5 o´blog!

Ethics of Journalism

2010-05-09T05:49:00.001-07:00

Ethics of Journalism

Modern society has developed into an enormously dependent civilization. Our society has become reliant on several presumed necessities such as electricity, coffee shops, and cars, but most of all we cannot live without information. Information is everywhere! It is written in newspapers and magazines, and an endless amount of facts is constantly broadcast on national television, local radio stations, and of course, the internet. In case everything else fails, society can still rely on their very own personal mail box to receive urgent messages from anywhere around the world. Almost every member of this society is an “information junkie”. This leads us to this very question: What is Journalism? “Journalism is the timely reporting of events at local, provincial, national and international levels. Reporting involves the gathering of information through interviewing and research, the results of which are turned into a fair and balanced story for publication or for television or radio broadcast.” In spite of the existence of several types of journalism, the ideal type of journalism is the one that transmits information in a way that the common citizen can easily understand what is happening in his/her country and around the world. Many people are beginning to question the information the media present to the world every day. Is the information always completely true? We all know that the main objective of most media is to make sure that the audience can be as big as possible. To achieve the task of gathering the largest amount of listeners, some reporters go to the extent of “creating” fake news. Although some areas of the media strive for a large audience, occasionally it is not only about the size of the audience. Periodically, it has to do with political or economical interests. Politicians have been known to bribe certain TV channels or newspapers in order to change the public's opinion, which has led us to discuss the ethics of journalism.

What is ethics? ”Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is the capacity to distinguish good from bad”.

The mass media have an enormous importance and they do seriously affect today’s society. We live in a so called “global village,” and the only way to communicate with our fellow neighbours is through information. Now let’s imagine that a certain person is living in a metropolis, and the only way to communicate with other people is through mail. Imagine that the mail station is mixing the letters and each person is unknowingly receiving fake information and are led to believe that it is true. What would the result be like?

This is basically what is happening nowadays to our society. It is caused by the result of a substantial amount of untruthful mass media. We need to stand up for what we believe in and what is ours by right. Information is ours by right!

238- Pedro Eugénio

The Hurt Locker Review

2010-04-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

Credits:

Director:

Kathryn Bigelow

Writer (WGA):

Mark Boal (written by)

Release Date:

17 September 2009 (Portugal)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Thriller | War

Awards:

Won 6 Oscars. Another 72 wins & 46 nominations

Since mankind exists, there’s always been war among societies. Its existence has led to its recreation in the world of films, such as "Patton", "Saving Private Ryan" and "Black Hawk Down".

In my opinion, War has been people’s favourite type of films in the last decades. The reasons have to do with factors such as the “modern wars” of Iraq and of Afghanistan, the special effects in these films and the desire of being part of the war.

Recently, the film "The Hurt Locker" directed by Kathryn Bigelow won the Academy Award for best film of the year. Actually, I had bet it would win…

The story covers a period in the life of William James (Iraq War 2004), a brave but reckless soldier, who was chosen to lead the team of two other members of the U.S. Army. James is an expert in defusing unexploded hidden devices. Because of this fact, at a time when the Iraqi streets are dangerously trapped with these devices, his task becomes natural and regular. Unfortunately, James proves to have a true love for war, making decisions that endanger the lives of all his teammates that work with him.

At the beginning of the film, there´s a quote - "The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug". Throughout the film we will realize that this expression is a synopsis of the film. It tries to explain that war is a drug, and like all drugs, human beings change both physically and psychologically, becoming more addictive especially to James.

In my opinion, the film seeks to portray two aspects: first, it shows how the life of a soldier on the battlefield really is, with one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, an expert in unexploded hidden devices; the second one is to depict the psychological and physical consequences of the war on people. In general, the movie is well done, has a good script and some scenes are impressive, like the one on which a bullet is dropped on the ground in slow-motion.

451 - Fernades

The Eclipse

2010-04-20T08:43:00.000-07:00

"The time which we have at our disposal every day is elastic; the passions we feel expand it, those that we inspire contract it and habit fills up what remains." Michael Proust

The Eclipse

Time has just stopped…

I’m alone in my dimension created.

It’s the eclipse, darkness over shining light,

And it’s me in a peaceful almost-night.

Time has just stopped and I’ve never been so glad.

It’s time to give feelings a reason, being they happy or sad.

A neutral felt reason; I’m the key to myself.

Alone but not lonely; I need to give heart a reason itself.

There are simply words I shall never tell you

Because they scare me for what they can do.

They hurt me so I keep them in my heart,

For the fear I have that they break us apart.

I’ll protect you from pain; I can’t say I don’t care…

I wake up and think; you are always there.

The fight for you bount me in and I shalln’t leave

But can’t give myself a reason, I need you, to believe.

And time started again, I couldn’t stop it…

I hate time and at the same time we need it,

For what I wish only time might gift

Or take away, in a cold instant swift.

So I wait for what time will write.

I’ll never know it until the time is right.

Will it be love or the inevitable decay?

I’ll only know when it crosses my way.

And the eclipse will save me…

R. Miguel

(Any published materials are protected by international Copyright treaties. Viewers are not authorized to reproduce, publish, distribute, sell or modify in any way, the whole or any part of the material without previous written authorization of the author.)

Notes from the author

This second post will be about time. The first quote is intended to lead the readers to the flexibility of time. Our mind, consciously or unconsciously, controls time. Positive feelings generally make us feel the time is passing faster and negative feelings make us feel the time is passing slower. So, in theory, if we can manage our feelings, we can control time, at least for ourselves.

“The Eclipse” is a poem written by me about time. It’s associated to the moments when we need the world around us to stop for a moment so we can organize our thoughts. Sometimes we need moments for ourselves, time alone, to give reasons to feelings and to think about ourselves and our behaviour. However, we should not focus our thoughts on ourselves, but on the people we care as well. On those moments we must focus on how to protect those people, what we ought not to say to keep them from unnecessary pain. Still, we must let them know that we care for them, because our fight for them starts with their belief.

Although we can slow time, we can’t really stop it, and therefore time will eventually go back to normal. It is by the normal flow of time that the future happens so time must never stop. Fate will write our future and time will deliver it to us. But we will always need “The Eclipse” in our life.

It’s nice to going to Nice

2010-04-20T08:41:00.000-07:00

Nice is a French city located in the south of the country. Famous people, like Bono, have their “maison” there and Michael Jackson had one, too.

This fabulous place offers a whole range of reasons to be considered a “gourmet” destination: nice people, very beautiful and next to the sea, near the mountains for ski and snowboard, near Monaco and last but not least: nice weather. So the city is full of life, full of great landscapes, and the food is fabulous as well. There are many different good restaurants for you to choose depending on what you like to eat, even though cultures are much different from country to country.

One of the biggest advantages of going to Nice is the possibility to visit very interesting and well-known places nearby such as Monaco, Cannes, Italian cities and even Corsica which we can see from Nice without binoculars when the weather is fine. And it’s not difficult to travel to Nice! There are direct flights from Lisbon and when you get there you can easily rent a car.

Think about it. It may be an interesting place to visit with someone and enjoy Cote D’azur’s peaceful and beautiful lifestyle.

68 - Branco

Discrimination

2010-04-20T08:38:00.000-07:00

Discrimination

According to my original intentions, I am going to give my opinion about events in our society. In this article I will talk about discrimination, which as we all know, can expand to different types, such as the sexual level, skin colour, age, religion, education, nationalism, etc...

One could ask what is meant by discrimination; well, it is the treatment of individuals or groups in an unfair or unequal basis, on grounds of gender, race, religion, etc…

For example, many people go abroad to try to achieve a better standard of living for him/herself and his/her family. But while most get better in materialistic terms, in social terms it is not always the case since they are often discriminated against in these "new" countries. However, most will prefer discrimination and the decline in social conditions as even when they take jobs below their capabilities the profit they get in that new country is higher than it would be in their home country. Currently, emigrants are the ones that have to cope with the highest levels of ethnic and racial discrimination.

Let us now consider a different case: future mothers or pregnant women. Any woman should be free to decide whether she wants to become pregnant and actually becoming a mother is perhaps the dream of every woman. However, just like any other human being she will need to have a job in order to afford the basics and to support the family. Unfortunately, that’s not how those who run a business think. These mothers are often dismissed or even not hired due to their pregnancy. Should they be blamed for the long period of pregnancy? Of course not! The attitude of the employers is understandable to a certain extent as they will have to hire a second person for the replacement. Still, there are nowadays many jobs that can be done at home. If part of the work of a company is paperwork and involves working with computers, mothers-to-be or recent mothers can try telework.

This situation does concern us because we are all humans and we should work with a single purpose; to make a good living, without wars, without causing harm to the ones near us, thus helping to make the world a better place for all.

This is a challenge for minds given to change.

302 - Pires

About a blog

2010-02-15T15:15:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Five O’blog, blog time. We’re the five, a 5 English student’s class and this will be our blog. Throughout the blog each and every one of us will write things in English about our personal preferences for everyone to read. However, we won’t be using our real names in our sections. Instead we’ll be using nicknames and this will be the only time we will present ourselves with our real names, something about us, our corners and our ages.

68 – F. de Bivar Branco, 1992, aka DB Balls, The Voyager, [Travel Gourmet].
238 – Pedro G. Eugénio 1992 aka µgenius, The Patriot, [Chronicles].
302 – Luis Pires, 1992, aka OX-ford, The Counselor, [Society].
407 - Ricardo D. Miguel, 1992, aka G-Zus, The Poetry man, [The Writer’s Corner].
451- Alexandre Fernandes , 1991, aka 2 White, The God [Lumiere’s Box]

Travel Gourmet

2010-02-15T15:12:00.000-08:00

This section is meant to let you know some important things about several countries and their touristic spots.

Most of the times you wish to go on holidays but just don’t know the right place and season to go or what kind of holidays you should choose!... Maybe you just need an opinion from someone familiar (or even unfamiliar) about certain places, isn’t that true? Here you will find standard information and above all opinions we ask to people, who have recently been to each place. The interviewed will be mainly from our big family: Colégio Militar.

So imagine an interview about “Bajoraz” (this means: any country). You’ll get to know when the person went there, the first impressions, accomodation, “must go” spots, sightseeing, food, hospitality, environment, language, lifestyle, prices, weather, and much more…

We hope to be helpful. Have a nice trip and excellent holidays!!!

DB Balls

The Writer’s Corner

2010-02-12T13:07:00.000-08:00

Words on the author…

First of all, I’d like to welcome you all and dedicate this corner of mine to all the poetry lovers. I’m G-Zus and it has been a while since I’ve started writing poetry. I’m Portuguese by the way. I started writing poetry when I was fifteen, one year later I decided to try my hand at English poetry. Since then I’ve been writing not for money, but rather for the sake of the understanding and immortality of my soul. Life’s a lesson and we should learn it. My way of doing so is through poetry.

Feel free to comment. Compliments are nice, but criticism is crucial for one’s improvement. However, if you feel like helping me, do it so in a proper, respectful way or don’t do it at all.

Remember, poetry itself is art, being freedom its main important feature.

(Any published materials are protected by international copyright treaties. Viewers are not authorized to reproduce, publish, distribute, sell or modify in any way, the whole or any part of the material without previous written authorization of the author.)

The Writer’s Corner…

Well, ever heard of the Speaker’s Corner? There are many of them but surely the most famous is the one in Hyde Park, London. It’s a place where anyone can talk about pretty much anything to everyone else. It’s not completely uncontrolled but it’s a great demonstration of our rights of free speech. Most importantly, and that’s what I want to point out, it’s a place of freedom and culture.

So is my corner. I love poetry for many reasons. I don’t force myself to write, I simply feel the need to do it. I love what I write and I love to write. Since I’m now part of the “internet speaker’s corner”, i.e. blogs, I’d like to show some of my poetry and speak about poetry in general as well. It’s important to preserve this art and keep it free.

Remember to comment and feedback. Your opinion is important as long as it’s respectful. Thanks.

My art – The origin of itself

I’d like to start by writing my very first English poem. It’s about my art; the relation between the poet, the inspiration and the poem. It’s all about art. So here it is:

My art

Poetry is indeed my art.

Like so many walking with us,

Who write not from their head, but from their heart.

Finding them may not be so obvious.

They walk amongst us, many unknown,

Who love the words the inspiration spells.

Though not for greed, they keep it to their own

As they don’t seek fame, but the feeling which dwells.

Shrouded in wonder lives the inspiration,

In a whirl of feelings finding their way.

One by one, picked by order into the creation,

Carefully chosen by the meaning they say.

And through him, the poem lives on

For those who never die carry it.

From time to time, from father to son

They carry the art for the fate to meet.

And it lives on…

G-Zus

Note from the author:

Poets walk amongst you and you don’t know them. It’s impossible to tell if someone writes poetry or not since us poets are no different than anybody else, we just share a passion. This passion is writing, we don’t try to write, we feel and we write.

We live and have our own lives, working and studying like everyone else. We just write poetry and many of us write poetry to ourselves. Sometimes we just write to get to know our own self, other times we write to describe our feelings and try to understand them. However this is bad too, because many of us have talent and don’t want to show our poetry to anyone else. Or at least, not all poems, since they mirror our feelings, it might become somewhat awkward knowing that someone has a window to your inside.

It’s true, many poets write for fame and glory, but many are just looking for their feelings. Sometimes it takes a while to find a pure feeling. It may take some time thinking about it. Sometimes a good way of finding the pure and simple feelings is to remember times when the feelings were strong. Then comes the wonder about them until the inspiration is achieved. Afterwards the poem almost writes by itself.

The words written will last forever, even after the mouth that speaks them is silenced. The words, who never die, will take the poem’s lesson. Not just by books, but from mouth to mouth as well. Most of the old stories arrived to us this way, being told from generation to generation, by people who most likely didn’t know how to write. The poem’s destiny will be told by its following times.

Hope you´ll like it.

By - G-Zus

Piracy

2010-02-07T05:52:00.000-08:00

This section was created with the aim of addressing issues about movies. Here I will write reviews for films that I consider particularly interesting. As a form of art, films are important in every modern culture. In my opinion a good film should have a message, but unfortunately there are many films (even blockbusters) that are simply a waste of time. Actually, wasting time is what many people do nowadays when they decide to spend their time searching, downloading and watching films from the internet as a film should be watched in proper conditions, which means a wide screen and the best sound conditions.

Being this my first text, I would like to write a few words about the controversial issue of piracy, namely the kind that involves downloading films.

We all know that piracy is very controversial topic. Every day, thousands of people download pirated films (many of them still in theatres) without them being subject to any criminal accusation. Most of them use P2P (Peer to Peer), which is one of the most secure and fastest ways to share files. Many people cannot distinguish piracy from sharing. The P2P system is a way of sharing files among people, so it cannot be considered as piracy. Contrarily, the sale of those movies without authorization is considered piracy as people gain profit from the work of other people.
In this paper, I will outline some reasons for and against piracy, and analyse each one.
One of the main reasons why many people today download movies is due to the easy process of obtaining the film online; just go to a P2P site and make the download. It’s simple and fast (in average it takes about 2 hours depending on connections).
Most of the movies that are on the net, have a very low quality and may or may not have subtitles, as it often depends on the popularity of the film. More quality films means one of two following drawbacks: the first is that the high-quality movies most of the times can have up to 5 GiB a minimum of size, taking then more time to download; the other fact is that the availability is very limited, and usually only the films with great success are available in high definition. Another factor seldom mentioned is the wide variety of movies. Let’s suppose that I want to see an old movie; the easiest way is to get it through the net as it requires little time and just some research.

Now, let me mention some of the aspects against piracy, which are a lot: first, and in my opinion the most important, is that the authors don´t receive money for their work (the famous COPYRIGHTS) often ignored by people. A good example was the movie “X-MAN – Origins” which was available in amazing quality on the net 1 month before its release, and contained some parts still on production that were in black and white. As a consequence, it was estimated that the film producers lost a huge amount of money.

Another important fact is the advantage of the natural environment of a cinema/theatre room. That’s why most people try to recreate the cinema environment at home, with high definition and a great sound system (Home Cinema). However, it is not the same as going to the cinema, where we are comfortably seated, (maybe with some XL Popcorn bucket…), the best sound system you can have and a big screen to better see the film. Also, only Cinema can bring us new experiences, such as 3D movies that have recently been very successful.
In my opinion, and although I know that it is very difficult to resist, piracy is wrong. All authors should have the reward for their work, no matter how big or small it may be. In some way, piracy is like entering a movie theatre, without paying, even though with less quality. Despite many claims and warnings, very little has been done by governments.

BY 451 - Fernandes

CHRONICLES

2010-01-26T08:23:00.000-08:00

Orthographic (Dis) Agreement

Some may think that the orthographic agreement is a recent problem, but I say that it isn’t recent at all. As a matter of fact, just for about almost twenty years ago, in 1990, a treaty was signed, that involved the Lisbon Academy of Science, the Brazilian Academy of Letters and the delegations of the African Countries of Portuguese official language. But should a language like Portuguese be changed?

Some support the opinion that if the Portuguese speaking countries stay united by the same language, the Portuguese language hegemony will remain. Others support that we, Portugal, have a lack of patriotism. Why don’t we keep our way of speaking, and they change theirs. As far as I know, we are the original Portuguese speaking country.

Both opinions are right anyway, but the truth is that the English language, for example, doesn’t need any orthographic agreement to maintain its place as the “world official language”. The truth is that the English language is spoken in more than twenty countries, with twenty different “englishes”, such as: the Australian English; the Belize English; the Canadian English; the Caribbean English; the Hong Kong English; the Indian English; the Indonesian English; the Jamaican English; the Ireland English; the Malaysian English; the New Zeeland English; the Philippines English, the English of Singapore, the South African English; the Trinidad and Tobago English; the Zimbabwe English, and the main ones, the British and American English.

The supremacy of the English language turns out obvious even with so many different “englishes” among the English speaking countries.

How can we explain the situation then?

I think that those indictments of lack of patriotism are well reasoned. We can see it everywhere. Nobody likes to see the Portuguese National Football Team full of non-Portuguese players. How much would we like to change what is ours? Like our grammar rules, our language or even our flag? I don´t think that I would like to change our flag to a new one so that instead of the armillary sphere it had a blue sphere with some white stars and a white ribbon with the words “Order and Progress” crusted on it.

We should distinguish the difference between patriotism and nationalism. Although patriotism is used in certain vernaculars as a synonym for nationalism, nationalism is not necessarily considered an inherent part of patriotism. Among the ancient Greeks, patriotism consisted of notions concerning language, religious traditions, ethics, law, and devotion to the common good, rather than pure identification with a nation-state. Scholar J. Peter Euben writes that for the Greek philosopher Socrates: "Patriotism does not require one to agree with everything that his country does and would actually promote analytical questioning in a quest to make the country the best it possibly can be. Nationalism, in the most exaggerated state, is nothing less than a euphemism to xenophobia, racism and discrimination.”

“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country…”

John F. Kennedy

by 238 - Eugénio

Young Portuguese

2010-01-26T08:08:00.000-08:00

In this section, we will discuss issues of our society that need and should be a concern to all of us. This is our world and as such we must ensure their welfare and the welfare of its inhabitants - US!

Being this my first text, I would like to talk about the mentality of the young Portuguese nowadays. Why? Well, simply because we, the youth, are the future. Life is a cycle in which we are born, live and die!

It is true that today's youth has a different way of living from in the past. The way to have fun is not the same; it seems that the youth of today can only have fun with the help of alcohol, tobacco and rebellion. It is true that on Friday night, in the streets most sought after by young people we can find everything among those who want to “live the night up”: from young people under 15 in an alcoholic coma even before midnight, to groups of 10 in which 100% are teenagers between 14 and 17 and 85% smoke. Not to mention clubs for people over 18 in which we can find 14-year-olds.

Although that is not the rule, it is what is really happening gradually, and no one does anything to change the situation, including parents, who often do not care about it. We may try to justify this with the family environment, but only to a certain extent, because at that age we are efficient enough to quickly realize that it can be a shield to cover our nuisance and our blunders...

Besides, many young people are different and do not fall in such “groups”, while many couples that are separated still manage to keep the education of their children. We can thus conclude that to achieve the right path only takes the will.

I am not saying that we should stop having fun and going out at night; quite on the contrary, we ought to have the greatest fun, but at appropriate times and not at the expense of shirking our responsibilities. After all, youth will not return and we can only live once!

Cheers!

By 302 - Pires

LEARNING ENGLISH

2010-01-25T10:49:00.000-08:00

A CONTRIBUTION TO OUR PERSONAL FORMATION AND ETHICS

It is common sense that learning English is essential. Most people will say that English is a very important tool not only for our academic life, but for communication in general. Actually, English is the most spoken second language all over the world. Still, we wonder if people are aware of the deep impact that learning English has on our personal formation.

The experience that we had in the English classes until the end of our basic education (3º Ciclo) was clearly a reinforcement of our four basic skills as communicators: listening, speaking, reading and writing. It was obviously a very important contribution not only to our performance in English, but to all the other subjects as well. We could gradually improve our speech by adding logic and a deeper meaning to our utterances, and that helped us to grow up and feel more mature. We could learn the difference between being formal and informal and also about the importance of reading. Actually, it was through literature that we developed special interests in other artistic fields, such as cinema, painting or music. Some of us enjoyed working on the individual portfolio, which is a very good way to develop some important virtues, like organisation and perseverance.

Learning English at a higher level, such as the Secondary (10º, 11º and 12º) has been a very rewarding experience since we realise that it is no longer simply learning the language, but shaping our character as persons. Along with the contents and aims of the syllabus, we can also develop a few more virtues, such as objectivity, responsibility, optimism and sense of humour (particularly when facing the results of a written test…). It is obviously a clear contribution to our personal formation as individuals, and it even helps us to think critically about issues that require an ethical approach.

The social and cultural dimension of the English syllabus takes us to the discussion of topics such as The Technological World (Man versus machine, Virtual Worlds), Social Changes (Family, Education and Human Relationships), Work, Mass Media and Global Communication (Internet, Communication and Ethics – Info Manipulation), Young People in the Global Era (Values, Attitudes and Behaviours - Consumerism), and Bioethics (Gene manipulation and Cloning). Throughout the 12º, we will deal with topics such as Citizenship, Multiculturalism, Cultures, Arts and Society (Literature, Cinema and Music in the 21^st century) and Native Cultures (Native Americans, The Maoris, etc.).

Moreover, the English subject is taught with methodologies and resources whose cultural dimension adds to our motivation so much to the extent of saying: “Learning English is for life!”

the5
68 Branco, 238 Eugénio, 302 Pires, 407 Miguel, 451 Fernandes