What makes a good journalist?

I’d like to point out now that this probably isn’t very good or interesting, but we’ve been told to put these up here and everyone else has, so I will too. This is my response to the question:

‘If you had asked me this question before I started this course, my answer would have been “honesty” as it had always been my firm belief that a journalist should be concerned with telling the truth. However, I now feel that perhaps “accuracy” and “concern with the facts” are much more meaningful and useful characteristics for a journalist to possess as the law, and therefore the media, are more concerned with facts than the truth. This isn’t to say, though, that I no longer feel that a journalist should be honest and try to seek the truth, as I think that this still plays an important role in writing interesting and exciting articles and news stories.

                I also believe that a good journalist should be able to construct his or her article in a way that includes a variety of language and terms and should be clear yet interesting to read or listen to as it is our job to entertain as well as inform our audience. So, I suppose that my conclusion is that a good journalist is someone who can report the facts of an event in a clear, accurate and engaging manner.’

Like I said above, it’s tragically dull; sorry. What I did find interesting from this exercise, however, was my discovery of how incredibly bad I am at typing quickly. I already knew that I don’t type well as I have to look at the keyboard when I type and tend not to look at the screen but I thought that, generally, I was very good at picking out my mistakes either as I type or when I read back through what I’ve written. Apparently not.  Instead of “my” I had accidently written “me” and “who” had managed to become “how” because I’m clever like that. And that’s without mentioning a couple of grammatical errors and faults with my punctuation. Needless to say, I was fairly disappointed in myself especially after feeling I was doing quite well in our intensive course of ‘Precision English’ (which, despite being incredibly tiring, I enjoyed immensely). Never mind, I suppose – I shall just use this to motivate me to become a better  writer.

Teeline What?

Oh. My. God! Shorthand is impossible, I swear… We began learning on the Friday and I’ve only just about managed to learn the alphabet. Essentially, I’m learning to write all over again, and the writing itself looks like it’s just hieroglyphics. This is currently not a great thing considering I already feel thick compared to everyone else. I’m sure it’s probably not necessarily the case, but I have always perceived myself in a negative perspective and (to quote my mother) “expected too much of (myself)” which, I suppose, is true to an extent. It’s probably the reason why I’ve not overly enjoyed my experiences at University thus far.  I’m not saying that I’ve hated every second, because that’s not strictly true, I just miss a lot of people and things from home as well as the fact I feel lonely because of how few people I know here. And all this on top of home sickness, literal sickness, the fact I’ve yet to properly understand anything I’ve been taught and… issues of a feminine nature (because my body loves me like that).

But enough of my whining! Things have been going much better than this bleak picture I have painted; I joined about 20 societies at fresher’s fair, of which I’ve been to one (Film Society) and intend on going to another 2 (Sound Radio and Writing Society) but haven’t yet. I’m loving Film Society at the moment, the people I’ve met so far are great – really funny and friendly. Sound Radio starts on Wednesday (which I must write down before I forget) and Writing Society is on every Wednesday, as far as I can tell anyway, in a building I’m not really sure how to find… I’m sure I will eventually.

I do rather think that’s about it at the moment on the life update thing… unless I have a rant about how “Key Concepts in Media” is essentially just relearning my media a-level stuff, which I think is a little unfair after only one proper lecture and seminar (though, so far, completely accurate), so I shall leave it there. Until my next post, goodbye and the such.

It started with the Greeks.

It was really the Greeks that began the Europe that we know and culture that we consider today. In Ancient Greece, however, it was only the Western Coastline of the Aegean that was considered Europe and Eastern side was called Asia. 

Homer's Iliad and Odyssey show that the human story is one of migration. They're actually really good books - having studied The Odyssey in GCSE Classical Civilisation and also having begun reading The Iliad for kicks, more than anything, on Kindle on my phone (it was free to download, so, y'know - why not?) The British equivalent of these books would be Beowulf, which I know little about. I know it's something about a monster wolf thing... that's all I've got.

Anyway, many Ancient languages (e.g., Greek, Sanskrit and Hindi) all come from a root language, and from here all other languages have, essentially, evolved from here, showing how humans have migrated.

Greeks essentially mutated into Romans, or, alternatively, Romans were too lazy to come up with their own culture, focusing more on power and politics, and so just renamed Greek things and claimed them as their own (at least, this is how I like to look at it).

Greco-Roman civilisation was incredibly advanced, knowing (or at least theorising) things that we tend to think about as very modern ideas, such as fundamental particles (which, as an ex-physicist I find perfectly amazing). However, all these ideas were lost, as we well know, and the world was plunged into the Dark Ages. The Roman Empire became corrupted and, as Christianity grew in popularity, it essentially changed into the Church which found the theories and scientific teachings to go against the word of God and the ideas in the Bible, etc. So, to preserve their ideas, the decided it was definitely a very good idea to just destroy all the books and tablets and parchments that went against, close all the Schools of Philosophy and to burn, drown and generally kill (in horrible ways) anyone that went against them as they were heretics. This lasted, unchallenged, for around 1000 years. There were a few books saved specifically for monks to study, but these were hand-picked to preserve the Christian Church.

In the meantime, in the Middle East... (Batman music) culture flourished. Mostly because they weren't stupid enough to destroy all the books and ideas which had been brought over with trade and migration and, instead, built upon them. They seemed so much more advanced that the West thought that they had magic carpets and golden buildings… (I feel like watching Disney films now). Eventually, through trade and the such, this wisdom (but no magic carpets, unfortunately) was bought back to the West.

Anyway, back to Britain, where the only thing preserved was Aristotle’s idea of logic. Which was a bit rubbish, in a sense (at least, that’s what I think). It is a way of “categorising thought” and was one of the few things taught at university at the time. It was based on the process of syllogism – where a conclusion can be derived from to premises. He wrote:

“All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is a mortal.”

I’m sure, given enough time and effort, I could come up with a way of showing that this method doesn’t always work, but I’m ill and tired and it sounds like hard work. Anyway, this logic acted as a dogma, stopping all free thought and true knowledge of the universe as The Church forced the world to believe that its ideas were facts: the sun revolved around the earth, the earth was flat, etc. The Italian renaissance, therefore, was a challenge of authority of Aristotle, enlightening the world and liberating it from the limitation of axioms from only the Bible.

Also, just to depress everyone that's got this far (as a reward for reading everything) I think I just need to remind you all that we are indeed just "dust in the wind". Because we are. We're nothing. Our lives make almost no impact on the Earth (apart from killing off a few polar bears and trees), which makes no impact in the solar system (apart from littering in the area just outside the atmosphere with space junk), which does nothing within the galaxy which I really nothing special compared to the millions of others in the Universe. Our 100 years, give or take, on this Earth are also nothing if you think about the age of the Earth or the Universe. Not the hard-core Christian age of about 6000 years which, in my opinion, is clearly a load of rubbish (in the "cleaned-up" version of my opinions, at least). In Buddhism, the age of the Universe is about 12 epochs (1 epoch being the time taken for to erode the hardest granite mountain to sea level if a monk to climb up once a year to stroke it with the softest silk once each time and without the aid of natural erosion - so, quite long). Don't you feel important now?

On a separate note, I also learnt that Britain is, arguably, a new country as before the French Revolution, we were "quite foreign" in the sense that a lot of our ideas and culture, including Shakespearean plays, took its ideas from other parts of Europe. I'm not sure I agree, but I can understand the ideas behind it.

Right, I think that’s everything I learned… it’s certainly everything that I remember combined with all the notes I have (assuming, of course, I haven’t lost any in the bomb-site that is my desk… which is quite likely if I’m honest) Tune in next time for the next exciting, incoherent look into the past!

I thought the law…

Before it’s questioned by anyone, I deliberately changed the lyric to thought to be ironic and/or clever; it is not yet another typo, as seen repeatedly in my original post (sorry about that, I’ll get better – promise).

So, the law and such… Aside from the fact it’s very important anyway because, as human beings, we’re supposed to abide by it, the law is particularly important to us journalists (in training or otherwise) for three main reasons:

1)      It is a particularly good source for news stories. This is mostly because humans are, by nature, a very nosy species and are often unable (or at least unaware we’re able) to see court and other legal proceedings for ourselves. That and we like to have a good moan about how no-one respects anyone or the law nowadays (particularly us British – we do love a good moan, almost as much as we like tea).

2)      It contains particular constraints on what we journalists are allowed to do. Despite the fact journalists get no special mention within the law and anyone can pretend they are one (why you would, I’m not sure… but, still, you can if you like), it's vital to know what we write is lawful to avoid being in contempt of court, sued for libel or anything bad like that.

3)      As journalists, we should encourage freedom of expression and expose any ‘dodgy dealings’ that politicians or other important figures are trying to keep from the public. After all, we are, in essence, “the fourth estate” – there to stop the corruption of parliament and ensure fairness in the three branches of government (Legislature which is essentially parliament and makes the law, Executive (White Hall) which is the Departments of State and therefore deals with the everyday running of the country and Judiciary which is the system of courts in the country). Of course, the question then is who ‘polices’ us? The answer to which is we do. Because we’re just that cool.

So that’s why it’s important, where it comes from however is a completely different thing. It comes from a variety of different sources as Britain has no single constitutional document. It includes documents such as the Magna Carta and the Human Rights Act 1998 which is particularly essential to know for us journalists; the two most important Articles being article 8 (the right to privacy) and 10 (the right to free expression). The balance of these is often difficult to decide as they are equally as important so neither can take preference. If someone were to argue that an article invaded their privacy, they would raise the issue in a civil court as opposed to a criminal court. The difference between the two is that civil courts deal with disputes between people whilst criminal courts deal with offences against society as a whole.

Other important things to remember, branching off of this is that a murderer is only so if he/she is convicted of murder in court and that comment is allowed as long as it is your honest opinion. This is because, by law, journalists must ensure that we report crime accurately (e.g. call a thief a thief not a burglar because that makes them sound worse than they are… though they shouldn’t really have broken the law in the first place).

Right, what else do I need to talk about… Well, there’s the two different types of criminal court: Magistrates, which all crimes have to go to and Crown Court (or proper court, as I like to think of it). In Magistrates Court, people who have committed crimes carry little or no jail-time admit to their crime or try to defend themselves and tend to end up paying a fine – this is not interesting unless they’re a celebrity. This is also where people who committed proper, hard-core crimes go to essentially “check-in” to the Crown Court and find out if they have to remain in custody or are allowed to leave on bail. Crown Court, however, is where all the juicy stories come from such as murder and arson and that kind of a jazz. Unlike Magistrates Court, Crown Court has a jury, gavels, big curly wigs and all the things typically seen on television (hence why I like to think of it as proper court).

I should also talk about standards of proof. In civil court, a decision is made based on “the balance of probability” – if it’s more likely than not to be true. This also applies to what journalists write (so just because you read something in a newspaper, it doesn’t necessarily make it 100% accurate). Criminal Court, however, uses the “beyond reasonable doubt” statement as a base for convictions, which, in practice, means that the police need at least one of the following:

1.       A confession

2.       Forensic evidence

3.       One or more eyewitnesses

Often, if these are not available, a case will not be taken to court, despite the police being sure that they have the correct criminal. This is because of the “double jeopardy” rule which stops people being prosecuted for the same crime more than once. This way, if new evidence comes to light later that will get a conviction, the criminal can be prosecuted where as, if he/she has already been tried for the crime and found guilty, he/she would be unable to be tried for the same crime. The double jeopardy law is in place to stop people from being randomly accused of crimes they probably didn’t commit.

Right, I think that’s everything I’m supposed to have learnt… It’s certainly everything I understand and remember. Until next time, try not to break the law, okay? (Or, if you do, tell me so I can write a really good article on it).