I don't have any intense hatred or distrust toward journalists. I think that for the most part they do report the news, and do so in an interesting and thought-provoking way. However, the truth is often twisted to make it more pleasing to certain groups. This is a problem, but I don't think it will ever change, because the slanted truth is what the citizens want to hear.
In this video, MSNBC is shown to have doctored a quote from Libertarian senator Ron Paul. In doing so, they were answering the demands of their predominantly liberal audience who wanted to perceive all conservatives as heartless racists, but they were not serving the truth, which should be the more important goal.
(Watch until 1:25)
Another issue with modern journalism that prevents journalists from appropriately serving citizens is assuming that their news organization has all the answers, which causes them to sometimes report in error. ABC reporter Brian Ross, who I mentioned in my first blog post, was guilty of this when he accused the Aurora movie theater shooter of being a Tea Party member. The story he told did nothing to serve the citizens because it was a blatant lie that would have easily been avoided if he'd looked into the issue further. If he'd truly wanted to serve the citizens, he would have checked his facts, rather than assume that his knowledge was correct.
Not always. Occasionally, the truth can seem unpalatable to sensitive audiences, and journalists cannot afford to alienate the public. Sometimes, journalists and reporters feel the need to sugarcoat stories, or to censor information that may be unpleasant to the public, to corporations, or to the government.
That being said, I think the instances of journalists lying outright, or plagiarizing, are less common. If lies really did dominate the news market, then it wouldn't be news. Papers would be storybooks, and TV broadcasts would be entertainment films. I think that most of the time, the truth is reported, but with a spin, depending on who the audience is. News agencies can try to correct this, but unless robots report the news, it's never going to happen. Every piece of information presented to humans is subjected to a person's own private mental filter.
Out of this natural phenomenon are born the various news outlets. Fox news exists for those who like a conservative spin on their news, MSNBC for those who want a liberal spin. These and other news organizations may claim that they report completely objective stories
I doubt that many other news networks reporting this story called Nancy Pelosi a socialist, although she probably did address the disparity of income in America
Other times, a story may be censored to avoid offending or hurting a government organization or corporation. When Jeffery Wigand came to CBS to report a story on the corruption of a Big Tobacco company, the story was shortened to avoid a lawsuit. http://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/12/opinion/self-censorship-at-cbs.html
The truth was reported, just not the complete truth, which in my opinion, is the case with nearly all of the news stories published and reported in this country
Journalism allows me to gain knowledge about events that occur outside of my social and cultural bubble. Most of the time, the news stories I read have no effect on my life, but reading or watching the news makes me feel like I'm part of a wider community, and it gives me something to think about.
One of my daily habits is checking the yahoo.com homepage for interesting news stories. I'm especially interested in the human interest pieces; the articles about strange or unusual disruptions of daily life around the world. Like most people, I love novelty, and these human interest pieces give all of us something to think about and discuss.
Last year, I was pleasantly surprised to find a story about a BYU student on the Yahoo! homepage, because it actually was a news story that hit close to home. The student had been wearing an outfit that apparently did not conform to Honor Code standards, since her dress did not reach her knees, and she was reprimanded through a note. She posted the note and a picture of her outfit on Twitter, and the story exploded. Most viewed the situation as completely ridiculous (since the outfit covered the student fairly well,) but it certainly sparked conversation, as a Salt Lake Tribune writer shows here. For me, good journalism gives me something to think about, as well as keeping me updated with what's going on in the world. Good, modern journalism doesn't just convey information, it sparks debate and tries to assist us all in forming our own opinions on the state of the world.
After all, in today's world, it's not hard to find the facts.
Presenting them in a way that is eloquent, interesting, and gets people talking? That's journalism.
What is a journalist? There's an easy answer: A journalist is someone who reports the news. In earlier decades, when access to information was limited, journalists were invaluable. People needed newspapers, and radio and television broadcasts, to understand what was going on in the world. Journalists were the people on the scene who could obtain and share that information. There was really no other way to learn of news stories or important events.
I think that's still the case today, but accredited news organizations like newspapers and television stations not only compete against each other to report the news first, but they have to compete with civilians with camera phones who can capture the story and put it on the Internet instantaneously, and private bloggers who have no restrictions on what they can or cannot say on their personal web pages. Such pressure to provide the most interesting and timely story occasionally leads to severe errors, as there is no time to double-check all the facts.
For instance, the morning after the The Dark Knight Rises premiere, I opened Facebook and noticed that, amongst all the posts raving about the movie, several people mentioning a tragedy in Aurora, Colorado. I didn't hear about it first from a news article or a TV broadcast; I learned about it from Facebook. For me, my Facebook friends were journalists. In the aftermath of the tragedy, every news source out there was scrambling to report the best story, trying to bring me information that was impossible for my Facebook friends to know. During that mad scramble on Friday morning, ABC News reporter Brian Ross discovered an amazing new bit of information that was sure to make headlines: the shooter was a member of the Colorado Tea Party!
As you can see, his statement was not looked on too kindly by Tea Party members, other journalists, or intelligent members of the human race. Here's one response to Ross's insinuation, which also brings up some of his other mistakes in the past:
Technically Brian Ross is a journalist, as he does report the news, but he is a very poor one indeed. I suppose if his goal is to bring attention to himself and his company, he has succeeded, but only if you have the mentality of Captain Jack Sparrow:
-You are by far the worst journalist I have ever heard of!
-But you have heard of me.
There are many examples of journalists who do their job well, but I chose this example because I believe that it's easy to "be a journalist." Finding the name of the shooting suspect on a Tea Party roster for the town in question was news. However, in order to be a professional journalist whom the public can trust, a person needs to be capable of providing honest, factual, relatively unbiased, and timely information. He or she needs to take the profession seriously, and realize the impact of the things they report.
So what is a journalist? Journalists are the eyes, ears, and mouths of our society. They observe the happenings of the world and let the rest of us know what is going on. No matter what happens to our society, there will always be a need for professional news reporting, and those who consider themselves true journalists must be able and willing to take up that mantle, regardless of their personal opinions and beliefs.
