Week eight: Safety in numbers

Crunching numbers is a scary thought for most journalists. We are not typically the data calculating type. We tell our story and find our answers through words and description, both spoken and visual, painting an image through language. Whether it is a hard news story or an elaborate feature, letters, not numbers, lend themselves to us. But in a world of computers where our meticulously thought out words are reduced to mere zeroes and ones, these “numbers” may have a place in journalism after all.

Not everyone has the ability to remember what they read, and of course there’s the skeptics who may not believe everything they read, even when it comes from the trusty mouth of a journalist [not one of those blogger types, but not this blog of course!].  Numbers, i.e. statistics and figures, can really help with this in relation to journalism.  We call this data journalism, and we can discover that it is not necessarily something to be afraid of.

Stats in fact add value to journalistic stories; they even form the basis of financial, political and sport journalism (political polls for example- two party preferred, Tony Abbott down a few points from last week as preferred PM and that kind of stuff). It has the ability to enhance existing stories, or give journalists the ability to take raw data and find a story within it; this is where the true expertise of a journalist comes into play.

Database journalism and the like have the ability to enhance a journalist’s capability to identify and add credibility to news. It can identify social, economic and political trends that impact on society. A great example of database journalism outlined by journalist Kerry Green is that of The Guardian. They took a database containing information about expense claims made by British MPs. They then used a form of crowdsourcing as readers reviewed the data and closely inspected anything suspicious. Combined with the wondrous power of computers, The Guardian was able to source out suspicious information from the raw data and then turn this into a story. This collaborative power along with the concept of data journalism, as Green puts it: enhances the role of journalists as the fourth estate.

This quick audio clip from the ABC explores the secrets hidden in numbers and looks at the scary black hole that is data journalism. 

Displaying data is another skill for journalists. According to Fernanda Viages from IBM, half of our brain is hard wired for vision; we are programmed to understand the world around us in terms of what we see. This is why the visualization of data is important and goes a little further in scope than the humble pie graph. There are many fancy ways to show these stats, with sites like IBM offering professional services to take this data and turn it into something beautiful that our readers can understand.  

So even though we are wordsmiths, figures aren’t necessarily the enemy. We can still play the numbers game.  As journalism scholar Stephen K. Doig explains, while data journalism does require journalists to be comfortable with basic math, the most important skill is the ability to see the possibility of a story. 

Week seven- Time to put the indigenous stereotype to rest

Indigenous voices in Australian media struggle to be heard, and struggle to have certain issues fairly represented. It has always been a challenge of journalists to represent cultural diversity, and nowhere is it more obvious than indigenous representation in the media. There is a lack of knowledge on the behalf on journalists, and a very limited number of indigenous Australians, be it Aborigines or Torres Strait Islanders, work within the media themselves.

For the most part, the Australian media do their journalistic best to represent all issues fairly, objectively, and as accurately as possible, but the overall framing of indigenous issues lends itself to a seemingly negative connotation. Stereotyping and skewed angles are all too common.

Some of the below headlines are just snippets of poor indigenous journalism in Australian media:

Image source:http://blogs.crikey.com.au/fullysic/2012/02/02/why-muriel-heslop-is-not-as-dumb-as-the-australian-financial-review/

Image source: http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/people/racism-in-aboriginal-australia

This article by Indigenous site ‘Creative Spirit’ has a look at some of the reasons as to why there is such a discrepancy in media representation:

Media Coverage of Indigenous Issues

It goes on too fault the lack of diversity in the Australian media landscape to limit the diversity and shape the tone of indigenous affairs. Ray Jackson, president of the Indigenous Social Justice Association exclaims that the “media tend to make “our” issues only front page news when it can be spun into a report whereby lazy, drunken so and so are to blame for the mistakes of government and their departments.”

There have been previous cases of racial descrimination that have even seen some journalists in trouble legally. In 2011 Herald Sun journalist Andrew Bolt wrote several articles about how some indigenous Australians "selected" part of their Aboriginal heritage over the rest and used this on order to receive government benefits.  One of the women Bolt targeted took offence to these allegations and took him to court. It was eventually confirmed that Bolt's journalism had breached the Racial Discrimination Act [47] (www.cretivespirits.info). 

So what can journalists do to help eradicate what still remains of indigenous stereotyping? Be sure to obtain background knowledge, be careful with word choice, get all sides of the story or speak to an indigenous person, not to mention weigh up what part of the news story is essentially important. Is t an Indigenous issue, or perhaps just an issue? A lot of journalists get stuck in this idea. Always ask yourself the most professional way to approach the story and obtain unbiased information.

Foreign Correspondent and Journalist Jeff McMullen puts it like this: “The media has a responsibility to tell the country what is happening in a way that connects Australians. If you see that people are not listening to the truth, find another way to tell the story.”

Sourced from Media Coverage of Indigenous Issues article accessed on September 10, 2014, fromhttp://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/politics/media-coverage-of-aboriginal-issues

Week Six- How much is too much?

How transparent should you be to call yourself an objective journalist? This is one of those confusing journalism questions with no real definitive answer. Its always been assumed that journalists write as truthfully and transparently as possible right? Right?? In a perfect world why yes, of course they do! But in an age of information overload, how much is too much?

The conception of Wikileaks has brought this issue to the forefront of journalism. Wikileaks is essentially a whistle-blowing site that makes classified, secret or confidential leaks globally public. Created in 2006 by Australian man Julian Assange, it correlates with his concept of radical transparency. Scholars Dreyfus and Hranfnsson (2013) explain this concept as challenging political power in an age of ICT’s and computer technology. Assange strived for an era where there are no secrets.

It wasn’t until 2010 that Wikileaks gained the infamous reputation it has now. The release of the Collateral Murder video make Wikileaks one of the most talked about topics of the year. This particular video showed U.S soldiers in Baghdad shooting civilians. This entailed children and two Reuters staff. Of course this didn’t sit well with the American Government after they had stated all those killed were anti-Iraq forces. The Pentagon tried their best to cover this up by claiming the soldiers thought the cameras carried by the media workers were guns, but after watching the video, this seems like one of the poorest excuses used ever. (It happens around the 9-11 minute mark).

Video Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0

2010 then saw a myriad of leaks published via Wikileaks including the infamous Cablegate scandal. This huge influx of information led to journalists finding themselves in the midst of a professional dilemma. Media workers were asked by Wikileaks to sort through the various confidential documents and then use their expertise to choose which stories to run and what information should be redacted. This is much like when you see a document with sections blacked out; this is the really secret and potentially dangerous information, for instance putting innocent people at risk.

So like we asked earlier, how much is too much? Journalists are sometimes labeled “the fourth estate” using their publishing power to keep the powerful in check. Many would argue that this is a hugely important role in society, me included, but we need to look at the idea of public interest and what it entails. Is it in the public interest, or merely interesting to the public? It seems ideal that whistleblowers, Wikileaks included, and journalists work to expose wrong-doing, but we need to ask ourselves what we need to know versus what we want to know. Does this concept of radical transparency make us wiser or just more informed? I would argue that for the most part, embarrassment is not reason enough to keep information such as the Collateral Murder video under wraps. But there is a fine line between transparency and national security. Is the government holding information from us or for us? It’s really something to think about.