As a Journalism Diversity Fund (JDF) recipient, I have been invited to join an audience of journalists, editors, and educators at the National Council for the Training of Journalists diversity in journalism seminar.
“The Journalism Diversity Fund awards bursaries to people from diverse backgrounds who need help funding their NCTJ journalism training. Supported by those in the industry who want to make newsrooms better reflect the communities they serve, applications are open to individuals with the potential to succeed in one of the most exciting and rewarding careers around.” Reads the JDF Website
If like me you grew up loving music then the magazines that featured you’re favourite artists were a regular reading staple, so its sad news confirmed today that NME Magazine will be releasing their final incarnation of the print edition of their publication tomorrow (Friday 9th March).
The Press Gazette has launched a campaign to ‘Save our Sources’ and stop whistleblowers being criminalized by the police. The campaign is to help protect people from being scared off of exposing scandals because of reprisals they could face if they themselves were exposed as whistle blowers. Signatures are being collected for a petition against the use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers act (RIPA)
The internet has become more and more the publics first stop when gathering news but is it shifting the news gatherers top position at the distribution of news. Upon searching anything via google a user is presented by a ‘in the news’ section showing ‘headlines’ on the search term at hand, supposedly from the news.
It has been long since established that the press have a responsibility to the public good, one such responsibility is to act as the fourth state, a watchdog over those with position and power. But when England hit financial crisis in 2008 the financial press were quick to report something they had failed to predict. Surely with their position to oversee the comings and goings of the financial world they should have foreseen what was about to unfold in their capacity as a watchdog, but they did not.
Wikileaks is an international online journalistic organisations that publishes secret information including classified media from anonymous sources and news leaks. The release of some documents on Wikileaks has become front page news. The websites aim is to provide the public with information that they see it has a right to know, this involves exposing corruption amongst other things.
This week I had the opportunity to sit in on a lecture by Millca Pesic the Executive Director of the Media Diversity Institute. Media Diversity is an institute that works internationally to encourage responsible media coverage of diversity. ‘It aims to prevent the media from intentionally or unintentionally spreading prejudice, intolerance and hatred which can lead to social tensions, disputes and violent conflict’ (Media Diversity Institute, 2014)
Is objectivity in journalism dead, or was it never really possible? Lara Pawson an author, freelancer, former BBC Journalist and Foreign correspondent says No it is not. Lara tells a story of how she went into Angola with an almost romantic view of life where she believed in objectivity and that reporting could make a real difference, but it seems as if living there and working in the industry shattered her illusions and left her thinking that objectivity is not possible.
Mazher Mahmood, a journalist that has outed royals, celebrities and drug dealers has been outed himself as a fraud who fabricated evidence and created stories on the back of entrapment of self created crimes. Finding himself the subject of the investigative journalism of Panorama’s John Sweeney in the 30 min Panorama program ‘The Fake Sheikh Exposed.’
Celebrity journalism is king of the tabloids bringing in readers and hits online but is it just an easy way of generating a following, readership or fast hits. The internet is littered with sites dedicated to the subject of celebrity gossip but many people argue this does not amount to quality journalism and not how the profession is meant to be utilized.
Today I had the pleasure of being in a lecture given by Guest speaker Henry Makiwa: his topic was the sometimes difficult relationship between journalists and NGOs/charities.
The day after Rwanda’s untold story was aired on the BBC for the first time it’s director John Conway came to give us a lecture on the making of the controversial documentary. Twenty years after the Rwandan genocide the documentary revealed new evidence that opposes the accepted story of what happened. In Rwanda it is illegal to challenge the story and perpetrators face incarceration for doing so.