Wen Jiahui

GEK1005 Tutorial 2
1. How convincing are the arguments made by Emily Erickson and Paul Maxwell Hamilton (2007) in
defence of the virtues of what they describe as parachute journalism of today?
I agree with Erickson and Maxwell that parachute journalism is beneficial to newspapers, especially the
medium and small sized ones, as it cut cost for covering foreign news and allows it to happen for
newspapers that do not have strong financial abilities. At the same time, readers can benefit too as we
can get more perspectives of the events since more newspapers cover the news. However, I do not
agree that foreign journalists are perceived to do a poorer job than native journalists as they tend to
jump into conclusions due to their lack of knowledge about the country. I feel that it is all about the
journalists perspectives when they cover the events. Native journalists might be biased towards their
own country and cover news in a way such that it reflects good light about their own country. This can
be seen in the reporting of the 911 incident. On the other hand, foreign journalists may be impartial.
The purpose of news differs from people. Some seeks news to inform them about the current
happenings in the world while some regards news as a form of entertainment. Some prefer speed to
quality, vice versa. Thus, the value of parachute journalism varies from people.
2. Explain why you agree and/or disagree with Kaye Sweetser Trammell and David D. Perlmutter
(2007) on the source credibility and information quality of blogs as opposed to news reports
by professional journalists.
Blogs are often deemed as less credible and has poorer content quality than traditional mediums as
bloggers are not as professional as paid journalists. I feel that the credibility of blogs largely depends on
its origin. In Singapore, most of the blogs are considered conservative (they do not present inaccurate
news or extreme views) as we are governed by strict laws and any inappropriate blog contents might
result in lawsuits. Thus, Singapore bloggers rarely disseminate false news contents. However, it might be
true that blogs are of poorer information quality to news reports as bloggers are not funded and they
might not have the time and money to discover the truths behind the events. Thus, one should not take
blogs, and even news reports by professional journalists, too seriously.