[EARTH] Wong Memorial Scholarship Awarded to Budding War Reporter

Wong Memorial Scholarship Awarded to Budding War Reporter
via Tomoyo Ito, Alliance News Network

[TORONTO] The Alliance News Network is pleased today to reveal Acarapi Nima as the first recipient of the Emily Wong Memorial Scholarship. Ms. Wong’s famous Chirpr feed showed the rest of the galaxy what was happening on earth via Quantum Entanglement Communicator. Wong’s coverage revealed mass conversion centers, the reaper’s systematic attacks on public institutions, and shed some insight into reaper energy weapons. Sadly, Ms. Wong perished after the Reapers were able to trace the QEC to her skyvan. In an act of defiance, Emily Wong sent herself, her van, and the QEC into a head on collision with a Reaper.

The Alliance News Network honors Ms. Wong’s dedication to journalism in death with the Emily Wong Memorial scholarship, awarding it to budding young journalists who have gone above and beyond the call to delivering the news. Their first recipient is Acarapi Nima, age 19.

Acarapi Nima is native to Cusco, Peru, where he is the elder brother to his two siblings, Adriana and Agata Nima. Unfortunately, their parents, Irene and Luiz Nima were killed during the first few days of the reaper invasion.

Nima, accompanied by a camera drone and sisters, documented the Peruvian war effort. The documentary, titled “Ángel Custodio”, covers events ranging from the day of the invasion to the eventual failure of the resistance and subsequent fall back into Bolivia.

After the war, Nima submitted over four hundred hours of footage to the Alliance News Network, seeking an avenue to publish his work. In light of his efforts, the ANN decided to award him with the scholarship.

“Emily Wong was a true hero to both humanity and her profession. To be considered for this award is an honor alone, but to actually win it... I can only hope to live up to the example set by Ms. Wong.”

Acarapi Nima will be studying Journalism at the recently reopened University of Florida, after which he plans to seek employment with the Alliance News Network.

I certainly paid attention to the events, but the channels I was following had a more global point of view, although Ms Wong's intel were certainly included in them. It was more along the line of "Earth invaded, apparently by the same aliens that attacked the Hegemony, here's what is known about the hostiles".

...oh night winds with this... Granted, but every network in existence was going into panic mode at the same time, like most of the rest of us; I don't recall proper attribution being top of anyone's lists (Ms. Wong's included, she obviously felt the galaxy needed to know a lot of things more urgently than her name). I remember there being reports citing only 'a human journalist' or just 'a QEC feed from Earth' - under the circumstances I doubt many people thought to wonder which journalist, only that the reports seemed to be being treated as accurate.

As a matter of fact if I hadn't heard her name by chance in one of the earliest reports - which was treating it as a hoax - I'd probably never have noticed its absence later; it rung a chime at the time and I'd recalled she did a piece on Bliss Festival a few years prior, which I'd seen and found a lot more worthwhile in its coverage than the usual mix of sensationalism and T&A. No question she deserves to be remembered in history the same way as Eleus Kanis in the Rebellions, or Marra Soni during Danic Faction, but those histories are only starting to be written, and I'm sure a lot of people, while intending no disrespect, will prefer not to read them for a long time.

Oh well you see my dear I was about to call you a fucking simpering imbecile but then I remembered, you know, positive, uplifiting, and nonterrible thread so I elected to go for implicit emphasis instead.

Amazingly this would actually be a good point on your behalf if it wasn't tragically kneecapped by the fact that you had about half a dozen major news corporations and governmental communications systems blasting the news concurrently for each of your examples. There was only one on Earth, one woman, one outlet, one window into the advent of the Reapers in Citadel space.

It was posted from her account. Her name was stamped on every single update. I just...I don't understand how difficult this is to grasp for you. For a span of approximately twenty four hours Emily Wong was perhaps the most important person in the galaxy. Taleeze not knowing her name is her own damn fault, not the issue of society being too cosmopolitan or whatever fresh idiotic hell you're arguing.
Sol went dark. An entire homeworld dark. This was the sole source of information.

And you only recalled it because she happened to do a bit piece on your precious porn festival.

I'm not even angry, I'm just amazed.

ANYWAY

I can confirm, after extensive contemplation that Mr. Nima is perhaps a tad wasted in journalism. Particularly when he what appears to be an excellent (if novice) eye for cinematography.

(It's good is what I'm trying to say. I watched the documentary and it was largely very very good.)

Okay fair warning on the documentary, do not watch it if you suffer from motion sickness. Blehhh.

But after I took a couple of pills and some hot Ulank, I really, really enjoyed it! Management asks us to keep up on the latest releases of movies and books so I normally wouldn't have watched this, but I really, really enjoyed it after my stomach stopped churning.

As for Ms. Wong, everywhere I went that day was buzzing about her. I was waitressing back then, on Thessia. Every screen in the diner was filled with her face, and those pictures of the ship that attacked the Citadel. Some of the customers didn't leave for hours. Just sitting there, watching the feed. It was terrifying.

Yes, and subsequently the galaxy was embroiled in the most terrible war of our era. I'm not trying to downplay the woman's heroism, or her professionalism in the face of what must have been utter horror, but her voice was the only one for twenty-four hours, while most of the rest of the galaxy was trying to make up its mind what was going on, or in a lot of cases probably hadn't yet been told to drop what they were doing and turn on a screen. I know her story was being told during the months that followed, and rightly so, but I can't blame anyone for having more pressing concerns at the time.

Honestly, I'm starting to think you misread on purpose just so you can sneer at people. To recap what I already explained, I recognised her name in an early report - in the first couple of hours, when a lot of services were unsure how to treat it, and the one I was watching was reporting it as a hoax - and recalled where I'd heard it previously. Then I went to bed, and by the time I got up they were showing archive footage of the Sovereign attack, and it was only when someone mentioned the 'QEC from Earth' that I made the link. Illuminate me on what's amazing about that (aside from the known shortcomings of the 25-hour news cycle re: comprehensive and accurate reporting).

No! No and. And doesn't factor into this particular bouquet of meandering idiocy and justification. There is the core point "Emily Wong was the first person to report on the Reapers entering C-Space" and the associated options. Either you're like virtually everyone in the galaxy and know those two important bits of information (if only those two) or you literally live under a rock. There is not exactly a great deal of middle ground here.

That you are physically incapable of understanding or comprehending a situation without relating it, somehow, to porn or the sex industry. Which becomes a tad disingenuous when we get up to things the scale of "Report of Godsquids on Earth killing everything".

I suppose what amazes me the most is that you don't see a problem with this, with being so hilariously narrow minded that you can only see how the galaxy functions as it pertains to that aaaaagonizingly specific focal point.

But back to the original point: Taleeze doesn't know much of anything. Gasp le gasp the entire galaxy is shocked still at this point.

And back to the original original point (because we have beat the aforementioned into the fucking ground):

Oh come on! It wasn't so so bad. I mean sure, at a few points it looked like the jungle was having a literal seizure but it wasn't saaaaaay The Eternal Descent levels of shakey-cam.

No, we're not done with this - I'm tired of you expounding in abusive and masturbatory fashion about the shortcomings of everyone who doesn't fawn over you and echo your exact opinions based on wilful misrepresentation and outright fabrication of what they're saying. You tell me how it's indicative of any narrowness of view that a native of Illium recognised the name of a human reporter only because said reporter had done a piece on a subject relevant to said Illian's interests. Before there was any indication that there was a war on, not that I can see how that's supposed to influence whether I'd heard a reporter's name before, but you seem to place some stock in it, Goddess fathom why. Go ahead, I'm all aurals.

Personally, I can't really hold it against the documentary when it comes to the camera shaking. Don't quote me, but I think he had one of those cameras that you have to hold or put on a tripod during some parts. And that was a situation where you wouldn't be able to take a few minutes to take it off the tripod. So he was forced to freehand it.

Honestly, the worst camera shaking parts were where he was running. Don't think it's possible to hold a camera steady when you're running for your life.

In other films, I wouldn't let the shaky camera work slide, but in this case it was hardly a cinematic choice on Nima's part.

Regardless of whether Ms. Wong's report was the one followed at the time of events or not, her name has certainly become synonymous with competent war reporting ever since. She's something of a hero within the Confederacy, even, since if we'd had anything of the sort the Hegemony may have put up more of a cohesive fight at the time.

That's the theory, anyways. In practice, given the widespread indoctrination of senior officials, I'm not entirely sure it would have made a difference, but the sentiment remains. Only the asari could possibly be so self-important as to ignore this.

Are we really pretending that this didn't happen?

Are we honestly going to pretend that the most watched news feed in the entire galaxy, by a woman who was the first reporter on the Reaper War, the first and only source of intel on the reapers as they came to earth, a feed that the entire galaxy, from Terminus Scum to Asari Diplomats was watching with rapt attention, was an unimportant two-bit whose name wasn't mentioned? Every news station in the galaxy broadcast her fucking feed. Not a knockoff, not a less important one, or one from an asari journalist, because there were no others. She was the sole source of information on the invasion of a council power.

Emily Wong was the herald of the single most important event of Citadel Space civilization. In a news feed watched across the galaxy. Ganger scum on the wreck and pirates in the Nemean watched that feed.

It was big enough that Cerberus tried to recruit using the feeds as a campaign point, it was big enough that war and organizational efforts in the Terminus started to be put together in direct response to that feed.

And you were utterly ignorant of it?

The only way you could not have the slightest recollection was if you were either A) not born/very young at the time, B) living under an enormous rock, or C) A blithering fucking incompetent.

And the rest of you blithering idiots are defending Taleeze here? Really?

After learning about this thread, reading it, and laughing my ass off at the bar, I happened across Nos Astra's premium Barbershop Quartet, who happened to be at the shade of tipsy enough to agree to record the following message if I bought them a round. Roll the clip!

[Scene: An Illium Bar wall, where a Drell, a Salarian, a Human and a Krogan, all wearing boater hats and matching striped jackets, are standing against a wall. The Krogan pulls out a pitch pipe that appears to be roughly the size of a canteen and blows into it with a might PHWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

This is Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuumb
This is Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuumb
This is Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuumb
This is Duuumb
The salarian clears his throat and reads off a napkin he has been handed.
"This is a special message that goes out to 'That hooker with the porn thing.' from one Chester Qui-Qui-Quihoan?"
"QHIHANA"
"Yes, him." ]

Now if you'll excuse me its Karaoke time.

Tell me where I can meet these wonderful people so that I too may get them to make a message.