Paddy Kelly examines a 1903 report on a method to eradicate bacteria. Paddy asks why these methods aren’t used to battle today’s super strains, yet the mutation that permitted swine influenza to jump from pigs to people has nothing to do with the virulence or incidence of the disease, according to the Slate. On this premises, this influenza virus has altered in strain.

How does the W.H.O. justify trying to introduce the scientific term, H1N1, instead of ‘swine flu’. If a global pandemic was possible why didn’t the W.H.O. demand the closure of Mexico’s airports when the first cases were recorded, because if the virus is as serious as the media convey, international travel should be restricted to some degree.

Astronauts

Twitter is changing the way people communicate, but it’s following past trends not setting new trends.  Communication via text message was once intimidating, but has since settled into normal everyday life. Now you’d expect a text message reminder for a hospital appointment or flight.

If mobile phone text messages can flourish, why can’t Tweets, which are essentially the same idea, different medium? There is more of a point to ‘tweeting’ then telling people what you’re doing. The problem is that most people don’t know how to use it, that’ll change when the next communicative innovation takes the spooky mantle.

Sam Matthew’s

The corporate environment within which the news media operates, and its dependency on advertising impact on the way news is told, and Ireland is not immune to this structure.  The systemic bias in Irish media is present, and Media Bite challenges these notions.

Media Bite confront complicit relationships between reporters and official spokespeople in Ireland, and, like, Democracy Now! plays a central role in the modern democratic process, keeping tabs on the political structures.

This systemic problem plaguing the great moral decider of the 21st century is a repercussion of the Web. Curtis discusses how television is continually revolutionising, and, today, the journalist is cut out of the news gathering process because of a lack of inspiration to report the truth.

News organisations plead for ‘eyewitness videos,’  allowing the viewer to participate in the content. The idea that the world can talk to itself is created by the Internet, after all, who has the better perspective the journalist in the newsroom or the citizen on the frontline?

ITV has reportedly lost £1 million because it can’t cultivate YouTube hits into a direct profit – one can’t help but feel that Michael Grade might have extended his stay of execution as executive chairman of ITV had the station calculated income in this instance.

However, the case of Susan Boyle exemplifies an inability to monetise video content in general. The advertising opportunities Mrs Boyle represents are surely substantial, but they would dwarf the immediate profit capabilities that a pre-roll ad on YouTube would present…The audio content below explains further:

The Guardian on Michael Grade

In a recent blog,  Chris Murphy,  discusses how interior media outlets tow the Government line, which disseminated a right-wing agenda and, crucially, justified the war in Iraq. The fact that satirical comedy is an influential voice of dissent in America is poor reflection on mainstream media. However, the incalculable number of dissenting voices provided forums via the Web is antidotal to the level of claptrap reporting in the mainstream US media.

But, this piece public journalism was shot by a man from New York on business in London – he wasn’t looking for a story, he just used the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet.  The video of Ian Tomlinson that was present on The Guradian’s website can be see below…

The mobile phone is used to document and report events using multimedia or text messages, and also via their maiden function, the audio phone call. Mobile phone users can be there – on the ground or in the thick of the action – giving eyewitness accounts of actual events. Telecommunication updates have introduced the camera to the device , meaning users can also take pictures and produce short films.

The contemporary mobile user can access the Internet and media broadcasts, but regardless of Internet capabilities, an average user of the standard mobile is an everyday citizen journalist.  The concept holds no barriers. Mobile phones are challenging official sources of information, and the Internet is their platform to the public sphere to influence news gatekeepers.

At WNCN-TV, in North Carolina, the, euphemistic, embedded journalist has mutated into a hyperlocal participant. These hyperlocal reporters are on the beat in the local community covering the sub-neighbourhood issues.They cover the news, and file to the station’s home page as well as the online channels. They have a dual role, as a TV reporter and, primarily, as an online journalist.

The hyperlocal news provided by the embedded journalist allows the viewers of WNCN to access neighbourhood dispatches that didn’t make the TV bulletin through a series of web channels at myNC.com. These channels cover specific  geographical areas, and all the news is collected and distributed by the embedded community journalist.

The potential for revenue is multiplied by this innovative approach to hyperlocal outlets via the Web. The juxtaposed embedded journalist is on the ground filing for the Web, watching the story unfold, updating the online user, while the TV viewer waits for the story to begin.

A journalist may acquire multimedia capabilities, but that doesn’t mean they can produce multimedia to the standard of a professional in the editing or production field.  The ability to adapt as a journalist may be one of the best skills to develop because the job market exists for multimedia journalists, as typified by the Online News Association.

Multimedia is at a transitionary juncture but does the transition end, and all of a sudden, we’re posed with a media the fits perfectly among the other media that too are still developing –  either digitising or expanding? What must remain the key issue is the quality of journalism, speed doesn’t necessary deliver the best story, it just gets the facts out quickly.