Textual Delights

The wise words of Skye Doherty guided us through today's lecture as we learnt about the importance and uses of text in the world of journalism. We learnt that text is

• fast,
• flexible, 
• portable, 
• searchable, 
• dominates online, 
• and has complete control over the media

The most important form of text in traditional journalism is the headline, grabbing the reader's attention in a simple yet effective few words can make or break your news story. Then comes the intro, Skye suggested that a good journalist should be able to get the essential message of their article across in about seventeen words - that's the typical 'who, what where, when, why, how?' 

We discussed the classic inverted pyramid in constructing a story, wherein the most informative and important information is presented first, continuing on to information that is still important but perhaps isn't vital to the news story. Which hopefully will be a great form of guidance in "telling factual stories."

On a side note, as a Law/Journalism student I found Skye's comment's on the House of Lord's Inquiry into Investigative Journalism very intriguing.  I did a bit of research into it and I can now really appreciate how fine the line is between providing factual stories and invading privacy...The News of the World scandal being a prime example. I read a comment from Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, that discusses the decision making involved for journalists in breaking the law in favour of public interest, he says,

"The first bar is to consider the harm of what is going to be done. So if you are going to do things—all journalism has an impact—what is the harm going to be that results from what you do? The second is: what is the good that is going to result from what you do; what is the public good that you are trying to achieve? The third is proportionality. Are the methods that you are thinking of using proportional to the aims that you are trying to achieve, and could they be achieved in another way? The fourth is a kind of audit trail. It says, ‘We need proper authority’ and that was obviously apparently missing within the News of the World, that nobody knew anything about it. You have to show some evidence that people have thought about it and discussed it and that people have approved it. The fifth is to do with fishing expeditions. You cannot justify a mass trawl of the information in the hope that something will turn up."

Having just written a paper on the quandary of Investigative Journalism versus public privacy, this is a very topical issue - launching an Australian Law Reform Commission Inquiry into the pertinency of Australian Privacy Laws.