In the last few weeks, as a class we began learning about Media Law and Fake News. The entire time was interesting from start to end and it helped me figure out where I might want to go with the rest of my life, although I still don't know entirely. A fair few of these concepts I knew of beforehand but some I didn't and I feel like it's right to give them their own spotlight in my reflection.
Media Law was the one topic I knew the least about, when we started the entire thing I felt confused because I hadn't heard of any of these concepts, such as Shield Law and the moral decisions of protecting a source's anonymity. Shield Law helped me understand a lot about what I can and cannot do when it comes to my own sources, I didn't even know originally that you could use an anonymous source. The moral dilemma that comes with protecting them was something I wasn't sure if I could even do though. I've always been someone who tries to test their morals although I don't really test them in a real life scenario, mostly just in things like games where you can test them and it wont hurt anything around you in the real world, despite it being a game I always feel like I am doing something wrong and I think I can contribute this to not knowing what would be right or wrong in the eyes of most other people, and this is something that Media Law can get touchy on, especially with things like Obscenities where it might not be seen as obscene to you but it is to others. Although the biggest part of obscenity you might be able to see, like in the case of
Matthew Fraser's speech which was a very obvious form of obscenity, and sometimes you don't know if something will come off as obscene to some people and you don't know where right or wrong is, especially with your jokes. The main thing I learned from that in the field of avoiding a piece being called obscene is to cut down on anything that might be offensive, but don't cut down too much.
You're words as a journalist can have real effects and you need to watch what you say and understand what it could do to another person, and Libel and Slander are a great thing to understand if you're writing a piece about someone. You don't want to be talking bad about someone or telling a lie and then have them come at you for libel. The only way I learned you can be sued for libel is if you can very clearly tell who the person you are talking bad about is and if they can prove what you're saying is false, meaning you should watch your wording when writing about something that could possibly be fake such as with a developing story or when using a source who you don't know well.
The Fake News portion of class was a really interesting area with all its specification and small things that distinguish it from normal journalism. The movie
Shattered Glass showed a great example of fake news and how it's sometimes hard to put fake news apart from real news. It did show that sometimes everything isn't always big and eventful and checking sources for articles is always a good idea. The movie showed journalist Stephen Glass and his life as a journalist. The movie started off with everyone loving him and how his stories are always smash hits, at this point no one knew they were faked. Later in the movie though when his editor got fired and one of Stephens newest articles was put in the spotlight by Forbes, the new editor had asked Stephen for his sources, which he provided, but when he went and checked them he found they were rather suspicious and consisted of things like a poorly made website and a phone number that was in California and not Nevada. It progressed to the state of him being accused by his new editor of making up his stories and their sources. What I mainly got from it was that fake news is very hard to find unless you do your own research, and it can also be used to spread false thoughts around. The other parts of this subject also helped me understand it a bit more than the movie did though.
Our presentations helped me understand where these kinds of things are spread and how they make it around the world, such as with fake news which disguises itself as actual news. Learning of the different forms of it that exist in the things we use everyday was interesting and learning how to avoid things like bots, and fake news stories was really interesting and it gave me a whole new perspective on the news that I see on websites that I visit on a daily basis. Although I found the presentations helpful it was really the packet we did that helped me understand the whole idea of Fake News, including things I hadn't heard of like Partisan and Sensational News which both showed me how things can be made up and used just to get clicks. The one that I had heard the least of was Partisan news though, before then I had never heard it called that and almost never noticed it, but learning that it was all about some news organisations having a perceived political tie and them showing a bit of a bias towards their political side really made me rethink a lot of things I have read in the recent weeks. With the knowledge I got from this subject really made me think about what I'm reading and what I write as well as who I source for information. Using this I could even find out things that are fake and things that have heavy bias so I can form my own opinion on a subject and keep myself well informed and not spouting things that I've heard from a news organisation that only writes phony articles or extremely biased articles.
