JOUR1111 Annotated Bibliography

Excluding the academic text, the story I chose to cover is the event of the teenager Madeleine Pulver’s ordeal with a collar bomb strapped to her neck.

Academic text
Withnall, J., Harris, R. (1998) Principles for further education in professional communication: Continuing education or postgraduate degrees? Research Online, Asia Pacific Media Educator, Issue No. 5
Janice Withnall and Rebecca Harris, associated (further information not given) with the University of Western Sydney and the University of Technology, Sydney (respectively) explored ‘what journalists and public relations practitioners looked for when pursuing a higher degree’ in their study, to further research the proper education development of professional communication. Their study researched/designed a professional communication postgraduate program composed of learner-centred curriculum. The article mainly focused on this research; that communication in journalism and public relations should be taught on a higher and more professional level. The article believed that journalism was statistically an under-educated career, and that practitioners should have more professional educations/qualifications:
‘We would argue, in the context of the continuing education options for journalism and public relations, that practitioners need not only advanced level skills such as those that come from knowledge and practice, but also a deeper understanding of a range of issues that comes from the study of facts, truths and principles.’ (Postgraduate Education, para 6. Lines 1-6)
The content, while out-dated (published in 1998), was mainly credible in its statements, referencing where appropriate and outlining factors in order to contextualise their colloquy. A few sections were stated without foundation or sources, such as journalism and public relations being treated inappropriately in educational circles, but apart from that the article was accurate and precise.


Budd, H., Cuneo, C., Morri, M. (06/08/2011) The latest developments in the Madeleine Pulver collar bomb hoax case, The Daily Telegraph.

Henry Budd, Clementine Cuneo, and Mark Morri bring their best to this printed article by the Daily Telegraph. This story examines the aftermath of the now famous Mosman schoolgirl Madeleine Pulver’s harrowing experience with an extortionist and a collar bomb, as well as how the Pulver family is coping with the stress. The article outlined the most recent events that transpired for the family, and explained the events of the day that unfolded following the incident, using a timeline of the progress on the arrest of the alleged extortioner. In terms of the medium, the deliverance is excellent. No direct opinion is shown, and appears to be well written and thought out, an antonym of churnalism or yellow journalism. As much of the family was interviewed, as no other newspaper reported interviews with anyone else intimately involved, and included recent news of how the then-alleged suspect Paul Peters was identified and arrested. This is in contrast to The Daily Beast’s David Leser, who, while an experienced journalist that accurately told the event, regularly dramatised the situation with emotional writing (‘…Pulver sat terrified and transfixed in her family home’…‘You would never expect it to happen in real life in Australia’).


Leser, D. (04/08/2011) Australia’s Collar-Bomb Hoax, The Daily Beast, retrieved from http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/04/madeleine-pulver-transfixed-for-10-hours-in-australia-collar-bomb-hoax.html

David Leser, multi-award winning journalist and writer for many major Australian newspapers as well as the online Daily Beast, gives his report on the Pulver collar-bomb story. The story was older than the Daily Telegraph’s article, and any possible suspect’s names hadn’t been confirmed or named yet at the time of publication, so Leser was unable to comment on the arrest of Paul Peters. While the grammar is slightly inconsistent, the story is well written and credible, giving opinions of both the family and the personnel involved with the case (i.e. the police, prime minister). The angle of the story strongly shows opinion in its sympathy with the Pulver family, specifically the schoolgirl Madeleine, and her experience with the ordeal. This story is similar to Simon Bouda’s (next paragraph) in that it is only written by one person, i.e. only one person’s consultation/opinion has been written on the matter. This article was written on the Daily Beast, a reporting and opinionated website, so it differed from the Daily Telegraph (a conservative paper) in its emotional take on the case.


Bouda, S. (16/08/2011) US police make collar bomb arrest, Channel Nine,
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/video.aspx or http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8285952/man-arrested-in-us-over-collar-bomb-hoax

Channel Nine covered the Madeleine Pulver case in this video by speaking to Simon Bouda, a reporter with more than 12 years of experience in crime reporting, thus giving the Nine network credibility in its source. However, while Simon gave accurate and reliable information, the actual video was poorly done. Despite information being received and reported on the same morning, giving the night report plenty of time to modify its presentation, the visual clips were only of Madeleine Pulver doing mundane activities, which would be acceptable if there was clips of other relevant clips to the case (e.g. parents, detectives from the scene), or wasn’t looped continuously for almost three minutes with almost no breaks. It seemed at the end as if they were trying to stretch the story longer than they should have, by recapping the story at 7.00pm, only 2 minutes after the story started. Simon also was never at the scene, instead reporting from the Chicago airport, an hour away from Louisville, Kentucky (where the suspect was arrested). Finally, Simon was the only person spoken to, narrowing the variety and accuracy of the case as it was given from only one individual. This is unlike the Daily Telegraph’s story, which was written by three separate journalists, giving it a greater overall credibility.

Agenda Setting

Agenda Setting. To quickly sum it up, it's when the media comes across a piece (or a few pieces) of reality. The media then thinks: What do I want to be the most prominent of these? What do I want people to think of as the most important?

This is made even more understandable by the following picture:

See Bottom Right section

Basically, the mass media " 'injects' direct influence into the audience." (Harold Lasswell)

A brilliant use of this happened in Germany. Unfortunately, it happened to be pre-/during WWII, and was utilised by Hitler, who also collaborated with Leni Riefenstahl to create a propaganda film.

'...people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.' -The U.S. Office of Strategic Services on describing Hitler's psychological profile.

Logically, any agenda that a newspaper gives must have a reason. So, yellow journalism papers would obviously print out the wackiness of Justin Bieber's haircut, but neglect to regard the thousands of dying people from cancer, or Greece's possible exit from their current currency. The reverse would be true as well: The Times would print first-page information about the trial of the Bosnian Butcher Ratko Mladic (If you don't know what he's done, look it up (not appropriate for this blog)), but couldn't give a damn whether or not Justin is feeling emasculated by his girlfriend.

However, many news companies focus on events that apply to all of them: Casey Heynes is a good example, his story shared by the trash and class of journalism alike.

So, to reiterate: Agenda Setting = What the media puts forward with the intention of creating their perception of reality and placing it on the viewer/reader, for better or worse.

A small look at one of the largest creations

So, I was aimlessly procrastinating, and somehow ended up on a site that did nothing that show amazing pictures. Most of it was just mindless drivel, but one piece caught my eye.

It was called Son Doong Cave, and so far it's the largest cave in existence.

National Geographic

The cave, located in Vietnam, averages 80-by-80 metres, making it slightly large enough to house a town. This is also helped by the fact that when it was explored three years ago, explorers trekked over 41/2 kilometres through it before being blocked by floodwater. The only reason this behemoth of a cave wasn't explored by the locals inhabiting the land was because they were terrified by the whistling sound wind made as it travelled through the caverns.

More National Geographic

Andy Eavis, president of the IUS (International Union of Speleology), stated that the cave 

'is so large it may not actually be beaten. It's three times the size of Wembley Stadium...'

I've travelled to many, many countries over my life.

None of them can compare to the colossus that Son Doong Cave is. The sheer size dwarfs anything I've ever seen or heard of, even Deer Cave, the now second-largest cave in the world (while 22 metres wider, it's a puny 1.6 kilometres long). Seeing something so big, something that encompasses so much space it defines the very word 'big', makes you feel very, very small.

Yep, National Geographic

Seeing this was helpful. It helps take you outside what you're normally used to, and makes you realise how much there is you're missing out on, while nudging thoughts that have sat dormant at the back of your head.

So, enjoy the photos. And look around. See how much space there is.

Lecture 9: News Values

So what makes a story a story, and what makes a story news?

There is firstly and obviously, impact. Hearing about severe,world-changing events, such as 9-11 or the death of Michael Jackson, creates a huge impact everywhere.
Secondly, there is identifying with the audience. No-one in Australia cares whether or not Uzbekistan's newest politician will become mayor, so no-one will bother to buy that story. No corporate business cares whether or not Katy Perry and Russell Brand will recover from their shock divorce, just as no teenage girl cares whether the stock interest will rise or fall for Apple.
There is also pragmatics: dealing with ethics, the facticity of information, for everyday, 24/7 news.
Lastly, there is source influence. This was best summed up by Julia Hobsbawm, a public relations executive:


‘Journalism loves to hate PR … whether for spinning, controlling access,
approving copy, or protecting clients at the expense of the truth. Yet
journalism has never needed public relations more, and PR has never
done a better job for the media.’

The lecture noted two main focuses on news values:
If it bleeds, it leads!
And if it's local, it leads!
Definitely true. an example of both was Daniel Morcombe, a sad story that happened to the local population.

When running a newspaper, the Editor's job has to have a defining quality, one which some determine to be the most important: A good sense of news values. News happens everywhere, and journalists frequently have to rely on their instincts in choosing the relevance of a story. If the editor doesn't know what to choose, they might as well be blindfolded. Relevance is extremely important. They must be the funnel that directs the correct news to their newspaper.

But, as we know, some stories are absolutely irrelevant to absolutely anything. Soap opera, movie, or reality TV stars get loads of attention from papers, despite doing nothing at all. The commercialisation of them gets money for the papers, which I find similar to eating sugar: it may taste great the first few times, but it will destroy you from the inside.

Finally, it appears there is large debating over the term of the word newsworthy. What makes a story? What does the audience think is newsworthy today? What will they think is newsworthy tomorrow? The future of journalism depends on those questions.

-Charlie Morris