Macy's parade

For the first time in my life, I stood in the middle of the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. I first hated going out in the morning chill to do a photo assignment but later came to really enjoy being out there. It was such a great experience. I was fully soaked in New York!

A giant “Snoopy” balloon floats above holidaymakers during the 84th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade near Herald Square in New York, Friday, Nov. 25, 2010. The demonstration of giant inflated balloons has become an annual event since Macy’s employees first organized it in 1927 to mark the Thanksgiving Day in festivity. (NYU/Kwanwoo Jun)

Holidaymakers pack a sidewalk on 33rd Street in New York, Friday, Nov. 25, 2010, as a large “Spiderman” balloon floats during the 84th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Since Macy’s employees first staged the march of giant inflated balloons in 1927 to celebrate the Thanksgiving Day, the parade has become an annual event. (NYU/Kwanwoo Jun)

A New Yorker holds up her camera to take a photo of the 84th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade near Herald Square in New York, Friday, Nov. 25, 2010. Despite chilly temperatures, tens of thousands of people turned up on the streets in New York to watch the three-hour demonstration of giant inflated balloons. (NYU/Kwanwoo Jun)

(Extra photos)

Chocolate Show

Me: Covering the Chocolate Show in NY, I was given an unlimited supply of chocolate like other visitors. I do not want to eat chocolate any more.

Kathryn: Jealous! Great photos

‎Me: ... ; )

Amanda: great photos and do you have any leftover chocolate? :)

Me: Hey, Amanda. Let me brag about it. A week after, the free chocolate is still melting down in my stomach.

A miniature railway train made of chocolate and candy bars is displayed at Metropolitan Pavilion on 18^th Street in New York, Saturday, Nov. 13, 2010, during the Chocolate Show. The annual extravaganza drew more than 50 chocolate vendors to display their products and chocolate-made pieces of art. (Photo/Kwanwoo Jun)

Swedish chocolatier Hakan Martensson displays his sculpture “wolf” carved out of a chocolate bar at Metropolitan Pavilion on 18^th Street in New York, Saturday, Nov. 13, 2010, during the annual Chocolate Show. Martensson said he usually spends more than a day to make a single piece of chocolate-made sculpture. (Photo/Kwanwoo Jun)

A mannequin wearing beads of chocolate stands on display at Metropolitan Pavilion on 18^th Street in New York, Saturday, Nov. 13, 2010, during the annual Chocolate Show. More than 50 chocolate vendors exhibited their products and chocolate-made pieces of art during the annual extravaganza. (Photo/Kwanwoo Jun)

A chocolate-decorated brassier is on display at Metropolitan Pavilion on 18^th Street in New York, Saturday, Nov. 13, 2010, during the annual Chocolate Show. The annual event attracted more than 50 renowned chocolate vendors that displayed their work of art as well as their products.

(Photo/Kwanwoo Jun)



 

NYC Marathon

By Kwanwoo Jun

LONG ISLAND CITY, New York - Thousands of people – including babies, kids, volunteers, couples, parents and seniors – cheered, clapped and jangled little pink bells today, in support of New York City Marathon runners on 11th Street and 48th Avenue in Long Island City.

Some waved name inscribed placards to support friends and families running in the race and others did “Go” shouts through megaphones, made of hands or plastics. Party music also blared from a speaker.

Cheers later turned into roars when throngs of runners flowed in.

“It’s moving to see the paralyzed people with disability and to see their mental strength to do that,” said William Telesco, 43, of Long Island City as he watched a group of handicapped wheel chair racers pass.

For Gina Cazzola, 43, a Girl Scout troop leader who has led her students to support the event for years, the chill outside is a fair price to pay for seeing the runners.

“It inspires me,” Cazzola, of Flushing Queens, said. She helped her Girl Scouts set up a water distribution table. The girls had blankets, folding chairs, coffee thermos and donuts to help them stand the cold and hunger.

“Donuts get us through. Donuts and coffee,” she said.

Eric Benaim, 32, a local realtor on nearby Vernon Boulevard, set up a free food and coffee table out on the street for the crowds.

“We give back to the neighborhood, and we hope the neighborhood give back to us,” he said.

Jeff Grayzel, 47, of Morristown, N.J, drove more than an hour to Long Island City to see his friends in the race. His wife stood on a chair and waved a placard ’Go Rose City Runners! Yeah Dick, Kim, Mark.’

Grayzel had been playing a chess game with one of his sons on the street, but they when they heard they cheer they took up pink plastic megaphones and rushed to the roadside and shouted, “Keep it up guys. Keep it up.”

“Kids didn’t want to come today. Now they are having a lot of fun,” he said.

Many viewers sat on lawn chairs they brought to the crowded streets.

“I thought if it’s going to be a long time, it could be a little stress on the back to be standing the whole time,” said Brian McGovern, 52, a lawyer from Long Island, who had been waiting for his business partner to turn up on the street.

Standing next to his chair was a backpack of books and newspapers.

Mr. Cadillac

By Kwanwoo Jun

        ASTORIA, New York - Thomas Wagner is no longer homeless, but he knows his “final resting place” should be under a railway viaduct on a street corner in New York where he used to live.

             His attire belies his 13-year life on the streets. Wagner, 61, slings a brown bag over his shoulder. He’s dressed in an unbuttoned brown wool jacket with glasses hanging from his right pocket. His black jeans, snow-white socks and sneakers are all nice and clean.

The vestiges of his former life on the streets are his deep-wrinkled, tanned face and a habit of smoking: He pulls out a Marlboro cigarette, cups his hand to light it and inhales deeply and tastily until it burns completely.

Many of the homeless may be eager to flee their dark past when they finally leave the streets, but Wagner keeps coming back. About 36,000 homeless people are in New York as of Nov. 1 this year, municipal data show.

Born in Hell’s Kitchen, Wagner, an Army veteran and ex-volunteer cop, became homeless in 1994 after losing jobs and failing in two marriages where he had fathered three daughters. His life on the streets lasted until 2007.

Nicknamed Cadillac Man – a name he earned after claiming to be hit repeatedly by Cadillac sedans when he was homeless in the 1990s – Wagner left the streets three years ago. But to this day, he says, he feels more at home on the streets than in his cozy one-bedroom apartment in East Elmhurst.

        His last wish is to have his ashes put in a coffee can under a railway viaduct on 33^rd Street and 23^rd Avenue in Astoria where he used to live on the streets.

Wagner visits the bridge two to three times a week, traveling a dozen subway stops from East Elmhurst where he and his girlfriend Carol Vogel share an apartment.

City officials in May removed the clothing-filled shopping cart he had affixed to the drainage grates. Wagner says he wanted to help other homeless people stay warm by bundling up at night or during the winter.

        “I’ll put my ‘wagon’ back there sometime,” Wagner said during his recent visit, pointing to the spot where his cart used to stay.

        But to bring his cart back is not good enough.

Wagner wants to have his body cremated after death and his ashes placed under the viaduct – a desire his girlfriend and close friends already know about.

            “I told them to scatter some of my ashes there, and the rest should be put in a Chock full o'Nuts can…It says right on the can ‘the heavenly coffee.’ They'll get a laugh out of it,” he said, smiling and reciting the coffee chain’s commercial.

            To Wagner, the Astoria neighborhood is special. He made a living there by collecting recyclables, made many good friends and earned fame as a homeless writer.

            Last year, Bloomsbury Publishing published his memoir “Land of the Lost Souls: My Life on the Streets,” which drew attention to the issue of homelessness.

            The book, recommended reading for urban-poverty studies, chronicles first-hand his experiences as a homeless man on the tough New York streets.

            Will Blythe, who was then an editor at “Esquire” magazine and who lived in Astoria, first noted his “homeless” friend’s talent. “Esquire” published an excerpt of Wagner’s journal that details his life on the streets in 2005.

            “I thought, ‘Oh my God, This guy can write,’” Blythe told the New York Daily News on July 29, 2009. “I went back to him and I said ‘Do you have any more?’”

            Wagner said he began keeping the journal in hope that it should find a way to reach his now grown-up daughters from his previous marriages. He also said he needed something to do in order to stay sane and fight loneliness on the streets.

            “Besides maintaining my sanity, it was like comforting to me,” Wagener said, “By writing, it was like talking to another person.”

            Life on the streets was vulnerable to violence. Wagner said perpetrators would come to pick on him. They once kicked him all over until he passed out in Manhattan and smashed his face with a bat to break most of his teeth in Brooklyn.

            After roaming around the wild streets in various neighborhoods in New York, he later came to settle as a homeless fixture under the railway bridge in Astoria.

He used to greet, meet, chat and make friends with Astorians who gradually recognized him as part of the scenery in the neighborhood. His life there became an invaluable and indelible part of him that he wants to take to Heaven.

            “If my ashes are over there, I'll be having visitors all the time,” Wagner said. “They'll know that's my final resting place. It does give me peace of mind.”

(Extra photos)

 

Media Ethics

Ethics of Reporting Undercover

By Kwanwoo Jun

  

Introduction:

             It is an irony. Journalists often have to deceive others in order to get the truth. One common deceptive practice is reporting undercover. They impersonate someone else. Without deception, they might fail in work.

Reporters often pose as a patient to cast light on rights abuses or ill treatment at a mental hospital or perhaps newsmen might become a worker for an in-depth report on miserable working conditions at a sweatshop.

             But most mainstream media outlets are reluctant to employ surreptitious tactics of gathering information. They tend to use deception as a last means only when there is no other alternative way to seek the truth.

             So, journalists are required to present firm ethical grounds for going undercover, and this term paper aims to draft a code of ethics on undercover reports for a newswire company that I have to return in two years.

Issue:

             The first time I detected this problem was two years ago. I was assigned to cover the cyclone-hit Myanmar. I was told to sneak into the military-ruled nation as a tourist and work undercover.

             During my 10-day mission, I posed as a tourist or a relief worker when meeting news sources. I kept my job secret to work safely while feeling ethically uncomfortable. But I admit the safety issue overshadowed the ethics issue.

This year, I took a class of Law and Mass Communication and came to think back of my work in Myanmar from an ethical viewpoint.

Presented to the class was a case of ABC’s PrimeTime Live show versus Food Lion. Using hidden cameras and lying about identity, ABC reporters were able to divulge Food Lion’s re-labeling of rotten meat to sell as fresh.

The TV network was later sued for huge damages over deception, but there seemed pretty strong public support for what ABC did: a tiny trick for a greater good.

             But I’ve found that not all of the journalistic deception gets public support. In 1996, Newsweek’s Joe Klein lied for months about his authorship of a best-selling book “Primary Colors” as a part of his marketing strategy.

             Klein’s deception or anonymity outraged the public.

As to journalistic deception, H. Eugene Goodwin and Ron F. Smith (1994) listed three types: 1) Active deception: staged events and hidden cameras. 2) Misrepresentation: impersonating non-reporters. 3) Passive deception: allowing themselves to be taken for non-reporters.

Seow Ting Lee’s doctoral thesis (2002) “Lying to Tell the Truth: Journalists and the Ethics of Deception” recommends that “the focus should be on how to deceive ethically” rather than on how to stop journalists from lying.

Interests:

In terms of pragmatism, deception can wonderfully serve journalists by helping them effectively get information from evasive sources. It may sometimes be the best way to achieve the journalistic goal of telling the truth.

But the moment they choose dishonest methods of gathering news information, journalists should keep in mind that they could infringe on others’ interests.

In the case of the Food Lion scandal, ABC’s undercover work unquestionably caused a setback in sales to the food retail store chain for a while.

             Third-party people, fooled by hidden cameras or other deceptive tools, may also suffer harms. They can probably undergo a sense of betrayal, unwanted publicity or disadvantages at work due to journalists’ undercover work.

             Journalistic deception may also build up public distrust in news organizations. The risk of losing public trust is so disastrous that media outlets take extraordinary care before relying on surreptitious methods of getting information.

Case For and Against:

             Various policy options exist when it comes to deception. Mainstream media organizations still like integrity in gathering news information.

The reality, however, is that if we enforce a ban on deception very strictly, we may blow up a great opportunity to tell the truth. If we enforce the ban very loosely, we may undermine our credibility and morality.

             The Washington Post adopts a strict rule against deception. “In gathering news, reporters will not misrepresent their identity,” the Post’s code of ethics says. “They will not identify themselves as police officers, physicians or anything other than journalists.” The Post had no comments on the “passive” deception.

             The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) is more flexible than the Post in allowing deception. “Avoid undercover or other surreptitious methods of gathering information except when traditional open methods will not yield information vital to the public,” SPJ’s code of ethics says. “Use of such methods should be explained as part of the story.”

             The New York Times requires its editorial staff to disclose their identity when they seek information normally available to the public. “Staff members may not pose as police officers, lawyers, business people or anyone else when they are working as journalists,” the Times says in its code of ethics. But it added the following sentence in a bracket: “As happens on rare occasions, when seeking to enter countries that bar journalists, correspondents may take cover from vagueness and identify themselves as traveling on business or as tourists.”

             The Poynter Institute suggests that journalists go through the following checklist before considering using hidden cameras and other forms of misrepresentation.

             1. When the information obtained is of profound importance. It must be of vital public interest, such as revealing great “system failure” at the top levels, or it must prevent profound harm to individuals.

             2. When all other alternatives for obtaining the same information have been exhausted.

             3. When the journalists involved are willing to disclose the nature of the deception and the reason for it.

             4. When the individuals involved and their news organization apply excellence, through outstanding craftsmanship as well as the commitment of time and funding needed to pursue the story fully.

             5. When the harm prevented by the information revealed through deception outweighs any harm caused by the act of deception.

             6. When the journalists involved have conducted a meaningful, collaborative, and deliberative decision-making process.

Recommendation:

             Now I recommend the following code of ethics.

             “Journalists should always try to be honest with their identity. They should have full discussions with senior editors and lawyers before going undercover. The act of deception should help the entire society change for the better. The act should not be personally motivated. The nature and reason of the deception should be made public as part of the story. Any violations of the policy are subject to a punishment on which a disciplinary committee should determine.”

             In my recommendation, I try to give a terse policy because the simpler the message is, the powerful it is. It tends to be difficult to remember a lengthy and detailed statement when it comes to a code of ethics.

             I also avoid imposing a total ban on deception at work because journalists may sometimes have to lie inevitably. But I stressed the importance of journalists trying to be honest with their identity. To “always try to be honest with their identity” means that they try all other alternatives before using deception.

My policy also did not try to list all concrete cases where journalists may or may not pose as someone else because it is simply impossible to enumerate them all. After all, the policy is a matter of application.

             Instead, I make it mandatory for journalists to discuss the issue of deception in advance with senior editors and legal experts. That’s how they can prevent or minimize any negative impact that the deceptive ways of gathering information may have on sources, readers, journalists themselves and news media organizations.

             I also make it clear that the purpose of deception is to do good to society, not journalists themselves.

             Finally, my recommended policy calls for transparency in deception at work. It requires journalists or media organizations to explain why and how they had to lie to their clients afterwards. I believe that this is the way we, journalists or news media, can maintain a healthy level of morality and thus public trust.

              

Bibliography

1.      Russ W. Baker (July, 1993). Truth, Lies, and Videotape. Columbia Journalism Review

2.      ABC’s PrimeTime Live show (on November 5, 1992) video clip

3.      Seow Ting Lee (August 2002). Lying to Tell the Truth: Journalists and the Ethics of Deception

4.      Goodwin, G., & Smith, R.F. (1994). Groping for ethics in journalism. Iowa State University Press

5.      The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics

6.      The Washington Post’s Code of Ethics

7.      The New York Times, Ethical Journalism (A Handbook of Values and Practices for the News and Editorial Departments)

8.      Bob Steele, (Feb. 1, 1995). Deception/Hidden Cameras Checklist. PoynterOnline

9.      The Toronto Star (October 9, 2010). The ethics of going undercover (opinion)

Undercover in Myanmar

By Kwanwoo Jun

       SUNNYSIDE, New York - This is about my traumatic experience I have rarely shared with others so far.

       I was assigned to cover the cyclone-hit Myanmar during the summer two years ago. The mission was for me to sneak into the military-ruled Southeast Asian nation “as a tourist” and report on the disaster undercover as long as possible.

The Myanmar government then imposed a strict media blackout in a bid to cover up its incompetent crisis management. It banned Western journalists from entering the country but issued tourist visas to Asians like me.

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” my editor told me. “But it’s true that the company needs someone there to cover the story that is growing bigger.”

   The editor warned me of the possible danger of journalists being detained and repatriated home by the Myanmar authorities for reporting undercover.

After all, I decided to go and spent 10 days in Myanmar.

INSOMNIA & PARANOIA

    In Myanmar, I suffered from severe insomnia and paranoia.

In bed at night, I often dreamed of being caught or jailed. Traveling around the suburban areas of Yanggon, I always felt like being followed by someone secretly.

   Adding to my paranoia was editors’ repeated warning against using local telephone lines, which were tapped for sure. They also told me to exercise a maximum amount of caution when I used my laptop-sized satellite phone. The equipment was always hidden in the ceiling of my hotel room when not in use.

   My heart was always pounding thunderously during the satellite transmissions of stories. Extreme fear, anxiety and nervousness haunted me. On hearing any footsteps on the hallway outside my hotel room, I would cut off satellite transmissions halfway.

MISERY

I felt increasingly depressed by reporting on the miserable and destitute conditions in which Myanmar people – dead, sick or alive – were thrown. They were all abandoned and unattended despite an acute need for help.

I often felt anger to see the government do nothing. People were dying. Some of them I interviewed were shivering in cold, crouching and sleeping in rain. Kids suffered from hunger but severe diarrhea due to little food and contaminated water.

I began seeing dead bodies floating in the river. Editors always wanted me to try to go deeper into the cyclone-hit delta region, hoping to check if thousands of dead bodies were still unattended as claimed by local civic groups.

But armed soldiers already sealed off the area.

PANIC

Tips often came into my ears that some journalists had been in police custody after trying to sneak into the delta area. I myself witnessed a Western journalist was singled out from a crowd of locals on a bus heading for the area.

After a week or so, I got also caught - for the second time - loitering around the area. I was panic. There was something different in the air.  Police took me to a nearby police station. Police radioed a message to somewhere. A plainclothes military officer showed up and intensively interrogated me for about an hour. Two armed soldiers were with him.

The officer kept asking me what I had been doing there, and I kept claiming that I, a tourist, had gone astray there. He took my passport, recorded detailed information on me and took a few mug shots of me as if he handles a criminal.

I was scared that I might be detained. All I could do was nervously fumbling with a small paper note inscribed with a phone number of the consulate in my pocket.

Luckily, I was released from their custody. I received my passport back but also a warning that I would be in jail if I get caught once again. After changing my hotels several times in the next few days, I managed to get out of the country at dawn.

MEMORY BACK TO LIFE

I’m not sure how much my experience in Myanmar had affected (or traumatized) me. I’ve reported no major problem working afterwards. But I have to admit that some of the experiences remain strong in my mind and never get away. They sometimes come back to me in grim visuals and dreary feelings for no particular reason.

Recycling in NY

By Kwanwoo Jun

     MANHATTAN, New York - Layman Lee, 26, a local environmentalist, usually arms herself with pamphlets on recycling waste when she meets people on the street. But on Wednesday, she prepared something different: a long fishing wire and hundreds of empty plastic bottles.

Stringing the bottles together, she made an “eye-catching” sculpture for the GrowNYC fair at the Union Square Park plaza on 14^th Street and Seventh Avenue on Sept. 29.

“Every year New Yorkers throw 25,059 tons of recyclable pet plastic bottles in their household garbage,” read a nearby sign, “This sculpture represents the bottles trashed.”

In New York, the biggest municipal garbage producer in the U.S., half of the city’s recyclable waste is thrown in the garbage instead of being recycled. GrowNYC, a non-profit environmental group for whom Lee works, cities a lack of public awareness as the culprit.

Christina Salvi, 34, recycling outreach and education coordinator for GrowNYC, said about 35 percent of the city’s waste is recyclable, but only 15 to 17 percent is recycled in a city of more than 8 million.

The city’s Department of Sanitation handles 11,000 tons of residential garbage daily - about double the amount of Los Angeles and three times that of Chicago -, with another 11,000 tons of commercial waste handled privately every day, CNBC reports.

But New York City itself has no landfills. Instead, it pays other states to haul away its garbage.

“When people throw things away, they don’t think about it,” Lee said.

Lee said she and her colleagues discussed how to raise public awareness more effectively during the nine-hour environmental fair on Wednesday.

“Simple. Eye-catching. That’s all I need to be here,” Lee said, smiling, before climbing onto a chair to work on the top of her six-foot sculpture. “We just sat down for a whole day, drilled the holes through the necks and then strung them with a fishing wire.”

And, as it turns out, it worked well.

Many of passers-by, including tourists, were drawn in by the sculpture, giving Lee and her colleagues an opportunity to educate them.

“Every 50 seconds New Yorkers throw away over 1,000 plastic bottles or jugs. So that’s what … the sculpture represents,” said Michael Rieser, 53, a GrowNYC coordinator from Brooklyn.People not only took a photo of the sculpture but also listened to Rieser.
      Rieser busily handed out pamphlets on the city’s recycling rules to people and explained what items should or should not be recycled. Displayed at hand for education were two transparent recycling bins: a green bin for collecting paper and a blue one for metal, glass and plastic materials.

The sign by the GrowNYC sculpture displayed an array of calculated ascending numbers of the plastic bottles dumped by second in the city. It showed that 22 plastic bottles are being thrown in the garbage in every second, 45 in two seconds, 67 in three seconds, 89 in four seconds … and 1,116 in 50 seconds.

“That’s amazing. That’s crazy,” said Ellen Kuchli, 57, a tourist from Israel, in response to the plastic-bottle sculpture and statistics about New York City waste.