The Young Reporter
SOPA award winner says patience and ethics is key to investigative stories
- 2017-10-26
- The Young Reporter
- By: Michael Shum、Kenji ChanEdited by: Nicole Kwok
- 2017-10-26
Reported by Michael Shum and Kenji Chan Edited by Nicole Kwok Aun Pheap, reporter at The Cambodia Daily and co-winner of the SOPA Award for Excellence in investigative reporting, said doing an investigative story could be dangerous and demanding, but staying patient and ethical is crucial in getting the story done. Being a journalist in Cambodia, Pheap sees how corrupted the Cambodian government is. He had once entered a military area with his colleagues in Zsombor, where they found a bunch of luxury-grade timber stocked there. They were discovered by the military and were arrested as well as interrogated. "The military officials said they would not allow us to leave if we don't reveal our intentions. We disclosed our identities as journalists," said Pheap, "they suddenly became friendly to us." "They invited us for coffee and offered gasoline, hoping that we will not write anything about the luxury wood stocked in the military base," he added. "The military commander found us a driver to a guest house, but we left the city right after the driver drove away, for we are afraid of the commander changing his mind. After that, we put everything into the article." said Pheap. He also received a direct request from a government official before, asking him not to publish an negative coverage on government officials. But instead of giving in, he reported the situation to his chief-editor. The Daily decided to disclose that whole conversation between him and the government official to the public. "I always got hung up on after revealing that I am a journalist," Pheap added. "Government officials will call and scold us with very bad words." "However, I usually try to stay friendly. I want them to answer my questions," he said. …
Wall Street Journal Head of Visuals introduces content-driven multimedia journalism at SOPA Forum
- 2017-10-26
- The Young Reporter
- By: Raphael Blet、Sharon Pun、Candice WongEdited by: Melissa KO、Emily Cheung、Ellen He
- 2017-10-26
It is important for media to be content-driven – certain medium should be adopted because it suits to tell the story, not because it looks fancy, said MinJung Kim, a Society of Publishers in Asia Awards winner in 2017. Speaking at an award winners' forum this morning at Hong Kong Baptist University, Ms Kim, the Head of Visuals for the Wall Street Journal, shared some insights of her work. She emphasised the importance for news organisations to have multi-platform multimedia resources. "People consume more news online, and on mobile. You have to consider different platforms when planning," she said. In addition, she highlighted that collaboration and advance planning are the keys because various stakeholders have to be involved in multimedia projects, including editors, reporters and IT specialists. "On average, it takes two to four months to complete a project," she said. Despite acknowledging the fact that larger news organisations are more privileged in a digital age, Ms Kim said that the smaller ones can still create quality multimedia journalistic works. The SOPA forum will continue until this Friday.
Dark sides of Taiwan's pelagic industry uncovered
- 2017-10-26
- The Young Reporter
- By: Kobie Li、Dorothy MaEdited by: Celia Lai
- 2017-10-26
A report revealing the abuse of migrant fishermen and the dark sides of the country's pelagic industry won 2017 Excellence in Investigative Reporting and in Human Rights Reporting of SOPA Award. Cheng Han Wen, a journalist from the Taiwanese non-profit newsagent The Reporter, said their work drove the government to look into the working condition of migrant crewmen, during her speech on the HKBU-SOPA Award Winners Forum in Hong Kong Baptist University yesterday. They traced back the death of Supriyanto, a Indonesian father-of-two, who came to Taiwan alone to support his family but lost his life on a fishing vessel. He was proclaimed "dead of disease". Reading unconvincing official document and proof about his death, Cheng started to investigate the case for the truth about the treatment to migrant fishermen in Taiwan. According to a report of Greenpeace Taiwan, over 1.6 million foreign fishermen work for distant water fisheries in Taiwan with a monthly wage of around US$100 ($780). Given the fierce competition in the domestic fishing industry, lives of labour are perceived cheaper than fish, especially when it comes to foreign fishermen, said Cheng. Cheng elaborated on the recruitment of the fisherman. She said they were mostly recruited by the agents in South-east Asia. Once they arrived the airport, they were brought to a dorm with poor living environment. "They are locked away from people like a criminal, " she said. The agents will arrange fisherman to get on the fishing boat as soon as possible to prevent them from escaping. In most cases, they can only get off two to three years later. "They are often abused by the captain and treated inhumanely," she said. From getting on board a ship to plying timelessly, what those crew members earned will only be exploited by brokers, agents …
Uncovering invisible slavery: the underbelly of Taiwan's fishery industry
- 2017-10-26
- The Young Reporter
- By: Michelle Ng、Ezra Cheung、Alexandra LinEdited by: Choy York Borg Paulus
- 2017-10-26
"Taiwan is an island, surrounded by ocean, but it seems that most people are not familiar with its fishing industry," Cheng Han-wen, a Taiwanese investigative journalist said. Initially, Cheng and her team wanted to write about the decline in capture fisheries. However, when they were carrying out an interview with a fishery overseer, they discovered the industry's enslavement of young Indonesian fishermen by accident. "The stories about the exploitation of fishermen are rarely covered," added Cheng, "because the Taiwanese media often focus on the epic grandeur of its offshore fishery." The discovery later guided them to an Indonesian village, where eight in ten villagers said they had been to Taiwan, as some of them were proficient in Mandarin. A villager who used to work in Taiwan's fishing industry was mentally traumatised; another "jumped to his death", according to Cheng. Cheng and her team have won three SOPA awards in 2017 on reporting about the exploitation in the Taiwanese fishing industry . "The ship master has also beaten me up," Cheng quoted from her interview with Supriyanto, a fishery labourer from Central Java, Indonesia and was later found dead in a Taiwanese commercial offshore fishing vessel due to sepsis. Reduced to a bag of bones, his dead body was then sent back to his home in Central Java. Although his story had been covered by several outlets, no one went as deep as The Reporter: An award-winning alternative media composed of ten journalists and three photojournalists, specialising in investigative and in-depth reporting. "If a fisherman and a fish were to drop into the ocean at the same time, no doubt the fish would be rescued first." said Cheng. Despite receiving international recognition for the story, the young journalist still feels powerless about the issue because the coverage has not brought about immediate change in the society. …
Reporters still hold a crucial position in tech-centric data news production
- 2017-10-25
- The Young Reporter
- By: Jade Li、Caroline Kwok、Elly WuEdited by: Daniel Ma、Sean Hsu
- 2017-10-25
Comparing to computer science students that possess coding knowledge, journalism students still have advantages to enter the data news industry as they are better at making sense of data, said SOPA award winner Ashely Wei. The Caixin Vislab data news designer gave a sharing lecture on basic tools used in data news industry with students of Hong Kong Baptist University on Oct 25 at the SOPA Award Winners Forum. Ms Wei said cooperation between journalists, programmers and art directors is crucial in producing a news piece with data visualisation. "One of the biggest challenges for web designers is they know the technical aspect of presenting data but they don't know how to represent data in a sensible way and that is when journalists come into play," Ms Wei said. Wei also introduced "ready-to-use tools" to help journalists who have no prior knowledge of coding to represent data such as three.js, d3.js and Tableau. "In data journalism, trends and patterns are more important than data itself. People don't want to see details but the trend," said Wei. She divided data journalism into data and building news website. She said the main purpose of data journalism is to keep readers involved in the stories. "Data is broader than information. Journalists not only need to write stories but also need to find proper ways to present them," said Wei.
"As Simple As Possible" - Developer of CaiXin VisLab Talks About Data Visualization
- 2017-10-25
- The Young Reporter
- By: Windy LI、Zoya ZhaoEdited by: Choco Tang
- 2017-10-25
The HKBU-SOPA Award Winners Forum with the award-winning journalist- Ashley Wei, reveals the principle of data visualization is making things "As Simple As Possible" and shares the skills of data visualization. Ashley Wei, a data visualization designer and developer of CaiXin VisLab since 2015, has been awarded the SOPA Awards for three times since 2015. Wei revealed how to integrate arts and programming methods into projects to explore data news storytelling. "Data journalists should have a basic idea about programming to keep a good relationship with visualization developers and control the whole journalistic project" she said. "Data visualization is all about mapping, and there are two kinds of data- geographic coordinates which can be transferred to screen coordinates and even 3D, and value which can be changed to attribute." Wei said. "The importance of data visualization is showing the trend of the issue." she added. Three architecture ways were raised by Wei for organizing data- long-form (the story is shown in one page), slide show (the story is presenting in PowerPoint); and full screen (the story is shown within one screen), among which slide show is the most powerful presentation on mobile phone. Also, Wei pointed out that Excel is not as technology-lacking as people think. In fact, it's a good tool to visualize data since it can convert data to different types of chart efficiently. The HKBU-SOPA Award Winners Forum is a 4-day event inviting SOPA-award winners to participate in lectures and discussions on the journalism profession. Students are welcome to join from now to October 27th in designated venue in Hong Kong Baptist University.
Lifelong suffering of women in India
- 2017-10-25
- Society
- The Young Reporter
- By: Scout Xu、Maggie LiuEdited by: Lam Ka Sing
- 2017-10-25
Women in India suffer from violence throughout their lives, according to a veteran journalist covering the issue for years. The violence starts from infancy, from infanticide and infancy neglect to domestic violence, said Nita Bhalla, the chief correspondent in South Asia at the Thomson Reuters Foundation, in a forum of Hong Kong Baptist University today. Based in New Delhi, Nita Bhalla works as a foreign correspondent for about 20 years and wins an award for her coverage on human rights. Meanwhile, since females are often considered inferior to males, if a family can only support one child for education, the opportunity always goes to the male ones, resulting in deprived opportunities in education, said Bhalla. About half of Indian women get married under the age of 14, according to a government report, and the youngest was only aged 6, said Bhalla. After they get married, sexual abuse within the family, wife-sharing and domestic violence tend to follow, she said. Six out of ten men admitted they have committed domestic violence, including hitting their wives, confiscating their money and devaluing them, according to a United Nations report. At the end of her talk, she says because there are still many positive stories, she can recover from overwhelming frustrations after witnessing disasters. A famous case of brutality to females is the Delhi gang rape, in which a 23-year-old female student was raped by six men in a bus, resulting in her death and worldwide attention. Under social pressure invoked by the protests, four attackers were sentenced to death by the government, while one of them, who was under 18, was charged with a three-year sentence. "The death penalty can't solve the problem as we find in researches," said Bhalla. "Our main focus should on the change in mindset and how we regard …
Multimedia storytelling does not change principles of good journalism
- 2017-10-25
- The Young Reporter
- By: Holly Chik、Erica Chin、Elisa LukEdited by: Ellen He、Emily Cheung、Melissa KO
- 2017-10-25
The principles and basic rules of good journalism remain the same, though journalists now have exciting tools, said MinJung Kim, the Head of Visuals Asia of The Wall Street Journal, at a forum at Hong Kong Baptist University this morning. An interactive story "Five Major Risks to Flying in Asia" won Kim 2016 SOPA Awards for Excellence in Digital News and Information Graphics. Producing multimedia stories should be a content-based decision although the virtual reality, 3D modelling, data visualisation are "popular and cool" forms of journalism, said Kim, and "choosing which medium can best tell your story" is the second concern. Featured in the "No Good Choice" story is an audio of an Indonesian domestic helper who was sexually assaulted by her host family in Hong Kong. Her face cannot be shown as a victim under Hong Kong law, but the audio instead, shows the her emotions and creates a vivid image of her. As for deciding which medium to use, Kim said reporters can come up with an idea, which will later be pitched by developers who have expertise in a certain medium. Multimedia projects require collaborative efforts and early planning with involving parties. According to Kim, the team which puts moving pieces together is usually comprised of project managers, writers, developers, designers, data researchers and video producers. Another interactive story "Kowloon Walled City", which incorporates video interviews, photo archive, map, and timeline, has taken about six months to produce because a lot of time is spent on researching and obtaining permission to use the archive materials. However, for breaking news stories, Kim said they would do them incrementally - text goes first, and they will add video, graphics and interactive elements. The SOPA Forum will continue tomorrow and other award-winning journalists will share their experiences, including Nita Bhalla …
Two out of 40 prepackaged juices found to contain mycotoxin
- 2017-10-17
- Health & Environment
- The Young Reporter
- By: Holly ChikEdited by: Daisy Lee
- 2017-10-17
Consumer Council said two of prepackaged juices samples were tested positive for patulin, a mycotoxin a UN committee on Food Additives say could suppress immunoreactions, damage nerves and affect the development of infants. Although patulin is commonly present in decaying fruits, especially apples, "the risk is higher in juices because mould cannot be seen", said council spokesman Michael Hui King-man. The distributors have instantly removed the two cold pressed apple and blended apple juices, in which the amount of patulin have exceeded the Centre for Food Safety's action level. The council also found that the dietary fibre content of all 40 samples, including those with fruit pulps claims, was lower than the detection limit of less than 1.1g/100ml of fruit juice. Vitamin C content in apple juices was also found generally lower than 2mg/100ml, whilst that in orange juices, on the whole, was higher, ranging from 11 to 52mg/100ml. High sugar content in all samples also entailed that they are "not deemed as a low-sugar food" under Hong Kong's current nutrition labelling standards. For the sample with the most sugar, drinking 1 bottle of 360ml of juice would amount to 46g of sugar intake. In other words, it is equivalent to 92% of an adult average daily intake of 50g free sugars limit. The council urged consumers not to substitute fruit juice for fruit because juices contain less vitamin C and fibre but are more expensive. Reported by Holly Chik Edited by Daisy Lee
Silent voice of Russian graffiti
- 2017-10-12
- The Young Reporter
- By: Nicole Kwok、Daisy LeeEdited by: Nicole Kwok、Daisy Lee
- 2017-10-12
Street art is never welcomed in Russia. With high level of censorship, the authoritarian country does not allow much expression amid the existence of discontented undercurrents. Some said russian graffiti first took off in the days when the Western influences, especially American cultures, were introduced in the USSR. To be exact, breakdancing, derived from American hip-hop movies, partially brought the beginning of Russian graffiti subculture in the 1980s. Breakdancers became graffiti artists as they have to create eye-catching backdrops for performances. At the same time in late Soviet period, graffiti became a rebellious medium for the public, especially youth, to express non-conformity. Russian hippies use walls to share ideas of peace and kindness, while pacifists and anti-war groups began to use graffiti as a way to spread moral wrongs of war and their opposition to the Soviet Union in declaring war in Afghanistan. Russian graffiti artist Dmitri Aske once wrote, "A city is a large sandbox, and graffiti is one of the ways of existing within that sandbox." He thinks that street arts, graffitis or patriotic drawings on the facade or fences of Russia reflects currents events of the place. In Russia, ‘Bombing' is an important expressing method for local graffiti artists. It is a technique of quickly covering large areas with graffiti by tagging public transports, such as trains, or simply a whole street. Legal liability is one of the crucial concerns for graffitists all over the world. Though there is no typical law regulating graffiti in Russia, some Russian lawyers pointed out that anyone who is caught for painting graffiti can still be penalised by law enforcement under criminal code. Hurriyet Daily News reported in 2013 that Russian police had pressed charges of vandalism and graffiti which mocked Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia. According to the law, …