... aaaand our reporter Sara Malm reports from Stockholm

Finally climbed out from underneath the rock I have been hiding. Jeez...

Friday morning: 17 degrees in London, and I'm out in my tish and sunglasses (fake chanel, very nice), high-kicking and jumping all the way out to Stanstead Airport. The plane took off. Despite the XXL woman next to me not understanding that you sit down on airplanes, which automatically led to me having her gigantous arse in my face the whole two hours, my tummy was full of butterflies - I was on my way back to where it all started. Sweden.
And I landed... in Mordor. 6 degrees, pissing down with rain and still patches of snow on the ground. Joy.

Now; going to the chiropractor to sort out my back and, what is hopefully, the last remains of my accident a year ago when I was hit by a black cabbie.

Apart from that: Why is it impossible for me to get to ANY pre-election polls over here? It is like I am in a political vacuum! My part-Brit soul needs to know!

The fight for a London HIV/AIDS Memorial

I am currently working on a piece about the struggle to get an HIV/AIDS memorial in London. Why it is not already there is beyond me - especially now that new figures have come out that this is the leading cause for death and disease amongst women aged 15-49 in the world.

Like my dear Maxime said, whom I am interviewing for this article "It's not just a bunch of gay guys fucking in a corner spreading the disease".

London needs a memorial for HIV/AIDS, preferrably in time for World Gay Pride 2012...

The sweet little lie about the Pornstar Martini

We are learning how to make flash slideshows in Convergent Journalism. My dear friend Harri made one on me and my short career as a bartender. In it I claim to love shaking up Pornstar Martinis and Margaritas.

That is a lie. I hate making those goddamned passionfruity sugarbombs. I just like to say it. Pornstar. Poooornstar...

Where Margaritas came from I do not know...

The hamster is asleep in the wheel

Something has somehow drained me of every last drop of energy I had. I can't be my university degree because, to be honest, I could be doing more. And it can't possibly be work because I have only worked one day this week.
I can't be bothered with anything anymore. It is a complete and utter disgrace.
Look at that picture. That is how motivated I am right now. With everything.
Reporting essay and the prospect of cleaning up after cooking food seems to equal an 18 hour marathon sex session in a sauna on Mt Everest.

Analysing

“One of the greatest things about university is that you actually can have a life outside it.” That is what my father told me today . If any of my classmates at the CfJ had heard it they would have protested. Loudly.

But not me.´

I don’t have a life outside of uni most of the time since whenever I am not on the couch researching or writing I am simply passed out looking lobotomised and watching something completely uneducating just to let my head rest for a while. But. BIG but (one t, not two), I also manage to;
- work 1-3 days a week (I hate borrowing money from my parents, hence I work)
- ummmm…

Oh wait, never mind. That was it.
I guess I don’t have a life outside uni after all.
Bugger.

Why does journalism exist?

.. according to Miss Sara Malm, September 2009

After spending half the night pondering biased and non-biased journalism, I started to question the purpose of my chosen career, like many times before.
Every time I doubt, or even consider that this might not be "it" for me, I re-read an short piece I wrote when I started the course, answering the question; what is journalism for?
I had just started at the Centre for Journalism, and knew nothing. But still.
The Scandi girl with all the ideals had a point, and I hope that I still do.
Anyway.
Here it goes... Read and weep.

Journalism exists in order to find and inform. To me that is the simple and sterile answer, and I shall below explain why.
In society today there is so much going on and constantly so much information that one simply cannot take it all in. As a journalist you get to choose what information people are going to read and find important. Through various more or less professional news reporting devices, and not to forget the blogs, twitter accounts and pod casts, people are constantly fed information daily. It is up to journalists to be the sieve covering society trying to sort the stories that will matter from everyday blabber.
As a journalist you are responsible for the way that society will judge a situation. You are in charge of what the masses are going to think, even if they do not believe it to be so. People are easier to affect than most of us dares to admit. Whatever is on the front page is what people automatically will assume is an important story and the perception that they gain will affect their decisions and opinions. It is up to you as a journalist to track down that number one story every day to let the masses know what is going on in the world and what is worth noticing.
Without journalists reporting and sharing the news everything would eventually either start to move backwards or become a veritable chicken coop where only the cocks that can cuckoo the loudest will be heard even though they might not have the most important things to say - they might even be lying. If there is not one little chick discovering the truth then what will the chickens think is right?

Journalism is also for seeking and finding. There are millions if not billions of events every day that does not get twittered about. The six year old Afghani girl that can not get to school because she has lost her leg stepping on a land mine, for example. Why is no one helping her? Where is the support supposed to come from? Was this landmine a product of the ongoing war or are there still old Soviet landmines out there on the country roads on the outskirts of Kabul? So many questions that needs to be asked to so many.
Imagine that we were able to plunge deep into the mind of every single human being on this planet. To be able to go through approximately 75 years worth of memories and stories at the end of everybody‘s life. I believe that there is at least one story in every person that needs, or in this case would have needed, to be told.
Journalism exists not only because of the reason stated above, i.e. in relation to daily news reporting, but also in order to try to discover these stories and ask the right questions. Journalism is for finding and informing, and it is a great responsibility.

Keepin it in the family

Keith Cederholm, the father of a woman who was imprisoned at 18 for attempted murder and a nazi who murdered at 16 and later killed himself, spoke today to Sweden's biggest tab Aftonbladet as the hunt for Mr Cederholm's nephew, convicted at 17 for a double murder and now accused of kidnapping, continues.

Mr Cederholm said:

"No one can blame me for my children and other relatives becoming criminals. I didn't bring them up - I've mostly been in prison."

I don't even need to comment on that.