Out and about in my local area

The now derelict Rose and Crown Pub on Stroudley Walk, off Bromley High Street

I was walking around on my assigned patch yesterday. This was in order to gain research to lay the ground work for a background report on my patch, which is Bromley-by-Bow, and then to find out the pertinent local issues which are news worthy and worth reporting on.

I found it incredibly difficult to talk to people. The first thing was that I was anxious about approaching strangers to talk to them. But then once I found the courage to approach them and talk to them, the results did not fill me with confidence.

Secondly it was difficult to gain the trust of people. Those people who I asked for a name and contact details from, in order to prove to my tutor that the conversations were not fictitious, refused to give them. I am not sure what was responsible for this fear but the lack of trust was certainly an issue.

HIDDEN TRUTH IN GAZA

An example of the destruction left by an Israeli attack. It is not neccesary here to show the blood and gore.

As reported on the Dispatches episode, Unseen Gaza, presented by Jon Snow, during the three weeks of the Gaza War, the entire Gaza strip was cut off from all international reporters.

This had a major impact upon the objectivity of the reporting of the conflict. It helped to stall, to some extent, international pressure to bring the violence to halt. In addition, it meant that ordinary citizens questioned whether the mainstream broadcasters, in particular the BBC, were actually trustworthy and balanced sources.

In the documentary it was said that the plan by the Israeli PR machine to restrict this kind of access and instead feed their own side of the story through propaganda to western journalists, had been planned long before this latest conflict.

MISS-OGYNIST UNIVERSITY OF LONDON?

protesters at the Miss LSE event

Last December, beauty pageants were held by student unions at each of the constituent University of London colleges. The plan was then that the winners would advance to the final where the winner would be dubbed “Miss University of London”. The protests against them held by students outside SOAS and LSE catapulted this issue into the national press.

The women’s officer at SOAS, Elly James, and her LSE counterpart, Ruby Buckley, who were both organisers of the ironically named “Miss-Ogynist University of London” campaign, were both interviewed by the national press, and the latter was invited to write an article to outline her case for the Commentisfree section of the Guardian Online.