Journalism and social media
By Benjamin G. Defensor, The Manila Times

Social media are new interpersonal communicating facilities forming online communities. Two major examples are Facebook and Twitter. Today social media have become powerful and persistent drivers of the Internet. Here’s how Nieman Reports of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University reports the phenomenon:

“These are times when technological change catches up with an idea. Now is such a moment, as social media transform how people receive and share news and information. Just a few years back the notion of journalism being a conversation, not a lecture, wasn’t embraced widely in an industry content to transmit what reporters learned to audience expected to consume it. Comfort with that notion grew as online comments and live chats assumed a role that ‘Letters to the Editors’ once held on their own, albeit with greater anonymity and often less civility. Then from the ‘audience’ spilled forth blogs and photos, videos and tweets. Soon the word ‘citizen’ and ‘journalist’ were joined in marriage brokered by technology and nurtured by convenience as news organizations shed staff yet still needed to produce ‘content.’

“With talking and sharing so much a part of the Web’s ethos, it’s the job of journalists to adapt. This means using these social media tools in ways that add value to what they do . . .”

The Freedom of information bill which was expected to but failed to pass Congress last week would have reinforced this by making it mandatory for government agencies to a make available for public “scrutiny, copying and reproduction, all information pertaining to official acts, transactions as well as government research data used as a basis for policy development regardless of their physical form, or format in which they are contained and by whom they are made.”

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Will Americans Really Learn Chinese?
By the Editors, The New York Times

The Times recently reported on the rise of Chinese-language instruction in American schools, a push supported by aid from the Chinese government. While language fads come and go—there was Russian during the cold war, then Japanese in the 1980’s, then Arabic after 9/11—thousands of public schools have stopped teaching foreign languages in the last decade. Is the boom in Chinese language education going to last?

There’s a long tradition of bemoaning Americans’ inadequacy in foreign languages. But what specifically should the nation do to improve its citizens’ knowledge of other languages? What are the impediments?

Susan Jacoby, author of “The Age of American Unreason”
Ingrid Pufahl, Center for Applied Linguistics
Marcelo and Carola Suárez-Orozco, N.Y.U.’s immigration studies program
Norman Matloff, University of California, Davis
Hongyin Tao, professor of Chinese language and linguistics
Bruce Fuller, U.C. Berkeley professor of education and public policy

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For the love of the English language
By Andy Rooney, The Sun Journal

When I first started school, I knew I was in trouble because my handwriting was so bad.

I couldn’t write my own name in a way that anyone could read. Miss Kaye, my teacher, was pretty and she would squeeze in next to me on my chair, which was behind my little school desk. She would hold my hand while she helped me write. I’ve often wondered if Miss Kaye had any long-term, deleterious effects on my handwriting because she sat so close when I was learning that it made me nervous.

I used to do a lot of woodworking. I still use my hands typing on my computer every day, so I don’t think my bad handwriting is the result of any lack of manual dexterity. I don’t know what’s wrong, but my handwriting has suffered. I sometimes practice writing my own name in hopes that my handwriting will improve but it never does.

If the typewriter hadn’t been invented, I might have ended up digging ditches. For 50 years I wrote on a typewriter known as an "Underwood Five." It was a favorite in newsrooms for decades until the electric typewriter, and then the computer, took over. Call me unfaithful if you will, but the computer is as superior a writing tool as the Underwood No. 5 was compared to the quill pen.

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English is the language that unites us
By Steve Kaufmann, The Vancouver Sun

The history of Vancouver and “British” Columbia's does not sit well with UBC Prof. Henry Yu. He wants us to reject our past, including the dominance of English in our lives. He feels “ruined” because he doesn’t speak Chinese, and blames our society. He complains that we are “oblivious” to the changing racial makeup of the city, and he wonders why Kits still remains “white as the driven snow.”

The rapid ethnic change in Vancouver has taken place with relatively little fuss. While it is common in other countries for employers to hire people from the same town, ethnic group or school, this is far less the case in Vancouver. Our “establishment” still largely reflects the dominant “white” society, but these people can’t be expected to give up their jobs just because society has changed. On the other hand, those being hired today reflect our changing society, and will soon move up the ladder. Nevertheless, good communication skills in English remain crucial.

Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu and B.C. Attorney-General Kash Heed are two examples. They deal with government, media and ordinary citizens, here and elsewhere in Canada and North America. Whether they speak Chinese or Punjabi is, to most citizens, irrelevant. In most jobs, English skills are more important than Mandarin or Punjabi.

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In a nutshell: The language is living, but literacy is another story

It sometimes seems that, almost for as long as I (ahem) have been literate, I have been reading stories about other poor souls who, although not really different from me in intelligence or social circumstance, are only, at best, semi-literate.

The authors of their misfortunes are varied but share one common denominator -- they are all connected with the skill of communication which, one would think, would require some semblance of literacy.

It is one of the unfortunate virtues of the English language, however, that one can spout almost any sort of gibberish and someone else will understand it, so brilliantly flexible is the language. In a more rigid vernacular, one would have a hard time getting a taxi to travel from South St. Vital to Inkster Park, should you be so unfortunate as to have to make such a trip.

Spoken English isn't really literate, but then it doesn't really have to be. It just needs to be a means of communication. Some people can puff it up into a powerful tool that can move millions when they speak publicly, although you can search through Canadian politics until your eyeballs are empty and blind without finding one today, but most of us get along just by mumbling and stumbling our way through life.

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