Showing posts with label quote. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quote. Show all posts
Monday, November 30, 2009
Sweet Clarity
"Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams, who looks inside, awakens " - Carl Jung
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Deportation challenge and news values
This extract is from Ian Dunt in Talking Politics (Death Of The Newspaper): "People consistently rate journalists as one of their least favourite people, battling it out at the top spot with lawyers and estate agents. This is not innate. It is a product of a growing awareness that the media is fundamentally failing in its duty, and reporting on facts which may or may not be true. When so much news comes from PR agencies, whose aims are often at odds with those of truth-telling, you know something somewhere is going wrong."
Often it isn't as clear cut as reporting something that may or may not be true. The irresponsibility in reporting is far more subtle than that. It often comes down to the in-built news values of the writer. What is the real news angle of this story? If you look closely at this story on the front page of today's Irish Times the actual "news" is buried way beyond the opening par.
In this story, look to paragraph five:
"The Sligo-based Nigerian woman acknowledged yesterday that documents used in her legal challenge were bogus. She said her husband had admitted to her on Friday that he had obtained fake documents after the doctor who had treated Elizabeth demanded a substantial payment in exchange for the genuine papers."
that, to me, should have been the opening paragraph
and later,
"In a statement, the Irish Refugee Council, which had supported Ms Izevbekhai’s campaign, said the facts in the case that Elizabeth died as a result of severe bleeding due to FGM were never disputed by the State during the legal process to date."
From reading the headline and first few paragraphs (which incidentally is usually ALL people can manage in this paper), I thought, oh dear, forgeries yeah, it was all a hoax and I even had conversations yesterday with people who read the Sunday papers saying that now it seems the child did not exist at all. All from irresponsible journalism. To me, whether lawyers continue working on the case will depend on a matter of law. The story is what she and her husband say and whether they will be proven right or wrong, no?
Often it isn't as clear cut as reporting something that may or may not be true. The irresponsibility in reporting is far more subtle than that. It often comes down to the in-built news values of the writer. What is the real news angle of this story? If you look closely at this story on the front page of today's Irish Times the actual "news" is buried way beyond the opening par.
In this story, look to paragraph five:
"The Sligo-based Nigerian woman acknowledged yesterday that documents used in her legal challenge were bogus. She said her husband had admitted to her on Friday that he had obtained fake documents after the doctor who had treated Elizabeth demanded a substantial payment in exchange for the genuine papers."
that, to me, should have been the opening paragraph
and later,
"In a statement, the Irish Refugee Council, which had supported Ms Izevbekhai’s campaign, said the facts in the case that Elizabeth died as a result of severe bleeding due to FGM were never disputed by the State during the legal process to date."
From reading the headline and first few paragraphs (which incidentally is usually ALL people can manage in this paper), I thought, oh dear, forgeries yeah, it was all a hoax and I even had conversations yesterday with people who read the Sunday papers saying that now it seems the child did not exist at all. All from irresponsible journalism. To me, whether lawyers continue working on the case will depend on a matter of law. The story is what she and her husband say and whether they will be proven right or wrong, no?
Sunday, January 20, 2008
El Camino - The Way
Caminante, no hay camnino, se hace el camino al andar
Roughly translated it means: traveller, there is no road, the road is made by walking
Roughly translated it means: traveller, there is no road, the road is made by walking
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