Jenni Russell wins 2011 Orwell Prize for Journalism

If you haven't guessed by now, I am a little George Orwell obsessed. So when I read that Jenni Russell won the 2011 Orwell Prize for Journalism, I had to check out her work.

The Orwell Prize for Journalism is a British prize for political writing founded in 1993. Three prizes are awarded each year, one for a book, one for journalism and one for blogging. The winners are those who come the closest to Orwell's ambition of making political writing into an art. Orwell's own adopted son sponsors the prize. As a newbie blogger and a student of journalism, I think I just found a new goal for myself.

Russell is a British columnist and broadcaster. She writes for the Evening Standard as well as the Sunday Times and the Guardian. And she has two kids on top of that. Her son submitted several samples of her work to be considered for the prize. After reading a few of her pieces, I find her style of writing somewhat fascinating -- I think Orwell would appreciate her efforts of uncovering truth with an artistic balance.

I also thought it was interesting what Jon Slattery had to say about the contest -- or rather what judge Martin Bright had to say about the direction journalism has gone. He said it's almost impossible for young journalists to break into the field without offering to work for free and knowing all the right people.

Here are some samples of Russel's work:

Speak up, Nick, or We'll Think the Worst

The Selfish Generation

"Reasonable" expectations of privacy

Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis coined the phrase, ‘the right to be left alone.’ Apparently, in the year 1890, there were various troubling things to them that were impeding on personal property of individuals. Imagine if they could only see the world today.

First of all, people have embraced (sometimes with open arms) their lack of privacy. The world is an increasingly smaller place with fewer holes to hide in. This would be disturbing to Warren and Brandeis but how many of us really care?

When I Google my name, the first listing is my Facebook. The third listing is my ex-boyfriend’s Myspace. If I click on images, there are literally dozens of pictures of me that Google has pulled from my Facebook. And not just me, but my sisters, my friends, and even friends of my friends whom I don’t even know personally. So these social networking sites must not be that secure right? But so many of us don’t really care. My only halfhearted attempt at privacy is using my name that only my friend’s know I go by. If you Google just Sarah Moser, you won’t find a single picture of me. So maybe I do care a little bit.

My freshman year in college, I had a professor who warned us about social networking. Apparently burglars will create fake Facebook accounts and add people in their area, usually young women. Those young women tend to through parties, and post pictures of said parties. These pictures give the burglar clues to the inside of the house, as well has what kinds of things he can find there. Moral of the story: don’t put pictures of your house, your house’s location, your phone number or anything that can identify you and make you vulnerable.

Fortunately, we are grateful to live in a country that does recognize privacy to a certain extent. It’s what’s called a reasonable expectation of privacy. The more public a person you are, the less privacy you get to reasonably expect. The more public of a location you are in, the less privacy you can reasonably expect, as opposed to what you can expect from the comfort of your own home. So let’s say you are a non-public person, sitting on your couch at home, playing on Facebook. You are at home, so the expectation of privacy is pretty high. But you are also online, and suddenly you are bringing in a whole virtual world that Warren and Brandeis knew nothing about. Sure, you might be at home, but virtually you are in a hub bub of social activity. Think of it like the mall, or a park, or on a street downtown. Suddenly you aren’t alone anymore and how you act, or the things you might say, will be different than how you would act or talk while being at your house. This is what you need to understand about the online world – it is a public place. People can see you, hear you, follow you, and talk to you. You are not alone. So the reasonable expectation of privacy might not be what you thought it was. In light of that, take caution in the things you do online – because people can see you just as if you were shopping at the mall. If you have no problem wearing that skimpy bikini to the mall, or telling everyone about how you had too much to drink last night, then you might not have to evaluate your online behavior. But if that doesn’t sound like you, keep in mind that is exactly what you are doing online.

We the ppl

The other day I was standing in the kitchen of the retirement home I work at, talking to a fellow server. She, like me, is a student at the University of Oregon. While I can’t recall the context of the conversation exactly, I will never forget when she said that, “other ppl involved in the situation might think differently.”

Now, you might be wondering why I chose to abbreviate people. That seems rather unprofessional, right? You would never use such abbreviations when writing an article, or a paper to a professor, or a professional email, or while talking… Would you? Apparently not. Because that’s exactly what my co-worker did. She abbreviated ‘people’ while talking to me.

I want you now to say a sentence (maybe something like, ‘we the people’) but try abbreviating people. ‘We the ppl.’ It seriously takes more work to say ‘ppl’ than ‘people.’ Of course this isn’t the case in texting, which is why to my dismay, text messaging lingo was invented.

I never use text messaging lingo. I spell out all my ‘you’s,’ ‘see’s,’ ‘be’s’ and I will always ‘be right back,’ but never ‘brb.’ Honestly, my text messages usually follow AP Style. On top of that, I don’t text people that use this type of lingo and slang, because it drives me crazy. When did it become ok to spell night ‘nite?’ The word ‘cause’ is already a slang of ‘because,’ so what is up with ‘cuz?’

The truth of the matter is, I think text messaging lingo is almost dangerous to our society. Words are becoming extinct, and others are evolving into something far less sophisticated than what they started out as. When it becomes socially acceptable to use slang and abbreviations in emails, texts, and status updates, pretty soon it crosses over into college papers and every day speech. It kills off other, properly spelled words.

Words with more than three syllables practically live in a figurative museum. Let’s take a group of high school (or even college) kids and ask them to read the Declaration of Independence. Or The Constitution. It’s as if it is written in a different language! No one talks like that anymore – those words don’t even exist. Is this really for the better? If the founders of the Constitution were writing it today, it would undoubtedly read, ‘We the ppl.’

The worst thing about this all is that the demise of the English Language was predicted over 60 years ago by a man named George Orwell in his novel 1984. In the book, a new language is emerging called Newspeak. It is a reduced and simplified version of the language, getting rid of any superfluous and unnecessary words. We do this today – instead of saying something is more fun, it becomes funner. We don’t say it’s not fun, we say it’s unfun. It cannot be denied we are getting dangerously close to Newspeak via text messaging, and further away from our country’s heritage. And when no one can understand the Constitution anymore, who will be there to interpret it for us? IDK, but OMG Im sure we the ppl wont b the 1s.

Here are some videos to watch to prove my point a little more:

Me, Myself and I

Things we Say Wrong

Are Journalists human?

It seems like a silly question. Of course journalists are human. But should they be allowed to act like humans? I read an article posted by the New York Times just a few days ago. The author, Mathew Ingram, was critiquing a new standard for journalists by the American Society of News Editors. In a nut shell, journalists should refrain from social networking. This could mean anything from twitter to Facebook and even Myspace (which is still around I am told).

There have been cases of news editors and reporters losing their jobs over something they tweeted. Does anyone remember the video of President Obama calling Kanye West a jackass after he interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the VMA awards? That video was hilarious – it was such a real moment from the President but we only know about it because Terry Moran, a former White House Correspondant who worked for ABC tweeted it. The network immediately apologized for its employee’s careless behavior.

Apparently, Moran should have apologized for being human. If I were in the same room as the President and heard him say that, I would of course go and tell all my friends and family. It was funny. That’s exactly what this guy did, he also jut told all of his followers on Twitter. Apparently this is bad? Are we as journalists not allowed to separate our social lives from our professional lives? Maybe not, when so many headlines and stories are broken over social media networks (take, for example, the killing of Bin Laden). As a journalist trying to stay on the ball, you would be open to these social media, find your sources and get updated regularly on what’s going on.

So where does that leave a personal life? Or opinions? As journalists, are we working 24-7? Is there never a break? I guess you could answer this question by saying keep a journal; a blog could work too but still people can access your blog. Personally, I think it’s all a little over the top. Journalists are trained to report the facts. That doesn’t mean we don’t have opinions, we just tend to not let them show in our stories. But having something to say on an issue shouldn’t get you fired from your job. Being a social person shouldn’t be a bad thing. I am very perplexed by this whole issue to be honest. I agreed to be a journalist but I didn’t agree to give up my life. Or have feelings, opinions and emotions.

What if being a human being is what makes me a better writer? What if crying with the mom whose son has brain cancer, helps me write a better story? I am not a brick wall. I don’t think journalists should be. We should care about what we are writing about, have passion, have motivation and cry a little if you need to. This isn’t George Orwell’s 1984 – yet anyway. We are still allowed to be people and express ourselves.

Waiting for the big one

Last week in class, we got to skype with Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen K. Doig.

Doig was somewhat of a pioneer for Computer Assisted Reporting almost 20 years ago. It was interesting to hear about how things have changed over two decades. Doig said that if writing 'The Big One' today, initially the core question of the investigation – was this an act of God or something preventable – would still be the same. However what took almost three months to produce could be done in days. These days the data is easier to get to, more things are available electronically and the computer power is much stronger. But it is the inquisitive nature of a journalist that hasn’t changed.

Essentially Doig just had an interest in doing a data based story. He had no backgrounds in computers, just a little curiosity. It’s refreshing to know that one doesn’t have to have a background in math or science to be successful at computer assisted reporting. All you have to have is an interest in computers.

However, stories have to go a little further than having an interest. There has to be an element of human interest. If people don’t care about your story, why bother writing it? In this case, Doig found a story he knew was important to people and that’s why it was successful.

Doig also had things to say about what skills journalists need today. “Despite all talk of modern technology, computer assisted analysis does not replace traditional journalism; going out and talking to people,” he said. “They are vitally important.”

He encouraged every reporter to have passing knowledge of spreadsheets such as Microsoft excel. “Using paper is doing it the hard way,” he said. “Eighty-90 percent of stories can be doing using excel.”

However, Doig also said not to panic if you are not an expert. “No matter what beat you wind up doing, you will be working in an environment where basic data skills will be required,” he said. “There is a demand in journalism no matter what form. There are so many options for being a master in journalism – you don’t need to use all of them. Find the tools you are comfortable with, get good at them and find the opportunities to use them. You will wind up in the place you are meant to be.”

Times are a Changing

It’s incredible how fast the media changes and adapts. I was thinking about this today when I was trying to remember my twitter account password. I think I had a twitter my freshman year, mainly to follow famous people or characters on TV shows. My sister talked me into it and frankly I thought it was pretty stupid.

Then I was taking a class where it was mandatory to read the New York Times every day. This required either spending $80 on a subscription or getting to campus early enough to pick up a complementary issue before they were swooped up. I will shame ably admit I wasn’t much for reading the NY Times in print. It’s very massive and wordy and frankly displeasing to my eyes for some reason. So, I went the twitter route. I started following the NY Times and getting their little updates all day, every day. This was a lot easier than sifting through several pages every morning; I could scroll through the list and click on anything that piqued my interest.

This only lasted for maybe a term though. Twitter still couldn’t keep my interest. About a year later I had classmates telling me their teachers were having them cover events and give live twitter updates. I was dumbfounded. These classes were the same ones I had taken, only I had to go to the event and turn around a story before midnight. I can honestly say I have never taken a class where I have had to use twitter as homework. But students only a year behind me have. That’s how fast things change in the world of technology and media. By the time my sister gets to the School of Journalism in 2012 it will be a completely different ball game. My 2009 style book will like that pathetic 2003 version floating around the editing lab at Allen Hall. People pick it up when they want a good laugh.

Such is life. Should I re-enact my twitter account? Eh, one thing at a time I think. I am just finally (and still with slight trepidation) succumbing to the world of blogging. Part of me feels that blogging is going against everything I believe in, but the other part of me that kept a journal nearly every day for almost ten years likes the casualness of it all. A classmate of mine once said she can write the story for the newspaper but she needs her blog to reflect and get her personal thoughts out. Maybe blogs are more like diaries. I know one thing, in the short time I have been blogging and researching blogs, I have found some really great ones that I will continue to follow. I have a feeling this won’t be a fleeting fad like my twitter account.

And now that Facebook is being more hands-on in the journalism world, I will have to stay connected. I admit I am extremely fond of my Facebook and eager to see the things they come up with to keep journalists and sources connected. The world is getting increasingly smaller with time. Journalists will develop interconnected online communities to share news and find sources. As The Next Web put it, with the help of Facebook, “journalists can create communities of mini news reporters, that will use the page to post information they find in their area, whether this is geographical or within a particular industry.”

Journalists are going to have to get on board to stay on top. I don’t want to graduate from college and already be behind…

Loaded Words

It would never be professional to call someone weird, creepy or lewd to their face while conducting an interview. So it’s certainly never okay to put things in a news story. This seems obvious doesn’t it? But six newspapers, The Sun, Daily Mirror, Daily Star, Daily Express, Daily Mail and Daily Record, are learning this the hard way after being sued for libel following the Joanna Yeates case.

Yeates, a 25-year-old landscape architect in Hampshire, England went missing last December. Her body was found several days later showing signs of strangulation. Her neighbor was arrested and charged with her murder the following month.

However, her land lord, Christopher Jefferies, was also questioned during the case and the press had a field day. Playing private-eye, these six papers went so far as to use anonymous sources calling Jefferies creepy or strange. Another ran a head line reading “Strange Mr. Jeffries.”

Blogger Roy Greenslade called it character assassination on the part of the media.

I remember going over the case study in class where a Chinese-food restaurant burned down and a Seattle paper thought they found the arsonist. However they held onto the story pending further investigation and another paper beat them to the punch. My professor asked his students if they would have ran the story or held onto it a bit longer before accusing who they thought was the man in charge. I was in the boat that said run it.

But what if they had been wrong? Look at the kind of damage jumping to conclusions can do. I think journalists are great investigators but you must do it in a way that is not incriminating. Words like creepy, posh, strange, eccentric and unkempt do not have neutral connotations. Sure many of these words were used in quote by anonymous students or neighbors but why would you trust an anonymous source?

There should be more than just a fine line between news reporting and tabloids. This case is a clear example of where reporters and newspapers got it wrong. They accused the wrong man through loaded words and anonymous sources and it hurt this man’s reputation.

Freedom of the press is a beautiful thing and something we should not take for granted, but it is also comforting to know that citizens can take actions against the press when they have overstepped their boundaries. No one is above the law.