to perform an “unrelenting monitoring” of the humanitarian recovery process.

This includes asking the tough questions, says Dr. Redlener.

“Who is in charge of the response? What is the plan? Are human needs recognised and being addressed? Are there ongoing threats?”

This interview alerts journalists to the necessity of ‘balance’ in disaster reporting and the consequences of abandoning the most important aspect of the story – the people.

Read Bruce Shapiro’s Article

Imagine a pig. Take a moment.

Now imagine a dolphin.

What do you see?

The dolphin – and indeed the whale – has assumed an almost sacred-like status in the West, while other animals such as the pig… well, have lost out.

The Academy Award-winning documentary The Cove, airing Sunday night on ABC1, is a masterfully crafted spy-like thriller telling the story of dolphin hunting practices in Taiji, Japan. The documentary shows terrible scenes of dolphins being rounded up, netted and then slaughtered with spears.

It is shocking to see an animal, any animal, being killed. So what about the meat that makes it to the Aussie dinner plate? Does its past life get a fair hearing?

Read full article

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2860470.html

Journalists love a good scoop. Top political correspondents were in for a treat at the March 1989 Garrick Club lunch.

Scottish police had uncovered the group responsible for the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie bombing and arrests were imminent, the press gathering was told off-the-record by Transport Minister Paul Channon. These revelations were promptly splashed across the front page of the newspapers who had been lucky enough to be in the loop.

Syria and Iran were implicated together with a Palestinian group, the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), allegedly hired to plant the bomb disguised as a cassette recorder in revenge for a US strike on an Iranian airliner the previous year – all of which was outlined in a three-month-long Sunday Times expose.

Suddenly, eighteen months after the attack the direction of the enquiry shifted and two Libyans were indicted – based on the evidence from one ‘witness’, Abdul Majid Giaka.

Paul Foot’s decade-long investigation summarised in this article he wrote for The Guardian exposed the trial as a farce offering geopolitical strategies as motivation for the abrupt shift in suspects.

Giaka had defected from Lybian intelligence to the CIA months after the bombing but failed to inform the CIA of his alleged evidence of the attacks unitl the beginning of the Gulf War. Giaka stood to gain a four million dollar reward for his testimony.

Foot’s investigation detailed the curious case of undercover Jordanian intelligence agent, Marwan Khreesat, who was arrested by German police in possession of an explosive device shortly before the attacks. Scottish police were prohibited from questioning Khreesat who was hastily released.

An FBI summery of an interview with Khreesat was presented in the trial, “[FBI agent Edward Marshman] does not think [Khreesat] built the device responsible for Pan Am 103, as he only built four devices in Germany”. Foot exposed this statement as a sham. Khreesat had made five devices – not four – all disguised as cassette recorders, one of which was stolen.

Two months prior to the bombing when Khreesat returned from the shower to resume his work, both his associate Dalkamoni, a PFLP member, together with one of the bombs were gone.

Foots tireless analysis of the development of the Lockerbie bombing investigation is a chief example of the true essence of investigative journalism. A timely reminder of the need for critical thinking and a commitment to through research in the current media environment dominated by the almighty PR machine. 

Paul Foots summary on The Guardian

Go Animate!

By Glen Clancy

By Glen Clancy

“There was a big earthquake up here!” a Japanese friend texted me from the Tokyo area. But I was not perturbed. Earthquakes in Japan are as common as sushi and sumo wrestling.

The earthquake has now been identified as the largest to hit Japan in recorded history. The earthquake was the trigger to the perfect storm. Within hours of the tremors a colossal tsunami, in some places reaching ten metres high, engulfed the North East coast of Japan’s main island of Honshu. There are now over 28,000 people confirmed dead or missing.

Once I arrived home in Osaka that evening I turned on the TV to find images of the lucky few who had fled to higher ground before their towns were swept away by the giant tidal wave. Was I watching the news or was NHK playing the Hollywood blockbuster, The Day After Tomorrow?

The next blow to Japan was the news that several nuclear plants had lost power and that back up generators had been wiped out by the tsunami. The Japanese people held their collective breaths at the thought of a possible nuclear meltdown. Foreigners living in Japan began to panic. A lot of my foreign friends began to talk of fleeing the country. The Japanese on the other hand have been forced to place their welfare and livelihoods in the hands of Tokyo Electric Power Company – a private corporation. Somewhat ironic in a post war Japan fuelled by western capitalism.

“There has been an explosion at Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant,” rang out the cries from local media and foreign media outlets.

Now the foreigners living in Japan really started to panic. Half of my fellow exchange students began preparing to book flights to leave the country. Anxiety also rose amongst the Japanese but foreign reports – peppered with the convenient expression of “panic-buying” – were wildly over exaggerated. There was, and still is, stockpiling of essential goods such as petrol and water in the most effected areas but perhaps it would be more effectively described as “orderly over-purchasing”.

The internet provided foreigners living in Japan with an influx of foreign English media reports on the nuclear crisis. The Guardian newspaper created a minute-by-minute online blog – akin to its famous over-by-over cricket updates – allowing people to experience every ebb and flow of the nuclear threat. And so with every minute-by-minute update fear amongst my foreign friends grew. This fear and panic had negative effects on the Japanese populace. Many asking, “Why are the foreign people fleeing Japan? What do they know that we don’t know?”.

Contrastingly, the Japanese TV news reports were less sensational, providing the Japanese with more in-depth analysis of the possible outcomes and effects of a nuclear meltdown – needless to say the people were and remain somewhat sceptical of official press releases. It was clear from watching nuclear experts on Japanese TV that whilst providing the best possible analysis, they also felt a responsibility to help ease the anxieties of their audience.

On almost every online media report comparisons were being made to the worst nuclear accident in history, the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. This made for some exciting reading for those surfing the net on the other side of the globe, but a little more disconcerting for those within a wind change away from the nuclear threat. What online media reports did not explain was that the Japanese power plants had been built with several additional containment structures to withstand even the most extreme of circumstances. According to MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) the most outer fourth containment structures are “designed, built and tested for one single purpose: To contain, indefinitely, a complete core meltdown.” Unfortunately, this vitally reassuring information was nowhere to be found on online media reports.

The constant flow of “worst-case scenario” reporting and a continuous feed of raw information and updates without any context or critical analysis rendered the online media almost useless for readers trying to gauge the reality of the situation. The Japanese media on the other hand appeared to understand the importance of its role in the ongoing national crisis. Japanese television news reports were composed and provided useful in-depth accounts of the situation. 

As a student of journalism, there were many lessons to be learned from being a foreigner living on the fringe of this crisis. The digital media, whose audience spans across the globe, reported with little thought of those who would be reading their material in the crisis zone. Moreover it was evident that the importance of critical in-depth analysis of events took a backseat to real-time publishing of information before the competition.

Should online media exhibit a sense of balance in not just reporting the raw facts but also providing useful in-depth analysis of ongoing crises?

Should online media demonstrate a sense of responsibility in minimizing sensationalism to avert greater anxiety amongst the audience reading their reports in a crisis zone?

One hopes that online journalists and chief editors recognise the impacts of their style of reporting. A moral choice between maximising profits online through fantastic reports versus informative composed reporting beneficial to their minority audience in crisis areas.

This weekend black Mercedes’ with dark tinted windows are rolling up to Hotel Dolce in Sitges, one of Spain’s most exclusive resorts. They are arriving for the annual Bilderberg conference — an exclusive meeting of around 150 of the world’s most influential people.

Hundreds of private armed guards and Spanish police have sealed off the hotel and surrounding areas. A no-fly zone over the hotel is being enforced by police helicopters for the duration of the conference.

For decades the annual Bilderberg conference was a well-kept secret. But in recent years public awareness is growing — largely as a result of the internet — and there have been sporadic media reports about the conference in major news outlets.

Click for full article