Monday, September 27, 2004

Saturday, September 18, 2004

Update about CBS's "accuracy"

Hi, all guys. today's news on SCMP said that Republicans had called for a congressinal investigation and retraction of CBS television's report concerning President George W. Bush's Air National Guard service. Republican and CBS are arguing the anthenticity of the memos these days. No one can tell the truth, except for Jerry Killlian, who died in 1994. It remains to see the results. But anyone can imagine what will happen? Is there any chance that Repubicians will suit CBS for libeling if no one can tell the truth finally? Will CBS win the case? Indonesian magazine Tempo lost its case yesterday, just because they were reporting some business guru. But here, see, it is the US President. US and Indonesia, are different, of course. Anyway, Bush will argue for himself before the election, no matter it is true or not.

Sunday, September 12, 2004

Blog's fight with big CBS, NY times, and Boston Globe

Find the news on Blogger.com by chance. It seems bloggers are proud on the matter. Maybe we can treat it as a memorial that blog can speak with TV at the same level, with the different opinion. Though no one can tell from right to wrong, the journalism becomes full of various voices. It is a good start. No one will pay to that blogger who did the letter-by-letter comparision, so profit-led doesn't exist. But who knows if it will be politic-led?
Anyway, thanks to Killian's memo, no matter it is forge or not, we hear different voices and can make a choice for ourselves.

Poll becomes serious, both parties said.

Today's leaflets interesting. Both DAB and Democratic Party printed that the poll became serious. They all said that it was ok for their No.1 leader to get one position in HK Island Constituency, but their No.2 person will not that fortunate. The fight party is changing from whole parties to personal leaders. DAB's leaflets referred to takungbao' news, saying that there was already enough vote for Rita Fan. More votes for Rita Fan, Less votes for Cai Suyu( the NO.2 leader in DAB) . So the voters should vote for Cai Suyu, instead of Rita Fan who will of course get a position. It is also said that Rita Fan's vote source will be duplicate with DAB's. So it requested every voter to vote "consciously" to distribute the vote to DAB. In other side, Democratic just announced that Martin Lee would fail if the vote is not enough. Their resource is from the HKU publich Opinion Programme, where Democratic is expected to get the vote of 24.6%, far from the succeeding rate-33.4%/. It is usually interesting to see the events before the election, where you can see a lot about the society.
Anyway, both parties are not so sure about their future now, which reflects about current HK people's thinking about the election. Still waiting to see!

Sep,12, Big day in Hongkong

It was Sep.12 today, finally. The street is full of the funs for different electioners. They gave the leaflets to every passer-by enthusically, with the hot sun shining behind their backs. The voice speaker on the truck announced again and again. The broadcast and TV reported the results in real time. I went into the polling station in Saiwan today.(Don't tell, it is a secret) The polling station is not that exciting. But the process to get into it is exciting enough.
All of this made me think of the Taiwanese election in Mar. I stayed in front of TV for the whole day, sharing the same up-and-down mood with Taiwanese. And now it is Hongkong. But honestly speaking, I am just an audience, viewer, not a joiner. Should journliasts try to be one of the joiners there? Should we be neutral as we are joiners? Or should we just keep cold-eyes being audience? All theorical question, worth or not?

Internet and Democracy

Roger Clarke opened a lecture in HKU today. The topic is "The Internet and Democracy- Has Hong Kong left it too late?" Seems interesting topic, isn't it? After some background invesigation, I prepared several questions such like Taiwaness election this year. Then I found that it was really far from what I used to think. He raised some new words like evoting, epolitics and egovernment. There are two kinds of voting: Technology-Enhanced Booth Voting and Internet Voting. There are three kinds of democracy called Participative Democracy, Representative Democracy abd Citizen-driven Representative Democracy. Most interested is the epolitics he mentioned. I totally agreed that it was a conflict zone, between old-style politicians and new cyber-citizens. Especially currently, new-born cyber-citizens are not that strong enough.
Internet has developed with the great spirit of freedom, but now is on the way to be a social tool, politic tool. Right way, or not?

See, Chinese's mourn to Russian children

From Interfax's news that Chinese's netizens using MSN to mourn to the children killed in the Russian school siege. Chinese onliners raised a great, global news value here. Should we journalists be also global in the globalization? Hah, find another words for globalization- News value movement, moving from local to global.

Friday, September 10, 2004

Media privacy and human value

Two headlines about media on SCMP's frontpage-"Reporter feared ruin if she revealed to ICAC source of leak, court hears" and "CCTV under fire for airing quiz on Russian school toll".
The first is referring to the struggle between media and ICAC, in another word, government. The issue has been discussed for a long time, in most time, the media focus so much. Should media have more privacy than other fields? Or should media always use the laws like First Amendment law to enjoy the previledge? They are the questions remaining to say, but in HK, it seems that people don't treat media like that.
The second is more about human value(just talked with my classmates). It told that state-owned CCTV had drawn stinging criticism from Moscow and at home for airing a mobile phone quiz on the death toll from last week's Russian school siege. I am from the telecom field, so I know that Chinese SMS content sevice is so profitable that many industries are eager to join in. CCTV is one of the example. It has set up a special centre to provide the SMS value-service to all its audience. I bet they will pay more attention to what intereste the audience most, instead of others. It may be not their fault, for they are not real journalists. But what journalists should do facing such things? Do they have the rights to stop, or do they just see the whole things happen? Our eyes should pay more attention on the world, and our heart should pay more attention, too. Globalization doesn't just mean we should report more. It also means we should consider more from the world's angle and the human's angle. It 's pity that not many journalists realize the point. They focused more on their own privacy, but they have to know they should learn more, especially in such a fast developing world.

Thursday, September 09, 2004

Crazy on the classes

I have been crazy these days, busy with all my classes and of course, the trip to SZ. HKU is really an exciting place, where you can meet different people and stuffs.
An interesting class called "Chinese's foreign policy" tonight. It was taught by the director of the Faculty of Social Science. I went to that class just for fun. Then I found it is really "weird" for me- a Chinese girl who has experienced above 20 years in PRC-to learn our own foreign policy at HK. But the thing is interesting that I can see many different attitude including misunderstanding, to the policy and policymakers. Maybe that's what I will learn from the course. Also, it is fun to meet some ex-media guys there.
The reading work is such a heavy load, but that's the life I am going after. Just fun to hang around in different fields, though it is dangerous for me. I alway tell myself to focus on my own field, but there are attract stuffs everywhere. So not my fault:)
Busy everyday, just wondering how to develop my cook skills and find my love boy?