2015 Haze could be record worst

Haze covers Singapore's CBD

The haze that has blanketed the Southeast Asia for about a month continues, causing even more disruption to countries in the region.

Over the past two weeks, officials from countries like Malaysia and Singapore have demanded action from the Indonesia government. The haze is caused by Indonesian palm-oil producers burning off forests in order to create more land for planting.

The Malaysian government ordered its school closed on Sunday, after readings from pollution monitoring stations stated that the air quality was in the “unhealthy” and “hazardous” regions. According to AFP news agency, the Malaysian Education Minister Mahdzir Khalid said that Malaysia “would not compromise with anything that could bring harm to our children in schools.” The country has also cancelled several sporting events such as a marathon, and local soccer matches.

The Singapore government also cancelled the grand finals for a swimming World Cup due to the haze on the same day due to pollution levels. The Star reported Ang Peng Wee, chairman of the organising committee, as saying, “With the haze caused by the fires in Indonesia, the health and safety of all athletes, guests, officials, spectators volunteers and staff remain as our top priority.” The country also closed its schools last week, following a high pollution level rating.

Due to the prolonged and worsening haze conditions, Singapore has also taken official legal action against five Indonesian firms believed to be behind the burning of the forests.

Tens of thousands of respiratory illnesses are reported every year during this period, and this year is no different.

“The haze gets so bad that my asthma attacks act up.” says Russell Chua, a Singaporean student, “I wake up in the middle of the night having breathing difficulties.”

Indonesia has come under tough scrutiny by its neighbouring countries due to the critical haze issue.

Although the haze occurs every few years in the region, scientists at NASA say that this year’s could be the worst on record.

“If the forecasts for a dryer season hold, this suggests 2015 will rank among the most severe events on record,” says Robert Field, a Columbia University Student based at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in a report by the Sydney Morning Herald.

The news of the bad haze has caused Singaporeans and Southeast Asians in Australia to worry for their loved ones back home.

“I’ve seen posts on social media on how bad the haze is this year, and I’m just worried for my parents back home.” says Fidelis Woo, a Singaporean in Australia, “I hope that they know to keep their face masks on when leaving the house.”

Instagram user: simon.ong

Instagram user: jon_yeap

Jonathan Yow, another Singaporean in Australia, agrees.

"I think we're all just trying our best to keep in touch with our family back home," he says, "They're all used to the haze at this time of the year, but they still want it to end soon."

"My sister is pretty jealous of the clean air I'm getting here!" he jokes.

Due to all its deforestation, Indonesia has been named as the fifth largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has said that the country needs time to tackle its forest-burning problem. However, he says that the solution might take three years before positive results would emerge.













Sources:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34438189
http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/environment/spore-clamps-down-on-five-firms-over-haze
http://www.thestar.com.my/Sport/Swimming/2015/10/03/Singapore-World-Cup-finals-cancelled-because-of-haze/
http://time.com/4060786/haze-singapore-indonesia-malaysia-pollution/
http://www.smh.com.au/world/asian-haze-set-to-become-worst-on-record-20151004-gk18i9.html


Fidelis Woo – 0405009887
Jonathan Yow - 0478415570
Russell Chua - +65 91778997

A Hyper-Connected World

We live in a highly-connected world. Almost everywhere in the world, it is relatively easy to access the internet and go on social media, read news online, or just surf the web.

What does this mean for journalists?

Well, compared to a decade or two ago, journalists can now very easily gain information or news sources using the internet, particularly social media. When in the past you probably had to go out of your way to find a reliable source or have to get in touch with such a source through mail or telephone, these days a simple tweet, direct message or status update would get you the answers you need.

Social media in particular has been a highly useful tool for journalists. Websites such as Twitter allow journalists to get in touch with pretty much anyone in the world. A simple tweet could reach out to thousands, maybe millions of followers around the world. A journalist staying in Australia could reach someone staying in Singapore and get an inside scoop of a news story, for example perhaps the haze affecting Southeast Asia, with a few simple messages. Facebook helps in gathering information as well, from trending topics (using the hashtags) as well as updating statuses with important news updates. It can also be used to source for reliable correspondents.

The widespread usage of social media has also connected the world on a larger scale, allowing breaking news stories to spread across the globe in mere minutes. Because of this, it is a lot easier for journalists to gather information and find sources through the web, and hence deliver a breaking news story online within a few hours of the news event.

It is also easy for journalists to connect with their audience with social media. Columnists can gather ideas for stories by interacting with their audience, while other journalists can gather feedback or generate interest in their stories using social media.

Smartphones are another sign of a hyper-connected world. Almost everyone owns a smartphone these days, and having it is just another easy means of accessing the web, wherever you are. What this means is, people can easily take photographs or videos and publish them online. Any of these pictures and videos can be accessed by anyone using the web, which means that if they were to be related to a news story, journalists have easy access to them. It is also as easy to ask for valid permission, if applicable, for usage of said content.

Basically, the world we live in now enables journalists and the media to gain information, sources, and content for their news stories extremely easily.

However, as with most things, such a hyper-connected world has its downsides.

For one thing, the internet is full of satire articles or false news websites that could easily be accessed by anyone unknown to that fact. If a big fake news article is being shared too often, many would automatically assume it to be true. This could lead to the mainstream media thinking the same, or a journalist thinking the same, and producing a story with regards to it, which then turns out to be false news. The repercussions of such a story could be great.

Similarly, false news websites tend to produce hoaxes of many sorts, which could lead to widespread panic and unnecessary chaos, depending on the scale of the hoax. Either way though, having easy access to such hoaxes is not a helpful thing, and it is the job of the more informed public (and sometimes the media) to reassure people that that news article in question is only a hoax, and that the news source cannot be trusted.

This brings up another point, one of journalists using social media and the internet to find sources. Sometimes it is hard to determine if a source can be trustworthy just from the media. Journalists who might be in a rush to "cover the top news story first", in a way, might feel pressured to pick up the first few sources they come across, which may or may not be trustworthy. This would then cause misconceptions or mistakes in the story, which discredits the journalist. In big news stories, there are usually a wide number of people on the internet that could provide information on said story; the journalists just need to be careful on which sources they pick.

In these cases, it is usually better for the journalists to do some prior research into that source, or find more sources and compare information in an attempt to provide the most accurate story to their audience.

Having easy access to the internet also allows organizations, both good and bad, to reach their audience. In the case of "bad" organizations, we have the cases of ISIS releasing disturbing videos to the world. It also allows such organization to radicalize youths into joining their cause, something which has been happening a little too frequently in recent months. It is then usually up to the social media platforms themselves to put an end to this.

Although there are some cons to being a journalist in such a hyper-connected world, overall, it is still a huge advantage compared to journalists of the past. As long as the journalist does his or her own research beforehand and is meticulous while finding sources of information online, the internet provides a huge platform for them to do so. It is also a huge platform in which journalists can interact with their audience, and find new top news stories to report on.

Star Wars Battlefront Beta date announced!

picture credits: gamespot.com

The developer for Star Wars Battlefront, DICE, has announced that the game's beta would be available on the 8th of October, going live on Playstation 4, Windows PC, and XBox One platforms. The beta would go on for five days, and allow players to experience three of the game's multiplayer modes across three of the game's planets.

The Stars Wars Battlefront beta would include a 40-player Walker Assault mode, which would take place on the planet Hoth. This has been seen in several gameplay preview videos. It would also feature a 16-player Drop Zone mode, which is the game's King of the Hill mode, on the planet of Sullust. The last mode is the Survival mode, which can be played solo or with a friend via a splitscreen co-op, or online.

DICE has said that the game is about 7GB on consoles, and 11GB on the PC. PC Players can download the beta through EA's Origin services on the 7th of October. It should be noted that any progress made during this beta will not carry over to the final release of the game.

EA and DICE have said that they plan on releasing Star Wars Battlefront on the 17th of November.

"LIVE STORY" Exercise

So for the tutorial this week we did a live story exercise, which is basically writing an article while watching a live event, and doing a "live blog" of it, for want of a better term.

This exercise tested my abilities to listen carefully to important parts of an event, and to decide on the go which parts of the events were necessary to elaborate on, and which parts could just be written down as a single sentence. I had to make decisions very quickly, especially when it came to transcribing someone's speech during the event.

For me, when the exercise first started, I was already kind of at a loss because I was not sure what the event was about, whereas I was pretty sure my classmates knew what it was. I had to do a very quick Google search to get up to speed, at least on the basic details, before jumping into the story.

The event itself was easy enough, but I personally had a hard time trying to decide which parts of a person's speech was important enough to elaborate more on, and which parts to quote. It was also a task to attempt to quickly transcribe what they said to words, all without a chance of a second listen or a second watch of the event.

And I think that was the hardest part of the whole exercise. It was easy enough to describe proceedings and who was talking in words, but trying to decipher what was being said, and to decide what to decipher, was the hard part. It didn't help that unfortunately, I was not extremely familiar with the source material and the content of the event, so for some portions, I had to make informed guesses on what was being said.

Overall though, this exercise was definitely useful in testing my capabilities to write an article on the go. I'm not sure how well I did, but I was able to put down most of what I deemed as important during the event into words.

More importantly, this showed me how crucial it was for a journalist to always know their source material and content before attempting to write a story. Had this event been of something that I was more familiar with, say entertainment news or gaming news, I would have had a much easier time. In the end though, I learned a valuable tip to being a good journalist through this exercise, and it also helped me improve my ability in making big decisions (with regards to a story) on the go.

If I were to attempt a live blogging or live coverage story of any event from now on, I'm pretty certain I feel more ready to tackle it.

Pokémon Go newest game in franchise

The Pokémon company held a press conference in Japan today, announcing the development of an all new Pokémon game for the iOS and Android smartphones called Pokémon Go. The new title features augmented reality, and is a collaboration between Nintendo, the Pokémon Company, and Niantic, the developers of another augmented reality game Ingress.

Pokémon Go features real world locations, much like Ingress, and allows players to track and capture Pokémon in real life, as well as battle other players in an augmented reality setting. At any location in the world, different Pokémon would appear to players, which really ties in with the Pokémon motto of "Gotta Catch 'Em All".

The Pokémon Company also announced a new Bluetooth device that would work together with the new game. The device, called the Pokémon Go Plus, would notify players when a Pokémon was nearby, or if there was an important event happening near them. This would enable players to continue "playing" the game without having to continually look at their phone.

Pokémon Go has been set to release in 2016.

I think it's pretty cool that games are moving on to what might be seen as the next "frontier" of gaming, which is that of augmented reality. The closest thing that gaming industry probably has to that right now is the Oculus Rift, which in itself is an impressive piece of technology. If more and more games start to use augmented reality, the gaming industry as we know it now would be drastically changed, developers and players alike.

I'll be keeping a close eye on any augmented reality gaming news, or any games that might use that sort of technology in the near future. The fact that it exists brings forth a huge possibility for some much-needed change in the gaming world. Although I'm not too sure how popular it would prove to be, it seems like a logical and solid next step for developers around the world.

In the meantime, I'll be waiting for 2016 so I can finally have a reason to throw a Pokéball at a random passerby without being (possibly) being judged.

Batman: Arkham Knight update

picture credits: allgamesbeta.com

When Batman: Arkham Knight, the third game in Warner Bros.'s Batman Arkham trilogy, was first released on PC, it was plagued with a huge host of issues, which forced Warner Brothers to take down the game from Steam as they attempted to fix the problems.

A patch is about to be released for players who already purchased the game from Steam.

The patch rectifies a huge headache for players during the original release, that of drastically reduced framerate problems. It also aims to optimize the game for VRAM and system memory usage, as well as improving game performance for all GPUs. To top it off, the patch also attempts to fix texture bugs and other game hitches.

There are also further improvements planned for the game.

Future patches aim to add support for some other hardware, as well as support for DLCs and Season Pass content. It will introduce a new mode called Photo Mode, and make improvements to the game for specific hardware configurations.

As of this article, the game is still not back up on Steam for purchase.

Running story thoughts

So, I was tasked to do another version of a running story (I've done something of that sort in a previous semester, and this one was just slightly different.)

Every single time I'm told to do something like a running story, I just have this innate need to include as much information in a story as possible, regardless of whether the information is actually truly necessary.

And this becomes why I don't usually have much time remaining as the clock ticks on towards the end of the "test".

Well, I think this time, despite the fact that I was rushing for time by the end of the sixth version of the story (the last one), I think I managed to tell the story decently without really missing any key points, although I do wish that I had managed to be a little more detailed when it came to the bigger parts of the story.

Leaving the room after I finished the test really made me think. I'm not sure how often this happens in the industry, this running story thing, but I definitely had newfound respect for the journalists who do this on an almost daily basis. Even as a test, this was stressful enough. But I do think that might be due to the fact that I was writing a running story that happened across a few days in just under two hours. If this was the "real world", yes, I would probably be still running a schedule, but at least I won't have to churn out six stories that quickly.

And yet, this also brings me to my next thought. Repeating a similar story for a week straight does get dreadfully boring at times, especially if not much new information comes in, yet you still have to produce a story. Doesn't that make the story more of an update story then? I guess if a story is big enough, even a small update story or the smallest of new information regarding that story can make the headlines. I probably wouldn't mind having to type the same story for a week straight. In a way, it's easier than writing a story from scratch.

From the running story exercise, I've definitely had a tiny taste of how a big headline story is prepared and edited throughout the week (or weeks) of its publication. Do you include this information? Would you provide some backstory for others who have just picked up on this piece of news? That all depends on the journalists. A piece of information regarding the story might have been a huge deal one day and then minor information the next. But then, that's news for you. It's ever-changing, and hence news stories are always changing to reflect that.

I can't help but feel that doing all these small tests in university will really help to prepare me for the real world ahead. Granted, I have no experience in the world of journalism besides running my own blog, but any and all skills that I've gained in university would definitely help me heaps.