On the Beef Drama

I have an e-mail subscription to the New York Times. Most mornings I skim through the headlines to get an idea of what's going on in the world and read 2-3 of the articles that I have more interest in. The Korean ban on US beef was one of the headlines that I'd see day after day this month, but never took the time to read carefully. Then, earlier this week, I saw a headline that said something like “Korea lifts 5 year ban on US Beef.” I thought this was NY times, but when I went to look for it again, I couldn't find it. It could have been a different source.

I found this headline interesting because up to this point I had thought that South Korea had recently banned US beef, I didn't realize that it had been going on since the outset of mad cow disease in 2003. Then I thought about what we talked about in class concerning the media coverage of political issues, and how often times long term policy issues don't get covered until there's a dramatic event that focuses our attention. Also, often times the media assumes that the public already understands the situation. Not that I'm saying that we need to hear about Korea's ban on US beef everyday.

For example, there was one article in April (the headline read "South Korea Will Lift Its Ban on American Beef") in the NY Times about the initial lifting of the ban, and I don't think it would have made the news had there not been protests in Korea about it. Here's the picture that went with that. Makes for a nice dramatic visual, right?

And then nothing in the NY Times about lifting the ban until June, and there are at least 8 articles in the month of June. South Korea decided to keep the ban in response to the protests. And the Prime Minister's cabinet all resigned because of the issue. I looked through some of these articles and I found that when images accompanied the articles, the images were of the protesters. For example "U.S. Said to Compromise on Beef for South Korea" showed this image:

And "Beef Furor Provokes a Turnover in Seoul" showed these images (in this order):

Notice how the protest picture is on top?

I think this is a nice illustration of how the press loves a good drama and perhaps unconsciously uses images to add to it.

On Citizen Journalism Websites

Perhaps I should change my blog name to include something about Singapore since I'm going to include Singapore in this entry as well.

I want to talk about citizen journalism, more specifically, about the websites created by “official” news sources that invite the average person to submit pictures, videos and stories. Originally, I planned to examine The Straits Times, CNN and AM New York, but I couldn't find the area where users can submit content on the AM New York website. I thought it would be interesting to see how two different local papers approached citizen journalism verses a large international organization like CNN, but perhaps next time. Instead I will just compare the citizen journalist website from the Straits Times and the one from CNN.

The Straits Times as I mentioned before is the main newspaper in Singapore. It has a online media content website, Stomp, where users can submit pictures and captions for their pictures. I haven't tried it myself, but as far as I can tell, users can submit content through the website, e-mail or through their mobile phones. I like the idea that users can take pictures and submit content instantaneously. Here's a screenshot of the website.

As you can see it has a modern, edgy, young look to it. I looked through the submitted images and the “stories” that go with them. Much of the content contains pictures that are more human interest stories. For example, one of the pictures showed a public area where picnickers left their garbage. And the caption said that the town council was going to do something about the litter problem.

Stomp serves as kind of a community building, consumer advocacy, citizens alerting other citizens about problems, participatory journalism. I don't think it's so much about breaking stories that would otherwise not garner attention as it is about neighbors giving each other advice. However, it does manage to affect policy. After the post about garbage left in public areas, community leaders took steps to investigate the matter so that it wouldn't happen again. This is something that may not have happened if there wasn't an obvious public forum for the complaints.

Also some of these photographs and captions make it into a daily newspaper so that it comes full circle. The media outlets give citizens an unofficial place to report news and that news makes it back into the official papers.

CNN's website for user-submitted content, ireport, has a different feel to it. Here's a screenshot of it.

As you can see, the look is much cleaner, more professional, less edgy than Stomp. The photo quality also tends to be much higher. I haven't tried submitting a photograph to CNN either, but I think the only way to submit is through the website.

CNN's website seems to focus more on journalism rather than building a community. There are even “assignments.” CNN posts topics they want pictures about, and users can submit pictures related to the topics, and the ones the editors like the best show up on the actual CNN website. One of the topics is about the future first lady and whether you think that the spouses of candidates can make a difference in the minds of voters.

Compare that topic to litter in a specific public area. CNN's scope of topics is much broader and has a less personal appeal to it.

I find the two approaches to citizen journalism complimentary. I think it's great that CNN wants regular joes to submit photographs for them to use. It might be a good way for an amateur photographer to gain some exposure, but it's not a good way to build up a community. Stomp on the other hand may not be as professional, but it's a nice community builder. Each photograph that's featured on Stomp has at least a few comments. On the other hand, the ireport photographs from CNN often have none.

I personally prefer Stomp, it's more fun and personable. Looking through the photographs on ireport feels more like doing research for a project. What about you my dear readers? Which do you prefer?

On Singapore's Press

Having lived abroad for about a quarter of my life, and having family abroad, I try to keep up on events in those places that I've lived. One such place is Singapore, Singapore's media is quite interesting.

The press is controlled there in a way that the press is not controlled in the US. There's an implicit agreement between the press and the government to not report things that will make the government look bad. For example, earlier this year when Mas Selamat, a terrorist, escaped from a detention center, the press did not blame the government for lax security.

The press is also somewhat less sensationalist than the press in the US, violent crimes generally don't make it into the press, but maybe that's because Singapore is one of the safest countries in the world.

The main newspaper, The Straits Times is also managed by the Singapore Press Holdings, which is generally headed by a civil servant. I do believe that a civil servant has very good reasons to not get on the bad side of the government. It's more than just self censorship that goes on, the people in the government are the same people who run the newspaper with the largest circulation in Singapore.

I suppose the difference between the US press and the Singaporean press is that the Singaporean press has no pretentions about digging up the truth on the government or acting as the check on the government. (Other than the Straits Times, there are about 5 other widely circulated English language newspapers in Singapore, and of those, 3 focus on human interest/tabloid type stories, not hard news.) The Singaporean press knows that its place is just to report what the government tells them is okay to report. Singaporeans know this too.

When I lived there, my colleagues often joked about the lack of “human rights” (they meant freedom of choice) in Singapore and that the newspapers often didn't tell the whole story. One colleague told me a story about a National Serviceman (henceforth known as NS man) who died while in the Army. His death was reported in the Straits Times, but they didn't report how he died. The NS man had committed suicide while in the camp. The only reason my friend knew this was because he was in the same troop as this guy.

So why this hush, hush attitude? In my opinion the Singaporean government sees itself as sort of a benign paternal figure that's working to protect its citizens from harm and hurtful ideas, including suicide. I don't have data here, but I have heard that after a newspaper reports on how a person has committed suicide or committed a crime, that there's a rash of copycats immediately following the report. It could be that the Singaporean government wants to prevent that type of copycat behavior, so they keep the press on a tight leash.

Anyhow, to end I pose a few questions. Is it a bad thing to have a controlled press, if it is controlled to protect the readers? Or does that just patronize the readers and gives them less respect than they deserve?

Test Post

I just wanted to test out this blog. I want to see how it will look and I want to see if the comments are working.