Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Loyalty and the Underpinnings of Journalism

We learned earlier this week that journalists' first obligation is to citizens. As gatekeepers journalists have a great responsibility to provide a service to the public. Although it is their profession, if journalists want to be successful as well as true and meaningful stories to surface, then they should not view the public as customers. If viewed as customers, the public can become a large scale market in search of the best "bottled water". This could in turn cause journalists to thwart the truth, and or use invalid sources in their stories. Good journalists "covenant with the public"- or essentially make promises that their stories are valid and true by the reputations they maintain.
Aside from covenanting with the public, in order to maintain a positive relationship with society, journalists must develop 5 characteristics which include, committing to the citizens first, hiring business managers who also put citizens first, setting and communicating clear standards, having the final say over news, and communicating clear standards to the public. If executed correctly, good and ethical news can be served to society.
As an active reader of newspapers(A thirst for news really is innate within my persona), I am extremely grateful for the task that journalists take on in order to provide society with the truth . We learned in class that journalism has not always been this way and has actually evolved with time to be what it is today. It is interesting to note that in 1798 the Sedition Act limited the role of the press within society, and while this law was cleared up thanks to the 1st Amendment, the 1970's showed similar conflicts between the press and government with the Pentagon Papers as well as the Watergate scandal. Furthermore, with the fierce competition that arose from the creation of the penny press it is obvious that journalism has come a long way to be able to provide us with reliable sources and truths and that is because it puts its citizens first.

1 comment:

  1. Can news really be sold like bottled water? Let's hope that it is more than mere marketing that drives the audience to the news.

    ReplyDelete