Right wing media have had a field day with the breaking news, with Fox News reporting ‘Why you should be Hot and Bothered About Climate-gate’. The data released has given many of these papers the fuel to defend their case against man’s part in global warming. Accusations have been made that the emails and documents are full of witheld data, the outsing of skeptics from professional organizations, and the forging and modification of dates. Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe, already a sceptic of the scientific consensus on climate change stated “Ninety-five percent of the nails were in the coffin prior to this week. Now they are all in.”

However left wing sources have fought back at these claims and have instead defended their documents and e-mails. They have admitted poor judgment, but have emphasized the overwhelming evidence supporting human-made climate change.

I have to admit, I am not up to date on all the debates surrounding climate change, so I apologize if I sound like I do. However what has struck me about this story is the power politics has on the media. This so called ‘scandal’ which may I add is being called ‘climate-gate’ (anything ending with a gate I’m inclined to question), has sparked a kind of media war. What is a very serious issue has become a playground for political parties. My fear is that issues such as climate change have become too politicized, they have stopped being factual but have become political.  I wonder what effect this latest ‘scandal’ will have on the world’s view on climate change?

Growing up as a child I was really encouraged at school to read books, with regularly organized class trips to our local library and classes taking place in the school library. I remember boasting about reading two Roald Dahl books in a week when I was ten (maybe eleven), however I don’t see that same enthusiasm being passed onto children today. I know it has been a fare while since I was last in primary school or even secondary school, but I have a younger brother and sister who I know haven’t really been encouraged to read like I had. Instead I see my brother and sister becoming completely computer literate and their rooms full of gadgets rather than books.

The thought of our local libraries closing is really sad, it would feel like a part of our British culture would be dying. The internet now provides books online, encouraging people  to buy rather than rent books. It seems more convenient to log onto ebay or amazon and click a few buttons to buy a book than rent from a local library. I’m sure that there are many people who still use their local library, after all there must be as they are still around, however I am worried that we are going to have generation after generation ignoring the classic books we read as children and instead watching these books in films or online. Without books and the encouragement I had to borrow books from libraries I don’t think I would have had the same experience learning how to read. I believe it is pivotal in a child’s learning to read as much as they can.

So I guess it comes down to asking the question, what can libraries do to encourage more kids and adults to come? In my opinion I think that libraries need to incorporate more modern features to appeal to an increasingly modern and technologically literate generation. This could be done by adding cinemas to libraries, revamping old looking libraries,or  encouraging schools to visit the library more. I guess I’m not the best person to really offer advice on such issues as I don’t regularly go, but I would like to think that my children and their children’s children will use the library the way I did.

I know this perhaps seems like a boring subject, but in reality it is a huge issue that must be addressed. A recent study by the Welsh Assembly Government revealed that some areas of the South Wales Valleys have an adult illiteracy rate of 48%. That is staggering. Beyond staggering…..terrifying. This debate surrounding the future of libraries leads us on to a much greater and significant debate…the future of literacy. A bleak suggestion you may claim, however the figures speak for themselves. Lets remember that these statistics focus on adult literacy rates in the Valleys. I dread to think how the literacy rates of their children will compare. And their children…

With growing fears that the government are looking to increase the cost for people to go to university I have started to question how anyone will manage to put even a foot in the door to the media industry. Not only do we need to have degrees, but we need to have experience. The cost to even get a look in is more than the average person can afford. Increasing the cost to go to university is a shameful reflection of how detached the government are with society.

The current economic crisis has effected every industry in the world, and the media has been hit hard. I personally have witnessed the effects the recession has had on people’s lives, with freelance workers struggling to stay afloat, and new projects being axed due to lack of funds or the fear of challenging boundaries. This post may seem a little here and there, but my message is simple. I am graduating next year and I have no idea whether my degree is going to secure me a job. The way in which countless  jobs are being lost in the media industry as a way to save money and tackle the current economic crisis is a worrying prospect. I’m not saying I won’t mange to get a job, and I’m not saying that we are all doomed. I do believe that old fashioned determination and talent can get you a long way, and it’s at this time in our economic downfall that we need to encourage rather than deter. However from one media student to the next, I am a little worried, are you?

Buscombe told reporter Ian Burrel of The Independent “Some of the bloggers are now creating their own ecosystems which are quite sophisticated…Is the reader of those blogs assuming that its news, and is [the blogoshere] the new newspaper? It’s a very interesting area and quite challenging.”

I am not entirely sure how they would go about taking blogging under the PCC wing, it would mean discussing with the press industry, the public and bloggers (who would have to volunteer presumably). I do not believe that blogging can come under the ruling of the PCC as it would defy the whole point of blogging. The beauty of blogging is that it is quick, opinionated, free and unregulated. I think Bloggers would have a lot to say about this decision.

For this year’s National Anti-Bullying-week, the department for Children, schools and families have focused their efforts on tackling cyber-bullying. Facebook have publicly announced their support of the campaign and are working alongside charities such as Bullying UK to raise awareness for both parents and children.There advice is listed as follows, to not accept friends that you don’t know, block and report people who are being abusive, restrict your privacy settings and delete those being abusive.

After reading through the advice given by Facebook I felt frustrated at its detachment from the people they are reaching out to. It is not just about the lists of advice that are going to help those being bullied, it is about what we are doing. Don’t get me wrong I do agree that it is important for Facebook to step up on their anti-bullying campaigns, as high figures show online bullying is a growing problem, however these lists given to people are not enough to stop bullying. Facebook need monitor hate groups, and abusive behavior found on Facebook.

What has struck me about Facebook’s advice is that we live in a society where the majority of school kids have been brought up constantly using sites such as Facebook. The problem doesn’t lie in just informing them on how to block people, as I am sure the average user on Facebook is aware and capable of doing, but the problem is how we are informing and warning students of the dangers and reality of bullying online.

I don’t think it is just the responsibility of Facebook to monitor bullying online. It is important that cyber-bullying is being taught at schools. It is a growing problem and as serious as bullying that takes place during school. Online networking sites may seem out of a school’s jurisdiction, but it still involve the children they teach and therefore schools should be seeing online bullying with equal discipline.

The information provided by Facebook is in my opinion impractical, It needs to look at how it can impact both the victim and the  the generation of school kids who daily use online networking sites such as Facebook; Bebo, and Twitter. In order for statistics as those mentioned above to fall we need to be ensuring that we are not just writing lists of advice, but also actively seeking to stop bullying.

On a small budget of £10,000 and the use of local students to play the characters, the film tries to depict the true horror and reality of careless driving. The audience follows the car journey of a young girl who gets distracted while texting on her phone. Her car veers into the opposite lane causing the deaths of both her friends traveling in the car and a couple from another vehicle.

In the planning of this video the producers ensured they asked the local youth what they felt was needed in a video such as this. Mick Giannasi, the chief constable of Gwent police found that when he “ asked young people what was the thing that they thought was now the most dangerous for their age group’ it was mobile phones and texting whilst driving. I am sure we have all been guilty of at some point glancing at our mobile phones, or even making sneaky phone calls on a journey in our car. Figures show that 50% of drivers aged between 18 and 24 texted while driving, and that in doing so it slows a driver’s reaction time by 35%. As well as a slower reaction time drivers were also found to drift out of lanes, and have poor steering control.

It is illegal to drive and talk or text on your mobile phones here in the UK. However this is not the case in other parts of the world. In fact this short film has actually caused a stir in American politics, and been used on Fox News to encourage a news piece related to a bill going through the US senate, concerning a ban on drivers texting and driving. To think that this small budget film has had such an impact on people all over the world is truly amazing.

The New York Time’s has written on the film, debating how effective it is to have ‘blood and gore’ shown in such a film. This I thought was a very interesting article as it argued that ‘the popularity of the video excerpt was most likely due to its graphic nature’. Thus “the shock aspect ultimately may obscure the texting risk message”. However those involved in the making of the film have said, “The reality is, if we want our message, which is a lifesaving message, to cut through, we have to adopt certain strategies…In this one, we’ve gone for grim reality.”

In my opinion the video’s graphic representation of a car crash, and the knock on effect it has on so many peoples lives, truly made me think twice about how careful we need to be on the road. I think it works and that honesty really is the best policy in such issues such as dangerous driving. Although some people may get offended, I do feel it is the case where you need to be cruel to be kind.

The huge interest in this short film has given the producers and Gwent police authorities an amazing opportunity to commission more crime prevention films. With the help of The University of Wales they have decided to set up a ‘not-for-profit’ organization called ‘The Gwent Independent Film Trust’ to encourage more young filmmakers in the South Wales Valleys.

Not only does this film bring up debates surrounding how graphic is too graphic in crime prevention films, but it also shows how powerful the media is. This short film started out as a local police stations way of reaching their community, I bet they never dreamed it would be viewed in countries around the world. However as the chief of the Gwent police said in an interview, “The messages contained in the film are as relevant to the people of Tennessee as they are to the residents of Tredegar”.

Please check out the quick 4-minute video, I have posted the link below. It is well worth your time, and the full version will be screened on BBC Two Wales On Monday 2nd November.

This article drew my attention to a deeper and more serious problem than the tarnishing of a cities reputation. It brought to light how our society has become more worried about the reputation of a new shopping centre than on how these ‘drunks and down-and-outs’ are surviving. Did anybody fail to see how people were passing this man by? Could that possibly be the cause for these people having to resort to dirty street corners to find refuge instead of homes? In my opinion it was a huge contradiction, how could we have a homeless man slumped on the same street as a shopping centre worth £675 million? The visibility of poverty is clearly a problem in Cardiff, but the question is, how do we ‘deal’ with it? One solution is to hide it and pretend it doesn’t exist – we’ll call this the ‘St David’s approach.’ Another approach is to actively seek to abolish it. Not to be ashamed of its presence, but to be proud that we live in a society that cares.

The South Wales Valleys are amongst the most deprived areas in Europe, and they’re only twenty minutes away from Cardiff. One example close to my heart of people actively seeking to prevent and stop poverty is through an organization called Revive. Revive is a student-run project that came out of the Christian Union at Cardiff university thirteen years ago. One of its main goals is to help get kids off of the streets in the South Wales Valleys, encouraging them to make something of their lives, and not settle for the hopelessness they see all around them.

Geographically, the Valleys lie just North of Cardiff – beautiful scenic hills dotted with terraced houses, boarded-up shops, and abandoned mine-shafts. Less than a century ago the Valleys were the industrial hub of Great Britain. Millions of tons of coal were exported from Welsh coalmines each year, businesses were thriving, and communities were full of life. To cut a long story short, the mines all closed. Thousands were left unemployed, and this once thriving area became almost unrecognizable. The Valleys now have huge unemployment and crime levels; massive drug and alcohol abuse rates; heartbreaking suicide rates; overwhelming numbers of people being treated for depression; staggering rates of obesity; some of the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in Europe; and shocking levels of poverty.

When I first came to university I had only heard in passing about the Valleys, I never knew where they were or what they were like. Sometime in my first couple of months during my first year at university I got involved with Revive, and now every Friday I go up to a place called Cymmer in the heart of the Rhondda Valleys. Myself and a team of six students put on kids and youth clubs in a small run-down church. Revive has roughly 20 teams working with churches in the South Wales Valleys, running kids clubs, youth clubs, mums & toddlers clubs, working with elderly people, and putting on big community events.

The reason I am writing about Revive, is because as students we can so often get lost in our daily routines, and as I’m sure we have all felt at some point, we can feel like we’re the busiest people in the world. But I have a challenge, lets not forget about the world outside of our student lives. Revive was that thing for me. It made me see what was going on just half an hour from my doorstep, and made my worries about essay deadlines and 9 o’clock lectures seem a bit ridiculous. I have been involved with Revive for about two years now and I can honestly say I have never been more challenged in my life. It has opened my eyes to the issue of poverty, and made me determined to do something about it. I can only do a little to help, but imagine what could be achieved if everyone did a little.

This week our class was handed a reading called ‘The Passive Journalist’ by Deirdre O’neil and Catherine O’connor. This article explores the current status of local journalism in the UK, discussing who the local paper’s sources are, and how they are influencing what constitutes news. O’neil and O’connor point out that sources and reporters have what is called a symbiotic relationship, where the two come hand in hand. Such a relationship has triggered questions such as, are sources destroying a journalist’s creativity, and are local papers removing themselves from the local community?

There are three major media groups dominating the local newspapers in the UK today, the Trinity Mirror, Newsquest Media Group, and Johnston press. These three major media groups have essentially removed the local papers from the local communities. This is evident when reading the results from their research. There is a lack of original journalism and an increase in the reliance of sources. Seventy four percent of the stories that O’neil and O’connor analysed used only single sources. What stood out for me was how only five percent of sources were from readers; even community stories did not take the opportunity to include the reader. Where is the public voice? As Ross notes “If the local press is to continue to call itself ‘local’ in any meaningful way, it probably needs to work a bit harder to more genuinely reflect the views and interests of local communities.” (2006)

Not only does this article highlight how the local journalist is not interacting with the local community, it also shows how the use of certain sources is excluding certain views and issues. As Harcup puts it, sources are always at the heart of news selection and production. This means that sources have a huge influence on what we read in our newspapers. However this article highlights how the list of news sources used by local papers is becoming increasingly smaller. The main sources used by local papers were from the police, the courts and the local government, all of which have become ‘highly adept at media relations’. This has made me question how this affects the quality and authenticity of the news. Most journalists are receiving their information from press and communication officers who are paid to ‘spin’ the news. Are journalists becoming more passive and unquestioning of what information is passed on to them?

O’neil and O’Connor’s research shows that local newspapers have had to compete with a large number of changes in the market place; this includes ‘new technology, conglomeration, deregulation, competition from free newspapers and declining circulations’. This has meant that the local paper has had to cut costs by lowering staff salaries, ‘shedding’ staff and cutting training. By cutting costs local papers have also cut the quality of their stories. The pressure on journalists to meat deadlines has meant that there is more emphasis on quantity rather than quality, turning journalism into, as Bob Franklin says, ‘churnalism’.

Newspapers have a wonderful privilege to inform and inspire the public; however this article has challenged the role of the local paper. O’neil and O’connor emphasize the importance of the local paper playing to its USP ‘a local paper for local people’. Are our local papers still the voice of the community? I believe that the local paper needs go back to basic journalism, finding the real stories and the real sources. However if local papers continue to focus on single sources, they will be controlled by those sources and I believe, as O’neil and O’Connor state, they will continue to decline.