Essay 2

Media scholars have written about the effects that entertainment programming can have on people – from encouraging imitative behavior (social learning theory) to creating the perception that the world can be a pretty scary place (cultivation theory). What about the news media? Looking at news coverage and the definitions of news, what effects does journalism have on individuals and on society? What does news coverage say about the United States? And what does it say about the rest of the world

From the naissance of the earliest newspaper till now, the history of media development has already passed almost a hundred years. During the past century, the format of media has changed and evolved continually, from the earliest newspaper to radio, to television and then to the current internet. However, whatever the format by which the media displayed for the public, the function of it never faded in our society. Nowadays, the function of it gets even more important with the booming of internet techniques. Web television, blogs, twitter and countless websites have penetrated into almost every corner of our life, and become an inseparable part of our life. From the news like the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the military actions operated by NOTA on Libya to the weather report and the daily price of gasoline. To get them, what you do is just opening the television or clicking the mouse. Then you will be overwhelmed by the information ocean. Television and other medias have became part of the process by which people learn society’s values and come to understand what society expects from them. They enable us to communicate with each other by helping us to overcome the barriers of time and space. It is widely acknowledged that the basic functions of media are: Inform, Surveillance, Service the economic system, Hold society together, Entertain, Act as a Community forum, Set up the agenda, Service the political system. For this article, I want to focus on two of them: Entertain and Hold our society together.

Television and radio broadcasting provides us with a big variety of programs and news every day. All these news and programs release us from the heavy burden after work. That is the benefit we get from them. To get a higher circulation or audience rating, except for the general programs and news they do, the negative news, even the scandals of stars or political officers usually become the favor for media. In this regard, it is understandable that the information like the divorce or extramarital affairs of Hollywood stars, the drugs abuse of some sports stars is always full of the screen or newspapers. However, have you asked what did we really get from these news？ Next, I will use one example to analyze what we really get from them.

On May 9, 2011, Arnold Schwarzenegger and His wife Maria Shriver shocked the world by announcing their separation in a joint statement. This happened after Arnold acknowledged his extramarital affair with his housekeeper mistress and cultivated an illegitimate son. This new became the top line on the media sonly. Arnold was also put in the teeth of the storm. A fierce debate on this issue emerged on the internet. The public was disappointed by Arnold’s disloyalty, and sympathized Maria’s situation. In my opinion, for the public, they should stay in calm and analyze this event comprehensively.

For Arnold Schwarzenegger himself, it could not be denied that he was the false maker. But remember every one had the right to make mistakes, and every one also had the right to correct his or her mistakes. The public’s reaction on this issue could do nothing but place high pressures on him and his family. To some extent, this event should be considered as Arnold’s domestic issue or even privacy. Of course, some people considered that the audience or the media bestowed the stars like Arnold reputation and social status, and they should have the right to know or comment on their behaviors, even privacy. However, stars or other celebrities had already done something to compensate for their reputation and social status. They provided us a variety of excellent television shows, films, music, other kinds of arts works or exciting athletic contests. Some of them even set good examples in promoting the public welfare careers. They were also commoners like us, they had their privacy, and they had their own time and space which needs the public’s respect. In addition, had you took Maria, the mistress and her son’s feeling into consideration?  Did we want the 10 years old boy to live in the shadow of his father’s scandal for the remaining of his life? Thus, for such news, it means a tremendous pressure on the star’s career, which might generate very big influences on their family life. According to one investigation, in South Korea, about one to five suicide cases of stars happened every year. The reason for the suicide was they cannot bear the pressures of scandals from the public.

For the public, on one hand, have you asked what do we really get from Arnold’s scandals? Do they generate significance on our daily life? The answer is definite: Nothing more than a burst of laughter. For most of the public, our daily life is not influenced by them. Those news are just the resource of our gossip after dinner, and such amusement we get is based on the stars’ sorrows. On the other hand, media usually serve as the promoter for the public’s mainstream ideas, what they published have a big influence on shaping the public’s opinion. For most of the young people, they are influenced a lot by the media, their immaturity and curiosity drives them to imitate the behaviors of their idols. We can image what they will be under the influence of such news like divorce, extramarital affairs even drug abuse and violence. Their values may be distorted under such ambience. Some of them even imitate the behaviors of the stars they admire, they indulge themselves in the amusement, they take drugs, they do not treat their marriage seriously. Thus, more social problems come to appear. Compared the economic profit and the social influence on our next generation, which one is more important?

Based on the above considerations, if the higher circulation or audience rate is at the expanse of the stars’ sorrows and the distortion of social values, then this investment is totally a failure. For the media, they should take the responsibility to shape a health public opinion. In order to achieve this goal, the shows and reporting work which can help the public to develop an optimistic, aggressive attitude should replace those pessimistic scandals.

Medias should take the neutral perspectives or angle in order to achieve the goal of a fair, democratic society, and hold the whole society even the whole world together. This is definitely right. For most medias, they always try to find a balancing point which can consider the profits concerning all social classes. Unfortunately, this is a challenging task, sometimes this is even an unrealistic anticipation. What should the media select if they cannot find such balancing point in the conflict between political or economic profit and the general civilians?

I want to take the news of the military actions the NOTA operated on Libya as an example. Even today, we still cannot get a clear pretext for this military action. No matter what kind of reasons, the peaceful and stable situation for Libya is our final goal. But, what we are doing now is not pointing to this direction. Every day, what we look on the reporting work was the fierce fighting scenes, the blast of explosives, the victory or failure of one party, the casualty of the conflict, the negotiation between different parties and so on. However, have you got more images of the civilians who are still live in the flames of the war? Do they have family members are killed or injured on the war? Do they have enough food or water? What should they do after losing family members or houses? I can guarantee that the images which show the scenes of fierce war and those political leaders are definitely more than the civilians who are still live in the war area. Why the war has no end? The answer is quite simple: even the civilian’s basic right to get a stable life cannot be achieved by the government, they even do not get enough attention by the public from the whole world. Why do not they select rebellion? Before their basic life has the guarantee, their profit can be protected effectively, their terrible life gets enough attention from the world. Then the war will be quite close to the end. Under such situation, what should the media do becomes clear for the public. If the media pay enough attention to reflect their life, their horrible life under the war to the whole world, then the tempo of the process to achieve peace may get accelerated. More humanitarian aid will be provided by different associations, more endeavors will be done by the political leaders to avoid more casualties.   

After analyzing the above situation, we can give answer to the question at the end of the seventh paragraph. If there is conflict between the political profit and civilian’s life, to get the crisis settled timely, the media should not serve as the promoter or publisher for the war but to work as the warrior to reflect the basic profit of the civilian. Only in this way can we achieve the goal of peace and democracy. To achieve this goal, we still have a long way to go.

From the moment that the media emerged, our society bestowed a special mission to this honorable career. It is every journalist’s accountability to realize this  goal: to hold our society together, to achieve democracy in every corner of the world.

Work Journal 4

On Monday, our crew continued our editing work. We held a meeting to settle the technical problems we met during the editing procedure. My director presented new software skills which can make special effects, motions. These skills definitely helped us a lot. But I am confused by one notion: how should we select if there was conflict between reality and aestheticism. Remember what we did was not journalism. My director told me we can select aestheticism, since documentary was like filming production. Sometimes, the audience placed their attention on how beautiful and gorgeous the images they were seeing. Of course, there was also one promise: that was all special effects made by you should be based on actual information and actual images.

One Tuesday, we reported the baseball game in Dodge Stadium. This story reporting taught me lots of valuable information.  The first one was: as a professional journalist, your shooting angle was your first consideration during the reporting work. You should select the most ideal place and the best angle to do interviews of the stars and their coach. Of course, sometimes, they were too busy to accept your interview, but you should not give up striving. The other thing I learned was the sound from the game scene was very important during the editing process. It could make the ambience more attractive, especially for the fans of that game.

On Wednesday, we made our talking show in the studio. Our Guest was a pianist name Chen Rui Bin. He was a very famous and influential piano player from Tai Wan. He held hundreds of performances around the world, ranges from The Golden Hall of Vienna to Broadway. His music accompanied many people on their growing process. He shared his Art Journey with the audience. From that show, I realized how important the anchor was during such shows, he or she should be at least a social man who possessed sophisticated communication skills, and knew how to adjust the ambience of the filming scene.

From Thursday to Friday, we continued our editing work of the documentary. What made us really happy was we completed one part of them, and the rough editing of the remaining was almost done.

Work Journal 3

This week, we still placed our main attention on the “Chinese Discovery” documentary, continued the shooting and editing work. What I learned most was the operation skill of the software named Sony vegas, which was similar to Final Cut Pro 7. We strode the first step on our editing work, the rough editing of our first documentary had almost done.

On Monday, except for doing the editing work, we also completed one story reporting. It was a press conference held by immigrants association of TaiWan, they announced the starting of preparing and registering procedure for the next global TaiWanese( a beauty contest). Actually, we were late when we arrived at the destination because of the terrible traffic situation. What we did was let the organizers reverted the press conference, let the participators repeated their words. Firstly, I wanted to remind my director that we violated the basic rule of journalism—actuality. But she told me we did not fake but to revert the reality. This was an acceptable way in journalism if the journalist missed the key points of the conference, but the promise was that the organizer agreed to help you to do that.

On Tuesday, we continued our editing work of the documentary. My work is writing the script for the documentary. You know, I have completed two scripts from the past week. My experience told me for the scripts of documentary, the scriptwriter must learn how to express your editing ideas lyrically. That mean you should select the esthetical words and sentences, and combined them with your emotion, only in this way could you attract the audience.

On Wednesday and Thursday, we continued our shooting work of the documentary. Our destination was Chinese and American Museum and the Asian Pacific Ocean Museum. This was really a challenging work for us. Since we need to combine the Chinese and American cultural elements together. During the shooting process, we were very careful in every step to avoid destroying the artifacts. I learned more new angles about the camera.

On Friday, what we did was recording a television program named New Sight. It was our famous and representative program which had a large amount of audience. This show was committed to demonstrating the communication between China Tai Wan and the US. From writing the script, inviting the guests, setting up the film scene, coordinating the details in the filming scene. I earned a basic experience about how to make a television show.

Essay 1

Think back on the interviews that you’ve done for news stories (for publication or for a class). Describe two – one that went especially well and one that went particularly badly. What did you do that made the interview go well/badly? For the interview that did not go well, what should you have done differently? For the interview that went well, what did you do to make that happen? What do seasoned journalists have to say about the art of interviewing, and how much of that is applicable to the interviewing situations that you typically find yourself in?

Journalism is a creative job. Journalists usually stand in the frontier of our society. They serve as the recorder for the history, the eyewitness for the current development. From the moment you take this career, you life has been endowed with a special definition. The word “accountability” becomes more sensitive in your life. How can we use this career to benefit the whole society should be a permanent problem for every journalist to reckon.

During the past month, I interviewed various persons who worked in different areas in my reporting work. Some of the interviews were very successful, while some of them were not quite ideal. As we know, interview was an inseparable part in reporting work, especially for the video stories. For the repowers, this was the most important stage to show your professional skills. While for interviewees, they wanted to use this opportunity to show their charisma and got the acknowledgement from the public. Every video reporter should keep this notion in mind. Now, I will use several examples to summarize the key points I got from the interviewing scene.

One of the most successful stories we did was the reporting of the delegate of Press Department of Liao Ning province from China came to visit LA. Our director assigned us to do this story two days before the press conference, and time for us was relatively ample. What we did was striving best to find the background information about this activity. From websites, newspapers, we even contacted the organizer for this conference to get the first hand materials. From all the materials we gathered we knew there was a long-time cooperation history for LA and Liao Ning province in different areas. Both cities designated officers to visit each other annually. The purpose for this visiting was inaugurating for the Broadcast and Television week of Liao Ning Province in LA. Based on the information we gathered before the press conference, the interviewing work got much easier for us to do. After the press conference, we got the opportunity to interview the vice minister of Press Department of Liao Ning Province. He answered all our questions, in terms of the history of cooperation between LA and Liao Ning, their current and future endeavor to promote the cultural communication between the two cities. All the answers were quite concise and pertinent.

“Like a good boy scout, a journalist should prepare for an interview. On a basic level, this includes researching the interviewee and seeing what has been written about him or her already.” Wrought by Dana Liebelson (a journalist from International Center for Journalists. ) in “5 interview tips every journalist needs”.

Suppose we did not do the preparing work before the reporting. Problems might get much terrible for us. We might lost several journalistic details from the interview of the vice minister, like there would be another delegate from Liao Ning province visit LA in October. All in all, our preparing work laid a strong foundation for the success of this story. “To be prepared, the promise for a successful story reporting,” was the biggest point I got from this work.

The other story I wanted to mention was not an ideal one. It was story about the opening ceremony for Aims Academy, which provided after school programs for student in different ages. Even though we gathered enough information about this school, but the interviewing work still same a little bit tough for us. The interviewee was the education supervisor. From the beginning, she told us she felt nervous when stood in front of the camera. During the interviewing process, the words she said were very obsessing, what she emphasized was just focused on how well their school was. She repeated one sentence for several times. Sometimes the words she said were intermittently, like “ uh….uh.” Eventually we recited very little of her words as our interviewing work. Fortunately, we had another officers’ interview which could be used. On the way back, I reckoned on why we failed to do that interview. There was one word appeared in my brain: affinity. Suppose if I was a female reporter, then the situation might get much better. Since affinity was always the advantages for females. Female reporter usually did well on release the nervous ambience in the event scene. As a reporter, no matter male or female you were, you must learn to be patient, and learn how to relax your interviewee during the interview process.

Sarah Stuteville, a reporter who writes for The Common Language Project once wrought “sometimes interviewees are frustrating not because they’re trying to bust your chops but just don’t understand what you want from them.” After read that, I realized that why we did not get what we want was because the interviewee did not know what we really wanted. I reviewed the questions we asked, the first one was: “Can you tell us your feeling about the activity today.” Feeling, actually was too general, for seasoned journalists, you needed to learn to guide your interviewee by asking concrete questions. If I asked: Can you tell us a little bit about the classes opened in your school? Then the situation may get much better. The intermittent word “ uh….uh..” might disappear in our interview. Since in such area, the education supervisor was an “expert”.

Interview was an art which needed all journalists used their own experiences to grip the essence of it. Dana liebelson, a journalist works for International Center for Journalist figured out five basic tips for interview: Be prepared, Embrace the digital age, Play by the e-mail interviews, Don’t give up when the going gets tough, Review timely.

Sarah Stutevill who writes for The Common Language Project points out 13 Simple Journalist Techniques For Effective Interviews: #1 – Find a good location. #2 – Prepare Your Goals Ahead. #3 – Write down your questions. #4 – Work on your flow. #5 – Think about the medium. #6 – Bring a buddy. #7 – Avoid Obsessing. #8 – Be a little annoying. #9 – Be a little sneaky. #10 – Empower them. #11 – Work them up. #12 – Endure awkward silences. #13 – Ask for what you need.

Actually, it was just one month since my work started. I also knew my understanding about the interview arts was relatively superficial. I will use my experience to develop a more deep understanding about those principles and apply them into practice in the future.

Wrok Journal 2

This week was really busy for every member of our crew. Our main work was still the documentary (Chinese version Discovery). We completed the shooting work of four destinations we made on our schedule.

On Monday and Tuesday, all our members stayed in company to sort out the footages we shot last week. We held meetings to summarize all the problems we met during the shooting process, and on the meeting we discussed our script for the documentary. I needed to write out one script for our story. Also, my director assigned me to continue the editing work for the American and Chinese Abacus Association Rewarding Ceremony. The chair for that association required our company to do a documentary for this whole story. The most important notion I wanted to mention was for campaigns shooting and reporting work, no matter how many cameras you used, you should make sure that they started at the same time and did not stop any one of them during the shooting process, this would release the editor’s burden during the editing work. The final documentary would also be displayed in different angels.

On Wednesday, we completed two shooting works, one was the California State University at Fullerton, the other was and Nixon Museum. On California State university campus, the first subject we selected was their new dormitory and Dinning hall, next was their educational equipments and security system. My editor told me these were the main focus for every school you wanted to work on in the future. That afternoon, we arrived at Nixon library and museum. The guide led our tour, this made our work much relaxed, since we had a clear timeline for this documentary. My director told me for most museums whose topic were people, they usually had a definite time line to record the whole life for the giants, what we did was just follow that timeline.

On Thursday, we arrived at Universal Studio in LA, this was the most famous scenic resort in LA which attracted thousands of tourist every day. We shot every section of this theme park, the biggest thing I got from the shooting process was you must stay in calm when you were in the flustered ambience. You must realize that you are not a tourist but a film worker.

On Friday, we filmed the Knott’s Barry Theme Park, this is another famous place in LA. There were so many exciting entertainment facilities liked roller coasters. Actually we did not take on these facilities to shot the image to protect our camera. But we still got various exciting footages and soundbite in this place. I addition, I realized that when the light condition was not ideal, we could use the filter to correct it.

Work Journal 1

Work Journal 1

Actually, my work has started almost one month. Worked as video reporter, I really appreciate this opportunity. The experience during the past month gave me a deeper understanding about my future career. This moment is a new turning point of my study process, I will use this blog to record all what I do in my intern.

Last week, the first work we did was a documentary. After I arrived at company, my manager told me they project to do a tourism program to introduce the famous scenic resorts in LA. They wanted to use this documentary to fulfill the blank space of Chinese tourism documentary in LA media market. We started our program around the middle of May. My colleagues used their social relations to contact our destinations. Eventually, we selected Hilton hotel and Getty museum. After several meetings, we decided to begin the shooting work last week. My work was following my director’ guide to coordinate all problems we met in the filming scene. There would be a lot of things for us to tackle before and during the process, like talking with the superintendents to get the permission to shot something which had copyright issue, keeping the order of the filming scene. This work cost us almost one whole day, we will complete the editing work around next week. In adddtion, this documentary is a Chinese version 'Discovery", we will keep on making it, and let it to be a serial.

The other work I did last week is story reporting. The Chinese and American Abacus Association held a ceremony to reword the students who possess the excellent abacus and mental mathematic skills. I worked as the camera man. Follow the guide of my director. I learned quite a lot about the composition of a picture while filming. He told me how to leave enough head space for the interviewer, how to adjust the light conditions. Based on the prior works I have done, my filming skill improved a lot. This work had been aired on our channel.

I will keep on working.