AUDIO SCRIPTS

Audio script 1

Be Your Own Investigative Journalist

by John Kuti

News in the age of information

We are often told that the age of the «information economy» has arrived. The idea is that intellectual work is becoming a more important source of wealth than manufacturing. There are already too many factories for the number of people who want to buy stuff, so the winners in the marketplace need to have a lead in terms of fashion, or technology to beat the competition. You can easily see this process at work in important industries like cars and clothing and computers where big companies prefer to concentrate on promoting their brand and let subcontractors do the less profitable work of manufacturing the products.

But there is a problem with information as an organising principle in society. It only counts if people pay attention to it. Together with inventors and designers, the information economy needs Public Relations executives to make sure customers are getting the right message. So, faced with the increasing claims on our attention, organisations in other spheres of life have to do more to get their share of it too. So PR people may work for politicians (then we call them «spin doctors») or they may work for artists (then we call them «publicists» or «pluggers».) A lot of our news is actually compiled from press releases and reports of events deliberately staged for journalists. Journalists spend their time, not investigating, but passing on the words of a spokesperson, publicist or other professional propagandist.

Quoting from Evelyn Waugh

The manipulation of news is most clearly visible in times of war. A BBC journalist speaking about the present war in Iraq compared his situation with that of the reporters in Scoop, Waugh’s satirical novel on the press. In the book, everyone was sure that the real story was happening somewhere else…but they weren’t exactly sure how to get there. Nowadays, the journalist who arrives in the right place at the right time is almost guaranteed a world exclusive. Armed with digital cameras and satellite phones, they can file their story on the spot. Which is why the military control the movements of journalists ever more closely.

Читайте також:

<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
HOW TO MAKE A GOOD PRESENTATION OR WRITE A GOOD REPORT / ESSAY / PAPER	\|	Don’t believe everything you read in the papers

Не знайшли потрібну інформацію? Скористайтесь пошуком google:

Генерація сторінки за: 0.032 сек.