JMSC0101: Principles of Journalism and the News Media

1. JMSC0101:Principles of Journalism and the News Media Professor Ying Chan

2. Chapter OneWhat is News?

5. Why News? • “We need news to live our lives, to protect ourselves, bond with each other, identify friends and enemies. Journalism is simply the system societies generate to supply this news.” • Kovach and Rosentiel, Elements of Journalism, pg 10

6. What is Journalism? • “The collecting, writing, editing and presentation of the news and news-related stories in newspapers and magazines, in radio and television broadcasts, and on the Internet” • ~The American Heritage Dictionaryof the English Language

7. The Key Words • Collecting • Writing • Editing • Presentation

8. Why Journalism? • “Journalism provides something unique to a culture – independent, reliable, accurate, and comprehensive information that citizens requires to be free… “ • Kovach & Rosentiel, Elements of Journalism

11. BUT MEDIA is NOT THE SAME AS JOURNALISM

12. Key Words • Media • Communications • Journalism

13. What is Journalism? • “The primary purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with the information they need to be free and self-governing” • Kovach & Rosenstiel, The Elements of Journalism

14. What is MEDIA A generic term for systems of production and dissemination of information and entertainment and of exertion of various kinds of social controls…..media include the institutions which determine the nature, programming and form of distribution. E.g., mass media is the generic term for newspapers, book publishing, radio and television. Other media include the recording industry, movie industry and theater (Web Dictionary of Cybernetics and Systems)

15. What is Media? • “Media are organizations, bureaucracies, technologies in which or with which journalism takes place; communications is a generalized social process for transferring meaning. But neither communications nor media are the same things as journalism .” James W. Carey, media scholar, journalism professor

16. Media in All Shape & Forms • Newspapers, radio, television • Films: Chow Yun Fat, Steven Chow • Advertising: outdoor, indoor and everywhere • Soap opera, variety shows.. • Blogs: blogger, Xanga • SMS

17. Chapter 2Who are Journalists?

18. Who are Journalists ? Employee of a media organization? Licensed by the government? Press card issued by the Police department? Press card issued by a media organizaton? Free-lancer? What do you do to become a reporter?

19. Who are Reporters? • “You become a reporter by saying you’re a reporter. No qualification. No license. Almost no training.” Richard Reeves, columnist and author

20. “The right to ‘write’ is fundamental to freedom of expression. Because it is a right, rather than a privilege, it cannot be withdrawn.” • Geoffrey Robertson, QC, media lawyer, barrister, author, broadcaster & UN judge

21. Defining a Journalist’s Function • The activity aims at producing a ‘story’ or series of stories • The work product is aimed at an audience; it’s intended to be read or seen or heard • There is a public benefit to the story or work product • William F. Woo in Nieman Reports

22. DIY-Journalism in HK • Hong Kong People’s Alliance • Hong Kong InMedia • Hong Kong People’s Radio • HK People’s Alliance Against WTO

23. DIY Journalism in Asia • Ohmynews • Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism • Malaysiakini.com

24. Global Voices Global Voices

25. Reporters became Great Writers: Charles Dickens George Orwell John Steinbeck

26. More Authors as Journalists Liang Qichao 梁启超 Xiao Qian 萧 乾 Mao Dun 茅 盾 Lao She 老 舍

27. A Journalist Never Lies “… my idea of a career is never to write a phony line, never fake, never cheat, never be sucked into the y.m.c.a. movements of the moment, as to give them as much literature in a book as any son of bitch has ever gotten into the same number of words.” Ernest Hemingway

28. Ernest Hemingway on reporting • “It made us feverish. It sent us along the street, day after day, and year after year… hoping that streetcars might crash, that murder would rise out of the gutter… so that I could be on hand to cover the story with interest never lagging, We had honor to maintain, prestige to defend, we had constant competition, not from other papers but from our fellow reporters.”

29. Why Choose Journalism? • “We look, we listen and we share the story of life.” • “Every day we find the people who are changing the world.” • “I never know what the next assignment will bring.”

30. John Steinbeck on Journalism • “What can I say about journalism? It has the greatest virtue and the greatest evil. It is the first thing a dictator controls. It is the mother of literature and the perpetrator of crap. In many cases it is the only history we have and yet it is the tool of the worst men. But over a long period of time and because it is the product of so many men, it is perhaps the purest things we have. Honesty has a way of creeping into it even when it was not intended.”

31. The Purpose of Journalism “Journalism takes its name from the French word for day. It is our day book, our collective diary, which records our common life..…For journalism and for us, that purpose is the development and enhancement of public life, a common life which we can all share as citizens. ” • Professor James W. Carey, Columbia University

32. What is Journalism? Journalism is “our day book, our collective diary, which records our common life. That which goes unrecorded goes unpreserved … The creation and preservation of collective memory…” is the practice of journalism. - James W. Carey

33. Learning the JMSC way • We are tough • We are demanding but • We care • We give our students • TOUGH LOVE !!!

34. Thank youSee you next week