Privacy: Where do you get it? “I’m a celebrity too…”

This man: ex-President Bill Clinton is a public figure. Does he have rights to privacy?

The answer is no. (It will be explained later).

This week's seminar is about public figures, privacy, right to know. A case study was presented about the biggest health insurance company in America, WellPoint which invaded insurance holders' personal information especially with health reports. Typically if a policy-holder is diagnose with an illness, the company seeks to find loopholes in agreements and contractual expressions to drop the insurance coverage. This came other national spectacle and the Obama Administration had to step in to prevent such frauds and exploiting personal information.

Rights to privacy is a problematic concept in America. According to Wisegeek (2011), the First Amendment looks to protect the freedom of speech of the media, while American laws do accept rights for privacy, the statements made must not be facts. As a loophole, under the pretext of speculation and assumption, media outlets can indeed release personal information.

In 1998, ex-President Bill Clinton came under fire after a scandal outbroke with Monica Lewinsky. He was scrutinised by the public and the press to release details and confession of having any intimate and sexual relations with a White House intern. If the President then did have his rights to privacy, he need not answer those questions that could potentially embarrass him or be marked for life.

It should be noted that public figures or celebrities cannot have rights to privacy. This is because they willingly accept to trade their private lives for fame and reputation, to be recognised. Fame for one, could be exchanged for fortune because they have a reputation for being good in their trade (acting for celebrities, persuasion and capabilities as a politician).

It is indeed a difficult situation for journalists to follow to report on news that has a thin line between the public's right to know and need to know. It should be understood that if it is a worthy cause to expose ill-practices or illegality like WikiLeak has done, it is justifiable for a news report.

References:

Wisegeek 2011, What is Invasion of Privacy, Wisegeek.com, viewed 25 June 2011, <http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-invasion-of-privacy.htm>

We’re All a Twitter! Journalism and its negotiation of online, the blogosphere and social media.

With an instant click of a button, a piece of information or source of news is transmitted to the world. Allan (2006) describes this practice made possible by the advent of digital technologies. The platforms of social media like blogging, Twitter, Facebook has brought the world closer together. This week's seminar was relative interesting about the world of social media and its influence and impact.

In Singapore, STOMP and RazorTV has come into prominence to introduce citizen journalism. However, over the course of time, it proved to be lacking in standards compared to international counterparts. STOMP was plagued with trivialities, personal opinions directed at that small issues. While RazorTV covered soft news compared to the mainstream's focus on hard, factual news. However, both platforms have shown interactivity - allowing users to post and choose what news they want to read and feedback they want to post. The mainstream is slowly absorbing social media to attract more users to select news from their associated newspaper brand. Some examples are Ng Tze Yong and Jessica Cheam social media correspondent for The Straits Times in Singapore.

The influences of social media cannot be ignored. It allows mainstream to cut cost and utilise social media as a channel of feedback for readers. It provides almost instantaneous broadcast of news - disaster news or important events are reported faster on social media compared to mainstream. However, social media sometimes lack credibility and there were numerous accounts of a mix-up between personal and corporate social-media accounts.

In my personal opinion, this is what the journalistic world required. It was not possible before and has taken reporters and journalists by storm. In the 1990's when the Internet proliferated, analysts speculated the drop in readership and circulation of newspapers as there was an Internet-craze to digitalise everything onto the online domain. This also includes news reporting, with a laptop at hand and internet connection at home, there was no real need to listen to the radio, read the newspapers or watch the television for primetime broadcasts. As an upgrade to the social-media platforms, journalists are closer to their readers. It is no longer a one-way communication. Journalists can better understand their target readers and pressing issues and problems. At the end of the day, journalism is not just reporting but generating news content for people to discuss and be informed. With channels of feedback and discussion provided by social media, journalists should take advantage of technology to not only allow readers follow them, but to follow readers as well.

References:

Allan, S 2006, Online News: Journalism and the Internet, Open University Press, Maidenhead.

Globalisation vs. Localisation

Globalisation is it a bad thing? For many years, critics are concerned and focused on that negative effects of globalisation on journalism. This seminar is not an exception.

I certainly agree with the group with the balanced viewpoint about this topic. They have shown both sides of the coin about the impact of globalisation on journalism. The group has pointed out several important concepts of globalisation and its potential benefits - namely bringing the entire world closer together creating an informational global village and transfer of intangible cultural values. On the other hand, limitations are highlighted to be dominance of a few Transnational Companies (TNCs) resulting in homogenisation of media messages and affecting the quality of journalism.

Globalisation at its worse creates a negative domino effect on journalism, the wide expansion of TNCs allows only several large and privately funded media organisations to enter the niche industry. It creates a natural barrier - media in itself is expensive to maintain and establish. Thus, enforcing its power across the globe as long as there is satellite coverage of the news channel, most of the local media platforms are not spared from the international competition. With that being said, the large companies are able to control media messages through framing. Combine it altogether, stifling competition and corporate power may silence alternate voices with only profits in mind, at the expense of quality of reporting and journalism.

The seminar ends off with globalisation being potentially useful and detrimental depending on how it is being used, viewed and perceived. It may not necessarily be entirely bad.

My opinion is that both globalisation and localisation is essential for journalism to benefit in a global village setting. Take the unrest in Tibet as a case study, CNN was banned in China for reporting the alternative viewpoint - citing a breach of human rights recognised internationally through the declarations of United Nations. CNN China also did a wide coverage on the violence and beatings of protesting monks and Tibetan citizens. While local news broadcasts like CCTV remain silent about the unjust and supporting the Chinese government. In this case, the quality of journalism has increased not because of competition but because international news organisations believe that there is news worthiness and a second opinion on a certain issue that creates a different news story from locally produced news.