Reflection

Undertaking assignment three in trying to find an alternative view or different opinion on my first interview assignment with Valmar employee David Barrie I initially first thought about getting in contact with a mother or father of a child that attends Valmar and see their opinion on the matter.

I was able to get in contact with a mother of a child who has autism and she agreed to do an interview after I gave her a little bit of the background. The night before I had the scheduled interview I was a little hesitant towards some of the questions I was going to ask her because on one hand I wanted to know a little more specifically on what has happened with her child and how her child has been treated and so forth but on the other I felt as though I didn’t want to perhaps be stepping over the line so to speak as she might not have wanted the interview to go to personal. At the last minute I pretty much left this up in the air and went in the interview thinking that if I feel it’s going well and she seems confortable I will perhaps ask some more personal questions towards the end.

At the start of the interview it was apparent she was pretty comfortable talking about a range of topics and even talking specifically about her son so it was then natural for me to start asking some more in depth questions regarding her situation and not just getting her general thoughts as a whole.

Editing the audio of the two copy and grabs and one wrap was a little awkward as I noticed my first interview had a much poorer sound quality level than my second and when I had to combine the two together it gave an annoying tone of difference. I did set up both recorders exactly the same as I followed the guide online and thus I’m not sure if I just had a bad mic on my first recorder or if perhaps I accidently had a loose connection somewhere. In future I guess I just need to be very mindful of every little detail and even triple check rather than double check.

Overall it was more a learning experience than a successful experience for me. I know I have a lot of areas I can improve on and I know I could have done a lot better. At the same time I feel as though areas that I  have underperformed on by doing so has made me realise just how much more effort I need to put in next time around.

Critical Reflection

Undertaking the process of Assignment 2 (radio current affairs in-field interview) I met some challenges and also some pleasant surprises.

At first when I received my round (social services) I was immediately a little disappointed because I felt that some other rounds I would have much preferred to do or would have found them a little more interesting to look into covering a story on, but once I got into it and looked around a bit I found that the topic had a fair few potentials to really get some good information on that was newsworthy but also interesting for me to follow up on which I feel is very important to achieving a more successful outcome.

I got in contact with a worker at a disability care centre in Yass and was able to find out a few interesting things. One of which being what I chose to focus my interview on with that of them having problems with staff to client ratios, this bit of information appealed to me the most because when dealing with disability clients the main concern is always how they are being treated and also is it to the best standards possible or fair compared to other education institutions so once I learned out about that piece of information it was clear and easy for me to choose which direction I wanted to take with my interview.

Getting the interview done wasn’t a big of a hassle as I initially thought it was going to be, I hired the gear and it was very straight forward to setup and use and as such I really didn’t have any technical problems as i was very careful prior to make sure i tested the audio quality.

Going into the interview I took a piece out of one of our lectures on how best to conduct an interview style and it was a quote from Andrew Denton which states,

“No, I don’t use notes. And there’s a very specific reason for that. Very early in my career I realised that notes can become – not a prop – but a trap. I also believed that not having notes tells you guest first of all that you’ve done your homework and secondly if you don’t have notes they have no idea of knowing how much you may or may not know about them.”

This quote appealed to me and I decided to follow it and go into the interview with no notes whatsoever but rather doing a lot of research prior to going in such as on the Valmar website and just a general read around of articles on the matter. Furthermore I wanted the interview to flow and I personally feel that if you have set notes as Denton states you can get caught into the rigid routine of just reading question by question and you can miss out on important spontaneous follow ups on answers or information that is interesting or necessarily you were not expecting.

Towards the end of the interview I had a moment where with my interviewee we talked about some other non-relevant areas and had a bit of a laugh which was fine but it ended up causing me to forget a little about the interview at hand and I slipped into a relaxed state to the point where when I got to sum up the interview I did it poorly because we had already got to the stage by talking about other non-relevant facts and things. In future I need to be more conscious and really train my voice and mind to come back into the task at hand more and sum up better much like in my literature review where Dennis Wilkins states journalists sometimes tend to do rather than think was exactly the mode I got myself in and as such I summed up my interview very poorly I feel.

Overall it was a good learning curve for this assignment and I feel as though I certainly learnt some things to improve on for my follow up assignment while also gaining extra confidence that will no doubt help out as well.

Literature Review

Steve Hill, a University lecturer in the UK writes on his blog that reflective practice in journalism is under increased pressure due to the nature in which journalists work to time deadlines and are constantly jumping from one story to the next without sufficient time to reflect on their work. This is mostly true as many journalists once one story is done they will immediately forget about it and move on to the next relevant story. His solution to this is that all journalists should employ an online private blog of sorts to use to record reflective thoughts whether they are from contacts they chose to use and why or contacts they chose to omit and why as he argues few journalists take the time to really consider their roles and the purpose of journalism. (Hill, 2005)

Donald Schön is one such advocator of having reflective practices in journalism. Two months prior to Samoa’s highest profile criminal trial he conducted a seven-day intensive training session with several reporters who would be covering the case in which would prepare the journalists to “reflect in action” so they would be equipped to adapt their journalistic behaviour to the challenges which presented during the trial. The large reason in part they chose to have this reflection was due to the fact that throughout the 1990s in Samoa there had been an increase of defamation actions brought on by political figures against local media outlets. These difficulties highlighted the importance of the training program demonstrating the media’s concern in reporting responsibly on the nation’s most significant criminal case. (Pearson, 2008)

Looking further into this one could argue that Dennis Wilkins opinion could be related to the reason why there have been so many defamation claims amongst the Samoan media in the 90s due to the fact that according to him journalists are guilty of doing rather than thinking. The Samoan media outlets during the 90’s could may well have benefited from this outlook of thinking about the potential newsworthiness versus the impact it could have on individuals, much like we have discussed about whether or not it was ethical to be reporting on suicides seeing as sometimes the news can cause more harm and backlash than its worth.

According to Tony Harcup this is true and should stem further as journalism is not simply fact-gathering. It involves dealing with sources, selecting information and opinion, and telling stories – all within the framework of the constraints, routines, principles and practices. if people look past just the fact gathering into more important areas higher quality journalism will be achieved through this reflective practice. (Harcup, 2004, P12)

Stephen Lamble notes that reflective practice is increasingly more important now days due to the influx in news dissemination through online blogs and social media and with this there has come an increased need to rethink the way journalists view their work as many can easily post on twitter or upload blogs that may not have gone through a heavily edited process that normally they would be more likely to follow in the old days where it was mainly just print media.(Lamble, 2011)

Reflective practice in journalism is an important area that most scholars agree upon to be taken seriously by many journalists especially because of the ever changing media platform undertaken by the social media movement.

References;

Hill, S. (2005) New Journalism Review: Reflective Practice for Journalists http://newjournalismreview.com/2007/05/05/reflective-practice-for-journalists/

Pearson, M. (2008) Reflective practice in action: preparing Samoan journalists to cover court cases http://epublications.bond.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1260&context=hss_pubs

Wilkins, D. (1998) Recommendations for Curricula That Stress Reflective Thinking

Harcup, T. (2009) Journalism: Principles and Practice 2^nd Edition Sage Publications

Lamble, S. (2011) News As it Happens: An Introduction to Journalism, Oxford University Press.