Law Lecture 7 - Codes of Practice

As with any job, journalism is subject to set Codes of Practice.These act as a way of creating consistency between journalists. They also help to create and build trust between journalists and their audiences. Journalism has three main codes:

The Press Complaints Commission (PCC), which is for papers and magazines

The Office of Communications (OFCOM), for broadcasters

BBC Trust, for regulating output on the BBC.

The reason why these codes matter so much is because they help guide journalists through any ethical issues that they may face and how far it is that you can go.

The PCC is often seen as a toothless tiger. It's self-regulated and has little in the way of impartiality. Whilst it acts as a place to send complaints, in many cases these aren't acted upon (such as the Jan Moir article on Stephen Gateley after his death). It acts as little more than a deterrent as it can force retractions and apologies from editors in their newspapers.

In contrast, OFCOM is far more authoritative. OFCOM has the ability to hand out heavy fines to broadcasters it feels have broken its regulations. For example, it fined ITV £5.6million for the vote rigging scandal several years ago. Beyond fines, it can prevent broadcasters from airing repeats, forced airings of apologies and in worst case scenarios removing their broadcasting license.

For the BBC, the BBC Trust is responsible for upholding the BBC's guidelines. They deal with complaints made directly to the BBC and investigating whether there was any wrongdoing. These guidelines are available to the entire public and serve as a referral to all BBC workers and other journalists. This ensures it has a very user friendly site.

Law Lecture 6 - Freedom of Information

The Freedom of Information Act is one of the greatest tools available to journalists today. It covers 130,000 organisations and government bodies, receiving 100,000 requests a year and at a cost of £34million. It allows anyone, not just journalists, the ability to ask for information kept by these bodies and for it to be published. Curiously, only 12% of FOI requests actually come from journalists.

The act covers pretty much everything except when there's a valid reason to not hand the information over, such as official secrets or confidentiality. These "exemptions" are Absolute and Qualified (like privilege). Absolute exemptions relate to official secrets, the Ministry of Defence etc. Qualified exemptions are for things such as ministerial communications and commercial confidentiality. Whilst these are a hinderance as a journalist, there are still plenty of opportunities to uncover great stories due to the FOI Act like the expenses scandal.

Many journalists see now as the Golden Age of the FOI. There's still a treasure trove of information buried away, waiting to be enquired about. In order to combat this, politicians are no longer writing things down to avoid it being "on the record". Such 'on the sofa' politics has allowed for informal chats as opposed to formal meetings where minutes etc have to be kept.

Law Lecture 5 - Copyright

Copyright is an exclusive legal right given to a person who has printed, published or otherwise created something that belongs to them. It could be either physical or intellectual property, but the important fact is that it belongs to that person. The purpose of copyright is to protect the creators of this property. Because of this, copyright infringement is technically stealing. You are able to use a limited amount of another person's work (if it's credited or if it's for the purpose of reviewing). Ignorance to this is no defence and will see you fined for copyright infringement.

Fair dealing is something used by journalists in order to use other peoples work in their own work. However, this work cannot be passed for your own and the usage must be fair and only a small portion of the whole work. Whilst video and to an extent text can be fair dealed, photographes are exempt from fair dealing.

Law Lecture 4 - Privacy and Confidentiality

Privacy and confidentiality is probably the second most important thing (legally) a Journo must be aware of after defamation. Under Section 8 of the Human Rights Act, even citizen has a right to privacy. However, whilst people have this right, that doesn't mean reporters are suddenly prevented from reporting about celebrities and other public figures.

There are no problems with publishing pictures (for example) of people for a couple of reasons. Firstly, if that person is on a clear public duty. One famous example in regards to privacy issues related to this. The Princess Caroline of Monaco, legally prevented photographers from taking her picture. One exception to this was if she on a clear public duty (the example used was if she was handing over the trophy at the European Cup final).

Secondly, it's okay to publish pictures if there's consent. This can come either as implicit or explicit. Implicit is when there hasn't been a signed contract, but when someone has posed for the camera or given some hint that they're okay with being photographed. Explicit is when there has been a verbal or written agreement that pictures are okay to be published (such as during fashion shoots etc).

Confidentiality is something that everyone has unless they have signed it away. It's applicable where people to have a reasonable expectation to confidentiality, such as at the doctors or in a private meeting. Curiously, parents are expected to maintain a degree of confidentiality with things their children tell them, but it is not the same the other way round.

Unlike defamation, which is easier to prove, breach of confidence is harder. For something to be confidential, there has to be:

The necessary quality of confidence

AND circumstances imposing an obligation (i.e. a reasonable person would expect something to be kept in confidence such as medical issues at a doctors)

AND there is no permission to publish the information

AND there is a detriment likely to be caused to the person who gave the information (they have to PROVE they've been damaged).

Law Lecture 3 - Defamation

Defamation is the act of either slandering or libelling someone. There are four criteria in which this is measured:

*Causing someone to be lowered in the estimation of right thinking people

*Causing someone to be shunned or avoided

*Disparages someone in their business, trade or profession

*Exposes them to ridicule, hatred or contempt.

As such, it makes it very easy to sue for defamation as all you have to do is prove one of those points. However there are some defences:

*Justification: What you say is true and you can prove it.

*Fair comment: Honestly held opinion based upon facts or priveleged material in the public interest.

*Absolute privilege: Reporting accurately what is said in court.

*Qualified privilege: Police quotes, press releases etc.

*Bane and antidote (defamation removed by context): Removing defamation later on in a story.

*Apologies and clarifications.

You have no defence when:

*You've not checked your facts

*When you've not referred up

*Not putting yourself in their shoes

*Get carried away by a spicy story

*Not bothered to wait for a lawyers opinion

It's crucial to be able to recognise risk as a journalist. Recognising risk can save you a lot of aggravation and potentially a lot of money. Consider who you're writing about and whether or not they're capable of suing. Chances are a postman in some county miles away isn't going to sue (although that doesn't give you an excuse to defame him), but someone like Elton John probably would. If you must write it, be certain you have a defence. If you aren't sure, ask a lawyer. More often than not, they aren't going to mind.

A Tale of Tuition Fees

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times", especially if you're a Liberal Democrat. On one hand, high profile members of the party such as Nick Clegg and Vince Cable occupy cushy Cabinet roles. On the other hand, failure to back up their pre-election pledge on tuition fees has seen support for the party collapse. A YouGov poll from this weekend puts the Lib Dems on a miniscule 10%. Compare this to their pre-election highs of 20%+ (when they were boosted by the live TV debates) it's been a spectacular fall from grace.

A lot of the press regarding the tuition fees protest last week quite

rightly focused on the damage to the Conservative party's HQ at

Millbank. What the press didn't focus on so much was the chants from the crowd before the violence. Among the more polite was: "Nick Clegg we know you, you're a fucking Tory too!"

It's fair to say that students feel as though they've been betrayed by the Lib Dems. This fact was compounded by the leaked documents that revealed that the Lib Dems wouldn't be able to maintain the tuition fee pledge if they were elected. To say that Nick Clegg is, politically, a dead man walking would be one heck of an understatement.

To make matters even worse for Clegg and the Lib Dems, the National Union of Students have revealed they will launch a campaign to remove Clegg and other top Lib Dems from office. Even IF the coalitions lasts the distance and survives five years and IF these dreadful past few months are forgotten by the public, it sure as hell won't be forgotten by the Labour party. They'll ensure that there's no easy ride and all this will get dragged back into the limelight to show the the Lib Dems can no longer be trusted.

For Nick Clegg, life is bleak. Hated by students, not trusted by his party, seen as a lapdog to the Tories by the public and little more than a teaboy to the Tories themselves. Clegg's political life, which promised so much before the election, has now stumbled its way to a masochistic dead end.

Law Lecture 2 - Prejudice

Prejudice leads to contempt, contempt leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering! Ahem...sorry.

So yeah, we learnt some more about prejudice and what you can report and when. A key aspect of this was learning when a court case becomes active. For the record, this is:

When the police make an arrest

Issue a warrant

Magistrates issue a summons

When a person is charged

As a journalist, this greatly restricts what we can and cannot report. Before a person is arrested, there isn't much in the way of restriction for a Journo. That's because there isn't a person that can be prejudged and no courts to be held in contempt of. Once a person is arrested however, there are a whole bunch of restrictions that slam into place. This is to ensure that a person gets a fair trial (and to prevent you from getting chucked into jail for contempt!) Once a trial has commenced, the only things a Journo can report on are:

The names of the defendant, their age, address and occupation

What they're charged with or a close summary

Name of the court and the magistrates name

Name of solicitors/barristers present

Date and place court is adjourned to

Bail arrangements

The legal aid that's been granted

It's also important to remember that isn't isn't just the Crown Prosecution Service that can prosecute people. While they may do the bulk, organisations like the RSPCA, Health and Safety Executive etc can also prosecute and there are also some private prosecutions.

Perhaps the most important aspect of court reporting is to remember that it has to be fast, accurate and fair. You can't keep a juicy days court reporting locked up for a slow news day in a weeks time. By that time it's out of date and no good. Plus, it may well land you in some trouble!

Law Lecture 1 - Overview

The first law lecture of the year was more of an overview as to what the course would involve. To me, it was very similar to stuff that we'd already learnt in the first year (which I guess is a good thing).

The key theme of this course is how the law affects journalists, both for the better and for the worse. An understanding of the law makes you a better journalist and also manages to keep you out of prison!

Perhaps the key skill to take from law, even if the exact details are forgotten, is to recognise risk. Say you're working on a murder case, the risk of contempt of court is very high. Not only do you risk the case being thrown out, but you also risk being sent to jail yourself.

To me, law for a journalist is a handy tool to keep in mind and up to date. I guess I'd better go out and buy the latest McNae's...

WINOL Week 8!

I think people were concerned that this wasn't an especially good bulletin. Personally, I think we did okay considering the pressure we were under, what with the BJTC being here.

Luckily it seems they were very impressed with the set-up we have in Winchester. It appeared to me that they were taken aback with what we've done. In particular, they were very keen on our election coverage. I think they also liked that we weren't given an easy ride. The semi-pro method of working was also something I don't think they were expecting.

As for the bulletin itself, I thought it was okay. We've certainly produced better, but also a lot worse. As was pointed out in our de-brief, our links and script are none too great. There was also a breakdown in communication at one stage, as our bulletin ran over time in the rehearsals.

Despite this, we were able to get back on track with a hasty re-edit of some packages just before we went live. I like to this this shows how well we work as a team now as it was done calmly and with minimum fuss.

Now that we've done the hard work and finished our genuine news broadcasts, it's time to kick back, relax and do a best-of package for this coming Wednesday. The end is nigh...

WINOL Election Coverage!

WINOL's first ever election broadcast was a fantastic success. It wasn't flawless, but nothing is. What we have to look at is what we accomplished and the context in which we managed that.

To an outsider, the task we set ourselves would have seemed insurmountable. Here we were, a collection of students, giving live election coverage with outside broadcasts and news packages to provide context for the viewers.

This is, as far as I can tell, no different to what Channel 4, the BBC or Sky News provided for their viewers. The only difference was the failings of modern technology. In terms of journalistic integrity, we were no worse off than any of the big guns.

I think we may have tried to go a bit too far with our Skype link to Austria. While a nice idea in principle, the technology wasn't good enough and having an expert who couldn't speak English also proved to be a bit too much of a hinderance.

Presenting was a consistent strong point. Graham Bell is a total pro and Claire did excellently, especially considering she had no script and everything went a bit Pete Tong around then. On a personal note I was absolutely bricking it about being on camera, but as soon as I answered that first question I felt far more comfortable and even wanted to answer more questions!

It seems likely that we'll be having another election soon. If that results in another WINOL election night, I think we can bank on another success and hopefully an even better show!

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. 

"Hell is other people" and listening to Radiohead live.

So in the latest installment of our History and Context of Journalism, we learnt all about those cheerful folks called existentialists. As far as I can tell, I tend to agree with them on a fair few things such as personal freedoms (apart from the whole "it's okay to murder folk" bit) and their hatred of Nazi's. That being said, I wouldn't want to go to the pub with one of them. They seem right miserable buggers.

Their key belief it seems is to ask why do people do anything. Why do I go to the shops? Why do I eat bread? Why does Rafa Benitez insist on zonal marking? They also have a like, maybe even a dislike, of morality. To an existentialist, that would be herd behaviour, something which they can't abide.

Conformity is something of a cardinal sin to existentialists. For them, there is doing things in good faith and in bad faith. Conformity breeds bad faith. This is their main gripe with fascists, particularly Nazi's. Everything they did was in bad faith as they were compulsive liars. Similarly, the people of Nazi Germany engaged in massive levels of conformity, ignoring the atrocities of their government.

People that existentialists do like is people with passion. It doesn't matter about what your passion is, just so long as you have it. You could be an artist, a football fan, a teacher, anything. I'm quite fond of this belief. The ability to have passion and care about things is important in life and without it, everything becomes a bit boring.

Existentialism isn't perfect, but it makes enough sense and has some good ideas. It may not be for everyone, but it works.

1885: A Nietzsche Odyssey

Today we ended up watching 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film with strong links to the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. 2001 is probably one of my favourite films of all time and certainly my favourite Kubrick film (which is high praise coming from someone who adores his work).

In 2001, the piece of music Also Sprach Zarathustra (or Thus Spoke Zarathustra in English) is a key musical motif of the film. The music is heavily influenced and even named after Nietzsche's book chronicling his own ideas on life, evolution and the Ubermensch, as well as other philosophical beliefs that Nietzsche held.

Many of these philosophical ideals can be seen in 2001, most notably Nietzsche's ideas on the evolution of man. 2001 starts with a 20 minute long section detailing the life of pre-historic apes, ones that will eventually become mankind. They're primitive herbivores, living side by side with other herbivores and like them are prey for creatures such as leopards. This all changes after the arrival of the Monolith.

The Monolith is curiously both Nietzschean and Kantian. In Nietzschean terms, it is an example of “will to power”. The Monolith seemingly imposes its will on the apes. It stirs in them ambition, achievement and the desire to succeed. This is probably best shown in the film after the Monolith leaves. The apes it visits, who earlier in the film had been driven from a near-by watering hole, go back to attack and kill the leader of the rival group of apes. These apes also begin to use tools in order to kill animals for food, giving them protein and accelerating the evolution of their minds. The Kantian influence can be seen through the Monolith as being above the apes’ perception, being what Kant would call a “transcendent object”. It is able to observe and understand the apes, but they (and humanity later on in the film) are unable to do the same.

The Dawn of Man sequence is the section I disagreed with Horrie on. In the lecture and on his video blog about the film, he said that he believed that the Dawn of Man section takes place over millions of years. To me, it’s apparent in the film and in the novel that the Dawn of Man takes place over a very short period of time, with the Monolith acting as a catalyst. This is most evident in two instances. Firstly, the moment where Moonwatcher examines the bones has a quick flash to the alignment of the Earth, Moon and Sun that occurred when they saw the Monolith. Secondly, the fight between the two tribes of apes quite clearly takes place over a short period of time. In the first, Moonwatcher’s tribe is clearly outmatched and forced away. After the encounter with the Monolith and their discovery of weapons, they return and force out the other tribe with ease.

Following the fight between the two tribes of apes, there’s one of the most famous transitions in cinema: the bone being thrown into the air and turning into a spaceship. This begins the section of the story dealing with man, the stage of existence that Nietzsche believed we needed to “overcome”. This transition shows how humanity has advanced technologically, going from being apes crawling in the dirt to men exploring the cosmos.

Another Monolith is discovered on the surface of the Moon. The scene where humans come in contact with the Lunar Monolith is very reminiscent of the scene where the apes encounter their Monolith. The encounter is based around the senses, with the Monolith being observed and touched, much in the same way the apes treat it. To me this indicates that man hasn’t evolved much in the millions of years since first clubbing other animals round the head. While undoubtedly more advanced, they’re still fundamentally primitive. It isn’t until Dave Bowman’s encounter with the Monolith in orbit around Jupiter that humanity makes its first steps to becoming what Nietzsche would call “Supermen”.

The mission to Jupiter that makes up most of the film is an exploration of humanity. Humanity in this stage is very Apollonian. Mankind is rational, logical and scientific. The apes on the other hand were entirely Dionysian. HAL is the embodiment of this Apollonianism as he is a machine. However, he is perhaps more also more human than the actual humans onboard Discovery One. For example, HAL pleads with Dave Bowman to stop removing its memory, appealing on grounds of compassion, logic and eventually fear. The fact that HAL expresses these very human emotions shows that it would remain permanently flawed in the eyes of Nietzsche. As a machine, it is incapable of evolution. By being made by man, it will remain forever flawed. Man is able evolve to a higher level, which is what happens to Bowman at the films climax. This is a stark contrast to HAL who de-evolves to a simple, child like state due to Bowman deactivating him.

Following the arrival of the Discovery One in orbit around Jupiter, Bowman encounters the much larger Monolith. This takes him through the surreal “Star Gate”, leaving him in what appears to be a room decorated in the Classical style. As the scene progresses, he sees himself getting older and older, before eventually appearing on his deathbed as The Last Man. This is when the Monolith appears to Bowman, transforming him into the Star Child. This transformation into the Star Child is Nietzsche’s idea of the Ubermensch. It’s highly evolved (despite appearing as a baby). It’s able to breathe in space and is indicated to be a balance between Apollonian and Dionysian modes of being.

One thing I’ve learned from all this is that 2001: A Space Odyssey is a mightily deep film. Its complexities are probably impossible to dissect as it has so many different interpretations. After all, it was designed by Kubrick to be deliberately ambiguous! Some may say it’s one of those films where you should sit back and enjoy the spectacle, but that would be doing it a disservice. Watch it, analyse it and come to your own conclusions.

WINOL Week Two!

Well this was an improvement over last week, albeit by the skin of our teeth! I really thought this was going to be another disaster week but I was thoroughly impressed by the professionalism that everyone showed. We went through the bulletin with little to no rehearsal, the technology being a bit shitty and people not being quite sure how it worked or what they were supposed to be doing and still managed to get a decent bulletin out on time!

I like to think how we would've reacted in our first year if we'd been given responsibility like this. I think it shows how far we've come in so short a time because we'd have panicked like there was no tomorrow!

The stories this week I felt were stronger as well. We had a good exclusive with the man from the Orange Wednesday adverts revealing that they wouldn't be running them. Our stories were generally stronger overall and there didn't seem to be a weak area at all.

I was personally a bit disappointed with our sport coverage this week. We had a major problem with the football match that we'd put all our work into actually being cancelled. This left us with very little content for the bulletin besides the non-league round up and the (now very short) report on the cancelled game. However, getting the news story about the collapsed player at the Totton vs Gosport game was something I'm rather pleased with.

Hopefully next week we'll be more confident, know how to use the equipment more and have settled fully into our roles. One thing's for sure, I'm not working the sound desk in the studio!!

FAO: Journalism Students

Yes it's a piss take of creating news packages, but if it's good enough for mainstream news then it's good enough for WINOL!

God Is Dead. Funeral's at 12:30...

So today we studied the mad, bad and dangerous to know Friederich Nietzsche. Nietzsche is someone who you probably wouldn't want to have a drink with. He strikes me as someone who'd be perennially miserable no matter what you did (unless it was take part in an orgy in the basement of Cinderella's Castle).

Nietzsche seems to, rather unfairly, have this reputation as a completely insane Nazi. While, in fairness, he did eventually go bonkers (most likely due to syphilis), his beliefs themselves weren't all that mad. He was also no Nazi. He had his beliefs twisted and bastardised by the Nazi's, but Nietzsche was opposed to anti-semitism, nationalism and racism, which was pretty much everything the Nazi party stood for.

Nietzsche had some good ideas in his syphilis addled brain.I don't entirely disgaree with his views on morality, for example. For Nietzsche, morality was created by mankind and there was no such thing as moral absolutes. Everything was relative to everything else. If someone grew up in a society where it was okay to beat women then they wouldn't see it as wrong, even though we'd find it abhorrent.

I also concur with his attitudes towards religion. By breaking with the idea of a God, one loses the right to an exclusively set range of Christian morals. This is a stark contrast to the philosophical beliefs of Immanel Kant, someone whose beliefs were based very heavily in the Christian mindset.

This being said, I do disagree with Nietzsche's opinions on equality. Personally I feel that people are born equal. Yes people are elevated to positions of power, but that's just their title. As people, they're no different on a fundamental level to anyone else. Additionally, I don't agree with his dislike of democracy. Yes, if the world were left in charge of wise, infallible people who always made the right decision for everyone that'd be super. However, people make mistakes no matter how enlightened they are. To place the power of society in the hands of a few individuals is the road to corruption.

Orwell and Newspeak

This is a video I had to do for my Journalism course at University. In it, I talk about Orwellian language that we have today and examples of it.

It was going to be longer and more in-depth, but because of YouTube's video time limit I had to severely cut it down.

Kid torturers aren't a sign of Cameron's "Broken Britain", just a sign that people aren't saints.

The locking up of two children responsible for the torture of two other children has caused outrage amongst the public and has been seized by the Tories as being a clear sign that Britain is "Broken". In my humble opinion this is sheer nonsense.

The attack by these two children is horrific for sure, but to say it's symptomatic of a wider problem is the sort of politicking that's become expected of the Conservatives and of David Cameron. To seize upon one incident and use it to your own ends is sick and twisted.Of course these things should be talked about and action should be taken to try and prevent them from happening again, but they've always happened and unfortunately always will.

It's not a sign that Britain has degenerated to some Mad Max style free for all, just that the media like to stoke up shock stories like this. It's the current news bogeyman; the terror on Britain streets, with hoodies and feral pre-teens fed on a diet of drugs, Grand Theft Auto and blue Smarties.

The death of Jamie Bulger was almost a twenty years ago. Is society any worse now than then? No, of course not. It's much the same as it was and as it has been for decades previously. And if Cameron hasn't forgotten, who was in charge when Jamie Bulger was killed? Oh yeah, the Tories.

It's no failing of any political party or of society as a whole. It's just an unwelcome reminder we live in a nasty, violent, horrible world.

We shouldn't forsake our humanity just to make the most of a story.

The Haitian earthquake has been dominating the headlines recently, with hope and misery and life and death all taking up column inches of the paper as bodies and survivors are pulled from the rubble. With most of the worlds media focused on the small Caribbean island, many journalists have flown over to report on the disaster.

CNN's Anderson Cooper is one of these. While there, he saved the life of a small boy who'd been hit on the head with a cinder block. This has raised the question over journalistic interference in Haiti by providing help to locals.

Now, this to me is a simple question to answer. As someone who's training to be a journalist and as someone who's first aid trained, if I saw someone in need of help I'd provide that help, journalism be damned! Yes journalists have a duty to be impartial, but this is a natural disaster and one of the worst on record. It's not like it's a general election where we can be accused of being partial to one party or another, it's a disaster where thousands of people have died. Do we all want to end up like Kevin Carter, visiting places and exploiting them for the news values and doing nothing to help?

I see that video of Anderson Cooper and I feel proud that there are people in my chosen profession who are willing to forsake and rules they may have been taught in order to go and do what's right. It's important to remember that beyond our duties as journalists, we have duties as human beings.