Eddie Murphy – dead online but alive in the real world?

Every Friday after our lecture I devote some time to catch up on the latest news via Twitter. Usually there isn’t anything exciting, but today something strange happened. My feed started growing. I thought, OK, it could just be people tweeting on their lunch break.

But then it kept growing and soon enough it revealed some shocking news – ‘RIP Eddie Murphy’.

My heart sank as I started having flashbacks of his movies Coming to America and Dr Doolittle. The news was sad, I was in shock. But then more tweets started appearing, ‘Eddie Murphy is NOT dead’.

‘Well, is the guy dead or alive?’ After doing some searching I uncovered that Murphy was in fact alive. He had been the victim of yet another social media fuelled death rumour.

You see, it only takes one person to tweet something false for another person to re-tweet that information and just like that, you’ve killed Eddie Murphy (online). It’s a dangerous game.

It’s the same with blogging. What about those annoying emails forwarded to you by that politically outspoken friend saying how much more money refugees get then our aged pensioners. A lot of the information is false and yet they still dish it out without any punishment for spreading what can only be labelled as lies.

Don’t get me wrong, Twitter and blogs have a real purpose in terms of instantaneous reporting, but there aren’t enough checks and balances in place. These ‘trolls’ who sit behind an online alias aren’t accountable and are literally getting away with what I’d like to call ‘online murder’.

Technology is in, but is it leaving journalism students shorthanded?

As Spencer Howson once tweeted, walking into a QUT Online Journalism lecture is like walking into a ‘convention of a particular fruit’. That fruit is Apple Mac of course. 

It’s hard to mistake an Online Journalism student – typing away on their Ipad, tweeting on their Iphone or admiring fashion websites on their MacBook. Sometimes they glance up at the lecture slides. Not many seem familiar with a notepad and pen anymore. 

It’s fair to say that Online Journalism is encouraging students to become a tech savvy bunch. But it came as a surprise to hear from our youngest lecture guest to date, Marissa Calligeros, what her most important tool in the field was. Yes she raved about Iphone apps like Qik and Instagram, but they weren’t it.

It was shorthand. Who would have thought an old school skill like shorthand could compete with apps or iphones to be an online journalist’s best asset? For me, Marissa’s news rang true. 

You can have more flashy gismos than NASA but sometimes old fashioned journalistic techniques and skills will prevail. 

Have a go at it yourself fellow fruit lovers.....

Online news growing, but not enough to keep papers afloat

Jobs losses from the news industry big players like Fairfax and News Limited have created a mood of uncertainty in the media profession. As a journalism student, it’s a dispiriting and daunting prospect to be jobless upon graduation which has reinforced my desire to pursue a career path away from journalism.

According to industry insiders, print media’s ‘rivers of gold’ are evaporating due to growth in online news. Put simply – people aren’t reading newspapers anymore. While you’d think this conversion to online news would be resulting in increased profits, it isn’t. According to the PEW’s Research Centre’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, for every $1 gained in digital revenue, $7 is lost in print media revenue.

In a recent lecture, John Grey (a victim of the media purge himself) spoke of how news organisations are centralising and cutting staff to balance their budgets. To me this model didn’t make sense – and here’s why.

According to Grey, only 6 people are now left to run the Courier Mail’s website – down from 36. This simply doesn’t make sense; cutting staff from what has to one day become the organisation’s biggest revenue generator. 

My view is that if you want to make money, then you have to spend money by investing in your product. Centralising and cutting down editorial staff will undoubtedly lead to news of less quality meaning that less people will buy, let alone read an organisation’s news.

http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/search_new_business_model

Clive Palmer - time to end the human headline?

The saying that 'when the elephant walks down the street - all the dogs come out and bark' sums up Clive Palmer. 

 

No matter what your political slant, when Palmer makes another one of his outlandish announcements, all the dogs (particularly the media hounds) take notice.

The Sunshine Coast Daily is one newspaper which has given mass coverage to Palmer, with stories about his 'Palmer Coolum Resort' gracing the front page almost as regularly as its sunny masthead. 

 

But why and more importantly, is it good journalism considering that most comments this National Living Treasure makes are a load of elephant (you know what)?

Now if you're thinking that I'm being harsh on Clive considering my left-wing philosophies, then think again - and here's the proof. 

During the 2012 State Election, Palmer claimed the Greens were funded by the CIA through an elaborate string of financial entities. He later acknowledged  he made up the story to deflect attention away from questions relating to our new Premier's personal finances. 

When Palmer purchased the Hyatt Resort at Coolum in July 2011, he promised there'd be no jobs losses and that staff would receive cash bonuses. While staff received the bonuses many months later after it was promised, reports have swirled that over 300 staff have been shown the door. Don't even mention the casino and 'lala land' style development that Palmer is now proposing at the resort, which he said was an area for families.

But the clincher has to be the rumors of his candidacy for Federal Parliament. First it was Lilley against Treasurer Wayne Swan, then Kennedy against Katter, Capricornia in North Queensland and then Fairfax. Clive became like a broken Lucky Starr record - I've thought of running everywhere, man!

So with such a history of what Sir Humphrey Appleby would call 'massaging of the facts', why are the media still giving this elepant oxygen? The only answer is that it sells news. The Sunshine Coast Daily would be enjoying a spike in newspaper sales, particularly in the Coolum area as locals become increasingly keen to know what is happening in their area. 

There is a fine balance between journalistic sales and journalistic ethics. Can you really justify selling lies to increase your sales? For example, why don't mainstream journalists ask the Citizens Electoral Council, an extreme right wing political party who believe the world is controlled by the British Monarchy, for their comment on a carbon tax? They don't simply because they know the group produces lies and shouldn't the same treatment apply to Palmer?

Journalists pride themselves on getting the facts and the truth. Giving Palmer continuous coverage of his lies is selling the journalistic profession short. Perhaps it's time for the media to give this elephant a media black-out tranquilizer.