Week 7

Privacy Vs Public Interest

Week 7’s presentation is on Public Interest. To start off with this topic, the definition of public interest given was that the public has the rights to know what they want to know. But is this statement justifiable in all scenarios? The two examples given in the lecture are excellent case studies. 

The first example was on the American insurance companies Assurant and WellPoint. They were exposed as having policies targeting any clients diagnosed with breast cancer or HIV. This clearly protects clients who are suffering from illness and potential clients deserve to be warned from signing up with these insurance companies. The second example was on how celebrities get unwanted attention and news reports from crimes to nonsensical reports such as ‘wardrobe malfunction’. While celebrities should know better than to behave themselves in public, such reports do not add value to the readers’ lives but simply for entertainment purposes.

In my opinion,  public interest is an overrated phrase which should not be loosely associated with journalism. In the pursuit of ‘public interest’, many journalists have blurred the line between what’s news and what’s entertainment. For example, in the recent sex scandal involving IMF Strauss-kahn, many international newspapers have latched on and turn this news for entertainment purposes just to increase readership. Yes, it’s important to for the public to know as a matter-of-fact that this man might not be the most credible leader to head such a powerful position. But to carry this news and probe further, such as ‘how pathetic he is in jail’, ‘is he a sex addict’ etc is simply unnecessary.

-Andy Wang

Week 6

Week 6: We’re All a Twitter! 

Journalism and its negotiation of online, the blogosphere and social media

This week's presentation by Terence and Yvonne comprehensively described the relationship between journalists and new media. One of the main focus of Terence's speech is on connectivity; the engagement between organisations/journalists and its audiences through new media platforms. Yvonne further elaborated on the individual characteristics of online world, blogosphere and social media. These mediums provide a platform for journalists to connect with wider audiences. However, therein lies the challenge for journalists to be adequately equipped to learn how to use these platforms to their advantage.

Coming back to the issue of speed, new media technology has certainly enabled information to transmit and spread at a phenomenal rate. As described by Yvonne, this is a double-edged sword. Speed helps audiences to attain information and footages as and when events are unfolding, such as the recent FIFA scandal and press conference. However, speed has also made information released unretractable. As such, this will help ensure users of social media to post comments responsibly as we now understand whatever goes online is visible to a worldwide audience.


The class discussion generated a debate on how traditional(print) media and alternative media forms will balance out in the future. Terence suggested that traditional media has survived many challenges such as TV and radio, and will continue to survive in the future to complement alternative media. However, Yvonne predicted our generation to be the last ones to embrace both media forms, while future generations will only embrace alternative media such as online and citizen journalism. In my opinion, traditional media represents credibility and citizens will eventually still turn to newspapers or established media corporations for accurate dosage of information.


- Andy Wang