Writing “News” dated 2008 is not Legitimate Media Work

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Some people take no thought of the news they link. However, not all news sources are credible. It is not enough just to pick up stories and link.

From the titles alone of these so-called news, you could see that they are catchy but misleading. However, these are calculated to be like that - to tickle your mind to read on if you are not careful.

Let's take this link newly posted as an example: “19 Year Old Diebold Technician Wins U.S. Presidency.” This means that the election is over and that this technician has already won. It is misleading, at the same time it appears legitimate. It makes people read on, but one has to have a critical eye.

The source, Avant News, “Tomorrow’s News Today,” is not given credibility by serious people. At most, this news source is a joke. It is only predictive or is making guesses and then writes “news” out of that guess – wild guess, no matter. It is making business out of news, but news that is merely speculative.

In principle, news is a reproduction of an event, hence the element of objectivity. But here, the business is to ride on an imagined future and an imagined news – so there is no objectivity. But there is money, of course.

Angling, you say? Angling does not necessarily mean you move away from what is true. To provide an angle to news means to project one part as the center or focus of your news. However, you do not fabricate the angle. It is already part of the truth that you deal with. You only enlarge it over the others – and yet you do not falsify anything unlike what this 2008 “news” had done.

This one is pure imagination – a fiction using the real name of a real person who is an international figure, just to be able to hinge upon public attention for increased readership.

Check, therefore, what is written in there before you do any linking. If you link these items, you do a great disservice to people who expect legitimate news. Moreover, you encourage the usurpation of true media work.

Read for items like “temporally realigned” – what ever that means – as an equivalent of an excuse or disclaimer when there would be complaints in the future.

Check on the date the news is supposed to have been written. It may be two years later yet.

To illustrate, read this item -

19 Year Old Diebold Technician Wins U.S. Presidency
Temporally realigned by admin on 2006/9/25 10:49:05 (7401 reads)
By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor
Washington, D.C., November 5, 2008

Have you noticed the date?

This is not legitimate news. People who do this cash in on entertainment rather than do true media work.

Victory for Communication

Re: “Netizens Are Critical to Citizen Journalism”
Ronda Hauben from the U.S. (OhMyNews International)

I am also happy for having discovered the contribution of South Koreans in the field of communication. I am a communications specialist and so I look to the turn of events as victory for communication. It is something really that we have to take care of. Communication today is not becoming effective in the way we had expected it.

I think that we share the same excitement that OhMyNews is doing. I am also a netizen and I am doing my part in the same direction as OhMyNews. It is only that I center my efforts in the field of communication. I maintain my own blog to do this thing.

I am also doing my own writings here and there - guided by the principles of Citizen Journalism. Remember, I had only recently stumbled upon this concept a year ago, and I would back up its ideals.

Netizens Are Critical to Citizen Journalism

Art Without Parameters

Every piece of communication has a social responsibility. It does not end with just transmitting a message and leaving it there. Communication thrives in a system and in that system, there is a message to be sent and an effect to be considered.

There was a poem defining a situation where some secret had long been held from the poet and he felt so bad. The poem ended with a threat. Then another poem detailed a situation where he was raped, graphically presenting the incident – move for move. Still another poem depicted stammering while one spoke and with it that slap, slap, slap to “slow down the mind so he could speak out the words properly.”

Viewed from the point of view of art, the poem is unique. The poet is very resourceful and imaginative. The output is not common; it is extra-ordinary and would reap the highest praises from some quarters. A snippet from the piece (with all due courtesy for the poet) –

A m-means of s-s-saying w-w-we’re th-th-through… or th-that w-wh-what c-cu-could’ve
(Slap, slap…, slap, slap…, slap…, slap, slap…, slap…, slap…, slap, slap, slap, slap)
B-b-been c-cu-ccould’a b-b-been m-m-meant f-f-fu-fuc-for me, s-s-so-so-oo b-b-be-ee
(Slap…, slap, slap, slap, slap, slap, slap, slap, slap…, slap, slap, slap, slap)
Ps-p-s-p-p-patient and w-waa-weigh-wwait a bi-b-b-bit,--
(Slap, slap, slap, slap, slap…, slap, slap, slap, slap…, slap, slap, slap)
Th-th-th-hat-that s-s-st-stu-s-stuff i-i-i-in h-h-hee-h-hhead denies a kingdom
(Slap, slap, slap, slap, slaps…, slap, slap, slaps…, slap…)

Viewed as a communication piece, however, what does it intend to achieve? Beauty in the artform, but it ends from there. It ends from where the poet has achieved a masterpiece of producing a unique art. However, beyond the poet, what? Where does that leave the source now for which the poem was made? For what is all these beauty in the artform that is a poem? Where does that lead her?

In all the wonderings of the poet, she had produced a work of art from a relative, turning the defect into something useful. It had produced poetry that people can read and enjoy. Enjoy because they can laugh – perhaps in disinterested innocence, not minding the defect, but the funny play of the poem.

The poem now becomes a document - enshrined for eternity under the category, UNIQUE, NEWLY DISCOVERED TECHNIQUES. Poets will follow the example and with alacrity look to people with more defects - relative or not - to surpass the earlier feat.

Alas! Perish the thought that next time, we shall have poetry enshrining all the defects of people and highlighting them.

Today, we talk about rights and empowerment. If one conducts a research and leaves the participant dis-empowered, then that research is not valid as consent is violated. The same is true in producing poetry out of someone’s predicament.

The question is, who owns the data gathered for this poem? Are they the poet’s only? How much of the “message” was supposedly the poet’s and how much, the subject’s? If he knew – and if all people of his kind knew – that out of their predicament a beautiful poem was made - how would these people react? Wouldn’t they feel some of their rights were violated?

Although an artform, poetry comes under the umbrella of communication. The consent of the rightful owner of data must be ascertained first. As it is, poets don’t have more rights than others in communicating. If they did, then anybody can go to war just with poetry. It is then like saying anything you want as anyway, it’s just poetry.

Doesn’t this ring familiar? Didn’t Novelist Dan Brown of Da Vinci Code say, “It’s just fiction”? He simply gets Jesus Christ and marries him off to Mary Magdalene, and he escapes just like that!

As discussed by Robert Traer (1 December 2003, christian-bible.com), Dan Brown uses the character Teabing, who speaks as an expert, and claims, that “almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false." (p. 235). Another one, “The plan of Jesus was to have Mary Magdalene carry on the work of the church. He intended for the future of His Church to be in the hands of Mary Magdalene." (p. 248)” Etcetera and etcetera.

As it is, Dan Brown escapes all attacks. ”It’s just fiction!” And anyone who counters this is a fool.

The question that comes to mind then is: Is science supposed to be with parameters, and art, none?

© Copyright 2006 janeabao (UN: kota at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.

Learning Many Languages Makes One More Human?

Learning other languages can make one express oneself very well – better than the native speaker at times. It can be akin to "people watching gorillas or ants 24 hours a day." However, learning many languages is an altogether different issue

Why do people need to learn so many languages? To rule the world?
What do people want to do with the many languages they’ve learned? Why don’t they just aim for one international language that almost everybody understands? Or go simplistic with just two or three, and stop from there?

Obviously, there is effective communication when both source and receiver are homophilous or have a common frame of reference. Beyond this, however, what motivates one to keep on learning many, many languages?

Whether they make sense to one or not, people learn languages for a multitude of reasons. With them, not all reasons have to be economics-driven.

One said, the more languages one knows, the more times one is human. However, not everyone agrees, where one noted that those who knew several languages tend to be very proud and took every chance to display them.

"Human" was explained as giving one a better understanding of humanity as a whole. Still, it does not necessarily follow that the more languages one knows, the more one becomes human, because then it implies that language learning should have solved the many problems that plague society at this time.

One international language would be a nightmare for me, one said, as it would be a bit boring. Diversity is something that should be embraced, not shunned, he said. "Using nothing but English would make the world a very boring place and I can't see why we should overlook languages spoken by millions of people just because they aren't 'international' enough," he continued.

The reasons given for learning many languages were: to be able to talk to people, read newspapers, magazines and books in the language one has learned; write e-mails, and letters, listen to particular music, write little stories with them, and make translations. One is also able to study in a university, move to a place, impress other people at parties.

However, language learning is not always a leisure activity but can be a must sometimes. For example, one had to learn a particular language as an obligation to relatives and nationality, to enhance one’s career prospects, to work on an on-line translation dictionary, and in order to get a slick international job.

French, believed to be dead, is still "a pretty widespread international language" for one. People keep studying it because of its language’s features. Irish was one’s choice because "I felt I had an obligation to my relatives and my nationality." One had to learn Chinese or Korean because he might find himself walking along in a Chinese border town bordering North Korea.

Here’s one multi-language speaker who saw world affairs in language learning -
"A Persian proverb states that 'har zabaan-e-digei, zendegi-ye-jadidi e' - each language is a new life. Although I do not have much practical use for many of the languages that I have learned, (what practical use is there anyway for any language other than English and Spanish in Southern California?), every language that I have learned has taught me how to react with other citizens of the world better, as well as give me a new perspective on how to understand other people and to be 'quick on my feet' when speaking. Middle Eastern languages have given me a unique perspective about world affairs. For example, it is surprising how much power women really have in countries like Iran."

http://www.italknews.com/view_story.php?sid=6831