I am a student journalist currently studying at Cardiff University's School of Journalism. I have a particular interest in the media, politics and sport.
This blog will focus on mainly on the media and China. but will also include other work done for the course. My other blogs are on the right-hand side:
I have been writing about censorship in China for nearly four months, but I have to admit that I genuinely thought that the government was prepared to admit what it was doing.
My belief came from the fact that everyone I met in two extended visits to China was aware of the internet censorship and spoke fairly openly about it, and that there is widespread discussionof China’s media in the West.
The above seems a strange assertion to make to the world when defending your position, but I imagine the comment was probably made to discredit the US in the eyes of the Chinese citizens.
After the dust settled from the disastrous Copenhagen climate change conference, accusations of blame amongst the participating countries began to fly.
Mark Lynas said that the Chinese delegate infuriated both the German premier Angela Merkel and the Australian premier Kevin Rudd by refusing to allow developing nations to set their own independent emissions targets and said “no” to most of the agreements.
Lynas concluded: “I am certain that had the Chinese not been in the room, we would have left Copenhagen with a deal that [would have] had environmentalists popping champagne corks … in every corner of the world.”
That is a particularly damning assertion, and one that has serious implications for the coming century.
I’m sure that in years to come Copenhagen will be seen as the turning point in international relations; the moment when China emerged as the most important country at the international bargaining table.
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Of course China was, in principle, well within its rights to block a climate change deal.
In the end though, who cares who makes the most concessions? Who cares who pays? Inaction will only lead to all of us paying in the end. Regardless of whether you agree that climate change is occurring, the world is running out of resources. Changes need to be made to ensure the future of our planet.
Statistical analysis of data is not a skill usually associated with journalists and journalism.
In simplistic terms, journalism tends to rely on sources such as individual quotes and official reports. Taking raw information and turning it into a ‘story’ is traditionally associated with academic or public relations writing.
However, with the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), analysing data at source has become increasingly important for journalists.
It is called Computer Assisted Reporting (CAR) and involves sifting through data acquired from organisations by FOIA requests until you have made it into a story (or until your eyes hurt).
As our lecturer Glynn Mottershead said: “You can make the numbers dance.”
In this context, CAR actually sounds quite exciting. Though I know from previous experience that the only “dancing” involved during the actual analysis is when the numbers start to swim in front of your bleary eyes, the end result in this case can be ground-breaking.
Stephen Grey’s book, Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program, which unveiled the secrets behind the accusations of terrorist suspects being tortured ‘legally’ by using a loophole in international law, was based partly on CAR.
CAR was right at the heart at one of the biggest stories to break this year – the MPs’ expenses. These were revealed through extensive analysis of raw data and part of the story’s longevity has been due to the fact that this analysis is still ongoing.
Given all the interesting new technologies and communication devices I have learnt about this year, at face value CAR seems a little mundane to me. However, seeing the gravity of the stories that have been produced, it is difficult not to think about embracing it.
This is invaluable for blind and partially sighted users as once they have made their way to the site using their computers operating system’s accessibility tool, they can listen to the news item.
One of the core subjects of this blog is the media restrictions in China, so it is ironic that in one important aspect, the People’s Daily website is more accessible than its similar counterparts in the UK such as Times Online and The Guardian.
The soundfiles on the People’s Daily website are computer-read needing no additional input from the website administrators, so it wouldn’t take long to install them on other websites. Perhaps they might consider following this lead.
As seen by the coverage of this feat, the Paralympics, for people who are physically disabled, tend to steal the limelight in disability sport because of their association with the Olympics.
The equivalent for people with intellectual disabilities is the Special Olympics and Cardiff has been right at the very heart of the competition since it first came to the UK.
In 1959, the late Joyce Robinson (below) founded the Cardiff Chameleons, the country’s first swimming club for intellectually disabled persons.
(Source: www.cardiffchameleons.co.uk)
The Chameleons went on to become the first group in Great Britain to register with the Special Olympics in 1979 and has been involved in the games ever since.
The slideshow above shows pictures of Team Wales at the 2001 Special Olympics held in Cardiff and the 2005 Special Olympics held in Glasgow.
But this wasn’t a one-off for the team as Chameleons’ swimming coach Pam Bailey explains: “We go to quite a few competitions all year round, and this year we also went to the Special Olympics European Swimming in Majorca.”
At that competition, the swimmers won nine Gold medals, five Silver medals and four Bronze medals.
Despite this however, the club does not cater solely for swimmers wanting to take part in competition, they also teach new members to swim and the focus is very much on ensuring that the members enjoy themselves.
Another of the swimming coaches, Robin O’Donovan, said: “I’m here for them to enjoy themselves. If I say: ‘Have you enjoyed yourself?’ and they say ‘Yeah!’ Great! That’s what I like.”
The club was only able to keep going because the club’s members had negotiated the free use of other swimming pools before the closure.
As Pam Bailey says: “We wouldn’t be able to run the club if it wasn’t for that.”
Gymnastics, Athletics and Cycling
Due to the club’s massive success in swimming, they decided to expand into different activities such as gymnastics, athletics and cycling.
As some of the swimmers and athletes started to get older, they began looking for a sport that required less physical exertion and so the Cardiff Chameleons Bowls Club was born.
Elaine Daw, the Chameleons’ Secretary said: “Our founder member, Mrs. Joyce Robinson, felt it was a good opportunity for our members to try another sport.”
The Chameleons celebrate their success at the Leicester Special Olympics
From Left to Right: Angus Pirrie, Ann-Marie Coles, Ceri-Anne Davies, Janet Broomfield, Louise Daw and Alan Beech
Disability Sport Wales
All the sports run by the Chameleons are brought under the umbrella of Disability Sport Wales.
Joanna Coates-McGrath (left), Cardiff’s regional development officer, said of the organisation:
“It’s basically increasing participation opportunities for disabled people. All ages, all abilities, all sports, [just creating] more opportunities out there for them to take part in whatever environment that might be.”
Part of that involves setting up new clubs for which there is often a demand. However, which clubs are ratified depends very much on the virtues of each proposal as Joanna Coates-McGrath explains:
The organisation does have a performance strand, but all of the teams facilitated by Disability Sport Wales cater for both competitively-minded people and for those who are there to make friends.
The Future
Many of the people closely connected with the club have gone on to coach the side. For example, Pam Bailey’s brother was one of the first Chameleons, and Robin O’Donovan’s son was also a member.
Now, one of the swimmers is hoping to pass on his experience to the next generation. David Parsons, who went to his first swimming club aged just seven and has competed in numerous competitions, would like to be a full-time coach.
David Parsons: Pictured at the Special Olympics in Glasgow (2005)
(Source: www.cardiffchameleons.co.uk)
He says: “What I like most is seeing people coming on. I like to see them get to the same level as me. I want to be a full time coach by the time I’m 30.”
With young members coming through and taking over the responsibility for the club, the Chameleons should have no trouble surviving for another 50 years.
Last week, Rob Andrews, a former alumnus of Cardiff University’s Journalism School, came to talk to us about his career and the company he works for, PaidContent.
Newspaper’s websites have arguably made the situation worse because many readers prefer to access their news for free online (minus the internet service provider charge of course).
Though advertising from websites is still a source of income, Rob Andrews says that the the influx from the online advertising does not make up for the shortfall created by the loss of paper sales.
Put simply, there is not as much money in online advertising because website usage is more difficult to quantify than newspaper circulation. For example, how can a news organisation measure how many people visit their site? More importantly, how can they prove worth to advertisers?
A great deal of the debate revolves around Rupert Murdoch.
The reasons for Murdoch putting back the date of introduction can only be guessed at, but the fear expressed by many is that pay walls will lead to a mass exodus of users from paid content websites to free websites.
The BBC and others have said that they will not even entertain the idea of pay walls and The Guardian has also been sceptical. The very existence of these perennially free-to-view news organisations therefore puts a spanner in the works for pay walls.
Producing and accessing pornography in China is illegal and founders of porn websites have been given extensive sentences. Equally, most people would not question the need to restrict minor’s access to the Internet on an unregulated mobile device.
The BBC story might suggest though, that this reasoning is merely a thinly-veiled justification for more widespread Internet restrictions in China.
But, I don’t want to. I don’t read National Enquirer. In fact, nobody else I have shown this to cares that we are not able to access this magazine.
Why should they care?
Perhaps that reaction may be different if we were unable to see the New York Times website for example, but this is perhaps what many Chinese citizens feel about Internet restrictions.
If they don’t use Facebook, or any of the other banned sites, because there are Chinese equivalents, why should they care?
The issue of censorship in China goes far deeper than Western expats being unable to access Facebook and YouTube. Perhaps the media should try and investigate that.
Part of my new found up-and-at-them attitude should probably involve Twitter as well.
I do have a Twitter account already, but in truth I have used it more as a low-tech news aggregator than anything else.
It is actually very good at doing that as you can see from this screenshot that I took from my account just a couple of minutes ago.
However, I haven’t actually been joining in the “conversation” (as I’m sure many online-minded journalists would like me to say), because I’ve not actually posted anything up there.
So, now it is time for this to stop. I solemnly promise to begin using Twitter in an active way just like my classmates who are at the PTC New Journalist Awards 2009 which are going on this weekend in London.”
