Modern Journalism

These LCB@5 come round very fast….. is it really a week since our last confession topic.  Remember to visit Conrad, Ashok and Ramana for their take on the topic chosen today by Conrad:

Owl Quail Chick Hand Vulture Mouth Water

Cobra Quail Chick Mouth Water Arm Lion Reed Leaf Folded Cloth Owl

*Should translate to:

Modern Journalism

No doubt the boys will begin their Anthologies with Cave paintings and how they were the beginnings of Journalism.  So while they sculpt and paint with words…. I’ll give you a picture. Well they (whoever THEY are), say a picture paints a thousand words and sells newspapers and magazines! 🙄

Neolithic cave paintings found in Tassil-n-Ajjer (Plateau of the Chasms) region of the Sahara**.  Ancient cave paintings were often produced using the blood of animals killed for food.  We have moved on since then.

Have we really moved on?

Hoarding covered with graffiti on the Falls Road in West Belfast, above and below. Some people call it Street Art; but no matter what you call it, a message is given, therefore it it is a form of modern journalism.

In an article for Journalism.co.uk some years ago, Veteran Indian reporter Palagummi Sainath once branded modern journalism “mindless notetaking” in a speech to Canadian students.  “In my view, the bulk of what is happening in the press these days is stenography,” he told journalism students at the University of British Columbia (UBC).

In Ireland, there have been occasions where blog post articles have literally been cut, pasted and used by journalists without reference or regard to the original author.  That is not journalism.  It is lazy working and theft.  With both Radio and TV these days news is dumbed down and dispensed in Sound-bites.  News items reduced to one or two sentences repeated at least every half hour.  Soon they will be as short as Twitter messages – 140 characters or less.

This reminds me…  Twitter can prove of benefit with breaking news.  On the day a US Airways plane with 155 people on board ditched into a chilly Hudson River, we heard about it in Ireland and had pictures on Twitter, before it hit any of the news networks on either side of the pond.

To finish…….

Journalism of a different ilk!

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* Online Hieroglyphic Translation of… Modern Journalism:

** Neolithic cave paintings

19 thoughts on “Modern Journalism

  1. steph

    Grannymar

    Judging by the way that canine reporter (Homer) is walking, I’m sure he’s suffering from constipation.

    I wonder if it hit the news? 🙄

    Reply
  2. Grannymar Post author

    @Ramana – Come on, time to get rid of those rose coloured glasses! 🙄

    @Steph – I think Homer has hip problems like me 🙁

    @Maynard – Thanks for the surprise! 😀 It came the long way round!

    😉

    Reply
  3. Nancy

    Grannymar,

    After viewing that video of the Dog Reporter, I realize I must be more careful what I do in front of my pooch…..

    Reply
  4. Grannymar Post author

    @Marianna – Thank you! Hurry up and join us…. it is lonely work keeping up with the boys. 😉

    @Nancy – Good job Dr Doolittle is not your neighbour! 😆

    @Lily – Welcome home! The constant repetition of sound-bites actually reduces attention spans.

    Reply
  5. Nick

    I don’t think it’s fair to say modern journalism is all dumbed-down soundbites. I think there’s actually a wide spectrum from that description at one end to serious investigative reporting at the other. People like Johann Hari, John Pilger, Simon Jenkins and Polly Toynbee write excellent articles constantly breaking new ground and giving us important new information and ideas. But for sure there’s an enormous amount of sloppy, unresearched rubbish in between.

    These dogs, they know a thing or two under that dopey, snuffling exterior….

    Reply
  6. Baino

    I agree in relation to evening news on telly. Ours is 15 minutes of what could arguably be described as news and 15 minutes of sport! Nick’s right though, there are credible sources out there. I get mine via the internet these days. Still don’t get this Twitter business. Cute video but I think the doggy has a deformed spine!

    Reply
  7. Grannymar Post author

    @Nick – Yes, there are a few who provide serious unbiased investigative reporting, but there are plenty who take the easy road of sound bites.

    @Baino – Don’t get me started on sport…. over loud noise is my big bugbear. It interferes with any commentary and is not necessary on radio or TV.

    @Jean – Thanks for the link. It reminded me of another of my pet hates…. advertising being the bread of every news sandwich.

    Reply
  8. Magpie11

    Ignoring the tabloids and then fighting ones way past the Murdoch spin etc The quality news papers here can be informative.
    I know many people who are under the impression that the BBC are and arm of (corrupt) government and the political parties all complain..they must be doing things right!

    Reply
  9. Jean Browman--Cheerful Monk

    About advertisements: I figure that’s why the TV is free. It’s also the reason I prerecord TV programs so I can fast-forward through the commercials. And that’s why I mostly watch DVDs.

    A big part of the problem about getting good reporting is that most of us are spoiled and don’t want to pay for it. We get the Economist among other newspapers (it comes once a week but calls itself a newspaper) and that seems to have a lot of good information. It’s worth the money. The Wall Street Journal also had good information but it’s been going downhill, partly because advertisers are going elsewhere, I suspect. It used to be a couple of hundred dollars a year but is raising its rates to $349 next year without the online version. They’re trying to get us to renew for $444. It’s a bit much considering the decline in quality.

    Reply
  10. Ashok

    You always have such a unique way of presenting your takes on topics you choose. This was another such example of your creativity. I am absolutely in awe with it 🙂

    Reply
  11. Grannymar Post author

    @Magpie – What bugs me about BBC Main news programmes is how they tell what people are going to say, before they say it. For example: what the Queen will say at the opening of Parliament or the Prime Minister will say in the House of Commons hours before they get there or open their mouths!

    @Jean – Do you pay a TV licence as well as paying to view programmes?

    @Ashok – You have the gift of words, I compensate with other means.

    Reply
  12. Grannymar Post author

    @Jean Thanks for that. Here in the UK we must be covered by a valid TV Licence if we watch or record television programmes as they’re being shown on TV. The licence fee went up to £142.50 per annum on 1 April 2009. This fund is used to pay for the BBC
    Without a licence we are not supposed to watch other local channels like ITV & Channel 4. To add to that we have a wide variety of companies offering to provide digital coverage at enormous expense! This opens the way to deciding between 40 to 230 different channels…. One would need to be a real couch potato for that.

    Reply

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