Current Affairs

In the Age of the AI bubble, but long before this, photographers and camera operators have been vanishing from television studios as well as from events. Where you would have hired a camera operator and video editor you now hire a video editor/graphist because video editing has moved from editing video footage to creating graphics filled videos. This is part of why I became disenchanted with video and why I pivoted towards media asset management and self-hosting.

Last night I listened to Yuval Harari and Ari Meiber speak about Nexus, the new book and related topics and the concept that I found really stood out is about freedom of speech and volume. Yuval Harari believes that we should be able to share information and lies, but that social networks are responsible for how it is promoted and amplified, how loud the volume of certain ideas is.

“Freedom of speech is very different to control of volume” source because freedom of speech is the ability to discuss without fearing imprionsment but control of volume is how visible, or amplified a post becomes, and whether by encouraging engagement a post is spreading hate or negative messages. They spoke about how Facebook, “by turning up the volume of hate speech encouraged violent attacks”.

As I struggled to find a neutral topic to write about I noticed the distinct difference between how the French and the Swiss media are speaking about the fifth wave. The swiss say that it is “pre-occupying” and that it “has won the French speaking part of Switzerland” and “no long term impact on Swiss finances.” Switzerland is not taking the pandemic seriously anymore and reminds me of England. It is denying that there is a problem and taking reactive rather than pro-active measures.

I have been watching The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for a while now and I like the insight and analysis that his shows provide to current affairs programs. I like his shows because he provides a different perspective than other news. He is a South African who moved to the US and work on the Daily show. In this show he explores cause and effect. He speaks about his childhood and tying shoelaces. He speaks about running and falling “a lot” and then about how his mother told him to tie his shoe laces. What I like about his show is that it is calm, factual and logical. He makes the occasional joke but it helps strengthen the point he has just made and provides a transition to the next point. What is interesting about this comedy/current affairs show is that it also pokes fun at mainstream news shows and the way in which they try to deflect the conversation away from the key issues. News and current affairs should provide insight and analysis without worrying about what shareholders, lobbyists and other groups want the message to be. They should provide people with facts and context. We are in the age of On Demand videos and it takes the average web user seconds to find the content that will provide them with the message or conclusions that they want to justify. Search for Orlando as a key word on youtube and you will find emotional video content. In a healthy news environment you should have two main sources of information. Mainstream media should provide you with the facts and the context of what happened without prejudice or assumptions being made. Once these sources of information have been exhausted then we can shift towards the emotional talk shows, opinions and columns. What I see at the moment is emotion taking centre stage and obscuring reality.

There is an increasing number of professional outfits now offering their content in podcast form, from Euronews to the BBC, from Reuters to The Guardian and others. As a result there are a number of great resources for news content.

The Media guardian was one of the earlier outputs and concentrated mainly on media news but since then The Guardian have diversified their content output to include a number of news programs. These include The Guardian Weekly Podcast, MediaTalk, Newsdesk, and one or two others I have yet to listen to. These programs are good for two reasons; firstly they provide world news when it’s convenient for you and secondly because professionals are creating this content therefore the content should be more reliable. They provide in-depth analysis, getting interviews, and discussions that help the listener understand the topics that are being discussed. In effect they are creating broadcast-quality programs as radio stations have done in the past.

As I write this I am happy that I have been to watch quite a few interesting documentaries at the Frontline Club. The two most recent were made for Channel 4’s Unreported World. This is channel four’s “acclaimed foreign affairs series” and covers a number of topics. The two documentaries I watched were South Africa: Children of the Lost Generation and  Jamaica: Guns votes and money.

Both are investigative observational documentaries showing the progress made by the journalists as they try to uncover the stories that other documentary channels cover. The South African documentary gave an insight into the drug Tik and how, although it is mainly affecting those in the slums is also coming to the wealthier white areas as well. It is well shot and there are a few interesting interviews that give us a good insight into the problem.

Mariuca - May 5, 2007

Hi Richard, wow you’ve been busy! Congrats on completing your dissertation! I bet you’ll do great and all the best to you :) :)

  If you love reading the news and seeing what’s going on around the world then Trendio is an interesting site for you. I looked at the events that are going to take place and whether Trendio already has them listed. If it does then I decided to buy some stock for those words and as their quantity increases so it means I will get some income. Knowing that the French elections would take place I bought stock in two of the key elements to see by how much they would increase. As you see the increase isn’t that bad. I also saw some other events in the news so bought those. Overall it’s about understanding the news cycle, what stories have a long life, which ones are going to be short lived and which ones will generate the most hype. If you buy words before a key event when they’re low and wait for the event then you can make a lot of trendilions within a short amount of time. It’s an interesting distraction and I’d recommend people take a look at it. Trendio.com

Too much academic research and concentrating on dissertations has cut me off from world news to such an extent that apart from tech goings on I had no clue. I hardly followed the French elections, hardly noticed the death of Yeltsin, hardly noticed the regional elections. There are three reasons for this. England is a hard news vacuum with it’s slightly islandish mentality (don’t yell at me for this view, I’ve been here a fifth of my life), online news resources, (finding the news I want) and thirdly researching and writing my dissertation. It’s been a break from the world and it’s coming to an end and I need to resynchronise with the Hard News world once more. It’s going to take a few days of reading news once the disso and work experience folders are handed but I’ll do it. I also need to decide what to do, whether I stay in London, whether I go travelling and scuba diving to become an underwater cameraman or whether I go back to the beautiful landscapes of Switzerland where my social life is lived through a computer because I am so tired of the motorway to and from Geneva these days. Another option is getting a motorbike license, getting the scooter and driving as far as I feel like on a daily basis and seeing place after place. Time will decide of course.

Satellite broadcasting has progressed since I was last able to watch a lot of television. The spacing of channels and the programs have progressed. I’ve watched France 24, Al Jazeera English and a few more channels. As time is progressing so the channels are re-indexing themselves within the sky digital world. They are no longer organised by the discovery channel. Instead, we find that some of the documentary programs are included within specific interests. In particular, I’m thinking of travel documentaries. They are now cataloged within the travel section of the life and culture channels. It’s good because the travelogue documentaries are organised together. It allows for those dreaming of travel to visit these pages. I watched Al Jazeera English and one thing that’s marked me is how many short features they have on a number of subjects. They have the everywoman program, the witness, and others. It’s a different take than that by BBC World. It’s interesting. I want to travel. I don’t want to be stuck in uni anymore. I want to go to various locations and do some of these travel documentaries, see different parts of the world. Maybe I will get to Australia in May.