Day 3: Making your own Video Story; and Understanding the Digital Impact on News Media of Tomorrow

The first half obviously was spent on editing the story I had shot till late last night in the flower market of Hongkong, and I used FCP Version 8.0 for that, quite and advanced and user-friendly version I must say. I had to learn all functions and tools (at least those I needed that moment), get stuck up some twenty times, and finally complete the story, which later was adjudged as the joint best story by any participant along with another journalist-professor from Japan, Masato Kajimato.

The voiceover of my story:

Flower market of Hongkong. One of the most colourful street markets with around fifty large and small shops, in Mongkok, in Kowloon district, near Prince Edward Road Street, and just next to the Royal Plaza hotel. Huge bucketfuls of roses and gerbera spill out onto the sidewalks along the road. A collection of street stalls selling cut flowers and potted plants. Delicate orchids and the vivid birds of paradise are some of the more exotic blooms. During the Chinese New Year, there is a roaring trade in narcissi, poinsettias and bright yellow chrysanthemums, all considered auspicious flowers, indeed.

More than a thousand citizens of Hongkong are engaged in every possible activity connected to the business and aesthetics of floriculture, from dawn till the late evening every day, and satisfying their choosy customers.

The flowers sold here are always fresh and smell very good. So, head down to this market next evening to gift that someone special a nice bouquet of a variety of flowers from this market. And, in true Hongkong style.

I had two interviews of owners of shops, one who teaches floral designs to customers at a price as well, and two customers of the market.

Others also had lovely stories, on the life of a Swiss lady in Hongkong, one on a librarian from Central Asia now an icon of the local university, one on the lovely birds market of Hongkong, et al.

Our stories were analyzed, critiqued, and alternative approaches discussed, the entire workshop members participating in the debate.

Later, impact of digital revolution on the news media was discussed in great details. How it makes ‘public use media’ possible to exist which gives the masses the real power to create public opinion. The transition of private media to public media and now to the public use media was traced in great details.

Next, the idea of the mobile journalist, Mojo, the reporter who uses nothing but a high-end multi-functional mobile phone, was illustrated so very well: the history of mojo, why the concept is evolving, its spread around the world today, and implications for journalism. Roles of mojos in the context of daily newspapers, video content for a portal, web-based television for a newspaper, and free-to-air or cable television journalism were all discussed, including business models of such one-person operations, and details of the range of technologies available to mojos.

An interesting discussion focused on how new technology speeds up the transmission of international news, gives fuller coverage of natural disasters like earthquakes and floods, but it does not impact on the news ranking of the country reported upon. This ranking is still dominated by factors which Galtung and Ruge established long ago: negative events like conflicts, elite persons and countries, et al. For example, despite the new technology having overcome the tyranny of distance for Australia, it still remains a middle-ranking country in terms of foreign news value. The news reports from and about Australia are rarely about politics, but steadily on business and finance, especially in the resources sector, and sport and lifestyle.

Another paper argued that the focus of ‘citizen journalism’, it appears, is shifting from people caught up in incidents unmediatedly relaying their experiences (specially observations and situations), either directly or through secondary mediation, to shine a spotlight on their immediate locales, to finally collaborative and aggregating reaction by those commonly some distance from the events in a kind of global echo chamber. Examples were given from content sent by people caught up in Mumbai terror attacks from within the hotels to cyclone in Brisbane, both happening in November 2008.

Finally, some questions were raised as to news in digital age may not always be doing justice to the quality of journalism. Journalists are becoming packagers of content, rather than investigating enquiring minds with original ideas, unique contacts and with the time to follow a story. Websites use more of subs/copy editors than reporters. Managers have always tried to cut costs, now they dress up crude cost-cutting exercises in fancy jargon. They can stack spending in areas such as web page design and engineering in a home-based head office, while subtracting costs for journalism in far-flung areas. If editors in Europe, for example, can watch a press conference of Hillary Clinton in Jakarta, live, why bother hearing from the journalists at the press conference?

However, there were several criticisms and counter-opinions to this point of view, as to how new angles, alternative angles, reactions etc can be brought in to such a press conference by the working journalists on the field.

Finally, over dinner, a marvelous talk was given on how the future journalists have to be multi-media experts, convergent in practice, with higher ethical standards in quality of journalism and can reflect public opinion or the reality as they see better. Examples were shown how initial practices to present the same story on the web can be presented very well through a mix of video, text, interactive info-graphics (you ask and the story gives you the demanded graphics), picture gallery, and podcasts (audio), all ending up into a discussion board with readers/audience and journalists participating in it. And, how certain elements of the news-story can best be conveyed by a specific medium or channel and not otherwise.

Hail SIMC! We are far ahead in our philosophy than many other media schools of the developing world, and I could establish that once more through participation in all these discussions.

And, for the dinner, well 15 course seafood preparations, elaborate starters and desserts, well, do I need to say more?