The Newsroom

Has been addicted to the show "The Newsroom" since its debut last year. The story is engaging, the cast is great and the premise is exciting. For those who haven't seen it or heard about it, it is a social political drama set inside the newsroom of a cable TV network. The main character Will McAvoy played by Jeff Daniels suffered a career set back because of a possibly medical induced rant at a public forum. To salvage his career and his news program the network invited someone who has completely different views about journalism to be his new executive producer. Together with a cast of young journalists who want to make their marks in different ways, sparks were flying all over the newsroom.

"The Newsroom" investigates the dilemma of modern journalism - should we produce socially responsible news programmes or are we responsible for a high rating programme only? The fact is great news programme don't necessarily be the highest rating programmes. Also how do balance your account book with your social responsibility? "The Newsroom" season one kicks of with these question and continued to attempt to find an answer throughout the season. Each day in the newsroom is a battle of ethics and pragmatism. Season two kicked off with a very interesting opening and started telling the story backward. It makes you want to find out what lead to the opening scene of this season. I heard Aaron Sorkin, who brought us "The West Wing"in the past, spent a lot of time in a cable network newsroom to research on and understand the subject  before production and it shows in the actual product he delivered to the audience.

Watching "The Newsroom" makes me think about my original thought of taking up journalism before moving to Australia. I did get accepted into the School of Journalism at a very good university. I was excited to get myself enrolled. This was because I felt like I was doing something meaningful with my life. I always believed that responsible journalism is the only way to keep the government and the society in check and I wanted to be part of it. But then I think life has other plans for me and so I ended up in Australia studying something else.

Fast forward to the present I am doing nothing remotely related to journalism. I am still opinionated and full of ideologies about the world. I still debate with friends about social issues from time to time. However I have mostly become one of the working masses. While I still have a lot of respect for real journalism in Hong Kong, I am mostly disappointed with the pseudo-journalism in Australia. I do not like my news time plastered with the so called WAGS of famous men and I do not like trash tabloid TV pretending themselves as current affairs programs. I nowadays only watch ABC and SBS news because they are what I would recognise as real journalism.

When I watched "The Newsroom" I appreciate that it did not shy away from any issues. They regularly questioned their own motives - "is this a personal agenda or am I really trying to uncover the truth?" "Am I thinking what's best for my career or what's best for the society?" I personally think all real journalists should do that check on themselves regularly. This is not self-censorship but self-evaluating so that what you deliver at the news desk makes a difference to the society.

I think that was what motivated me to apply for the Journalism School back then. Now I might sound naive to still have those thoughts especially when I am not a teenager who thinks I could do anything anymore. But I do still believe in the social responsibilities of each individual. That's probably why I continue to write my blog - maybe one day it would make a difference.

A BlackBerry A Day...

The smartphone wars have been going on for quite a number of years now. Mobile phones have gone from being able to be used as a self-defence device to now sleek and multi-purposes. They have also gone from getting smaller back to getting bigger again. However one thing seems to be quite consistent is that most phones have done away with physical keyboards and replaced them with the touchscreen ones.

I have always been a fan of Apple. I gradually replaced my computer with a Mac and had joined the camp of iPods after Sony ended their production of my favourite MDs. So when iPhone was first announced, I thought I would be getting an iPhone. Like a lot of people I couldn’t wait to get my hands on an iPhone and continue with an Apple a day. However, with the iPhone having completely done away with the physical keyboard, I did not like it at all when I tried it at the shops. At first I thought it was just because of the pressure people posed on me trying in the shops. So I gave it more tries when my friends got “iPhone-ised” one by one. Still did not like it. The virtual keyboards just didn’t do it for me at all. Later when other brands of smartphones came out, I tried most of them and found out that I am really not built for virtual keyboards. At that point I thought I would just stick with my trusty traditional Sony phone. I was quite happy with it until something called Facebook comes along and hopped on to the mobile world.

As an actor, I need to meet people all the time and so one day when Facebook became a norm for everyone you meet to “friend” everyone on the spot with their smartphones, I had no choice but to join the movement. This is when I discovered the BlackBerry Bold 9700. I have always been sceptical about a QWERTY keyboard on a phone because seriously how comfortable could that be? I had tried the Nokia QWERTY phone and I did not like it at all. The buttons are so small that every time I pressed them I felt like I was having acupuncture treatments on my fingers but without the benefits. That is until I tried the one on the Bold. This was the first time I felt that “Oh such a small keyboard could be so comfy and easy to use!” I fell in love with BlackBerry – quite a number of years later than the likes of Paris Hilton and Hilary Duff. The Bold 9700 was so easy to use that I started using it for my emails and not to mention Facebook. I felt I am so in touch with the world now because I could just “Friend” people on Facebook on the fly. Life was good.

However with the Forbidden Fruit taking over with iPhone, BlackBerry has been declining in terms of market shares. This doesn’t help with Google entering the foray with the Android OS and sent their droids to companies making cheap phones to saturate the market with seemingly good-looking phones for the price of a pack of Tim Tam. BlackBerry followed up with a few products and still didn’t quite make the mark. I eventually updated my 9700 with 9900 when my trusty 9700 of 3 years died the day before Christmas last year. The 9900 running the OS7 was great with some new great additions – and man that Social Feeds app was the reason that I revived my interest in Twitter. Also the BlackBerry Maps kept me from getting lost many many times. However, with the OS7 aging and the 9900 seems to start lagging behind because of its hardware limitations, I have my eyes set on the Q10 since its announcement. I waited and waited and finally the fruit is ripe for harvest.

I plunge myself into the pool in the first week of Q10’s release in Australia. This is the first time I bought a phone at release – and bought it outright without a contract. I couldn’t wait to have a play with it.

The OS10 was very different from OS7. However, with my experience with the now ill-fated PlayBook (that I still use quite a bit), I have no problem understanding the logic of OS10. Still I do think that OS10 is not without issues from my point of view. Firstly I was disappointed that my favourite Social Feeds app was gone. Now in order to perform multiple social network updates, I need to copy and paste them in the Hub and personally I do not think it is very efficient way for business people to do that (or maybe they do not have time to tweet). The Hub was great to get all things in one place but Social Feeds is about streamlining social network updates, and personally I think it should have been kept. The other thing I was disappointed was the half-ass Live Messenger app that has so many bugs that you couldn’t even sync your Messenger contacts with the app. I deleted it two seconds later. Also the touch screen on Q10 seems to be a lot more sensitive than 9900. Sometimes screen just change and disappear even when you fingers are not actually touching the screen.

Having said that I still enjoy my Q10 a lot, especially once you start to understand the logic behind the OS built better as you use it. Some of them just make sense. BlackBerry World might not have a lot of apps on it, but I do think I have the ones I needed most already, but then I am not a big apps fan. For me I only need Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIN as additional apps. Skype is also available but my love of Skype dropped after Microsoft acquired it and forced a marriage between Skype and Live Messenger. The marriage just didn’t work. However, as time went by (two weeks now), I started to enjoy the benefits brought by a great Unit Converter app and not to mention the TripView app that gives me a piece of comfort against the ridiculously unreliable Sydney bus services. I like the OS10 screen being not particularly cluttered and have some big icons arranged properly. The Docs to Go app has encouraged to write more on the bus – which I started earlier this week and finished two other blogs. And I did downloaded Angry Birds Star Wars and Polar Slide for free. Also the integration with Drop Box makes transferring file so much easier for me now as I don’t need to email them to and fro all the time.

I think the Q10’s OS10 does have business people in mind, as it is very business technology oriented. It might not be the entertainment phone people might want it to be but I think for a person like me who doesn’t care a darn about playing games on the phone, cluttering apps on the phone, and just being part of the crowd, I think the BlackBerry Q10 really suits me a lot. I do wish that more people appreciate the effort of BlackBerry but with the smartphone market becoming more about being trendy instead of being practical, BlackBerry’s future might not be as bright as one would hope. But for me, as long as they are still making great phones like my trusty Bold 9700, Bold 9900 and Q10, I still believe a BlackBerry a day keeps my tech problems away.