Tuesday 30 November 2010

Codes of Conduct

The National Union of Journalists has a code of conduct that all of its members are expected to abide by. Most organisations will expect their journalists to be part of this union although it is no longer compulsory, due to a change in trade union laws. If a Journalist breaks the N.U.J code of conduct they can be removed from the union, and in most cases, sacked from their place of employment.

Here is the code in full:

Members of the National Union of Journalists are expected to abide by the following professional principles:

1. At all times upholds and defends the principle of media freedom, the right of freedom of expression and the right of the public to be informed

2.Strives to ensure that information disseminated is honestly conveyed, accurate and fair

3. Does her/his utmost to correct harmful inaccuracies

4.Differentiates between fact and opinion

5. Obtains material by honest, straightforward and open means, with the exception of investigations that are both overwhelmingly in the public interest and which involve evidence that cannot be obtained by straightforward means

6.Does nothing to intrude into anybody’s private life, grief or distress unless justified by overriding consideration of the public interest

7. Protects the identity of sources who supply information in confidence
and material gathered in the course of her/his work

8.Resists, threats or any other inducements to influence, distort or suppress information

9. Takes no unfair personal advantage of information gained in the course of her/his duties before the information is public knowledge

10. Produces no material likely to lead to hatred or discrimination on the grounds of a person’s age, gender, race, colour, creed, legal status, disability, marital status, or sexual orientation.

11.Does not by way of statement, voice or appearance endorse by advertisement any commercial product or service save for the promotion of her/his own work or of the medium by which she/he is employed

12. Avoids plagiarism.

Employees of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation group are not contractually allowed to be a part of the N.U.J. Instead; The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and The News of the World journalists are governed by the Press Complaints Commission.

I.T.V and Sky follow guidelines set by OFCOM, the communications regulator. OFCOM deal with taste and decency on the TV, they have been in the news a lot over the past two years, thanks to competition scandals, and 'Sachsgate.' I found this link on their official website particularly amusing:

The BBC supports the N.U.J code of conduct but also have their own set of editorial guidelines, which can be found here.

Monday 29 November 2010

BBC Radio 5 Live

BBC Radio 5 Live was launched by the BBC in 1994 in an attempt to remarket BBC Radio 5, which was launched in 1990, but received few listeners. It is known to specialise in radio phone-ins, sports and in depth news analysis. It is the UK’s principle radio station for sporting events.

The news comes across as reasonably unbiased, and although no statistics were available regarding the age of listeners, it seems to me as though it would attract an older audience than Radio 1, but a younger audience than Radio 4. When discussing the student protests, for example, Radio 5 did mention violence and arrests on several occasions, whereas a report from Radio 1 focused on the reasons behind the protest and even had a reporter protesting with the students. There was barely a mention of violence and the word ‘riot’ was not used. During ‘606’; a football based phone in shows, aimed at people travelling home from football grounds after watching their team, the language seems very colloquial throughout. The presenter seems at one with his callers as ‘laddish’ banter is shared between them. Hosts such as Richard Bacon, and recent guests including Tim Minchin and Alesha Dixon also point to a reasonably young audience, potentially listening whilst driving to and from college or work, or listening online whilst doing other things. It is uncommon today, for a young person to be solely listening to a radio, when a television is likely to be available as an alternative.

Although there was no data available regarding gender or social class, the fact that ‘5 Live Football’ is the most downloaded podcast on BBC Radio 5 and the seventh most popular podcast n ‘BBC iPlayer’ we can assume that this is an audience largely dominated by men. We cannot say much about social class from this statistic but it seems as though it would attract more ABC1s than Radio 1 and fewer ABC1s than Radio 4. It could be argued that some of the programmes on Radio 5 could easily fit in on Radio 4, for example ‘wake up to money.’ This does however show Radio 5 to be the primary radio station for current affairs, Radio 4 seems more concerned with Arts and high brow comedy.

The news agenda on Radio 5 differs quite substantially from that of The Times. They tend to contain the same or similar stories, but in a different order, this is because a Radio can be constantly updating its news agenda, as news changes and develops throughout the day. For example on the 24th of November 2010 The Times ran a picture of North Korea bombing a South Korean island. This story was not even included on Radio 5’s midday news, as it had actually taken place the day before. Radio 5 instead led with news that a paedophile gang had been convicted; this news had come through just shortly before the news bulletin was aired.

Sunday 28 November 2010

The Times

‘The Times’ was first published in 1785. It is a ‘quality’ newspaper and until 2003 was a broadsheet. It has since moved to tabloid size, much like all other quality newspapers, excluding The Daily Telegraph. Since 1981 The Times has been owned by News International, the European subsidiary of News Corporation; this is largely owned by Rupert Murdoch. The paper is currently edited by James Harding.

Politically, The Times is known to be a centre right standing paper, supporting the Conservative Party; however during the 2001 and 2005 elections it switched allegiance to Tony Blair’s Labour Party. It switched back to its Conservative allegiance before the 2010 election, choosing to support David Cameron. Despite this, in 2005 MORI (The UK’s second largest polling organisation) said that the voting intentions of The Times readership was 40% for the Conservative Party, 29% for the Liberal Democrats and 26% for Labour. This helps us to understand the papers shifts in allegiance.

The Times currently sells around 500,000 copies every day. They claim to be the number one daily newspaper for business, with more readers than the Financial Times and the Daily Telegraph combined. They claim to have 1.6 million readers daily and believe that 88 per cent of these readers belong to social classes ABC1. Its readers are believed to have an average yearly income of £42,000.

One thing that sets the times apart from other newspapers is its online content. Whereas most newspaper websites are free to view, The Times is a subscription service. Customers have to pay £1, for one days access, or £2 per week. It could be argued that Rupert Murdoch and the News Corporation Group have solved the problem of constant decline of newspaper sales. Their readers are devoted to the paper and are likely to stick with The Times, even though it may cost them. The Sun however remains free. This is likely to reflect the papers respective demographics, a sun reader, likely to be in the C2D bracket, is more likely to be a manual worker, or a labourer. This means that they are less likely to have time throughout the day to read a newspaper online in detail. A times reader is more likely to be an office worker, or in self employment. This means that they will spend a larger portion of their time in front of a computer; it may therefore make sense financially for them to subscribe to the website, rather than buy the newspaper daily.

The Times is also famous for its obituaries and each year prints more than 900. The majority are written by specialists but many people contribute to their contents. Between 5,000 and 6,000 written obituaries on the famous, and occasionally the notorious, are kept on file. The letters page is also famous in its own right, each letter beginning with ‘Dear Sir.’ Around 1,500 letters are believed to be received every week. The letters printed tend to be punchy, witty and of course relevant to the day’s news. This in many ways reflects the writing styles of most of the columnists in The Times; these include Daniel Finkelstein, Alice Thomson, Ken Macdonald, Tina Brown and my personal favourite: Caitlin Moran.

Thursday 18 November 2010

Water + Laptop = Bad

Apologies for the lack of blogs lately, apparently laptops aren't too keen on water. Somehow it is working again, so I will be trying to catch up in the coming weeks.

Thursday 4 November 2010

Newspapers.



Mid-Market News
The mid-market newspapers consist of The Daily Mail and The Express. If you are a grandparent then you read The Mail, this is based on the evidence of every grandparent that I have ever met and is therefore one hundred per cent accurate. This may help to explain the fact that it has the second biggest weekday and Sunday readership in the UK (after the sun, meaning that there are officially more white van drivers in Britain than there are grandparents). Peter Cole sums up the Mails basic views nicely, 'for Britain and against Europe' (some may also say against America, Asia, Africa, The North etc...) It could definitely be seen as a newspaper of the right wing variety. The Mail stands for tough punishments, tough immigration laws, traditional family values. It rejects the welfare state. Cole also mentions that the Mail knows its audience and is confident of its audience, and that is why it continues to please its audience (oh and the constant supply of free Beach Boys CDs.)

The Mail's only real competitor is the Daily Express, which at its peak in the 1950s sold an incredible 4 million copies every day. In 2007 this number had dropped to 770,000. Cole believes this to related to it's changes in allegiance around the time of its popularity. The Express has an odd obsession for Princess Diana conspiracy theories (much like myself). Cole states that this is due to connections that Hugh Wittow (deputy editor) has in Paris. He comments on how this obsession has recently transformed to Madeleine McCann. It seems as though for now however the Mail has the Mid-Market Market (?) wrapped around its papery little finger and the Express will remain in second place.

The Tabloids
I was surprised when reading this to find out that the sales of tabloids are massively decreasing, at first I was considering that this may be due to an increase in general intelligence, causing people to turn to broadsheets, however it is far more likely that reading is completely unnecessary to many people thanks to television. Tabloids tend to follow everyday topics of meaningless conversation, for example what celebrities are wearing/having sex with, as much as, if not more than 'proper news.' Piers Morgan tried to change this in The Mirror after 9/11, he says:

"The Mirror's a sensational paper, but sensationalism doesn't mean the distortion of the truth. It means the vivid and dramatic presentation of events so as to give them a forceful impact on the mind of the reader."

This worked to an extent, until an 'investigation' was taken a little bit too far and photos depicting British troops torturing Iraqi soldiers were found to be faked. Piers Morgan was sacked.

The Sun is Britain's top selling newspaper and this is no coincidence. Peter Cole emphasises that tabloid journalists are by no means bad journalists. In fact in many cases they are some of the best. They write emotive stories, that are easy to read and entertaining. In a world where people don't often have a lot of time, The Sun is an easy read. Cole sums it up very well

"Some of the best journalists work for tabloids and the techniques of tabloid journalism are the hardest to acquire. The ideas that go into tabloids, the presentational devices employed, the economy of language, the directness of views and the irreverence of the Sun at its best are as impressive as ever. It is the editorial agenda that has gone awry. The political reporting, when it is there, of both Sun and Mirror remains sharp"

The Broadsheets

The Broadsheets consist of the Guardian, The Times, The Independent and The Telegraph. Peter Cole mentions that the readership of all four papers combined is smaller than that of the Daily Mail. This can no longer be blamed on the fact that they are so big and annoying to read in the wind as they are nearly all available in a compact form (except the telegraph). These papers tend to deal with 'serious news', They are generally not interested in celebrities, unless one of them dies or something else 'serious' happens.

The Independent is slightly different to these other papers, described by its editor as a 'viewspaper' it tends not to worry about what's going on in the world and 'concentrates on the issues it believes it's readers care about.' Cole writes:

" It is the lightest fighter in the ring, but it has carved a niche, capturing a constituency dependent on a daily fix of war, climate change, Heathrow protests, Darfur and university clearing."

The Guardian is the most read of the Broadsheets, Cole says that the times 'agonises over the human condition and cannot quite understand why the world isn't a better place.' It also has a reasonably new magazine section called 'G2' which is aimed at a younger audience, giving it an extra dimension in a world of newspapers often ignored by a younger audience.

From my own experience, I find that the sports coverage in broadsheets is superb. However in day to day news I find myself missing the sensationalism and ridiculous puns that often barely make sense that only a tabloid can offer.

Mid-Market newspapers

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/aug/20/mondaymediasection.pressandpublishing

Tabloids newspapers

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/aug/27/mondaymediasection.pressandpublishing

Broadheets newspapers

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/sep/03/mondaymediasection.pressandpublishing1



Wednesday 3 November 2010

Copyright. McNae's Chapter 28.

Copyright: The act of making beneficial use of somebody elses intellectual work.

For a journalist, it is vital to avoid falling victim to copyright laws. These laws are rapidly changing although they have existed for around 200 years.

'Intellectual work' comprises of music, film, typographical arrangements (the exact words from somebody elses piece of writing), sound recordings, photographs, artistic or dramatic works as well as many more. Mcnae quotes a judge as once saying 'anything worth copying is worth protecting' and I think that this sums up the necessity for copyright laws quite nicely.

During the lecture Chris used an analogy about a garden shed. If you are building a shed, then the shed belongs to you, however when you sell this shed you lose all rights to the shed. Even if the shed is then sold on for a thousand times its original price, you are not entitled to anything.

This can be linked to a freelance journalist, who has just written an investigative article. If he then sells this to a leading newspaper, who put it on their front page and make millions from it, he has sold the copyright and is therefore not entitled to anything. If however this journalist published the article on his blog, and a leading newspaper copied it, this would be illegal, and the freelance journalist would be able to sue; and probably win.

A journalist working for a company will nearly always have signed a contract stating that they surrender any rights to commercial exploitation of their work. This means that after writing and submitting a story, it is owned by the company. These journalists are paid in wages rather than commission from their stories.

Seminar Paper: Addison and The Spectator

Addison and the Spectator - what the essays reveal about civil society and the reading public in the restoration age

· Born in 1672

· Was writing around 70 years before Dr Johnson

· Was a keen traveller, travelling around Europe. Significant due to renaissance

· Was asked to produce poetry, that apparently pleased the lord treasurer so much that he was appointed commissioner in Halifax’s Government


· Secretary to Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1709 – 1713


· This is where he met Jonathan Swift (poet, essay writer), both influenced each other’s writings. Also believed to be heavily influenced by the adoration that Daniel Defoe recieved.

· Also met Steele a childhood friend, who was producing Tatler, began contributing. The two of them then produced the Spectator. First edition released in 1711.

· At first, the spectator appeared daily, running until 1714 with a break of around a year and a half.

· Also wrote works of fiction. Cato, written in 1712 is regarded as his most famous

· The spectator was very popular,it had a great deal of influence on the public.

· Assisted with Steele’s setting up of the Guardian 1713

· Died in 1719

Joseph Addison’s publications are largely based on public observation. It seems to show off Addison’s love for social commentary, this can be seen in his essay ‘The Royal Exchange’ where he discusses his satisfaction of watching the gathering and mixing of nationalities and cultures at The Royal exchange in London. There were huge social changes taking place in England thanks to the rise in immigration and the rise in foreign trade, The Royal Exchange was the head of International trade. He constantly writes with a sense of joy and excitement when discussing the diversity that he witnesses around there. This was also an exciting time in England thanks to the end of Cromwell’s puritanism and and an enhancement of the trade and finance available across the world.

Addison is very relevant in terms of Journalism; he speaks of the importance of writing precisely and with method. He claims that ‘men of great knowledge or genius ‘ ‘are often too full to be exact and therefore choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them.’ It is likely that this represents the views of the reading public throughout the restoration age. Although readers of Addison would have been well educated and wealthy men, there is still a huge importance on being able to group ideas clearly and concisely. They should not be ‘thrown together without order and connection’. Addison says that man, when reading a well organised precise piece of writing ‘comprehends everything easily, takes it in with pleasure and retains it long’

In Short, number 476 of the spectator makes me think that the reading public during the restoration age were greatly concerned with accuracy, although it was being written nearly 70 years before Dr Johnsons dictionary was produced, the spelling and punctuation in his publication seem quite standard throughout.

Addison was writing around the time of the restoration age, when England was beginning to restore itself and calm down after many years of unrest under Oliver Cromwell. Free speech was returning after a long period of puritanism; this helped Addison’s cause massively during this exciting period. He already had quite a following before the magazine had even been published; it is believed that he would attract large crowds of friends, acquaintances and often complete strangers when simply discussing the world in public. I imagine these meetings to be similar to the way that Plato’s dialogues take place.

Joseph Addison could also be seen as the first man who could be regarded as a journalist in the way that we do today, he was one of the first people to begin writing to entertain people, not to enhance a political party or organisation. He was also writing to make money, despite the fact that the printing press was not fully capable of mass production. It seems as though with The Spectator, Addison and Steele felt like the public were once again ready for philosophy to be part of everyday life, as it was during the renaissance. It may have seemed like some form of secret society to many people, only taught to the elite of society. They wanted to bring philosophical discussion back into people’s lives. The reading public were finally looking to read something entertaining, for leisure, not just propaganda from the ruling classes, religion or political parties. This is how modern journalism has evolved.