A drive to feel

“I’d give anything to be different than what i am” admits alex while looking down at his hands. Telling his story makes alex quite shaky he confesses while slouching on the bed . after all dealing with our emotions is never an easy task , but for alex it’s a little bit more than that. His pornaddiction , among other issues, created an overall muteness of his feellings intervalled by emotional breakdowns caused primarly by drugs . The abscence of communication with his parents, since he was a child, transformed the emotional numbness into a wall that is now hard to break.
Alex’s nervousness is almost palpable as he enters the room on a chilly Monday evening. He walks in the small halls of residence room with a falsely confident stride.The oversized military jacket, the zebra foulard and the champaign dyed color hair immediately catches the eye and gives off an eccetric look, while his soft and gentle features, (rosey cheaks)his fair complexion and light blue eyes reveal the secret of a little boy.
The same little boy who didn’t have a careless and happy childhood because of an addiction to porn which started at the early age of 11, but now that he’s 18 and sees it all more clearly. Among others things , Alex blames the internet and not having parental supervision while using it at such an early age. “ i think my parents knew, they must have known”. although, later on he says in one big sigh “ i can only blame myself”.
He regrets complaining so much to his parents about being bullied at school “i was just an attention seeking kid , i guess” . his parents moved him to a new school where alex felt lost without his friends. “Peolple treated me like shit, i nearly killed myself in year 5”.
Fourteen hit alex like a bullet. His father’s affair complicated even more the never smooth family dynamics. Talking about his parents he says “ i don’t think they like me very much, my mother hates all men and i guess she’angry for me turning into one ”. Recently while talking to his mom about his issues she said to be disgusted and feels that she failed as a mother, he says with openwide eyes while touching his face.
His father’s sense of guilt , towards the family became a heavy burden in his reationship with alex. Communication among the two became impossible. “ Even when he found a considerable porn stack he did nothing except making my guilt worse”, a sensation of guilt which was probably already within alex. Lately they had “a good coversation”.
While completely shutting down his feelings, porn became central to alex’s life.Everything in his life became secondary to porn.Even having a “working” relationship was impossible. Fear does play a key element in his life as alex declares. Fear of confronting others, difficult situations, but most of all himself. “I don’t like being alone because i start thinking” he says.
In seek of respect and acceptance he put out a persona which soon became a “popular party animal that went with everything that moved” he says. He was finally accepted in the new school, but was lonlier than ever because his feelings and his morals were supressed.
Drugs and alcohol became an easy escape which caused exasperated emotional issues and mental instability. “being able to cry was fantastic” he adds .Alex never thought of them as a true addiction although he’s worried about becoming dependant on ecstasy because of the sensations of empathy,love and walking through fire it gives him, hesays “times with ecstasy have been the most beautiful experiences of my life”.
Asking for counselling, at the age of 16, made alex feel extremely unconfortable and humilated. “It’s admitting to have a weakness, i want peolpe to respect me and see me as strong all the time” he says. later on melancholicly he admits “i would like to have some pride in myself” .
Coming to university and moving away from home represented a new start and he quit the porn but quickly realized that he underestimated the difficulty that it brought with it. Alex felt alone and scared, “without porn I didn’t know who i was”. So he jumped back into the well known compulsory routine.
Because the addiction to porn represents an everyday battle he doesn’t think much about his future and admits to having no aspirations other than falling in love. Alex has been in a good mood for a couple of days now. He cut the cable on his Internet connection.“ I am not dealing with this anymore” and now he is in a “semi-working” relationship as he defines it. He describes quittting porn as unsettling and “the hardest thing i’ve done in my life”

the names in this article have been changed for privacy purposes

Bank bureaucracy stole £ 1,500 from student's account

One thousand five hundred pounds disappeared out of a student bank account after his bank card was cloned around October twenty first. The situation remains unresolved due to bank bureaucracy.
Saman Ebrahim,20 from Yorkshire,is a client at Abbey bank. Currently, he lives in Halls of residence at University of Westminster.He noticed the money missing from his account november 7th, after his mother sent him a bank statement.Since then he pointlessly tried blocking his account.
Mr.Ebrahim tried calling the bank over the weekend,but the bank was either too busy or closed. He says "I wasted a bunch of time and money trying to call them".On Monday he went to Abbey's branch in Harrow,where he currently lives.The clerk told him to complete a dispute claim while she would block the card.
The dispute claim was delivered in a branch in central London where he was told not only that his acount was still opened,but that to change it or close it he needed a reference number from the fraud office. By then £ 1,300 were taken out of his account.
At the bank Mr.Ebrahim spent 20 minutes on the phone, being diverted between the variuos offices.After that the clerk infomerd him it will take 6 weeks for them to complete the investigation. Mr. Ebrahim affirms disappointed"found out i couldn't block my card anyway at the end of it all".
First illegal transaction was made at Domino's Pizza in Halifax.This was Mr.Ebrahim's former residence before moving to Westminster's University halls of residence on september 17th.He says "judjing the evidence someone stole bank details from my house".
Since Mr. Ebrahim does not have an overdraft.Therefore while, the money continues to be stolen the bank is charging him for having a negative account. Bank states that Mr.Ebrahim will be reimbursed 'eventually'.
Mr.Ebrahim is facing serious problems due to this incident. As money cannot be dispersed into the account it will be transfered via post.This system is not reliable. Hence he will be able to receive lean quantities of money.

Covent Garden's Fairytale

Entering a small caramel building in the heart of covent garden square a little door leads the way into a fiabesque scenario. A troubador is playing ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone on a misty melanchonic saturday afternoon while the atmosphere is filled with prismatic colors : scarlet red gowns, luminous yellow scarves, intesnse turquoise hats and magenta purple shawls. The air is scented with the perfumes of the ladies which are mixed with the sugary aroma of hot pastries and the odors of perfumed soaps . Flocks of fine ladies, mothers with their daughters happy couples and amused tourists stroll around wondering through the different stalls, looking intrigued , entertained and ,at times, bored. A sales woman is sitting on top of her own stall peering over the peolple with an inquiring look on her wrinkled face.The whole market is built as to resemble a small city with its different streets, squares, crowded cafes, restaurants and shops with foreign or fantastic item which contribute to confer a sense of wonder to the entire place. The rows of colourful market stalls and barrows in the North Hall are collectively known as The Apple Market, which is an icredible showcase for vibrant examples of handmade british design sometimes eccentric and always stylish. The wonderful accessories including stunning jewellery made from silver, gold and gemstone catch the attention of both ladies and young girls. Lamp posts on each stand, the red wrought -iron guardrail and the brick walls cherry picked the scene. Ladies gossiping in front of the stands or trying out scarves and hats under the watchful and despaired look of their partners. At a stand of velvet pastel colred scarves and hats a woman looking towards her partner asks with a pinch of coquetry “ how would this look on my gown darling?” .The voices of buyers and merchants all fuse into a mellow buzz interrupted at times by different genres of tunes played by a street entertainer . As sun falls lamp light grows stronger creating an enchanted atmosphere which brings the memory back to forgotten times.The night breeze comes gently in mixing all the smells while adding a fresh touch to them. At a stand of handmade golden and gestone kaleidoscopes an old couple childishly smiling at each other recalling memories while a little girl is dragging her mother’s arm exerting her to pay attention while saying“look at this one”.

What is Journalism?who needs it?will it survive?

As the rise of the digital era is starting to fuel the fears about the future of the printed word, many doubt the survival of journalism itself. Even if the press’s future is uncertain, journalism’s can not possibly be.
Those who actually believe that a world without journalism can exist do not understand the meaning of the word itself. The highest social function of journalism is the gathering of factual events and making them available to the public. This is the basis of any democratic society. It is through the information given through journalism that each individual can create his understanding of the facts surrounding him.
Still this is not a definition of journalism for it cannot be fixed and labeled by words. It changes, like a chameleon, according to how people perceive it. It can be a job, a\n obsession, a business or the highest ideal of all. It is for this that the only way of defining journalism is by doing it.
Contrary to popular belief the new technology does not challenge journalism in itself. It actually helps it. Producing journalism has become incredibly simple. Posting a blog or broadcasting a video on YouTube are all forms of journalism.
Certainly the accuracy and credibility of the news is undermined by the advent of user generated content. Anyhow this should not put in doubt the importance of journalism itself. Journalism matters and it should matter to everyone, since, at times our only mean of contact with the world.
Westminster University Professor Hugh Barnes once said: “you wouldn’t want to live in a world without journalism”. For living in a world without information is the
Journalism/2
same as living in a dark hole your entire life. Luckily, the curiosity and the will to communicate are predominant characteristics in mankind and as long that there will be information there will be journalism to report it.

Does news show the bright side?

As an information age society we are constantly pesterd by facts. We are told the whole world is at reach of our fingertips.Still there is a branch of it that we are not able to catch.

Media compulsion towards digital conversion is overturning the jounalistic world. Urgency and direct reportage have transformed the business of journalistic inquiry, and the profit imperative has replaced notions of morals and ethics.

Sheer amounts of money that advertising brings to media companies not only pays for the free content, but for the support of the company itself. Bringing massive pressure on editors and reporters to change the content to meet the industries' expectations.

Janine Jackson of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR),told the American Free Press that 60 percent of journalists surveyed by FAIR admit that advertisers "try to change stories."So if the consumerist industries control the content of the news, won't there be a part of the world left out of it?

News is converting into one of the many commodities whose sale and distribution can generate large profits. The discovery of this aspect of news has sparked an inflow of big capital into the media.This year,ZenithOptimedia says, advertisers will spend $448bn worldwide much of it supporting the media.Now there is a wide range of media properties to fight over that money.Hence the media battling over that money establishes the advertisers'controlling position.

Media critic, Ben Bagdikian, describes in detail the pressure on the media companies to change content. The content has to be shaped on the demographic of the audiences. He also shows that the advertisement must be targeted towards readers that can afford those types of products. Therefore it is not "giving the audience what they want"; it is more, giving the advertisers what they want.

As Mr. Bagdikian argues, "An article that puts the reader in an analytical frame of mind does not encourage the reader to take seriously an ad that depends on fantasy or promotes a trivial product". He also hints that this has been going on for a long time.

The Internal "wars" between media groups have become bigger than actual ones. Major teams of special correspondents sweep the world in packs. Journalists are immensely impelled by the competition to get the story in first . This explains why,even when several major events are occuring simultaneously in the world, the media tends to cover only one: the one that attracts the pack.

A Clear example of this is the excessive media coverage on the bluetongue disease.Which caused bearly 40 deaths in the last 4 years. While news about tubercolosis,killing more than 2,000 people each year,is substantially null. Bluetongue disease affects mainly the Occidental countries.While tubercolosis strikes primarly in developing countries.Those populations cannot afford to buy the products advertised by the media. Actually most of them are not even reached by the media.

In many countries TV only broadcasts for two or three hours per day. And in some of Asia’s vaster regions - for instance in Siberia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia - there are TV transmitters but the people have no sets able to receive the programmes.

Issues like these, surely existed even before the "digital era". As erika Milvy suggests"brand-sponsored content' as Steve Golin likes to call this, is as old as television." With the advent of digtal and convergencies this phenomenon is currently in full spate.

This creates a paradoxical situation. On one hand developing means of communication have connected all parts of the planet into a global village; on the other, there is less and less space for international issues in the media.

World's reality is not entirely represented by the media. What is given to us is a fragmented and superficial version of "the whole".As brisbane said"A newspaper is a mirror reflecting the public, a mirror more or less defective, but still a mirror."