Wikileaks Intern Tell-All
Self described: “After pursuing the members of WikiLeaks, I was asked to intern for them on the weekend of the unveiling of the Iraq War Logs in October. I found myself in a Paddington office ringing up NGOs, other volunteers slogging through the list of the press that would be attending the press conference tomorrow. Everyone is an unpaid volunteer, and does it either because they believe in what WikiLeaks is doing, or because they are fascinated by the organisation and Assange, this strange, lanky Australian man. I was definitely with the latter. After the Afghan War Diary of 92,000 documents was released in July 2010, I was angry and confused. How could they release these unredacted documents, knowing they were putting informants’ lives at risk? Having met the man in charge, and seen the serious redaction of the most recent leak, I am still undecided.”
The part of the story that really caught my eye is the reference to Wikileaks being real, raw journalism. It indirectly accuses the entire media industry of being fluffed up.
“Kristinn described what they did as ‘raw journalism’, and an early ideal of the organisation would, according to the former spokesman, ‘create a revolutionary spirit… of digging out the dirt on governments.’ They see themselves as investigative journalists, doing what regular journalists can’t or won’t. And they forensically research the documents they leak, getting specialists to help ascertain their authenticity. Julian told me that the ultimate purpose of WikiLeaks was ‘to promote justice around the world’.”
The whole story can be read at:
http://www.isismagazine.org.uk/2010/12/the-war-on-secrets/
TIME questioned for cover story of Sarah Palin
A cover story featuring Sarah Palin has been blasted because the interview was conducted over e-mail. Critics accuse that there is no way to ascertain that Palin herself actually answered the questions. In addition, the story does not identify that the interview is being conducted by e-mail until the 8th paragraph where it says, “who answered questions from TIME via e-mail.”
The salon article criticizing the decision said, “An e-mail interview easily allows the subject to avoid getting tripped up by tough questions and completely ignore unwelcome follow-ups. Palin’s media strategy is all about limiting exposure and making sure every appearance is on her own terms and in her comfort zone. That strategy requires a press so desperate for the attention Palin content generates that they bend over backward for her — and it looks like it’s all working perfectly, so far.”
The entire criticism can be read here: http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/12/10/palin_time_email/.
Blue Ocean Strategy
W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne’s work, Blue Ocean Strategy, differentiates blue ocean strategy from red ocean strategy to argue the merit and superiority of the blue ocean strategy. Red oceans are defined by an industry with crowded market space resulting in a bloody, cutthroat competition of reduced profits and growth. Blue oceans, however, are defined by “untapped market space” created by expanding existing industry boundaries to reach new levels of profit and growth. Blue oceans are increasing necessary because of increased competition from globalization and every day low prices.
The underlying theme of blue ocean strategy is “value innovation.” Value innovation is defined as, “creating a leap in value for consumers to create new market space.” It is achieved by the alignment of utility, price and cost. Rather than seeing low cost and great value as a trade-off, blue ocean strategy drives costs down while driving value up.
A good strategy is defined by three characteristics, focus, divergence and a clear tagline. A good strategy focuses on a small set of factors rather than competing across all factors. Cirque de Soleil focused on drama and theatre rather than the traditional circus that focused on animals and star performers. A good strategy diverges itself from the traditional competition by looking across alternatives. Yellow Tail Wine differentiated itself from other wines by bringing in factors traditionally seen in the cocktail market. The wine was created to be simple and fun. Lastly a clear tagline that delivers a truthful promise to the consumer makes the brand easy to conceptualize.
Internet censorship in China
Jingjing and Chacha are the two words that combined form the word police in chinese and they are also the names of the cartoon characters that are used by the Chinese authorities throughout the internet to remind Chinese people that they are being watched.
Basically in China you can be sent to labour camp for “reeducation” for posting online anything against the government. Any website Chinese or not, that promotes anything that is considered inappropriate by the chinese authorities is blocked. So the list of blocked websites continues to grow; Youtube, Flickr, Facebook, Blogspot, Wikipedia are just a few examples.
However, young chinese people are familiar with ways to go around the blocks which makes the number of Chinese people accessing “forbidden” websites hard to measure. Despite the jingjing and chacha many chinese people are still finding ways to get real news from inside China and the world.
After learning all this is hard not to wonder what the future of the Chinese people will be as they get more exposure to the outside world. Who knows, maybe democracy will slowly creep in as more Chinese get exposed to the outside world.
Auladdin, Malik, Michel and Toshe
Ethical and Management Case: Comcast & NBCU Merger
Aleksandra Dukovska, Chinkhand Dorj, Melissa Silva, Javed Afridi
For almost one year public opinion in America is divided over the case of Comcast and NBCU deal for a joint business venture and what that concentration will mean for the diversity of voices. Our joint research paper shows the ethical dilemma whether this merger will serve public interest or not. In favor of the Comcast and NBCU merger is Congressman Bobby Rush who is asking from FCC and DOJ to approve the agreement. U.S Senator for Vermont Bernie Sanders asked from FCC to oppose the merger of NBCU and Comcast.
He believes in media diversity and questions the media concentration. Senator Sanders’s column in Politico wrote that citizens need more diverse information and sources of news. The Federal Communication Commission should make the final decision on the future of the Comcast and NBCU merger and decide upon the ethical dilemma whether this merger will serve to the public interest or it will not. (NBC-Comcast not in public interest (2010, December 6).
The FCC’s informal merger review clock on the Comcast-NBC Universal deal expired on November 23, 2010 two weeks ago. Most observers are expecting that the final word out of the FCC and Justice Department closer to this year-end or in early 2011. It means the FCC does not want to make a quick decision to approve the merger of NBCU and Comcast. FCC does not want to make a quick decision to approve the merger of NBCU and Comcast.
The Commission’s review of this transaction has been extremely thorough and has afforded all interested parties ample opportunity to review the record and present their arguments and evidence. News of NBC CEO, Jeff Zucker, stepping down to allow Comcast COO, Steve Burke, to lead the merged Comcast-NBC resulted in an uproar among NBC employees.
While there is little overlap among responsibilities between NBC and Comcast employees, implying there will be few layoffs, the executive level will require an overhaul of the management structure. The management structure is an ethical dilemma for the merged companies because the executives are the future decision-makers of the company and directly affect the company’s future success. Steve Zucker’s responsibility, for example, to place people into the companies’ leadership positions was a failure and led to the decline of NBC entertainment holdings (“Jeff Zucker,” 2010).
Employees object to radical changes in the seniority system that will endanger the livelihood of many long time employees. In reaction, NBCU has acted to reduce the proportion of union workers in their workforce. This could hurt the company as NABET/CWA members are the most experienced and capable television production workers.
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