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.

Sexual Scandal Reporting

As a reporter, from the moment you take this career, you should realize that you have selected a sacred while challenging job in this society. Worked as the social guide and surveillant, reporters always stand at the frontier of the ideological trend in our society. This earns them honorable reputation and high social status. While for reporters, journalism is also a challenging job, once you select this career, the word “responsibility” becomes more obvious and critical in your life. Fairness, Attribution, Accuracy, Relevance and Newness, the five basic journalism principles may lead you an engaged life. Sometimes you may be involved in a dilemmatic situation in which you cannot find a balance point in the conflict between social morals and reality. Just like today: A CU English professor who was dismissed because his name was listed on a child pornography Web site as a frequent client. The professor denies that his name is listed on the site. You need to write an online story use external and necessary links as background information.

I think the first step for this reporting work is the fact checking. What is this website? Does the website just look like the public describe? Dose the professor really visit the website as a client? Maybe there is another person who has the same name with the professor usually visit this website. Pornography, a sensational topic, which needs reporters to treat it more seriously than other stories. Before the reporting work, the reporters must keep in mind how enormous influences it will generate on our society. Unlike the general persons, the English professor holds a respectful and higher social status. Their words and behaviors usually have leading and instructing functions. Child Pornography is really a stiff and critical topic in media area, once you complete the reporting work that means the key roles of this scandal are utterly discredited. In addition, there will be also a public debates about this kind of corruption. For the professor, I think he will be more serious on this issue than anyone. If this is a mendacious reporting, it is undoubted he will use the legal means to protect his profits. “Journalist—and the organization they work for—can be held responsible for libelous statements they make.” This is the words recited from <>, our textbook. Based on this consideration, to avoid the libelous lawsuit, it is necessary for the reporter to do the fact checking work.

If the fact is correct, the professor is really a client for the child pornography website. New problems come out. Do we need to make a direct link to this website? As a reporter I will select not to link to the child pornography website.

Firstly, let’s assume this website is a legal one. On one hand, although linking seems like a harmless function, most websites use linking to provide their users more comprehensive information. The legal issues usually resolve around copyright and unfair competition. If you link your website directly to a commercial website and its businesses web pages without permission. You may face the copy right lawsuit. The pornography website may let you remove the link no matter it is a deep, inline or associative link. Since as the commercial website, they own the copyright for their content. Even though for most cases, the courts usually use a less restrictive standard to evaluate such violation. But for journalists, it is better for them to treat it conscientiously.
One the other hand, “linking can present difficult ethical issues for an online journalist. These issues generally center on whether presenting links promote a noxious point of view or muddies the separation between journalistic and advertising functions”( recited from<< Foust>>. We just put our attention on the first part of this principle. If we take this point into consideration, definitely, the child pornography will not allow you to link your reporting to their website since you angle is negative, your reporting will generate terrible influence on the website. The public may hold terrible impression about this website, and the government may make more restrictive measures to constrain its development since the website has already forms terrible effect on the whole society.

Secondly, let’s assume the child pornography website is illegal. If this is the case, it is obviously necessary for us to avoid linking the reporting directly to the website. United States courts have said that the First Amendment offers no protection for links to illegal or infringing content. As I described above, all contents on the child pornography website are illegal. Moreover, these illegal pornography videos and images may exert heavy influence on the young’s psychological health. More rape and sexual crimes are induced from them. The government has more serious restrictions on such websites. As a Journalist, you must be responsible for the whole society. If you link the reporting works directly to that website without any social influence considerations. You and your organization may face serious penalty from the government, even though you are not the operator for that website.

Last but not least, as a reporter, it is the basic requirement to follow the principles for journalism. On this event, I think the best way to do the reporting work is to find the appropriate platforms on the internet and select the reasonable links. Firstly, we can use the forum organized by news organization to arouse the public’s attention, and let the public to express their opinions on this event. According to Communication Decency Act, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” We can utilize this platform to let the public get deep understanding about this event. It is up to the public to get the link to that website, if they attach the links in their discussion, no one will be blamed. For links, if I want to use the website link, I just give the name of this website and do not provide links to that website. I will also place my main attention to associative links which show the public the former cases of celebrities’ sexual scandal like this event. Only in this way can we achieve the balance in the conflict between the reality and the social morals.

4/20 Story Ideas.

1. .I want to pursue a story which focuses on the function of marijuana. When we mention the word marijuana, our first impression is definitely its negative function on human body. People who is addicted to this kind of drug is usually excluded by the public. Since they will bring sorrows not only to themselves but also to their friends and family members. This is why we define it as drug. But we should also keep another notion in mind, marijuana has medical function in pharmacy industry. it works as a kind of raw materials for anesthetic. I want to do a story concerning the comprehensive function of marijuana.

2. In conjunction with marijuana, the first other things come into our thinking is Heroin, Amphetamine etc,. People who gets in touch with these drugs means a lifetime disaster for him or herself. Countless of homes are destroyed by them, thousands of lives are deprived every year. I want to pursue a story which concentrates on the origin area where these drugs made, such as Golden Triangle, Golden Crescent area. As we know, marijuana is the basic agricultural products for the farmers in these areas. People cannot survive without them. I want to analyze the deep reasons for the producing and transportation of drugs.

3. Drugs abusing is a common problem for the whole world. I want to pursue a story which describes the situation of drug abusing in China. I am a Chinese, and I am familiar with the social and cultural environment. So it is easy for me to gather information concerning this topic. Later I will do a comparison between American and China, find the commons and differences, and analyze aspects on which the two countries can cooperate.

4. I want to do s story concerning the situation of drug abusing in Boulder, especially on campus. It is widely known that University of Colorado at Boulder is a famous party school around the US. The consumption of marijuana is a common phenomena in party. My story will focus on this. I want to listen these marijuana consumers' feeling. In addition, I will do interview with professors or scholars whose researches focus on this area. Wardenburg Health Center is also is resource. I will try to gather date about the students who face such problems.

5. Finally, I want to do a video story on 4.20. I want to use camera to record the crowed who use the marijuana together. I am absolutely sure, there will be various activities on this rally, I will record voices from different organizations and unions.

The Functions of Blog.

From the establishment of the first node to node transmission from UCLA to Stanford—also the first crash (“logon”) in 1969 to present, the tempo of Information Technology Revolution almost goes beyond everyone’s expectation. During the past 40 years, we witnessed how the Internet changed our world and our daily life.

The world has been condensed into a small country, which we call “ Earth country” under the impetus of network. Now, whatever information you wish to get, you just need to just open your computer, then you will be immersed into the information ocean and get connected to wherever you want to know. The booming of portable pocket--size devices like I-phone or I touch even put our whole world into our palm. Facebook, Twitters and blogs have already became an inseparable part of our life. Especially the Blogs, it cannot be denied that blogs have became another mainstream media format in our society today. This is also my topic for this article.

In 1994, NCSA (the National Computer Security Association) used the “What's New Page” webpage to summarize the index of new websites, this can be considered as the prototype of blog. Even though the history of blog has only approximately 20 years, the function it generated on our life was tremendous, it has permeated into almost every aspect of our life.

The blog was originally designed to record people’s daily life, which served as an Electrical Dairy. People could express and publish their own opinions freely. With the popularization of network, the influence of blogs also became tremendously, they changed from original recording purpose to more social and commercial function. Basically, the function of blog can be divided into two parts: Information service and Entertainment.

Suppose you want to buy a new car to have a trip. There were so many things for you to tackle. Car dealers, weather, insurance, transportation, destination, etc., I want to take Treehugger as an example. If you are a blogger for Treehugger, by clicking cars and transportation catalog, information concerning cars market, maintenance, insurance will come into your sight. By clicking Travel and Nature catalog. Bloggers will tell you where are the most attractive scenic resorts, and what kind of work you should prepare for your trip. Of course, you will find more information with patience on the blogs where your interest locates. Many famous blogs usually attached the weather forecast, stock market information and transportation schedule on the webpage to satisfy people’s basic information requirements.

Blogs are good platforms for you to get information about what happens around the world. If you are a blogger for Treehugger, everyday when you open you blog, you will find the latest news by clicking the exclusive catalog. Bloggers from various fields will bring you more newsworthy events everyday. Some links may lead you to the mainstream medias like Washington post, NewYork time and CNN, etc. Those mainstream medias cannot deny this trend and established their own blogs after they realize the influence of blogs for their potential audiences. Most governments also follow this trend to establish blogs to promote the execution of their policy. Many powerful companies like Apple, Lenovo, GM also establish blogs to promote sailing and improve their customer service. Obviously, blogs gain more attractiveness for the public with the stimulation of those influential political and commercial organizations.

If your are an expert, a specialist or enthusiastic fans for a stable field say music, movies, economics, politics or philosophy. Blogs are the ideal place for you to get the most sophisticated technology, notion and works in your field. For instance, if your are an architect you will find more fashionable styles for buildings around the world in Design-architecture catalog on Treehugger. Then you will get novelty ideas about your design.

Based on this consideration, blogs are the platforms not only for basic information service but also for professional requirements.

Another important function for blogs is Entertaining. Usually, some popular blogs will gather the latest music, movies, fashion style and other format of arts and entertaining information together. We must keep in mind those who possess the blogs are usually the ones who can grip the impulse of our society, they know which is the audience most in need. Thus blog provide people another world for pursuing their interests. Take Treehugger as an example, it’s easy for young ladies to find the information concerning the most fashion style, the most welcomed cosmetics in fashion and beauty catalog. It is really enjoyable to appreciate the euphonious music, the fantastic movie or other things we want to know on blogs with a cup of coffee after a whole day’s exhaustive work.

Nowadays, a large numbers of stars in various fields opened their own blogs like Jackie Chen, Bruce Willis, Thomas Hanks and Michael Phelps. Fans can track their idols by following these blogs. These celebrity blogs bring our society another source of entertainment.

OK, after analyzing the basic functions of blogs. Someone may ask why should I select blog? I can get information and entertainment from other medias. This sounds reasonable. However, I want to emphasize one point. The most obvious character for blogs is interactive. Remember the original purpose for blogs is to record life and express ideas, and this basic rule will not change as time passed. What you thought and what you said on the Internet can get valuable responses. Keep in mind only communication can make things easy to understand. Those authorities’ opinion in your field may bring you a wide horizon, and those passionate responses may give you courage to step forward and forget the pressure and plight you confront.


All in all, the significance of blogs in our life cannot be denied. I am quite sure the advancement of technology may bring other new format like Microblog(a new format of blog now)into of our life, and our life will become more plentiful and promising because of them.

Why today is significant

   Let us put back the clock to January 8th. Tucson, a peaceful and quiet city located in Arizona State became the focus for all Americans on that day. The sound of gun broke the tranquility of this city. 

  

Jared Lee Loughner, a 22 year's old young guy who was the gunman created this incredible tragedy.  Arizona Democrat, Representative Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others were shot when Jared opened fire outside a supermarket where Ms.Giffords organized activities to meet constituents.

It has caused six of the victims died till today, among them John M. Roll, the chief judge for the United States District Court for Arizona State, and a 9-year-old girl. Other 13 victims including Giffords were seriously injured, and they were receiving medical treatment in University Medical Central in Tucson now. According to the spokesman of Giffords’s office, Ms. Giffords was still under critical situation.

 Officials said motives for Jared to create this shooting was still under investigated. 

President Obama, speaking at the White House, condemned this inhuman assault. He also appointed Roberts S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to Arizona to oversee the investigation.

At the same time, citizens lived in different states expressed their sympathy, sorrow and blessings to the victims via different ways. Such as, citizens in New York gathered at different squares to in honor of the dies. Pupils in Chicago International school organized ceremony to express mourn for the 9-year-old girl.

OK, all the information above is quite easy for everyone to obtain via various ways, such as  television, website, newspaper, blogs,etc,. It may cost you just several seconds to get them if you have a “cute” and sophisticated I-touch or I-phone.

Turn our attention to the original question: why today is significant? Then finding the answer may become easy for us. It is widely acknowledged that 21 century is a century in which all unprecedented changes can happen. The development of telecommunication and network technology makes it possible for all of us to be immersed in an era what we call “information era”. 

If you want to find something what you really concerned and interested, what you do is just to open your computer, and visit the websites or log in your twitter, facebook and bolg. Then, you will be beset by the information ocean. You can almost find every thing you want.  The network technology advancement even makes television and newspapers lose its attractiveness for the public, while websites, such as facebook, twitter and blog become the inseparable part of our life.

 I think this is the biggest significance today, and it becomes understandable that the above shooting news can be transmitted timely to us.

We can still track the shooting news today:

“A week after being shot in head, Giffords breathing on her own”, this is the CNN reporting today. “Tucson Gun Show Goes On, and Safeway Reopens”, this is information come from Newyorktime.

When you read these news and information, have you ever think about what kind of function or influence they may generate on our life? I guess most of us do not. Of course, it is reasonable, and it should be the work for our scholars.

It is widely accepted by scholars and researchers who work in the communication field that for medias, there are 8 basic functions: Inform (a teacher function), surveillance( a watcher function), service the economy system, hold society together( act as sort of a cultural glue), entertain, act as a community forum, set the agenda and service the political system.

Definitely, The news I mentioned at the beginning of this article is a well manifestation for the function: service the political system. Usually, medias serve as a watchdog for the government, it will help the government to consolidate the conflicts between different social classes if it can be used properly.  Here I want to emphasize “properly”. Why?

Have you ever think about why the shooting can be happened? What’s the function of medias on such events?  We must keep in mind only the medias possess the ability to beget intense brainstorming in our society and generate tremendous influence on our daily life.  This is just what those gunmen and other culprits want to get.  They hope the whole society to pay attention to their plight and their injustice treatments. To achieve this goal, medias work as their assistant.  So it is easy to understand that why so much negative news like shooting appear on medias year by year.  The best manifestation is the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University shooting case.

Also, there is an obvious manifestation in China. In 2009, a worker lived in FuJian province who got unfair treatment used knife to kill 13 children before class to arouse the public attention. Just several months later, another similar assault against children happened in Jiangsu province. The culprit just utilized the medias influence on our society. 

Suppose we do not focus too much on this event, then the social reaction may be get small and tiny, and many crimes can be avoid when the culprits realize that what they do can not impact the society too much!

So it is really a thought-provoking problem for the government and medias to find a balance point between the reality and the negative function that may exert on our life.  Only in this way can we make it more significant today. To achieve this goal, we still have a long way to go.