Dream Car, Dream Mobile Phone

I am an eyewitness of how technology has changed the reporter work. From carrying the manual camera to a digital one, from previously going back to the newsroom to write scripts, but now using laptop to send script back to the office, the work of the reporter has kept on changing in terms of speed, efficiency, and the quality of news content by utilising better and more advanced equipment.

Since three years ago, my television station, NTV7, has been working with Digi, a telecommunications company, on the “Mobile TV” project to reach wider viewers.

The users will be able to enjoy dramas, comedies, reality shows and documentaries anywhere and any time of the day (as long as ntv7 is aired) via the Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution (Edge) enabled handsets.

The Mobile TV service is the optimum service for our viewers who place a premium on being kept informed and enjoy entertainment with us on our high speed mobile network. This would mean seamless connection with good reception.

In fact, viewers need specific enabled mobile phones to watch TV programmes. For instance, in the case of Digi Telecommunications’ service, viewers need the Nokia 6230 series (now is Nokia N80). It,however,is not equipped with a large screen.

However, trials conducted in the Netherlands reveal that the screen size does not pose an obstacle to watching a TV broadcast on a mobile phone—the image is sharp enough to show a quick pass between footballs during a televised football game, and to read the subtitles.

I believe that with this vastly improved technology, miniature television may soon be the next mobile craze.

Apart from this, currently, my station is using the Internet to transmit the video footage which is shot by the stingers from other states. The transmission is simple, just upload and download the footages. The problem is--it is obviously not clear and sharp like the original one. Before this, the footages have to take few hours to reach the TV station,because they are transported by the airplane or train, and later collected by the dispatch staff.

Technology always gives us surprises, beyond our imagination. Like the latest newsgathering technologies-- NewsGear which assembles the most innovative and practical tools for multi-skilled journalists.

It like a gospel for the newspaper. Newspapers can now have their own version of the remote truck—send journalists out to a major news scene in a vehicle that could help them collect, manage and feed pictures, video, text and other content back to the newsroom for use in real time.

A complete mobile online newsroom is built into the remote truck--a Volvo XC 90.So now NewsGear’s cross-media journalists have all the tools necessary to cover a news event in real time and in every possible format, plus they can reach their destination at 210 kph.

Mobile online newsroom is like a dream car for multimedia journalists.

The first NewsGear kit was created in 1998. It contained all the tools needed for a journalist to deliver text, photos, graphics and video news content. Everything fitted into a standard airline-size roll-on bag. The total cost was less than 10,000 USD.

Without the Volvo car, 10,000 USD for the NewsGear kit is reasonable.Is there a possiblity to find another vehicle which is more affordable for the media company from developing countries?

Besides,the multimedia tool for journalist will be the Nokia N80.It is a wirelessly networked webcam to stream live video and audio back to the newspaper or even directly to the Internet Editors in the newsroom who can even remotely pan, tilt and zoom the camera to zero in on the action.

With Nokia N80 mobile phones,reporter can also connect via WiFi to deliver podcast audio, VGA video or 3-megapixel pictures. A television tuner in a USB stick lets a journalist monitor local broadcasts on a laptop.

But,not many reporters can afford to buy the latest mobile phones--Nokia N80. It is costly--RM 1,600, which is equivalent to a reporter's one monthly salary.

However, I hope the times will change, and our vision to own our dream car-- "Mobile online newsroom" and dream mobile phone--Nokia N80,were materialize.

Death of Malaysian media?

I would like to share with you the recent's article-- "Death of Malaysian media?" written by Dr Azly Rahman, the columnist of Malaysiakini.com. It made me think about how much longer will Malaysia's newspapers and television survive in the state propaganda environment?

(source: http://www.malaysiakini.com/columns/62410)

“All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.” (Noam Chomsky)

“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.” (Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826)

Is the death of distance nearer to us than our jugular vein?

Which stream is the mainstream media drowning in? It has forced us to drink too much from the River of Forgetfulness. It has shaped the consciousness of Malaysian citizens - they are now happily indoctrinated, blessed to be alive in a totalitarian state and constantly reminded by the state to count their blessings.

Nicollo Machiavelli once said that, to maintain power, pretend that you are religious and moral, even if you are allowing the Devil within to take charge.

That public image must be doctored by the media, the fourth estate. ‘Perception management’ is big business, especially in this age of political makeovers.

The business of Asian-despotic style of journalism is to tell doctored, nursed, and massaged truths that mask the ugliness of class and the modern caste system.

Perhaps our system of education has helped us become educated at a level enough to consume truth that is produced by the state-owned media companies - to have enough education to believe that what is real is actually an illusion constructed by those who owns the means of constructing reality.

Basic literacy means to have enough skills to read the newspapers, never having the skills to question the truth produced by these artifacts of state-propaganda.
Totalitarian regimes thrives on a seemingly ‘free media’. When the media become conglomerates and giants, gobbling up small alternative media that tells alternative truths, the people will be in danger. The media becomes a King Kong atop the Empire State building, arrogantly pounding its chest after gobbling up production-houses of little truths.

When media control becomes interlocked with political parties and business interests, the selling of lies and half-truths become more savvy, sophisticated and salivating. The story of poverty and why people become poor will not be told - the truth will hurt and bring governments down.

In the movie ‘Entrapment’, starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones, this point is made clear: we allow Hollywood to promote the Petronas Twin Towers and we make sure that the world does not see the ugliness of our bantusaan/setinggan areas.

But the point on the print and broadcast media was mainly relevant before the advent of the Internet - before the birth and proliferation of bloggers. We now have a post-modern condition that threatens the survival of whatever dignity and respect is left of the government-controlled media. Welcome to the age of the imminent death of state propaganda.

The story of how we discriminate flood victims and take advantage of the helpless will be told in greater detail. The story of how much we pay our voters in a democracy that is hideously deformed will be narrated, published, and pod-casted.

We are all, in our own way, turning into journalists telling our own truth. We will soon no longer need daily newspapers to tell us half-truths. We need our cell-phone cameras, our blogs, and our will to speak truth to power.

The Internet is now such a powerful medium that it is threatening the print media - the Gutenberg creation that is being crushed under its own weight. Never underestimate how the Internet will become a powerful tool that will transform nations or even bring down corrupt governments.

I recall in the summer of 1998, in a discussion with classmates interested in anthropology at Columbia University. I presented a scenario of the changes in Malaysia as the nation becomes ‘cybernated’.

Taking the Laman Reformasi and Free Anwar websites as cases in point, I argued that this will be the next wave of democracy and free speech. It is going to be a war between the Grand and the Subaltern narratives, between Print and Digital Technology, between the elite of the print media and the digital proletariats.

Manuel Castells, Lorenzo Simpson, and Robert McClintock - scholars of Internet and social change - have written a great deal on this.

The fast rate of Internet penetration in Malaysia will see the proliferation of ‘citizen journalists and commentators’ who will continue to exercise their rights to free speech. Nothing can stop the bloggers from providing alternative truths or truths that matter or even - as of late - truths and nothing the truths.

The bedrock of the print media will be shaken as the microbes of voices in the wilderness continue to brew. The screenshots of social change will become a collage of radical social criticism and become a tapestry of voices of conscience that will engulf print media from head to toe. Such is the case of the metaphor of change as embodied in the recent zeroing in on Rocky’s Bru and Screenshots.
There is a sense of panic, fear and trembling of the world of Print and Broadcast Literacy that Cyberspace a.k. a. the Internet is threatening the foundation of how knowledge is produced and propaganda crafted.

All government newspapers are tools of state propaganda. Even a first-year Universiti Sains Malaysia student of journalism can tell us that. Even a padi farmer in Arau can preach that pertinent point to his children. Those who buy and read government-owned newspapers are news junkies subjecting themselves to Official Knowledge crafted to suit the need of the owners of the means of producing propaganda.

All government newspapers are used to skillfully silence and kill opposing viewpoints, albeit couched in some proclamation of free speech. It has been used to engineer risings, uprisings and downfalls. It has been bought and sold by those who have the means to buy and sell politicians.

The same goes for the government-owned television stations. They are shapers of consciousness. As a professor of media Neil Postman once said about television, "… thanks to television… our children (have) four eyes and no mouth".

Look at what is shown on television. What are our children watching? How much are they reading? How much junk is being funneled daily into the heads of our children? Through the television programmes, how much money is spent by advertisers to shape us and our children into consumers; those who buy things they do not need and consequently suffer by having to crave for objects of desire that define the symbols of social class they are in?

How many television channels do one need? Who benefits from the selling of mental junk to our children?

Can't we Malaysians organise a week of no-newspapers and a week of no-television campaigns to teach us to flush out junk from our consciousness?

The print and broadcast media has become tools of mental domination and purveyor of the post-modern totalitarianism. Those who participate in owning, writing, producing, editing and selling the ideology are partners with the regime of totalitarianism. They have become a citizen of the state of ‘Oceania’ as in George Orwell's novel 1984. They are, in the word of media theorist Stuart Hall, decoders and encoders of state propaganda.

The Internet is different. It is a protean technology – it is multi-medium and still has the potential for more interactivity. It speaks to us and lets us speak - unlike newspapers, radio and television.

The death of distance is near. How much longer will newspapers and television survive?.

(DR AZLY RAHMAN is a transcultural philosopher rooted in the tradition of Critical and Chaos Theory. Born in Singapore, raised in Johor Baru, he was a child of Malaysia's experiment in humanistic education: Maktab Rendah Sains MARA Kuantan.He can be reached at: aar26@columbia.edu )

Defamation suit to test the limits of freedom of speech in cyberspace

(photo source: Malaysiakini.com)
It could be the first case for blogger being sued in Malaysia. Two popular bloggers, Jeff Ooi and Rocky Bru, received a defamation suits from giant media group, The New Straits Time Press recently. The Centre for Independent Journalists (CIJ) has initiated an endorsed joint action campaign in the run-up to a press conference on Monday, January 22.CIJ believed that it is a blatant action to curb our freedom of expression, information and thoughts.

Give support to them by endorsement:
http://www.cijmalaysia.org/

Read the related news
http://wwww.malaysiakini.com/news/62380


Surf their blogs
Jeff Ooi runs Screenshots, http://jeffooi.com/
Ahirudin runs Rocky’s Bru , http://rockybru.blogspot.com/

They changed the way that reporters work

The recent December floods in Johor, south Malaysia, bought havoc and destruction in term of human life and property. Rapid rising floodwaters caught the residents unawares, and many were stranded in ceilings and roof top.

A blogger set up a Chinese-language blog(www.segamat.8talk.net/)and reports on the flood situation in Segamat. He used mobile phone to take photos and posted it to his blog. Apart from this, he also uploaded the flood’s video clip that was taken by some university student. The blog also provided vital information on affected flood areas, water levels and route guides.

The blogger exposed that army is demanding RM250 from the flood victims in return for aid to cross the river by boat. A Member of Parliament, Teresa Kok (http://teresakok.com) who viewed this message in the blog, released a press statement to all the media, urged the government to investigate this matter. However, the Defence Minister denied the allegation.

A Chinese newspaper, Huang Ming daily, interviewed the flood victim, Wong Yee Ken in Segamat. Wong confirmed a military officer took bribe from him during the flood on December 31, 2006. Consequently, he lodged a police report on how he was forced to bribe a military officer to take food and drinks to his customers and staff who were trapped in his hair salon and also to rescue them. Now an investigation is pending.

In this case, it showed the impact of citizens or bloggers using mobile phone, digital camera to capture images, or exposing scandal either sending them to media or posting it to their own blog, play an important role in revealing information to the public. Many Malaysia news organizations turned to photographs or video clip taken by amateurs to supplement coverage of event like the recent case of the visual of a women detainee forced to do nude squats in a police lock-up and several violence involving students in schools.

Malaysian famous blogger,Jeff Ooi said,the citizens’ submission to media will not be as moblogger or blogger –too gratification for the citizens. When the photographs or video clip go to mainstream, the editors will review the submissions and select some to place on pages with relevant news articles, just as professional photographs and video clips are woven into their news sites today.

Another question that has to be raised is whether sufficient verification of these incidents was first carried out. In view of the sophistication involved in manipulating pictures and video, so the media should verify the accuracy and truthfulness of the photograph, video footage, source and information.

At all times, the privacy and right of the individual should be considered when media or blogger use photos or video footages taken by amateurs to supplement the media coverage.

Shrinking Freedom in Cyberspace

Malaysia's government pledged to allow the internet to be free from censorship while setting up the Mutimedia Super Corrider in few year ago, thus, compared to the mainstream media, independent online news sites and bloggers have been pushing the limits of what they can freely report and say over the Internet, but the future of cyberspace increasing bleak.

The raid on Malaysiakini has served as a rude wake-up call to those who have been complacent in thinking that the Internet was safe and free by virtue of the government’s promise of no-censorship.

In January 2003, responding to a complaint from the youth wing of the ruling United Malays National Party (UMNO), police from a special "computer crimes" department entered the Malaysiakini offices in Kuala Lumpur, interrogated several journalists and seized all of the company's computers.

Police officers told the staff the computers would be held and searched for evidence in a possible sedition case to be brought against the online newspaper. But the Malaysiakini website started operating later that evening after police officers left its premises.

In 2005, editor of Malaysia Today, Raja Petra Kamaruddin, who was under police probe over alleged seditious reports carried by the website, had his two computers confiscated. The action was taken following a police report lodged by the Negeri Sembilan royal family claiming the website reported corruption and misconduct of the royal family.

Besides online news portal, famous blogger Jeff Ooi also was hauled in for questioning by police who were investigating an allegedly contentious comment posted months earlier on his weblog--Screenshots.

Ooi made a remark relating "civilization Islam", or Islam Hadhari, and money politics to water and oil, implying that the two concepts do not mix. A reader identified himself as “Anwar” responded by arguing that faeces and urine, instead of oil and water, should be drawn as the analogy. Despite Ooi swift response in rebuking the writer and banning him from further posting, Ooi received a police summons issued under the Penal Code that "prohibits actions or conduct that could cause disharmony in society".

From time to time, authorities have threatened to take action against online portals owners, webmasters, and bloggers for purposely spreading “false news and defamatory material” or for bringing up “sensitive issues” on the Internet.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has been issued a warning-those who spread untruths and slander on the Internet will face the law. “If information in blogs, websites and online portals were incorrect, bordered on slander, caused disturbance or compelled the public to lose faith in the nation’s economic policies, their authors would be detained for investigative.”

It seem the Malaysian authorities appear to be pushing back the alternate form of expression, and would be reneging on a promise made by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad "to never censor the Internet" in his quest to make Malaysia a global online multi-media hub.

Citizen Journalism: Empower Citizen to be a Reporter

I still remembered Miss Chay Hofilena, our lecturer in last semester told us the origin of Citizen Journalism:

“Citizen Journalism is a reaction of the public to mainstream journalism's failings. We may regard it as an attempt to reassert their right to access and provide information which they feel the media have not provided adequately. Thus, it is right in saying the citizen journalism democratizes information and even the news process which has been the exclusive domain of journalists for the longest time.”

From 9/11 terrorist attacks, tsunami, flooding, hurricanes, bombing, to national election, Citizen Journalism has opened the door to a free flow of information. It also turns the journalism from the single to multiple sources of information.

According to Samuel Freedman, Citizen Journalism is refers to anybody with a video camera or cell-phone or blog who posts photographs, live-action film, or written reports on news events. It also represents a democratization of media, a shattering of the power of the unelected elite, the ordinary citizen can be empower to be a journalist, we can call them "Netizens".

In Malaysia, some newspapers started to ask the readers or viewers to provide photos, video clip or other imagines to publish or broadcast on their media.

The most influential Malaysia’s blogger, Jeff Ooi of http://www.jeffooi.com/, is becoming an “opinion shaper” on discussing over the sensitive issues. It always challenged the credibility of the mainstream newspapers in a critical manner when the mainstream media are trying to play down some public issues.

Besides Jeff Ooi, former journalist Susan Loone (http://sloone.wordpress.com/) also has been blogging to bring out series of stories from the different angle on the murder case of Mongolian model, Altantuya.

Citizen journalist poses new challenges to mainstream media, country's press system and media policy.

I agree with Mark Glaser, in the paper of “Your Guide to Citizen Journalism”, he stated that “journalism is undergoing its reformational moment. By that I mean that the internet is affecting journalism just as the printing press affected the Church—people are bypassing the sacrosanct authority of the journalist in the same way as Luther asserted that individuals could have a direct relationship with God without the intermediary of the priest. The internet has disintermediated middlemen in other industries, why should journalism be immue?” As such, Mark Glaser believed it is a positive thing for journalism, because it enables something journalism has lacked: competition from the very public we serve.

However, Mark Glaser did not discuss the question have been posed by the citizen journalism: the competence of the citizen journalist and clutter of information and whether these would aid the quality of public discourse or discussion. How the amateur journalist be trained to report a news? How the citizen journalism media keep the high standards of gate-keeping and principle of journalism?

story 1:Indigenous people protest against logging(print style)

By Joshua Wong

Kuala Lumpur: On Sunday, some 300 Orang Asli (indigenous people) from Semelai community staged a protest against a contractor who had allegedly logged 400 tonnes of timber from their ancestral land in Bera, Pahang.

The community from Bukit Rok Village and Ibam Village had camped at the only exit leading to the site where the timbers were allegedly logged.

They repeatedly chanted slogans such as “We love our land. Do not encroach our land! “(Kami sayang tanah kami! Jangan cerobohkan Tanah Kami!), “We have been oppressed. We will uphold our right!” (saya orang ditindas! Kami mempertahankan hak kami.) had kept the protesters in the high spirits.

The community claimed that the logger had encroached at least 69.8 hectare out of 2,023.47 hectare of the land which was recorded by the Department of Orang Asli (JHEOA).

The villagers also claimed that trees and other natural resources which they depend on traditionally to make ends meet, were infringed due to the logging activities.

“I fell upset when they cut down my trees. We used to extract resin from the keruning trees in the area. But now we have to stop. This has drastically affected our livelihood” said Pak Long who has been collecting the resins for 25 years.

The logging company Amir Timber Trading which was embroiled in the controversy denied the allegation.

The company claimed the state forestry department had granted them a permit to log an estimated 1,000 tonnes of timber from the site for one year.

Centre for Orang Asli Cencerns director Colin Nicholas pointed out that the tussle was due to the authorities’ failure to protect the ancestral land.

He said the state government has yet to gazette the lands that had been categorised as indigenous people reserve land.

"Their land rights are not recognised. The state authorities are allowing logs to be taken from the area. It is negligence on the part of the state government for not gazetting the land or protect Orang Asli victims (in the incident),” he said.

Nevertheless, the protest ended after a six-hour long negotiation between the villagers and the authorities including Bera parliamentarian Ismail Sabri and the police.

“All parties have agreed that logging will be stopped. Those trees that had already been logged could be brought out of the site,” Ismail told reporters after the meeting.

It was also agreed that a meeting with officials from the state forestry department, the land office, the JHEOA and the contactor will be called in the following week to determine the actual status of the land.