Fear, Loathing and The New Journalism.

In the last HCJ lecture, we learnt all about The New Journalism or 'Gonzo Journalism' as it was sometimes known. This was the style of journalism that came to prominence in the 60's and 70's. Popularised by Tom Wolfe and Hunter S Thompson, it emerged due to the prominence of the counter-culture in the West. Drugs played a large part in its formation, especially in regards to Hunter S Thompson's work. His infamousl novel, 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' was based around his experiences in travelling to a police drug enforcement meeting while high as a kite on LSD, mescaline, marijuana and other assorted drugs.

This popularity with the drug culture was also accompanied by a fondness for radicalism, named 'Radical chic' by Tom Wolfe. For example, Leonard Bernstein's party for the Black Panthers in his upstate New York penthouse. This was met with derision by Wolfe, who saw it as little more that social points scoring rather than actual political and social activism.

Gonzo has set the standard for documentary film making. Rather than having people told what's happening, people now see it. This chance from diegetic to mimetic related to wanting for people to experience honesty and experience as opposed to cold, scientific fact such as you find in regular journalism. A result of this has led to an increase in "performance" journalism. Movies such as Supersize Me and Louis Theroux TV shows have become more about the person involved as opposed to what it's about.

Century of the Self

I've been a fan of Adam Curtis for a while now, ever since I saw the video he did for Newswipe on what he called 'Oh Dearism'. Criminally, I've not seen Century of the Self before, so this was a great screening to go to this week.

It seemed a lot of what he talked about in the episode was almost exactly what was said in last weeks lecture, but it's good as that helped to solidify my knowledge. It was interesting to watch what he talked about as I really wasn't sure what perspective I agreed with the most. I'm still somewhat in that stage where I can't abide the government, so I liked the attitudes of Reagan where small government was the order of business. On the other hand, I recognise that people have a wonderful ability to cock everything up and need someone to guide them.

To me it all seemed a bit too absolute. Hippies saying that their way was correct and that the only way to live was to release your inner you and with pent up Freudians saying that inside people are monsters that need to be contained. Add to that capitalism saying that everything's up to YOU, the individual it made it all a bit too...clean.

To me, it seems that the purpose of these beliefs and philosophies is to try and strike a balance. With such extremes on either side, they should in theory ending up with most people finding a middle ground. Having too much regulation (or repression if you prefer) will lead to rebellion and with too much freedom people will take advantage, as we've found out with the banking crisis of late.

I'll certainly be watchiung the rest of The Century of the Self on YouTube. It's certainly illuminating.

WINOL Week Six!

A much better week this week, at least in my opinion. Far less legal issues that we had last week and I think our stories were a little stronger. Admittedly, they may not have been particularly heavy stories, but they were solid.

I think that sport had a much better week as well. Yes we had to drop the ladies hockey story which was a shame considering we'd finally got some women's sport. However, the match report was far better than the one in last weeks bulletin.

I also got some good advice from Angus on how to improve my packages. Bleeding the sound together is something I mean to do and often forget because of time constraints, but I'll be striving harder to do it from now on. He also recommended doing a University sports team round-up instead of a non-league football round up. That way we can get women's sports in on a regular basis, even if it's not as a package. It also works well as a way to name drop.

So in short, there's still room for improvement, but we're by no means getting worse. All in all, good!

There is a policeman inside our heads...

In the weeks edition of History and Context of Journalism, we learnt about the wacky work of Wilhelm Reich. Reich was a former follower of Sigmund Freud (until falling out with him), but like him, he was also keen on the sub-conscious mind and how sex impacted on our behaviour.

As Brian so eloquently put it at the start of the lecture: "He believed you couldn't be truly happy un;ess you were having proper orgasms." Reich held the belief that humans were fundamentally good people and it was society that repressed and controlled them. Sex was seen as the answer to being free and liberated. If you weren't sexually repressed then you would flourish as a human being. In other words, getting your leg over is fan-bloody-tastic!

Now, to anyone that isn't a member of the clergy, this may seem pretty damned obvious. But in the frigid time known as the first half of the 20th century it was a bit of a mind-blower. With Freud being highly influential, most people were keen on his ideas of repression. Reich, being a sexually liberal fellow, was having none of it. His fondness for orgasms comes from his belief in this thing he called "Orgiastic potency". If you surrendered yourself to sex and to orgasms, then you would no longer be repressed.

Reich was also no fan of the Nazi's, as most people weren't during the 30's and 40's. Despite this, he also made the claim that everyone has the ability to be fascists. This stems from his ideas about the layers of the mind. These were similar to Freud's Id, Ego and Super Ego. In the first layer there is the polite and compassionate part of the mind. This would be similar to the Ego. The Id in Reich's scheme is the second layer. This contains the cruel and sadistic layers of the mind. According to Freud, this was what the sub-conscious was truly like. However, Reich argued that there was a layer below that. This third layer was what needed to be released, ideally through sex.

Reich argued that Nazism was embodied by the second layer. In asking why people supported the Nazi's, he theorised that they focused on the lower middle classes. His argument is that the lower middle class is repressed from a young age by their father figures. Because of this, they like the authoritarian nature of fascism, but also like the idea of rebellion. Unfortunately, due to their repression they are completely incapable of rebelious acts.

While this all sounds fine, and in theory it is, Reich was a bit of a nutcase. One of his key beliefs was in something called "Orgone Energy". This was a field that we breathed in and if we didn't find release (through orgasms) then we'd become frustrated and repressed. He believed that we could harness this power and use it to alter peoples emotions and do all sorts of fancy nonsense such as curing cancer. This could be done through 'Cloudbusting'. Orgone energy would be collected in these things that looked like anti-aircraft guns. That would be pointed at the sky and the energy would be released and cause it to rain. Bonkers...

After Freud's theories fell out of favour with society, Reich saw a rise in popularity. Fed up with Freud's love of repression, Reich's message of people being inherrantly good struck a chord with people, especially the counter-culture of the 60's. Fed up with the repression they were used to, the began to protest against the government and perceived injustices. After being heavily enforced by the police, they came up with the phrase: "There's a policeman inside my head. He must be destroyed," stemming from the belief that if they themselves were liberated mentally, they would be solve their problems.

Unfortunately for poor old Wilhelm, he never got to see his theories rise in popularity. He died in jail after trying to flog an Orgone Box in 1957. Darn.

WINOL Week Five!

Back down to Earth with a bump this week it seems. After last weeks went well, I think we maybe got a little complacent. It wasn't a bad bulletin, but it wasn't a great one either. WINOL by numbers, if you will.

Certainly sport wasn't up to our usual high standard. We had no rights being the lead story and it showed. We had neither the images of the "oomph" that goes with a good lead and we were rightly torn a new one. Additionally, the match report wasn't as tight as previous ones have been.

We also seem to have a real problem with our legal aspect. One story was dropped and the lead story was dubious at the very least. We're also still having issues with our scripting, something which I thought we'd got over.

I'm glad the BJTC weren't in this week. It would've been a disservice to us and to them to show them something that wasn't as good as we can make it.

Wings of Desire

So for our latest History and Context of Journalism module, we were shown the German film 'Wings of Desire', an existentialist film based around passion, desire and achievement. The basic premise of the film is based around two angels, non-corporeal beings who watch over Berlin in the late 1980's. Both are disenfranchised with their existence and long to be human.

The main character, Damiel, is the one who yearns for humanity the most. After meeting a young trapeze artist named Marion (played by the late Solveig Dommartin, who looks eerily like Cate Blanchett), Damiel becomes infatuated with her. It's his desire for humanity and for her that results in him becoming human.

These themes of passion and desire are key elements to existentialism. Existentialists believe that to get something, you only needs to desire it enough. This is apparent in Wings of Desire, where Damiel's desires come true. True romantic love is also a key theme of both existentialism and of the film, with Marion and Damiel truly in love, even though they don't really know each other.

It's a good film and well worth a watch, even though it may be a bit confusing and long winded. Definitely worth seeing if you want to find out more about existentialism.

WINOL Week Four!

I love it when a plan comes together. This weeks edition of WINOL was by far the best we've done. This was easily due to the amount of practice that we got before we actually recorded it. The headlines were done early, packages were in on time and the timings were accurate. Success!

Despite our obvious brilliance there are still things that we can tighten up on. We still need to remember what the story's about and not lose focus. Our stories are still pretty waffle-y at times. If we can maintain the high production values that we had this week with a concise method of storytelling then I see no reason why we can't rival the local publications. 

On a personal level, sport was again good. We need to focus on women's sports apparently, which should be interesting to say the least, but we've really got our stuff nailed down. There's a few minor production issues we can improve on, such as maybe ball watching a bit too much, but content wise we're spot on.

Next week we've really got to ensure that we don't drop the ball. The last time that we did a great bulletin we cocked up the following week. The fact that the BJTC are in next week means that we have to do an even better bulletin than this week.