Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Values, Goals and Good Journalism Essay Example for Free

Values, Goals and Good Journalism Essay Power of the press†¦ Glory of the byline†¦ Thrill of being among the first to know†¦ These are just some of the legendary benefits that a person gets when he or she takes journalism for a profession. The public looks up to journalists as those who do very interesting things – meeting the rich and famous, having access to powerful people, experiencing heady encounters and getting paid for doing these things. However, power is always accompanied by a corresponding responsibility. Ideally, a journalist should present the truth about an event or issue. He must be well-grounded in the standards and ethics of journalism before he even attempts to write a story. He must bear in mind the importance of confidentiality, objectivity and fairness. He must understand that journalism is a presentation of facts and facts alone. There really are some instances when a writer tends to inject personal bias in the story he is writing. These happen when he inserts personal feeling and opinion and when he sees himself not as an observer but a participant in the event that he is covering. There are also cases when a journalist stacks the facts so as to prove one side of the story or to take the position the paper prefers. Personal biases must be set aside when presenting a news. What one writes reflects who he is. If his commitment to journalistic principles and public service is compromised with financial gains, this may lead to offenses such as libel, sensationalism, invasion of privacy, obstruction of justice, and obscenity. To prevent getting charged of any of these, the good values of a journalist must urge him to exercise good judgment which eventually shapes credibility. The best way to be the best writer, however, is to treat journalism as a vital calling. Every writing must be inspired by the manner the Bible was written. The Bible emphasizes the necessity of objectivity in reporting. As Luke writes: Since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. Objectivity must be transparent in all kinds of reporting. In recent years, priests’ involvement in sex scandals had been a sensitive topic worldwide. This is just right as journalists must carry out their duty of presenting even the dark side of the news. The Bible describes God as a creator and man as His image-bearer. Sometimes, a journalist needs to report on the contrast between man’s sinfulness and God’s holiness. Journalists do not have to preach in stories; however, they can work towards honest selection of details. There is no question about God’s involvement in human history. In Deuteronomy 29, Moses addressed the Israelites: Your eyes have seen all that the Lord did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials and to all his land. With your own eyes, you saw those great trials, those miraculous signs and great wonders. But to this day, the Lord has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear. In writing his own piece, a writer must provide the context but must follow the Bible in depicting God’s grace and man’s sinfulness. If in the Bible Jesus says to Thomas, â€Å"Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed,† same goes to a journalist who does not go to press even when ten people tell him the same thing. In conclusion, good journalism entails truth-telling even when it hurts. For him to become the best journalist he can be, a journalist must possess only two things: commitment to truth and a biblical worldview in apprehending reality accurately. Reference Brucker, Herbert. Communication is Power: Unchanging Values in a Changing Journalism. New York: Oxford University Press. 1973.

Monday, January 20, 2020

rail road expansion :: essays research papers

Following the civil war, railroad construction took off at a fast pace. In the twenty-five years between 1865 and 1890, the miles of railroad track in the United States went from 35,000 to 200,000. The enormous increase in track produced an increase in America's economy.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The farming economy was greatly helped by the expansion of the railroad system. The railroad became one of the main and most efficient ways to transport farmers produce. This was especially helpful to farms in remote locations. The expanded railroad system enabled farmers to produce more crops because of the greater potential shipping locations that became available. This also made products such as corn and grain available to locations that the crop wasn't produced in. It made things that used to be a luxury to some regions a common item to have.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The increasing railroad was also beneficial to cities economies that had tracks running through them. It helped the city import and export goods, which helped produce and ship better products in a timelier manner to a larger amount of people and businesses. More potential customers lead to larger factories and companies, which lead to more jobs being available to people. These cities also generated more people coming in by train. It provided people with a time efficient way to travel to visit family and take trips. In a way, the railroad system made the United States seem a lot smaller than it was previous to the civil war.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Another way the railroad system changed America was the way people went about their daily life in general. Before arrival and departure times of trains, the concept of time wasn't as important. Afterwards, however, people became accustomed to picking things up, meeting people, or getting on trains at certain times. As distance became less important, time became more important. It is this concept of time that has carried over to the time we presently live in. We are oriented around times and dates, from airline departures and arrivals to work schedules to social events. We no longer view the world as a big place that takes a long time to get from one place to another, but what time we will be there. People today are able to take more trips for fun to see friends and relatives that live away more often because of the quick traveling options we now have. This was not possible in the past.

Sunday, January 12, 2020

Globalisation on Service Economies in the Uk Essay

MacKinnon & Cumbers (2011) defined globalisation as â€Å"†¦ the increased connections †¦ in flows of goods, services, money, information and people across national and continental borders. â€Å". The globalisation process may be decomposed into constituent processes in order to explain the impacts it has had, which will be discussed more later. In turn, a service economy is one, or part of one, that is based on trade in services. A service is characterised by its intangibility, inseparability (the simultaneous production and consumption of services), heterogeneity and perishability over time and space (Regan 1963; Rathmell 1966; Shostack 1977; Zeithaml et al 1985, cited in Wolak 1998). Alternatively, services are economic activities which have no direct involvement with agriculture, mining, or manufacturing (OECD 2000). Both macro and meso-scale impacts will be examined, starting with the macro; how the service sector as a whole has changed and how globalisation may have fundamentally changed the concept of what a service might be. Inequality as a result of globalisation will then be discussed with particular reference to the North-South divide, before examining market structure changes in terms of levels of competition in the service sector. Finally, meso-scale impacts will be considered, emphasising wage differences in the UK’s service sector. Figure [ 1 ]: Percentage share of employment in the UK by sector, 1980-2008 Source: ONS 2009, cited in Faulconbridge 2010 The most profound impact has been the expansion of the service sector since the onset of globalisation in the mid-20th century. Figure 1 shows the increase in service employment from 1980 – 2008. Further to this, the %GDP generated by the service sector in this same period rose by approximately 20% (OECD 1996, cited in Julius ;amp; Butler 1998), closely mirroring the data in figure 1. Explanation for this can be found in the international division of labour (IDL) that has occurred, in which agriculture and manufacturing have moved abroad to areas that have a comparative advantage over the UK in these sectors. Bryson (2008) referred to this process as the first global shift. The result is, as Figure 1 shows, that as agriculture and manufacturing decline in the UK, services ‘fill the gap’ that they have left behind. But what led to the first global shift? Offshoring, the act of transferring (predominantly lower-skilled) operations to least-cost locations abroad, is a relatively new concept which has occurred with globalisation (Coe et al 2007). In particular, the rise of Transnational Corporations (TNCs) that are involved with multiple economic sectors, has created a pronounced IDL with East Asia as a dominant choice of location for outsourcing and offshoring. An example of this is Primark Ltd, a subsidiary of Associated British Foods plc. Primark’s retail stores -the service part of its operations- are predominantly in the UK, but it sources its products (manufacturing that would otherwise be done in the UK) from East Asia (Primark 2011). This split encapsulates one way in which services in the UK have grown; at the expense of other sectors. Another explanation for the expansion is the liberalisation of the UK economy. As globalisation took hold, the view that free trade was the most efficient way to trade became dominant, a philosophy termed neoliberalism (Peet et al 2011). The result was the formation of trade blocs and international organisations, for example the development of the European Union into what it is today. Flows of capital, labour and goods between constituents of the EU are uninhibited by tariffs and quotas, leading to a disproportionate increase of trade in services between the UK and Europe as the costs of trade fell. Evidence for how liberalism has worked is found in the ‘Big Bang’ in London. In 1986 the UK government attempted â€Å"the most rapid, and most comprehensive regulatory relaxation ever attempted by an exchange† (Clemons & Weber 1990: 233). By abolishing trade restrictions such as the minimum scale for commissions and opening the exchange to outsiders, deregulation made the City more attractive as a marketplace, thus regaining its competitive advantage which it had lost to other cities such as New York (Clemons & Weber 1990). But as London’s capital-intensive sector grew in size and scale, so did the whole service sector. Wages were pushed upwards and created a mood of optimism (The Economist 2011), increasing the demand for lower-paid services such as cleaning, which are vital for a city to function (Sokol 2011). As well as this, knowledge-based services such as accountancy or stock broking also flourished due to the increased volume of trade. Globalisation, more specifically the spread of technology, has also changed the fundamentals of a ‘service’. The earlier definition of service comes from literature from the mid-to-late 20th century, but more recently services have begun to transcend the characteristics of being inseparable and perishable, allowed by technological advancements (OECD, 2000). An example of this can be found by examining the relatively new concept of internet search engines; it is a service produced at one point in time, yet it is available for use at almost any point in time and space, and by virtually unlimited amounts of people. Through technology, a whole host of different types of services have arisen, contributing to the expansion of the service sector. One particular new type of service is a business service (BS). Shown in figure 1, the increase in employment in BS’s since 1980 is due to firms externalising and outsourcing work (Faulconbridge 2010), for example employing an accountant from a specialist accountancy firm rather than one in-house. Externalisation can be explained by the concept of the spatial division of expertise (Bryson & Rusten 2006, cited in Daniels et al 2008), which exploits the theory of comparative advantage for knowledge and expertise, at a meso-scale. As such, the demand for BS’s has increased, pushing forward BS’s prominence in the UK economy. Another impact is the widening of the North-South divide in England, observed at least as early as 1988 (Green 1988), during the Thatcher government’s implementation of neoliberalistic policies. Evidence for this is found in much literature (Martin, 2010; French et al 2010; Mackinnon ;amp; Cumbers, 2011; Bryson, 2008), arguing that the spatial shift to services in the UK has been uneven; growth in knowledge and capital intensive services have been concentrated in the South-East and London, whilst labour-intensive (and therefore likely to be lower-paid) services developed in the rest of the UK, in particular the North. This spatial inequality of the UK service economy can be attributed to a number of globalisation factors, but one of importance was the already-established spatial division of expertise between London and the rest of the UK. London had been the capital of the ‘workshop of the world’, thus established as a centre of knowledge, so as global markets became more integrated, and with events such as the Big Bang, the size and scale at which London’s knowledge economy operated increased disproportionately relative to the rest of the UK’s. Further to this, the divide is exacerbated by exposure to world market forces that results from liberalisation. The financial crisis of 2007 which started in the USA caused the collapse of Northern Rock, RBS, and HBOS, major banks whose headquarters were based in Newcastle and Edinburgh. French et al (2010) argued that their fates signalled the end of Edinburgh and Newcastle as regional financial centres, thus further eroding the spatial equality of types of services in the UK. Indeed, Newcastle is increasingly being known as being a location of choice for outsourcing call centres (Richardson et al 2000). Exposure to world markets was mentioned when discussing spatial inequality caused by globalisation. But exposure has also meant an increased level of competition in the service sector as TNCs expand their operations. An example of this has been the inward foreign investment in the supermarket industry by firms such as Aldi since 1989, creating competition and adversely changing the market structure from the view of domestic firms. Aldi hoped to create 1500 new jobs from 2008-2013 (Wallop 2008), implying that inward foreign investment has brought positive impacts for service sector employment. On the other hand there are some service industries for which increased competition has had very few positive impacts, notably the coastal tourism industry. Blackpool’s local economy is based heavily upon services related to tourism, but with the advancement of travel technology exposing this market to international competition, the tourism sector has declined considerably in recent years (Singleton 2009) along with its related industries. Figure [ 2 ]: Index of rise in Gross Weekly Real Earnings for full-time males 1978 – 2008 Source: Lansley (2009) Inequality can also be found at a meso-scale, in particular, the increase in the difference between the highest paid and lowest paid workers. Figure 2 shows that the rate of increase at the 90th percentile in the male wage distribution has been far higher than that at the 10th percentile. Although figure 2 does not isolate service wages from other wages, this rising inequality is still significant as services made up almost 90% of the UK economy in 2008 (figure 1). Van Reenen & Bell (2010) showed that the increase in the top end of the wage distribution has been mostly in financial services. Much recent media coverage has indeed focussed on high bankers’ bonuses. The causes of this may be partially explained with by theories which do not fit in the context of globalisation, for example the decline of trade unions being responsible for lowering wages at the bottom of the wage distribution (Van Reenen ;amp; Bell 2010). However, in a globalisation context, offshoring plays a major role. Offshoring, as explained before, moves lower-skilled jobs to least-cost locations. This means that domestic labour supply is now competing with labour supply abroad. If labour can be supplied abroad for cheaper, the domestic price of labour (i. . UK wages) is depressed, thus explaining the low rate at which low-skilled wages are rising in the context of higher-skilled wages. Alternatively, domestic demand for unskilled labour has fallen, resulting in the lowering of unskilled wages (Slaughter ;amp; Swagel 1997) Furthermore, influxes of migrants, particularly from the EU, have contribu ted to the impacts on the labour market. Whilst skilled migrants help to tackle the UK skills shortage, unskilled migrants provide excess labour market supply; lowering unskilled wages and raising unemployment figures. An alternative explanation is the migrant division of labour (Wills et al 2010), where foreign-born workers are more likely to take lower-paid jobs in the UK because the wage is still higher than what they might get paid in their home country, so driving down wages of lower-paid jobs in general. At the other end of the scale, the highest-skilled wages are being pushed upwards disproportionately because as global markets become more integrated, the rate of increase in global demand for skilled labour outstrips that of the global supply of skilled labour. Evidence for the concept of demand outstripping supply comes from Richardson (2009, p. 326): â€Å"†¦ even in times of relatively high unemployment, employers frequently cite skills shortages as one of the business difficulties that they face†. In conclusion, explanations of impacts of globalisation on UK services tend to be constituent processes of globalisation which are inextricably linked: the exposure to world markets due to trade liberalisation, offshoring, technology, and migration, but the impacts they cause vary greatly. Explanations may also rely on economic theory, for example, the impacts on the labour market. Exposure to world market forces, such as the current Eurozone crisis, may mean London’s position within the UK is compromised like Newcastle’s and Edinburgh’s was. Additionally, as shown by the contrast between supermarkets and tourism in the UK, impacts and their explanations are industry-specific. However, it must be realised that globalisation offers only partial explanation of the impacts discussed.  Politics, economics, sociology as well as wider geography play a fundamental role – in particular, UK governments have played a vastly important role in shaping outcomes of globalisation.

Saturday, January 4, 2020

Essay on Development of Ancient Egypt - 823 Words

Geographical determinism played an essential role in Egypt’s development. Blessed with natural barriers that fostered isolation, it was protected from invasion and the barriers gave it a sense of security while not hindering the development of trade. The Nile River was of central importance to life in Egypt. The Nile River, the longest river in the world, begins in heart of Africa and courses northwards for thousands of miles. The areas that spanned 7 miles on both banks of river were capable of producing abundant harvests. Flooding was gradual and predictable in contrast to Mesopotamian rivers. Like Mesopotamia, Egypt was a river valley civilization. The economy in Egypt was a command economy. The government ordered the citizens to†¦show more content†¦Today, it is divided into 3 major periods, the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms. They were periods of long-term stability, characterized by strong monarchial authority, competent bureaucracy, freedom from invasion, temples and pyramids, and intellectual and cultural activity. Between the periods of stability were Intermediate Periods, characterized by political instability, weak political structure, rivalry for leadership, invasion, less building, and an overall restructuring of society. The first Egyptian royal dynasty was in 3100 B.C. under a king called Menes, uniting upper and lower Egypt into a single kingdom. The Old Kingdom went through the 3rd and 6th dynasties, lasting from 2686-2125 BC. It was an age of prosperity and splendor, and the largest and greatest pyramids were constructed. Pyramids were tombs, if the ka, or the spiritual body of the dead person, was properly mummified and the tomb furnished with various objects of regular life, the ka could return and continue its life despite the death of the physical body. The largest pyramid was built under King Khufu in Giza at 2530 B.C., covers 13 acres, named the Great Pyramid. In obeying king, subjects helped maintain a cosmic order. Egypt was divided into provinces called nomes. Hieroglyphs emerged during first 2 dynasties. Despite theory of divine order, Old Kingdom eventually collapsed, ushering in a period of chaos. Middle Kingdom was new period of stability lasting from 2055-1650 B.C.Show MoreRelatedHow Did the Geographic Features of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia Impact Civilization Development?1786 Words   |  8 Pagescivilizations development in great measures. Depending on the resources available or the detriments present due to certain topographical characteristics like rivers or deserts, a civilization could flourish or collapse. 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