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| The Role of Journalism |
| Sunday, October 29, 2006 |
Since I'm no journalist myself and my little soap box is plenty big enough, please allow me to opine.
Journalism is one of the most significant field in the world. Many of our oldest historical documents and documents that provide us with the only printed explanations of past conditions and events are its products. The tradition is old and its role has always in since been defined by the practitioner of the craft himself. That system of standards has in many ways created our view of history. In our "modern" world, with all of George Bush's "Internets," which were created by Al Gore, there is more information than ever fora any of us to reasonably go through or even scan. On a daily basis there is more written and documented on the Internet than could be written and documented over a period of years in the entire world. If you doubt this, consider the volume of code that is now created and recorded by machines to process a simple online transaction. Understandably this is not journalism and I will discontinue that aside by simply stating this, we are swimming (or possibly) drowning in information.
Journalism is an activity that bridges many forms of media, it can be digital, printed, handwritten, spoken, video - or in any other medium that is used for communcation. It can also be reliable or unreliable, rich or lean. Journalism and news entertainment, however, represent to very different crafts. It is not the purpose of journalism to be entertaining, although it is possible for it to be so. As new networks seek to improve profits by providing entertainment to draw viewer and increase advertising revenue the information content and journalistic excellence declines.
What is the role of journalism?
I have no absolute answer on this question. To a degree, each of us has to determine what it is that we expect from our journalists and then drill down to the places where these journalists can be found. Journalists are not required to reveal their sources, so articles and stories always have to viewed with a certain level of skepticism. One characteristic that I recommend that people seek out is absence of bias.
The Preamble from the Society of Professional Journalists States:
Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility. Members of the Society share a dedication to ethical behavior and adopt this code to declare the Society's principles and standards of practice. This is a very high standard, not the type of standard found in the Daily Star, or the Enquirer or most of the magazines that are on the shelf today. It's a standard that, when followed, can be remarkably unprofitable, because there is no money coming in from those who want their special interest placed in a positive light. It is amazing the number of articles that I read today in newspapers that read more like press release and party builders than actual nuts an bolt new articles.
Journalism requires an ability to be objective to provide at a minimum the answers to the basic six questions and significant contextual information. Material presented without context is no more than data, it is neither enlightening or education. Enlightenment is dependent on the successful completion of a process that first lead to a clear understanding of the factors as opposed to the product of randomly jumping from one conclusion to another. Enlightenment is an ideal that is, perhaps, a residual of unachievable goal that is the carrot we chase in order to become at a minimum sensible.
Why do journalistic standards matter?
Journalistic standards matter, because bad information can get you fired, injured, or killed. Bad information can break up families, destroy business, and result in the misallocation of resource. Bad information results in bad economies and al types of carnage. Journalistic standards are designed to create a body of reporters that respect the trust that is placed in them. And, because journalists may not necesarily tell us what to think, they, as a prominent body of voices, tell us what to think about, which is almost, if not more important.
Consider this, most of us would not know that a hurricane was coming, if journalists did not tell us. Most people would have no idea that an advancing army was nearing them if the journalists did not tell us. To a degree, we depend on our governmet to practice a certain level of journalistic integrity and to provide the public as a public good, paid for with tax dollars, objective reports. The government should be required to publish the same kinds of notes and warnings as corporation a required to report in annual reports and prospectuses. And the need to be accountability when they fail to do so. This however represents an aside and shifts the focus away from the journalistic role itself.
Okay, a little more aside...
A lot of people seem to feel that blogs are the solution and that the blogosphere will do what journalist have not and improve standards in journalism. I disagree.
I am an avid blog reader. I read blogs of all "persuasions" and note that most blogs seem to have an agenda that focuses more on opinions than facts. The water is not getting less muddy, it is getting more muddy. This is not necessarily bad because a great deal of information is shared about topics that the maistrean media channels have not seen as profitable enough to exploit, but the side effect is there is a ot more information for all of us to parse. Blogs will effectively lower journalism standards (unless a standards body arise to create some form of accreditation), while at the same time providing a wealth of information that will serve to level the playing field when choices are presented to us.
Blogs represent the greatest threat our modern established media outlets have ever seen and they will have to find a means of coexisting. Will the establishment media work to become more informative or will they do what they appear to be doing and morph into bloggers.
Look at some of big names in network news broadcasting: Rush Limbaugh, Ed Shultz, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Rielly, Brit Hume and Randi Rhodes. All of them put on as though they are outside the mainstream media and criticize the mainstream media for this and that - when they are in fact the mainstream media. Each and every one of them is a member of the institution that the so frequently criticize and decry and none of them seem to make any effort to raise the bar in terms of journalistic excellence. They are the mainstream answer. They are the attempt to be more incendiary, be more outspoken, dwell on isolated nuggets of information and tout an agenda - while at the same time dedicating little if any of there resources to causing change for the better by operating inside the system. From now until the end of time they will simply harangue, even if this were a perfect world they would harangue. The make their off the divisions that exist among people and the fears that people hold. As a group, they are participant sin a fear-mongering machinery. As much as they claim to be solution providers, they are not, they are firestarters. They are bloggers on the airwaves and cable networks and the service they provide is that of entertainment for the masses and news for the illiterate. Generally, you can research the points that any of these and find that their reasoning is flawed or that key pieces of information have been withheld, either by neglect or by intention.
It is quite apparent that there are many people who have managed to clear distinguish between fact pieces and opinion pieces in fact clothing. Some news brokers will sell you anything because the make their money on the sales volume and they realize that there is a higher cost for developing accurate and complete news stories. This represents a threat to the masses, while it represents almost no direct threat to the individual, the effect of the lack of journalistic integrity will work on the public like an incendiary parasite. And continue to help us put the wrong people, int he wrong places, to make sure we do the wrong thing.
I make no criticism of any of them for their business decision, only a criticism of the unsatisfactory nature of the programming. I would be the first to admit that each of these individuals is very intellegent and for the most part are excellent public speakers and dividers of public opinion. They are all soap box artist doing what most blogger wish they could, if they had the talent and the tenacity.
Now, that was a little harangue on my part.
Here are some journalism links:
http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp
http://www.jideas.org/journalism_standards/index.html
http://www.colorado.edu/journalism/bylines/spring98/gaines.htm
http://www.ap.org/pages/about/whatsnew/wn_112905.html
http://about.reuters.com/aboutus/editorial/ |
posted by Domesticated Dog @ 8:15 AM   |
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