Online reporting ban.

On the 25th August, in the hum of Manakau city, Judge David Harvey issued a suppression order over the publication of the names of two men charged with the murder of 14 year old John Hapeta (left). The judge ruled that the two accused could be named in newspapers, on television and radio, but not online. The ruling was also restricted to New Zealand websites. Fairfax Media and APN News and Media are likely to appeal the ruling. Now why would any judge make a ruling like that? Many offshore websites still carry the identities of the accused, as does a New Zealand website that continues to defy the ruling. So what is the point?

David Harvey has been a district court judge for 13 years and been involved with computers for 21 years. He teaches the Law and Information Technology course at the Faculty of Law at the Auckland University. Now, looking at his background, we can see that perhaps his ruling wasn’t as random as it was ludicrous. Many people are calling Judge Harvey an internet censor and while he doesn’t want the names mentioned online, he welcomes discussion on the ruling. When the media questioned the Judge about whether the suppression order would stay in place, he said: “That is really up to you. I’ve invited argument on this point.”

Confused? I certainly am. It almost seems that he wants publicity, that he’s inviting attention towards the case. The names of the accused can be published anywhere and everywhere with the exception of the internet so by now, the public knows their names. This means that we aren’t left wondering yet we are left talking about it. There’s the possibility that he wanted to avoid it been discussed online and would rather it discussed on more influential mediums such as the television. Was this Auckland judge really after fame? Or was there plausible reason behind his ruling?

Delving deeper into this issue, I found that Judge Harvey tried to have a formal meeting for discussion on the ruling but to his disappointment, only two reporters turned up. For a tech-savvy man, he seems to be making a good job at looking like an internet hater. He wants to take the discussion away from the realms of the internet world, and make it more personal. However, I read on something on a blog that seemed very true, that journalists are busy people and he’s only likely to get a good discussion going on if it was done online. Judge Harvey seems intent on avoiding this. It’s possible he’s learnt that the internet has become a field of rubbish and that intellectual minds would be better exercised in formal discussions.

These opinions are not simply from out of nowhere, because we can all see the proof. The only thing that differs is what people read into it, therefore, we all have different opinions on the matter. No one person can say why Judge Harvey made this ruling, we can only guess with the evidence that’s been put in front of us (courtesy of the relentless media).

Future?

Everytime someone asks me what I want to do when I've graduated I respond with a reflective silence or a mere shrug which suggests my indecisiveness. At first, I was unsure if working for a newspaper was what I wanted. I thought I'd much rather enjoy feature writing and while this is still a future goal, newspaper journalism is definetly growing on me. The idea of being out in the field excites me and having a busy lifestyle will keep me motivated.

I was reading a blog by Martin Moore about the Orwell Prize. It is a pre-eminent British prize for political writing. The winner is the shortlisted entry which comes closest to George Orwell's own ambition to "make political writing into an art". That's what got me thinking about the future. There are so many different things you can write about within a newspaper. There's business, entertainment, politics, crime etc. If writing about crime means being on the scene of a homicide or serious car accident, I am admitedly scared. I don't stomach those things very well but I guess I would get used to it. Afterall, you need to be thick skinned to be a journalist.

I would like to work in England one day. I've wanted to go there ever since...forever. Everyone goes there for overseas experience and I can certainly see the appeal. I think I would be good at writing opinionated articles. I'm quite passionate about some things. When something gets me going, I won't rest until my point gets across.

People keep telling me that I should know what I want to do, that I should have a plan. In one of my classes, I was told that apparently if you write down what you want to do, you will most likely achieve it. Well let me start a list then..

-First things first, I want to get my writing published. I want to relish in the glory of seeing my own name in print. I mean, I've seen it before when we've done magazines for classes but that's not quite what I had in mind..

-Secondly, I want to go to England (as I've already said). I would like to work for the Telegraph. I wouldn't want to be away from my beloved New Zealand for too long though, I know I will end up here whatever I do.

-Thirdly, I want to write a book. I don't quite know what it'd be about yet. But I don't think I'd do an biography. Who am I to say my life is interesting? That my life is worth paying $34.95 to read about? I'm not saying biographys make a person sound self-absorbed, I'd just be afraid that's how it'd come across.

I''ll keep you posted...

Beijing Olympic disaster (among other things!!)

I'm a bad blogger. Look at the amount of time between this entry and my last. I suppose I was never dedicated to begin with but I want to change that. While I never held blogging in the highest regard, numerous lectures from those more experienced than I, have taught me that it is important. What's also important is spelling. Okay, so I'm an average speller but punctuation? Nope. Not me. If you find comma's in all the wrong places in this blog it's because I never understood the concept of comma's very well. If that sounds stupid then yes, I am admitedly stupid.

I used to think this blog was about our class since it was for our class. Then I realised that we're actually free to let our minds wonder. That's a bit broad for me because without restriction, I could get lost in a sea of my own words. But are they meaningless? If they mean something to me then surely they can't be. But is a blog for me or for my audience? Intriguing questions.

I've always liked debate and blogs always seemed like a place where opinions could be voiced, opinions that might not always be well received. I like stirring people's emotions, enraging them when they discover I was right all along. Does that sound conceded? I guess it does. I hate it when I'm wrong though, I hate it when smugness seems to enlarge someone's face and I just want to slap them, even if it's someone I love dearly. I have a tendancy to be brutally honest but at the same time I keep a lot of my feelings buried. But moving on now...

The Beijing Olympics have been a complete diaster in this bloggers somewhat inexperienced opinion. This disaster did not come as much of a surprise with the olympic torch relay debacle sparking fears that the Beijing Olympics would be about politics, not sport. China was extremely adament on protecting the torch, which only invited more chaos than necessary. The Olympics also seemed to mean that the issue of China's treatment of Tibet should be repetively mentioned. Other concerns leading up to the Olympic games included the air pollution causing one athlete, Haile Gebrselassie, to pull out of competing at the August games. The lead up to the Olympics and the constant presence of China in the Media, honestly made the 2008 Olympic World Games pale in comparison.

When the Olympic games started, things continued to spiral out of China's control. Beijing thought they could get away with faking parts of the opening ceremony. However, it wasn't long before the whole world knew about the stunt, that the fantastic fire work display was faked on television. This is because the people who were filming it feared they wouldn't capture it all live, so while the fireworks really were there, people watching it at home and in the Bird's Nest stadium, didn't see the real thing but only computer graphics inserted into the coverage electronically at exactly the right moment.

It's also been discovered that Lin Miaoke(left in the picture), the 9-year old who apparently sung "Hymn to the Motherland", was actually lip syncing. The real singer, 7-year old Yang Peiyi (right in the picture) was "considered unsuited to the lead role because of her buck teeth". That's when I got angry. So allow me to be an angry blogger for a few moments. They said it was for the good of the country. Pathetic. What's more pathetic is that the actual singer is being called ugly in newspapers all over the world while the one that lip synced is considered ''a rising star''. These Olympics have been crowded by scandal after scandal. Isn't it ironic how China went to all this trouble to make themselves look good, when in actual fact, they made themselves look bad?

Web media: not what you'd expect..

Blogging. Thats where it's at nowadays. I'm ecstatic.

When I chose to take Web Media, I knew it would test my computing knowledge, but I did not realise it would be intelletual as well. I guess it all depends on what you write about though, because some people don't write blogs worth reading. Some people don't write to have their work read. As a budding journalist, out of habit I always write for an audience.

I have mixed feelings about blogging, something I openly expressed in class when we wrote a blog on a piece of paper and people came around commenting on them. I said it's something of a modernised diary, only it's public. Diarys are meant to be secret but blogs are open to scrutiny by bloggers around the world. While criticism is healthy for any writer, it can't be controlled online and it can potentially destroy a writers confidence. I'm always afraid someone's going to slam my blog when all I'm doing is putting my opinion out there. Like crows flocking around a dying animal.

In our first Web Media class we looked at coComment and del.icio.us. coComment allows us to tag our blogs so other class members can see them and del.icio.us allows us to tag websites we've found that could be useful.

I found an interesting blog which raised some interesting issues for journalists. It talks about the lack of jobs in the journalism industry. We are being trained for an industry that doesn't need us apparently.

However, in a reading on moodle, it says that there's never been a better time to be a journalist. Mark Briggs said ''there has never been a time that offered so many powerful ways to tell stories and serve readers with information.'' This is true being that we live in the technological age. Imagine how much harder it would have been to be a journalist 20 years back.

Journalism is about the internet as much as it is about newspapers. So it makes sense that we should be learning this stuff. Mark Briggs also said that blogs are useful for journalists because
"it’s a notebook kept in the public sphere so reporters know which topics have “juice,” helping them prioritize the stories they should work on."

I just hope that the current drought for journalism jobs doesn't prove to be too much of a hurdle once I'm out in the workforce. I see my friends getting all these internships so surely that says something? The media has become much more web-based and we thought arming ourselves with internet knowledge would make us irresistable to potential employers... but now I'm not so sure.

Scary, isn't it?