Perhaps a spark to ignite your dynamite

Following the Fort Hood shootings, Paul Carr posted on his blog commentary on citizen journalism and its roll in the shootings titled After Fort Hood, another example of how 'citizen journalists' can't handle the truth. 

I urge you read the article because he raises a challenging point and he makes an interesting social commentary on our generation and its relationship to social media. 

Essentially he points out some of the shortcomings of what we've lauded as "citizen journalism." He isn't against the idea of citizen journalism, he just points out how a soldier named Tearah Moore was on base during the shootings and spent time tweeting information that turned out to be false instead of taking proper action. 

So these are my two cents.

This situation means we as professionally trained journalists (truth gatherers if you will) have a job. the Fort Hood tweet situation highlights the issue of truth and accountability. The major criticism to citizen journalism is anyone can say anything--there is no standard or ethics. Well, the biggest criticism to professional journalism is lack of access. 

Whaddya know! a perfectly symbiotic relationship! The best of citizen journalism is when we know the truth right away, but citizen journalist don't always know the truth. The best of professional journalism is our ability to give context, edit, and raise the standard of information through fact-checking. Therefore, we need each other. People will tweet and blog, no question. But what makes this exciting for professionally trained journalists is that we are challenged more than ever. Truth needs us more than ever. We need to call out tweet's and blogger's lies. We have the training to hold these citizen journalists accountable!

On to my next point before I fall asleep. 

The idea that social media, photography, film, etc turned humans into heartless beings is ludicrous. 

Case and Point: **disclaimer** This is meant to provoke thoughts rather than offend those who are or aren't Christians

The crucifixion.

The bible is arguably one of the first pieces of mass media. So think about it, more than a millennium before the first piece of "media technology" was developed we have people standing by and chronicling the brutal murder of who is essentially the most innocent being to ever walk the earth. Christian teachings dictate the brutality and crucifixion was necessary to wash man from the sins of his brutality and vice. 

Think harder. If man was humane and loving enough to stop the crucifixion of an innocent man (presumably the mark of true humanity and love) back then, then would Christ needed to have been sacrificed in the first place?

Just a thought. 

Speaking of Blogging

I thought today's discussion about video blogging and the apparent randomness to YouTube celebrity was really interesting. I actually meant to blog last night about it, but I guess Cohen beat me to the punch. Anywho, I was just browsing YouTube because I decided that I deserved to procrastinate some more and I saw a video posting featured by YouTube's homepage.  Skitzo. To my disbelief, the posting has more than 2 million hits. I just found the video completely unfunny. 

   Then I noticed on the guy's homepage that he was friends with KevJumba. I like KevJumba. I think he is interesting and a great video blogger. Also, he also has made a real success of his work. KevJumba was networked with a bunch of these YouTube celebrities and it turns out they often hang out and network with each other! That blew my mind. 

   The real point of this is there IS a method to the madness. A friend of KevJumba, WongFu productions  posted a video blog about the method of video blogging. I found this really interesting and I think anyone else interested in video blogging and building a web profile in general would find this video useful. In case you are curious who these guys are, combined between KevJumba, Happyslip, and Wong Fu, their channel views together total more than 40 million views.

Video Blogging Secrets. 

A good example

I was impressed by the ability of Huffpost blogger Jason Linkins to quickly attack and substantiate wild rumors post elsewhere on the Internet--namely another blog post site. This is probably was Arianna was talking about when she explained how the truth will come out and the Internet functions as more of a vehicle for the vigilant than as pulpit for the demagogues. 

This is the post. 

Objective journalism is self destructive

Challenge

Link : An article worth reading if you care about journalists' duties. 

If you haven't read the article, then you won't know what I mean. If you have, then lets proceed.

Arianna Huffington testifies to the idea that as a journalist, we ought not be "merely passive observers." She then points out the story of pullitzer prize winning photographer Kevin Carter, who is now deceased because he took his own life after winning a prize for a photo of human suffering. 

So what?

Well, I 100 percent agree with Arianna. 

Why?

Feel me on this and if you disagree, feel free to, but if you don't have the courage to speak up or post, fuck off. 

This is my still-developing hypothesis on the meaning of journalism as a still-developing journalist.  

Hypothesis:

 IF journalism is designed as the fourth estate of a meaningful democracy because of journalism's role in enlightening the public to truth and bringing about understanding among men, women and children, THEN the idea of "Objective Journalists" is absurd because humans are not objective beings and how could you expect to achieve enlightenment or understanding of humans by being, essentially--inhuman. Thus, "Objective Journalism" is the first step in creating false information. 

That statement may sound confusing, but it makes sense in my head. If you need clarification or elaboration, I'd love to because If I am not able to clearly communicate so you understand, then I've already failed in my quest to bring truth. Truth is irrelevant if no one understands it. 

-Marcus Poon 

A thought for a moment

Hmm, I seem to be running in to a lot of sources for healthcare now, when it is much too late to truly get an investigative piece going... For the next issue, we really need to establish a story before we get lagged behind like this semester...

What should we write about? Any suggestions? A note, 360 writes about one problem from the perspective of different people who are involved or affected.

i.E. Healthcare- single payer advocates, free clinic practitioners, major healthcare providers etc.

Great news...for news

Just kidding.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/us/01shield.html?ref=us

For Some reason

I feel like blogging a lot today. 

I am sick and I have a headache, fever, body aches, runny nose, stuffy nose, sore throat among other things I haven't discovered yet. So I check "symptoms of swine flu."

To my surprise, the first thing that popped up on my Google search was a YouTube video from the CDC. An information about Swine Flu. The video was of a doctor from the CDC that sat and explained the symptoms and what to do. He was very a matter of fact and gave me what I needed. I was just really surprised to something from a government agency on YouTube. I think it is a great idea. 1.3 million hits. So obviously, it was a good idea. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wK1127fHQ4

What we deserve

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/news/0909/gallery.highest_paid_worst_CEOs/5.html

"Take a look at that article. CNN explores the earnings of CEOs based on findings given by the "Corporate Library" and asserts that based on the company's low performance and the CEOs' continued rate of relatively high pay, they are overpaid. 

Below the article are, naturally, comments. So I took a read and saw posting that caught my attention. The name is Shahriar Chowdhury and he essentially defends a CEO's right to earn that much money. 

I felt inclined to reply. I posted, but for some silly reason, it won't let me post, so I will leave it here along with Chowdhury's comments. 

Shahriar Chowdhury12:12 pm
This article mentions the few companies, in which they feel, the CEO's are overpaid. How many companies are out there that actually are run pretty well and bring so much to this nation? Let's look at Apple. Steve Jobs is a genius and should get handsomely compensated for what he has done. He has completely revolutionized electronic media; are we going to complain he makes too much money while we are scrolling through our iPhones?

And for facts sake, small businesses are what actually run this nation. Two-thirds of the GDP is reliant on small businesses, so overall, these large companies have minimal effect on our everyday lives. This illusion that the world was going to end is concocted by the media. When people complain that they're underwater on their house because it has lost value, if you're paying your mortgage on time every month, what does it matter? Markets go up, markets go down.
Message

Shahriar Chowdhury11:48 am
And for the record, I'm not a Republican; I'm an Independent. I just don't believe that we should hinder people's ability to earn whatever amount of money that they do.
I might catch some flak for this but when I see a drunk homeless person on the street, I don't feel sorry for them. They made decisions in their lives that lead them to that point and I'm supposed to feel bad about that? I know there are some exceptions but why should I have to suffer because I didn't make the same mistakes. My parents immigrated to this country from a true third world nation and busted their humps to instill in me the values to succeed. If they can do it when they didn't even speak the language when they first came, why are we making excuses for Americans who are born and raised here?

Shahriar Chowdhury11:36 am
The reality is that it doesn't matter what we "feel" they should be worth and how much they make, we can't control ones paycheck. For the people who think a CEO didn't bust their behind to get to where they are now are obviously naive. If that was the case, why aren't you a CEO of a company? Because you don't have the qualifications and experience that they do.

Like someone said earlier, I'm not going to raise my children and tell them they should only make x amount of money per year; I'm going to tell them to make whatever they want to make and be happy about it. The truth of the matter is that there has to be a discrepancy in lifestyle and pay. If everyone drove a BMW, who would fix them?

To Shahriar Chowdhury.
Despite what naivety I may have about corporate finance, you can't justify one person making millions of dollars despite poor company performance and another person scratching their living off rocks based on the idea that all poor people are drunkards and rich CEOs are hard working, highly-qualified people. That is simply ridiculous.If you make more money than your parents or grandparents, does that mean you are more hardworking or more qualified? If you assume that all jobs are based purely on qualification then why do company's even bother with interviews? Why can't they decide purely on objective characteristics such as years of experience and previous positions? Especially you, who comes from a third world country. Based on your assertion, your home country deserves its poverty and starvation. The question of competitive qualifications is moot in a unequal world.

For the sake of the argument, I'm from an immigrant family, so I totally understand the motivation to succeed for my parents, but I am not going to tell my kids that other people deserve to suffer because my kids are succeeding.

And another note, How can you say you can't control one's pay check? There isn't some all knowing formula that accurately calculates how much you are worth. There are obviously formulas and negations based on values, but at the end of the day, someone is making the decision to tell you that you are work X amount of dollars. There is not memo from God or some pamphlet that lists how much anyone's work is worth.

And please don't be so defensive about a "CEOs right to earn" because really, if you took a 50% cut, would you starve to death? To put it bluntly, you just want money.

I'd like to know what everyone thinks about this article.

This is a NYT article about an upcoming celebration. I'd like to know how this article makes people feel. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/world/asia/29beijing.html?_r=1&hp

Here it Goes

Upon research on my indy media paper topic, KPFK radio, I decided that I'd jot down my thoughts here. 

I've reading up a lot on KPFK and consequently, KPFA and Pacifica. Its been hard to honestly map out or give this venue a definition, context or impact. The reason I say this is because I am reading and watching sources of information that tell me KPFK and Pacifica are hugely successful and real, profoundly meaningful voices in the media chorus. However, when I look at raw data, such as KPFK local rankings as a radio station in Los Angeles, I find it hard to reconcile one truth with another. How can KPFK, which relies on audience outreach like so many other indy media outlets, make its honest claim to fame at the same time as it struggles to shed the image of just another noisemaking number on the radio? I mean, there are simple answers, but for some reason or another I find it hard to like a lot of the self-righteous, pat-myself-on-the-back attitudes that I've come across in indy media. I mean don't get me wrong. I see why its necessary for indy media and it isn't like mainstream media isn't its own best client of its self-attention whoring. I suppose its just a doubt I have in my mind about the truth behind how much progress indy media has made. Perhaps its just the Man whispering fear into my ear. 

Goodnight for tonight. 

First Note

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