Death of Investigative Journalism – Or a Fresh Start?

I’m doing an assignment at school now. The last academic assignment before the exams. It is about investigative journalism, whether the commercialisation of media has been good or bad for the muckrakers, and whether the features of globalisation makes it easier or harder to committ investigations.

Personally, I think that commercialisation has made it harder to create high quality journalism. When media companies become conglomerates, they tend to use less money on quality, and more money on garbage, such as When animal attacks, Susan Boyle and other non substantial production.

Is that a problem? I think so. Democracy need a critical voice, now more than ever before. Somebody have to do the job; reveal corruption and tell people about economic, social and political wrongdoings.

But is everything bad about the neo liberal model? Well, almost, yes. But still, in Norway, the biggest paper, VG is very commercialised. They write about what kind of dresses celebrities wear, and a lot of wannabe intellectual people tend to keep away from the paper.

But is it a coinsidence that this paper is the most awardwinning paper in Norway when it comes to investigative journalism? I don’t think so. That paper combines brain dead celebrity articles with high quality journalism and analytical columns. Even though I would prefer that they focused more on investigations; I think their business idea is good.

Another business idea I like even more, is the idea of Huffington Post. Arianna Huffington started this site for investigative journalism, and after what I’ve heard, they are doing great.

I think the path Huffington chose, is a good path. The future is on the internet.

We is from the interwebz, and comes to stay.

When do you really need a journalist?

Sometimes I wonder if the job I’ve done as a journalist in some way can be defined as important. Sometimes I believe it, other times I doubt it heavily. And now when I study journalism, I wonder if the work I’m going to do as a journalist will be important for anybody.

Well, when I see where a lot of the media is going, I’m not sure. The Norwegian magazine for Journalists, Journalisten, brings this debate today.

A survey, made by the Norwegian Department of Education shows that people think journalism is the less important group in society. Even lawyers are more important than us, according to the survey.

But when I think about it, it might not be that surprising. I think there are  two main reasons why journalists score so low on this survey.

The first reason is that doctors, police officers, nurses and teachers are all groups most people believe are important. What to do without a doctor when you’re sick? But at the same time, as one of those who replied to the article wrote, if you’re sink is out of order, you think the plumber is the most important, or if your tooth aches, then a dentist would be your best friend.

But when do you really need a journalist?

This question leads us to the next reason. Journalists are the big protector of democracy. Those who will make the people know when authorities have misused their power. That is anyway what makes journalism sound important. But it is often not reality.

When I look at the most “important” papers in Norway, I see page after page after page with reports from reality shows, Britney Spears, or why YOU should have more sex to sleep better at night.

I think that this leads to another theory, that was mentioned under the article about the survey.

1. Important journalism is not visible.

2. Visible journalism is not important.

Which group in society do you think is the most important?

News Themes, Bill Bailey… And A French Ambulance

I do not have a TV, and it is a long time ago since I had one. I read my news either in the paper or on the internet. And if there is a movie that I have to see, I watch it on my computer.

And there’s a lot of othner things to do when you do not have a TV. Me, for instance, watch You Tube. And I watch it a lot.

Today, I saw why i prefer to read news, instead of watching them. Just look at this:

I first got my eyes up for this wonderful man, Bill Bailey, after watching Black Books, where his role is Manny, a confused accountant who get a job for the mean and sarcastic bookshop owner Bernard Black. Watch a clip here:

And to end it; this one is great, how the french ambulance siren sounds like:

Maybe I Should Start Barking?

Sometimes it is great to have an own blog. When people comment from the other side of the world, and when you see in your stats that a lot more people than expected  have been visiting your site.

And sometimes it is quite boring having a  blog. Actually; most of the days are boring blog days for me. It is quite seldom people come from the other side of the world to read what I am thinking about stuff. And it is quite seldom more than the regulars visit my blog.

And today was one of the days when it was not even boring, it was more depressing; on two days I had one – 1 – visit to my blog.

So maybe I should do as the dog in the cartoon; start barking:

Beating Up The Wrong Guy

I’ve had nothing to write about lately. There has been visitors, there is a lot to do the last weeks at school and I’m generally a bit stressed now.

But there are things that makes me relax. Hopefully, one time, the Ukulele I got from my girlfriend will make me relax. When I learn to play it. But in the meantime, I think listening to it helps more against stress.

Check out the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain in the top of this post. And check out My Ukulele Gently weeps in the bottom. Enjoy.

Super Mario Jazz

Okay, I admit it. I like some of the hyped TV shows, even though I do not have a TV. The Norwegian version of Brittains Got Talent  is something I watch on the Internet every week.

And yesterday, Friday, memories from my childhood popped up again when i watched web TV. Super Mario Bros was my favourite game, and since I’ve always wanted to play piano, this video is the perfect combination for me.

For those of you who don’t understand Norwegian, please, just listen to the song. Super Mario Jazz.

Changing society through pictures

It’s incredible what art can do to people. How art can make people react, make people think. How art can make a difference.

That is what my next assignment is about. Not about film or poetry. Not about journalism, or music. But pictures. Still pictures that has made a difference in society.  Drawn, photographed or painted. From Caravaggio’s paintings to Banksy’s graffitti.

The Norwegian writer, painter, and bohemian Christian Krogh made a difference. When he wrote the book about Albertine, a sewer, who turns prostitute after getting raped by a police officer, he also painted a picture (1885-1887) of Albertine, waiting for the police doctor to check her for diseases.

At that time, it was a huge contribution to the debate about public prostitution, and already the year after, in 1888, the legislation got changed, and public prostitution got illegal, and this painting takes much of the credit for that.

I could need some other pictures to my assignment that had the same impact on a society. Do you have any?

Let this blog be about communication

Okay. I know this blog is supposed to be about media. Especially journalism. But let me change that for a while.

Let this blog be about…communication. I want it to be about writing. About letting something important, for you, for the “public”, or for myself.

Let this blog post be about poetry. Let it be about beat. And let us drop the journalism for a little while.

Inspired by the blog called grapecityjuice, I present Allen Ginsberg’s America. With Tom Waits on piano. Enjoy.

Catching Readers

Ok. This might be a bit ironic, when I have an average of eleven readers on my blog every day. But I would like to say something about catching readers. Make them read your media product, especially print media; newspapers.

I usually like to get away from Norway. It is a good place to be abroad from. And it was a huge difference for me, coming from Norway, the country in Europe who reads most newspaper (Norwgian language in link), and ending up in Ireland. The newspaper culture is very different.

And, of course, I do not agree with a lot of norms in Irish newspapers.

When I decide to buy a newspaper, there are different criterias the newspaper has to satisfy. I want to be catched by the content of the paper. And how do you do that?

Well, you certainly have to make the frontpage catchy. Make me want to read it. And you don’t do that with a small picture, and lots of text. That is not catchy at all.

And what annoys me the most, is that when you first start to read whats on the front page, it suddenly stops. In the middle of a sentence, or sometimes, in the middle of a word.

How sick is that? It has to be the recipe to make readers choose another paper when they have 12 others to pick from.

The bottom line is; I think Norwegian papers are better at frontpage design than the Irish. I might be wrong. But I don’t really care about that.

(The frontpage underneath is from the most “serious” daily paper in Norway, and is as close to a broadsheet as you can get.)

Killing Our Future

There are things in life which is quite annoying. Locking yourself out of a car for instance. Or dropping your food on the floor when you are really hungry. And ten thousand other things.

But there are things that are much worse. Things that pisses me off so bad that I have problems explaining it.

I’ve been working for a couple of newspapers and publications in Norway. They’ve mostly been local papers. I like that. Working in a small society where there’s a good chance of getting into all kinds groups.

What I don’t like is that the small papers are more and more often parts of big conglomerates.

The media conglomerations in Norway, and probably also in Ireland and other countries, ruins all the good things about being a part of the media business. When I worked in Finnmarken in Norway, which is part of a big conglomerate, our local journalist union said NO to an agreement where all the papers within this conglomerate would be able to use eachothers articles.

So why would that be a bad idea? Well, since almost all of the other journalist unions said yes to this agreement, I’ll explain why this would’ve been a tragedy:

When a paper has space to fill, the traditional way to do it is to make a journalist go out and make a case matching the available space. But what happens when you have ten thousand articles matching that space from another paper? You place one of those articles on the available space.

And what are the consequences? There are several. First and maybe more important; less journalists are needed, which means that these kind of agreements will be a step by killing our future jobs. These agreements creates less jobs for journalists, and has to be stopped.

The second consequence is that the unique papers is about to disappear. With 100 papers using the same stories, there is nothing special left with the papers. The papers will turn in to be copies of eachother and the content will be uniform. This is not exactly new thinking, but it is about to be even worse.

The third consequence is, especially for local papers, that the content will be less local, and therefore less interesting for the readers. And after what I can get; the readers are the most important for media organizations, even if they are independent or part of a conglomerate.