Thursday, 8 November 2012

WEEK 12


Dr Bruce Redman concluded this semester’s lectures by talking about investigative journalism.  As I thought this would be one of the more interesting lectures of the semester, I was surprised to find that my mind tended to wander a bit during this presentation. The five in-words (intuitive, inside) slide felt a little contrived, and most of the lecture felt like a retread of previously talked about ideas (journalists being the fourth estate/watchdog, reports being  in public interest, and the importance of the ABC to be balanced and methodical in its journalistic conduct).  It featured a couple of ace quotes such as the one from Lord Foothill, and it was nice to see activist John Pilger get a substantial mention for his illuminating documentary on the Afghanistan/Iraq wars which I caught on television a couple of years ago. 

Perhaps it was because I found the two previous lectures of such a high quality and interest, but today ended the subject on a bit of a whimper for me.  Much of the information was material I was quite knowledgable about and I heard the joke about using research methods other than Google and Wikipedia all throughout high school...except they were deadly serious.   I don’t want to detract from the general high quality of the lectures throughout this semester, but this was quite disappointing and did not add to my knowledge of  ‘investigative journalism’  in the slightest.

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