the(new)mediaslut

Techgoondu via kwout

A group of tech journalists, mostly from SPH, have launch a tech blog at Techgoondu.wordpress.com

The bloggers include Oo Gin Lee who is with The Straits Times’ Digital Life, Ong Boon Kiat is with The Business Times BizIT team and Alfrew Siew is the technology correspondent for The Straits Times.

Aaron Tan was with ZDNET Asia and is currently pursing his Master of Library and Information Science at Syracuse University.

It seems the Malaysian ruling government just cannot trust the media, traditional and new.

In the last elections, they blame new media for the votes lost. Now they are banning the Press from entering Parliament.

Wrote politician-blogger Jeff Ooi,

I saw and I heard from my vantage point as a Member of Parliament on HOW the Press Corp was treated as potential triggers for security issues in the country’s supreme building for law-making. Whoever that ordered the sanction against the Press Corp citing security as a rationale is plain stupid.

Malaysiakini quoted the Speaker of Malaysia parliament to say, ”

“Since when Bagan (Guan Eng) and Batu Gajah (Fong) are interested to become the editors?” he asked. “How do we know whether those showing the press tag are indeed journalists?”

Lack of trust with the Press? Again, how do Malaysians know if the politicians entering parliament are the real politicians?

Rocky’s bru has highlighted that the Malaysia Press Corp boycotted today’s parliament in protest over the new ruling.

The blog post started as a cry for help. Now it has turn into a media circus.

It might have taken Jean of Jean.sg lots of guts to blog a post her post re-accounting her unfortunate incident where her modesty was deemed to have been outraged, however, was she aware of the reactions she would be getting from netizens?

They varied from support to insults.

Interestingly, the blog post has been picked up by the Singapore media and it seems like John (the alleged aggressor) has turn into from villain to the unfortunate victim.

This blogger have been asking her girlfriends if they would blog about such an incident and to get their opinion about the blog post.

Not surprisingly, many of them replied that they would not blog about it because it was something too personal.

What surprise me was their reaction to the blog. Most of them highlighted that they felt Jean was just trying to get attention.

Maybe that’s the problem. Has social media turn bloggers into anti-social animals where the blog is the only avenue to attract attentions to one call for help?

Or is it the medium that is starting to be the place for a person to let out her/his soul?

Or maybe, just maybe, bloggers need to have their own PR person to help them communicate to the press?

So what should Jean do now? or John?

The Associate Press (AP) came under fire from last week for serving a take down notice against the Drudge Retort for copyright violations.

It seemed AP wants quotes from 33 to 79 words from the site.

Jeff Jarvis for Buzz Machine posted that AP’s action was calling the pot black.

Wrote Jeff,

This complaint comes from an organization that leaches off original reporting and kills links and credit to the source of that journalism. Yes, it has a right to reproduce reporting from member news organizations. But as I point out here, the AP is hurting original reporting by not crediting and linking to the journalism at its source. We should be operating under an ethic of the link to original reporting; this is an ethic that the AP systematically violates.

Jeff, a few days later, suggested that AP should has proposed a link ethics.

Whenever this blogger cuts a quote from another blog post or online media outlets, this blogger will try her best to link it to the site.

This blogger also limits herself to cutting a paragraph or two, three max, from the source.

However, some Singapore bloggers looked to cut and paste the entire article, citing the source but do not link it back to the source.

Blog.Simplyjean.com is one such blog that has been cutting and pasting the entire article from the straitstimes.com without linking it back to their site.

Simply Jean via kwout

Jean’s argument would most likely be that the link to the article will disappear after two weeks in straitstimes.com.

But should simplyjean .com also follow Jeff’s link ethics and link the article back to straitstimes.com?

There was a recent debate in the blog-o-sphere about differentiating blog posts from editorials and advertorials. However, that is minute to what Singapore’s Viscion Media Group is introducing to the traditional media space.

Welcome the sales journalist!

Wrote Jamie Lee for Journalism.sg,

The sacred wall between journalism and sales has been torn down by the newest media company on the block, much to the dismay of media practitioners who fear that editorial content will increasingly pander towards advertisers’ needs.

Viscion Media Group – a firm set up about one and a half years ago that publishes magazines such as Lexean and Playeur – has merged these two roles into a new job position known as the sales journalist.

Sales journalists from all its five publications will be tasked to meet advertising clients and design a marketing plan, which could include advertisements, editorial, advertorial, events and product placements, said general manager Holman Chin, who spoke to journalism students from the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (WKWSCI) at a talk in February.

Mr Chin also highlighted that every $10,000 spend with Viscion, they will guarantee $30,000 worth of coverage. In doing so, “sales journalists would write the pitch so there’s more knowledge of how the editorial would look and hence more trust”.

Trust an editorial page that is disguised as an advertorial?

If a vendor is paying $10,000 in advertising with this sales journalist, wouldn’t the vendor want control over the editorial?

Why should the reader trust that editorial?

Mr Chin also argued that the editor at Viscion’s magazine will have final say over the content that the sales journalists produce as the editorial operates independently of the sales journalists.

So let’s say the advertiser is willing to spend $10,000 with the sales journalist to print an article, is the editor going to dish the story into the bin because it is a bias story?

That’s $10,000 down the drain. The editor has to be aware that the $10,000 will contribute to his next salary, would the editor dare to say no?

Maybe $10,000 isn’t a big figure. How about a $1 million dollar campaign? Would Mr Chin allow the editor to write a review about the product to tell the readers that the product is not up to scratch?

Why should the sales journalist be the only one benefit from the sales? Why not the editor? The editor is the one that decides if the story goes to print or otherwise.

Sumana Rajarethnam, editor of Playeur, supported Mr Chin to say “Of course there is a risk that journalistic integrity will be compromised, but the risk is no higher than with a journalist being sent on an all-expenses paid trip who is asked to write about it. Is there full integrity there?”

If Viscion is so worried that the all-expenses paid trip will affect the integrity of the article, why don’t Viscion offer to pay for the junket instead? Wouldn’t that remove any questions about integrity?

This blogger is aware of a broadcaster who has a strict rule that if one their broadcast team is send abroad for a junket which is deemed very very important, the broadcaster will pay for the whole trip instead.

Is this the reason why Dylan Tan left Playeur Journals only after two issues?

The light side is getting darker.

Viscion Media Group publishes magazines such as Lexean and Playeur Journal.