Is Journalism Storytelling?

Is Journalism Storytelling? Using relevant theoretical perspectives considered during the semester and two examples of journalism, is journalism storytelling? Why? Introduction Many journalists entered the profession for a simple reason a love of storytelling. Journalism as storytelling has been found in many ways of the humanities. Storytelling is a valid way to share facts, ideas and to convince. The storytelling closely link to journalism where journalists want to reach their audience, to convince the reader that deep emotional level with their followers. Journalists have researched multiple ways that storytelling can utilize to reach to their audience in order to get audience’s attention.Moreover, McQuail (1992, Media Performance p291) states that ‘news’ is not impartial or objective. Things happen, but this does not mean that they become news – Not all the of events can be reported because of the sheer number. McQuail also argues that news is the product of socially manufactured production, because its the end result is a selective process. Gatekeepers, such as editors and journalists, and sometimes owners, to choose and jud ge what events are important enough to pay and how to cover them. News story can be used in journalism but at a price. Many journalists create stories may missing the fact in order to fill their space with personal opinions or emotion.This makes many viewers overlook these articles for audience they think more of the facts based. Narrative journalism However, with the idea of storytelling in journalism is has leaded to narrative journalism and long-form journalism. This type of journalism unlike directly news story, which provide the basic who, what, where, when and why of the story, instead, narrative news stories are longer and allow the writer to employ more elements of prose writing.Stories that are considered narrative journalism often appear in magazines and allow a reporter to approach a subject in different ways. Generations ago, narrative journalism was the rule of reporting, rather then the exception.Story (and sometimes subjectively and considerable by todays standards) in the magazine and newspaper readers through a fascinating story to tell completely from the authors views and experience.But, time have absolutely changed. Nowadays, narrative journalism is not commonly used by most mainstream media outlets. In fact, many journalists adhere to very basic formula or the use of inverted pyramid report style, to keep the ir writing style simple and easy to edit.Some may even not familiar with the technique, had never learned it as beat journalists in their career. however there is still a lot of room for narrative journalism in todays world marketplace where the Internet is available all day and all night, and authors or journalists avid to test their competence using a new technique may truly enjoy writing a news â€Å"report that reads much more like a story than a series of objectively written paragraphs†(Angelique Caffrey ,2012)In the JoBenet Ramsey case, for instance,the media and news has obsessed for nearly two decade. â€Å"The Ramsey murder a decade ago, along with the O.J. Simpson case in 1994, as one journalist noted, â€Å"helped redefine mainstream journalism as a form of soap operatic storytelling,† i.e., were benchmarks in its degradation to its current wretched state.† (David Walsh,2006,p2)Jonbenet Ramseys death is a tragedy and its surroundings keep an ominous, but this is a cold case from 18 years ago.The continued interest in every detail of her murder case seems to imply that the past 18 years havent seen any other murder of innocent and pure children, until now, her novelty cases continue to control the public interest.the question is over so many years, why the case still has attracted the attention of journalism and the general public, indeed, â€Å"The newest headlines on JonBenet Ramsey are detrimental because they take the place of more valuable news stories.†(Carina Kolodny,2013,p16). Journalism as storytelling, in the narrative way make the news novelty and catch public’s attention. New-journalism storytelling Primitively, journalism storytelling emerged on the newspapers in western countries, among which, Australia is a typical representative.Today, the highest wave of journalism storytelling presents in the press circle in America(Dubrovin 1995,p37).In the mid-19th century, majorities of the developed countries in Europe and America realized industrial revolutions.During that period, the economy conditions in these countries were dramatically improved, the urbanization was accelerated, and the presses publishing newspapers on liberalism were established.The political parties reduced forces on the press and numerous cheap newspapers without independent political and economic restrictions were published(Connery 1992,p14).On September 3, 1833,The Sunwas established, officially symbolizing the emergence of cheap newspapers.Subsequently in America, the most developed country, cheap newspapers represented byThe SunandThe Heraldemerged in succession(Chance 2001).With the purpose of making profi ts, varieties of social news were issued on these newspapers to meet the demands of low-educated and poorly off citizens and to avoid offending the political parties and the government that could affect the development of the newspapers(Cassady 1990).These pieces of news written by vulgar words and sentences were mainly about interesting and exciting stories collected from the publics social life.The appearance of such popular newspapers is viewed as the origin of journalism storytelling. During 1960 to 1970, a new genre of journalism, the New-journalism, emerged in western countries. â€Å"It emphasized to obtain opinions on internal events by perceiving and interviewing, instead of approaches of regular information collection and stereotypical questionnaire surveys†(Cassady 1991).Techniques of expression of writing novels were also adopted.It laid stress on the writing methods and description styles. â€Å"New-journalism theoretically put forward the composing direction fo r news storytelling, making a space for the literary journalism†(Eason 1981).It was particularly popular in that period and was significantly recorded on the history of Australian journalism.Except for that it meet the demand of the times, New-journalism has some characteristics which include the following: Firstly,new-journalism broke the traditional news model of stating the facts impersonally.Coming to the front stage from the backstage(Eason 1981,), the journalists directly expressed their moods, feelings, and opinions or suggestions when editing the news stories.In newswriting, the journalists subject consciousnesses and emotions were presented and strengthened(Eason 1981).Secondly,new-journalism enriched expression skills for news reports.It adopted methods of novel writing, combined news with literature, and satisfied the publics needs of listening stories.Various literary expression skills, such as multi-scenes combination, the third person narration, the first person narration, details description, compound characters, and composition ways of making flashback, repetition, indication, and suspense(Farrell 1991).It changed the stereotypical inverted pyramid writing model and showed audiences a lively world that the journalists perceive, expanding selections for the public and mee ting the publics demand for diverse cultures(Ducey 1997).New-journalism in western countries gradually fade with a short brilliant history.However, the journalism storytelling became attractive to the public. Journalism and news as social construction It is hard for journalism, in any form, to be a true construction or reflection of society, on account of the factor included in the production of news. Human interest, human fault and the fallacy of the management, and other factors interweave together, blurred the boundaries between fact and fiction. Potter(1998; p15) demonstrated that â€Å"news is not something that happens; instead, news is what gets presented. We almost never see news events as they happen. Instead, we are shown the media’s manufactured construction of the events.† Yet journalism can be defined very simply as storytelling or news information of any form. However, not all of the current events or stories can be presented in the media, and like this, only news are considered as â€Å"news value† or â€Å"newsworthy is able to bring it into the media for spread to the audience and general public. According to Galtung and Ruge(1970), â€Å"the earliest form of systematic classification for ne wsworthiness†(Tony Harcup Deirdre ONeill p261-280), there are eleven news values, the meeting will make the event is more likely in news to be reported. The news values are frequency, clarity, consonance, continuity, actions of the elite, negativity,threshold, cultural proximity,unexpectedness, composition and personification. In the above-mentioned system, the story to satisfy the more points or value, the greater the chance that it will be published in the news. News report channels use the relaxing and interesting way of storytelling to convey information to the mass.Journalism storytelling is popular with the audiences, however, with its rapid development, some shortages are increasingly exposed. Journalism storytelling has erroneous tendency to negative events.Generally, in order to catch the audiences eyes, the news contents are easily focus on happenings from the dark side of the society.Taking an example of how the news value are applied in selection of a story, the 9-11 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Cen tre towers in NYC, the news has a large number of news values, the magnitude of this plane attacks made them relate all over the world and that kind of news about crime and violence are often reported, even events on disaster or damage are mainly propagated.There are positive reports to revive the whole process and details of the events; however details description on murder, eroticism, and other stodgy and low-class events are over presented(Breneman 1983).On the whole, journalism storytelling is lack of true and impersonal perspectives and the publics supervision function on its news contents is weakened.Frequently, bloody events that are not related to the common peoples daily life are played on the life channels.The stimulating and abnormal scenes, ironic tittles and topics are often highlighted to attract the audiences attention and to make the news stories widely spread.Such effects turn out to be over-commercialized, which are of unhealthy impacts on the publics life. Reference list Denis McQuail, 1992, Media Performance:Mass Communication and the Public Interest, London/California,P291 Angelique Caffrey,2012,Journalism and Narrative Journalism,p2 David Walsh,2006, US media disgraces itself once again: Rush to judgment in the JonBenet Ramsey case,p2 Carina Kolodny,2013,Why Do We Care About JonBenet Ramsey?p16 Vivian Dubrovin (1995),Create Your Own Storytelling Stories,p37 Connery, Thomas B, 1992, Discovering a Literary Form.† A Sourcebook of American Literary journalism:Representative Writers in an Emerging Genre. New York: Greenwood,p14 W.James Potter, 1998, Theory of Media Literacy:A Cognitive Approach USA,p15 Tony Harcup Deirdre O’Neill, 2010,What is News?:Galtung and Ruge revisited; p261-280 Should Cannabis Be Legalised In Australia? Should Cannabis Be Legalised In Australia? Cannabis is a plant that is grown using organic fertiliser, other names includes marijuana, marihuana, hashish, hemp and ganja which is made from dried leaves and small green flowers from the cannabis plant itself, it contains narcotics and tough fibres that are used to make ropes, medicine, furniture and many others. Cannabis is known as a soft illicit drug that is commonly used. It is usually smoked but can also be eaten to get the immediate intoxicated effect but each person experiences different effects reasons being how strong the drug is, if they are an experienced user, the mood of the user and many other reasons within the individual. Earls and Robert studied marihuana and came with while opium kills ambition and deadens initiatives, marihuana incites to immorality and crime (Earls and Robert Rowell, 2003). Short-term effects may include; brain slowing, intoxicated which is also known as stoned or high and happy and relaxed feelings. Others may experience negative effects such as being paranoid, feeling anxious and panic attack. Some physical effects include short-term memory, heart rate increase, bloodshot eyes, coordination which can cause unsafe driving and increase in appetite often known as the munchies. Long-term effects may include; increase risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease due to the raise in heart rate, lung disease, ability to learn because of short-term memory, sperm count for males decreases and females experience irregular period patterns. Cannabis is illegal in Australia and most other first world countries and by law it is not to be grown, sell or possessed, it is a crime to do so and penalties will be given according to The Australian Drug Misuse Trafficking Act (1985). Cannabis is illegal due to many reasons such as; addiction, where people are hooked on to the drug and which will eventually ruin their lives through excessive usage, this is the same as alcohol which is a totally legal drug. The government claims that cannabis is more and highly addictive compared to alcohol which is why it is not legalised. Users would become aggressive and have a psychotic effect when taking the drug which leads to criminal activities. Cannabis is not accepted for medical use, even though it helps pain relief and benefits others in medical use but still caused a lot of diseases which the government is trying to help decrease, such as lung cancer, and cancer itself. Other reasons include that cannabis was linked to narcotics together with other illicit drugs, heroin, morphine and cocaine in 1914; these drugs are highly illegal and has brought cannabis along the line with them. Cannabis is now used by people all over the world illegally and legally and now it is not seen as an ethnic drug. The American governments started to look into Cannabis and came up with ideas on making it illegal, hemp was common and is used in making ropes, cloth and paper was considered dangerous and was a treat to people, people were being violence after smoking cannabis and led them to commit crime. Cannabis was announced illegal by (The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937). Cannabis should be legalised in Australia because it will benefit the government and country in many ways, some advantages on legalising cannabis include; government making money on tax, which will be better for the economy as cannabis is a billion dollar industry. Cannabis is grown with organic fertilizer and is an organic plant unlike other illicit drugs such as heroin and cocaine when many other chemicals are used to make the drug. Tobacco is considered more dangerous compared to cannabis as tobacco uses 4000 different chemicals such as nicotine, tar, rat poison and many others which are harmful to the users as cannabis is an organic grown plant. This will benefit people with healt issues as it does not contain many other chemical like tobacco. Cannabis is a valued plant and is expensive since growing the plant takes time and organic fertilizer must be used. Pricing around the illegal market on cannabis is $200 to $300 and ounce (28grams). Through research foundings on cannabis users increases dramatically every year, in the US it is estimated that 2million people will try the illicit drug every yeah and 1 percentage of the population estimated to try cannabis every year and become addicted. Cannabis was a legalised drug back in the 1920s early 1930s, but since the US government came up with ideas to ban the drug due to their reasons of the drug threatens and is dangerous. Cannabis is now the most illicit drug used all over the world illegally and legally, in certain parts of Canada cannabis is legal where they have marijuana pubs and bars where people can come in for a smoke with friends and to relax. If cannabis was legalised in Australia it will stop people smoking illegally, being paranoid and decrease in illegal activities such as smuggling cannabis from other countries or states, drug trafficking and trades. This highlights that society accepted the fact that view on marijuana is to be socially accepted. Legalising cannabis will allow the nation to gain instant and long term benefits also give benefit in medical use, where it could be used to assist in pain relief and cure other diseases that prescription drugs might now be able to do. Victims suffering from diseases such as glaucoma and the people who needs treatment for antinausea will be able to find the drug easily This will benefit chemists and can help with increasing the market share and income. Ideas that the government may look into is that proper education should be involved in training users on the drug itself, how to use the drug and the recommended amount of usage each time to prevent from overdose. Cannabis should be a prescription drug if it was to be legalised and doctors only allow certain amount each time for the patient or user. Disadvantages on legalising cannabis include; people not claiming tax as they can grow the plants from home, which will become an illegal activity since they are hiding from the government to turn away from tax. Financial issues since education for cannabis users which will cost a lot of money and time for the government if they decided to legalised the illicit drug. Crime rates may arise as the drug may have different effects on the individual, it may cause aggressiveness, psychotic and criminal activities. This will have a huge impact on safety for the society as it may affect users on unsafe driving and lose of memory in short-term use. Legalising cannabis will also have an impact on creating more diseases such as lung cancer, heart disease, and learning abilities as users experience short -term memory. Advantages on criminalisation if cannabis was legalised include; a decrease on criminal offences such as smuggling drugs into the country, trading and selling the drug to people. It will allow the government to fight other drug related crimes that are more important and a risk to the society such as heroin and cocaine dealers, fraud and murderers. If cannabis was legalised users would stop being paranoid about using or buying the drug as they would become more relaxed and free. The war on drug isnt accomplishing much as people are still out there illegally smuggling, trading and selling drugs so this can be decreased if cannabis was to be legalised as it will reduce the government on spending large amount of money on enforcements every year which will help in increasing the countrys revenue. It is prohibited but people are still out there making money and doing illegal business, there was an increase tax on alcohol so if cannabis was to be legalised it should have a higher tax on it as well. It is impossible to stop drug dealers as they always got an way to deliver their goods, they are always one step ahead and if one criminal is caught there is others out there doing the same, it just continues and it is something the government cannot stop. In 1987, 10 billion dollars were spent alone just on enforcing drug laws. Drugs accounted for about 40 percent of all felony indictments in the New York City courts in 1989. This figure quadrupled since 1985. Forty percent of the people in federal prison are drug law violators (Long 114). As it raises every year that money could be spent on other things that will benefit the economy such as schools, roads and homeless. The black market would vanish and illegal traders and dealers would be out of business since productions would bec ome licensed only. Disadvantages if cannabis was to be legalised include; people would still do illegal business to make money, since they want to keep away from tax. Legalising cannabis will eventually make the good people become bad, as they will be addicted to the legalised drug and it will affect their daily lives due to the effects on the drugs such as short-term memory, it allows people to be violent and aggressive, become psychotics and will put the society at risk, crime rates will rise and the roads will be more dangerous than it is now as to drink drivers. Cannabis effects peoples coordination so unsafe driving is a major risk, leaving it risky to others on the roads. The government will have to spend more money on stoping drug users from committing crimes or death rates will increase as is allows people to experience being aggressive, and psychotic behaviours with the use to the drug if it is legalised. In conclusion cannabis should be legalised as it will benefit people with medical use, help in decreasing crime rate, reduce and die out the black market, improve the countrys revenue and allows the government to make money on tax just like the high tax they gain from alcohol. At the same time it may disadvantage the country in a few ways such as crime rates due to the drug giving side effects of aggressiveness and psychotic, where that is easier to prevent unlike the black market.