Independence in Journalism

Independence in Journalism

Journalists must maintain an independence from those that they cover. If they do not then there is always the risk of being compromised and having unfair and unbiased journalism. What I found particularly interesting during our last class was the fact that impartiality or being neutral is not a core principal in journalism. One of our class speakers even made a point of saying that it is impossible to not be biased in journalism, because everybody has a certain passion about what the writing.

However, with independence in journalism, the topic it is more focused on freedom of spirit and mind rather than written neutrality. Making sure that a journalist’s reputation maintains credible and that they are practicing ethical journalism, while also keeping themselves independent is tantamount to good journalism.

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/102544/Journalists-Must-Maintain-an-Independence-From-Those-They-Cover.aspx

Unfortunately journalists are getting a reputation of being part of a larger organization, and that they are there to feed the machine. A meme that I recently saw about video games said that one cannot trust the online reviews because they are all too negative, and one cannot trust the game reviewers because they’re all paid to review video games. This is just one example of a lack of independence in journalism. Making sure that journalists maintain themselves free from a corporate machine, and are able to have a clear and independent conscious while reporting the news will make sure that we are getting naturally fair and unbiased journalism .

http://www.journalism.org/resources/principles-of-journalism/

Religion in Journalism and the Media

Religion in journalism and the media is a very interesting topic. One of the things that I found in my research is that United States citizens are a lot more religious than the media portrays. Most television and journalism completely ignores the fact that people have religious beliefs, unless they’re controversial. For example, during presidential elections the candidates religion almost never comes into play, however, in this past election with Mitt Romney it was all the media could focus on for a long time. It was so amazing that a Mormon was running for office, because some people find our views controversial.

The problem is that journalism, as stated in earlier classes, is a mirror into society. However, the flaw with that is that that mirror effect primarily works on the actual writer. Media is full of non-religious secular people, so of course that’s going to be bleeding into the media and television that is being consumed. Hollywood likes to forget the fact that the majority of Americans have a religion and are actively participating in their congregation, with their families, spouses, children, etc… I personally find it tragic that despite all of the ground that we’ve broken in the world of media and journalism, that we’re still too P.C to try to accurately cover religion in both journalism and media.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/magda-abufadil/freedom-journalism–relig_b_3573838.html

Civil Rights in the Media

During our unbelievably lively discussion of civil rights in the media we broached the topic of how the media used the civil rights movement to get better ratings/viewership/etc.. During this time in the united states Television was still in its infancy, but the race to get the most viewers was on. Television was such a new medium that people didn’t understand how to fully grasp it’s potential, but the ratings war was on. So, unfortunately, lots of television journalists began to act in ways that were unsavory and in some cases unethical. The ethics in the media were at a low, in an attempt to gain more viewers and have more suspenseful news. 

http://www.newseum.org/digital-classroom/video/civil-rights/default.aspx

 

However, the television news media during the civil rights era wasn’t all bad. Through the use of nationwide television broadcasts the rest of the country was able to see what was going on in the south. People that lived in the northern parts of the country and even Canada were awakened to the fact that there was rampant racism, or to put it in the words of Professor Campbell “Racism was alive and well” in the south. Now of course racism still existed and wasn’t uncommon in the rest of the United States, but the level of hatred and persecution during the civil rights era was unbelievably high in the southern states, and thanks to the magic of television people all across the country were awakened to the reality of what was happening in their own country. 

 

http://www.paleycenter.org/the-civil-rights-movement-and-television

Passionate Journalism

Passionate Journalism

When Michael White spoke in class on Wednesday, one of the things that struck a chord within me was his passion for writing about your interests.  I had always thought that journalists were given their assignments and they had to write no matter what the topic was, whether they like it or not. However, Michael White showed me that a real journalist is able to write about things he’s passionate about. And why not? I know that when I’m reading article I only read the ones that interest me, and the ones that have a relatively similar genre.

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/100675/Passion-Replaces-the-Dullness-of-an-Overused-Journalistic-Formula.aspx

An article written by Robert Niles says that passionate writing can replace the dullness of overused journalism. What that means to me, is that the writers individual passion can make a piece come alive. Which is completely true, I can always tell the difference between an article that was begrudgingly written and an article that was done by a writer who has a passion for the topic.

This brings to mind the case of Jayson Blair, the journalist for the New York Times that spent years and years faking and forging articles so that he could keep his job. He never showed up to press conferences, events, etc.., but he wrote as if he did, and his writing, quite frankly, sucked. Jayson lacked a journalistic passion, or he wasn’t willing to write about what actually interested him. Michael White’s comments really opened my eyes to be sure that whatever I’m doing for my career, it’s something I’m passionate about.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Blair

The Future of Journalism

Future of journalism

In our most previous class we discussed the future of journalism, and the many innovations and changes that we will be able to see in the near future. One of the points that really struck me was the fact that the future of journalism will very much be a hybrid style of writing. One half of our journalistic future will be the best practices of traditional journalism, such as fairness, accuracy, storytelling, etc… However, the second half will require tools from the digital age to maintain speed, transparency, and most importantly, engagement.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/future-of-journalism_b_3756207.html

As discussed in class successful journalism in the future will have a higher level of engagement and involvement. Today we use things like facebook, twitter, and interactive news sites. In the future, who knows, what will be available to use, but one thing is for certain, to keep people engaged in the news, they need a purpose to be there.  One of the problems of living in such an advanced digital age is that we are very much desensitized to most news that we read. News and Journalism is no longer as captivating to us as it once was. This doesn’t mean that journalism has become worse, simply that we as a species have evolved and changed, and so journalism too must change with its audience. Nobody really knows what the future of journalism holds, but for now we can see that it will use a combination of technology and adaptation.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judith-greenberg-phd/the-times-they-are-a-chan_1_b_3865229.html

Live tweeting a murder trial

During our last class we discussed the ethics of journalism. We debated over many different scenarios, such as releasing information to the public about a person’s past history, government information, and much much more. While discussing the ins and outs of journalism, as well as the several different ethical dilemmas that one can face, we briefly touched on the question as to whether or not it’s ethical to “live tweet” a murder trial.

I personally am not a stranger to live tweeting, during the finale of AMC’s Breaking Bad my friends and I all live tweeted and then went back and compared notes about what struck out to us the most. https://dev.twitter.com/media/live-tweeting However, to do it for a murder trial, as a journalist, is nowhere near the same thing, and definitely brings up a certain moral dilemma. One argument against it is that it bring an added level of media attention to an already tender tragedy. In 2011 a mass murderer named Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in Norway, and journalists had planned to live tweet his murder trial. Murderers tend to love attention of all kinds, and by live tweeting their trial it’s giving them that attention, in a very real and interactive way. http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/live-tweeting-murder-trials_b21103

However, while there may be some ethical wrinkles still to be ironed out, live tweeting in any form is now a way to give an extreme amount of detail to any kind of major event. Twitter has become the teletype of today, and allows us to transfer information very quickly, and to be live all the time. However, as journalists we need to ensure that we steer clear of ethical dilemmas.  

http://metro.co.uk/2013/08/18/new-warning-over-legal-twitter-trap-after-landmark-murder-case-in-us-3928991/

The Pentagon’s darkest secrets brought to light!

Edward Snowden: Traitor or Hero

 

During our class presentation we discussed the political figure Edward Snowden and his very famous exploits. http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomwatson/2013/07/31/traitor-or-hero-asking-the-wrong-questions-about-manning-and-snowden/ Edward Snowden is a famous whistleblower, who we compared to Daniel Ellsberg, the man who released the pentagon papers back in the early 1970’s. 
In listening to this presentation, and the information that was being discussed about Snowden, a question came to mind. Why do we say that Ellsberg was a hero, and did a brave thing by pushing through the obstacles, and getting the pentagon papers released to the public, but so many people brand Edward Snowden a traitor?  Is it simply because of the time difference? Did people call Ellsberg a traitor in the 70’s? http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/06/13/snowden-failed-to-follow-ellsbergs-example/

After looking at it myself, I personally determined that a lot of it has to do with the amount of time between the analysis. People look at what Ellsberg released in 1971, but don’t really see the immediate political impact because it happened 40 years ago, and doesn’t affect us anymore. However, we take a look at the information that Edward Snowden has more recently leaked, and we see it as a cowardly, traitorous act because we are able to see the immediate effects in our life. 

Will our wounds heal? Will the pain be dulled by the passage of time? Unfortunately, the only way to truly know is to wait and see. This author’s opinion is that yes, in 15+ years we’ll look at Snowden and see him as a courageous man who did what was right in the face of overwhelming adversity, the same way we look at brave Daniel Ellsberg. 

Native Journalism, or Simply Advertisements

In our most recent comms 239 class, we discussed advertising in journalism and some of the repercussions of that. While we were discussing and listening to the presentation, I specifically recalled an article that was written by Jeffrey Maciejewski about Native Journalism, and whether or not it was just a fancier way of advertising. http://creightoninfoethics.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/is-native-advertising-deceptive-journalism/

Several articles point to this as well, that websites such as Buzzfeed, have been allowing third party companies, to write or create articles about a specific topic, but in the end it just winds up being an advertisement for their company/product/promotion. World of Warcraft, a popular online roleplaying game, had recently released a series of “listicles” on Buzzfeed under the guise of an interesting article about things you can do with your buddies, but in the end it wound up being a plug for their new World of Warcraft expansion.

The debate in question is where is the line between advertisements, and journalism?https://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/00-13029-line-between-journalism-and-ads-popular-blogger-website-editor-debate-ethics-sponsored

One of the major points presented is that native journalism isn’t a problem because there are disclaimers telling you that this particular article is from an advertiser, or that it is paid content. However, with bigger new sources falling into the trap of native journalism, such as the Atlantic allowing a scientology ad to be posted, under the guise of journalism, people are beginning to have blurred distinctions about what is an advertisement, and what is actually journalism.

 

#comms239

Edward R. Murrow’s appeal to television.

In the movie “Good Night and Good Luck” television journalist Edward R. Murrow makes an appeal to the Radio News and Television News Directors Association to not squander the full potential of television news reporting. We discussed this time period briefly in class, as well as the effects of the JFK assasination on the television news media; and I found this movie to be very interesting because this was a time when television was in its infancy. The majority of the public didn’t use television for anything more than mild entertainment, but Edward R. Murrow and Joseph McCarthy begin to use the different news mediums, television included, to publicly battle with one another.

Television is where most people turn for news information. http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/42871_Cushion.pdf Even with the invention of the internet, and with how fast people can get all their information on a smartphone, the majority of news is conveyed through television screens. Through the admonitions of Edward R. Murrow, and his experiences working for CBS, today we have news that’s fair and shows both sides of an argument.  One of my favorite parts in particular was when Edward Murrow is getting chastised for wanting to run a story that shows an unpopular opinion.  However, Murrow responds by saying that they’ve run plenty of coverage on one side of the argument and it’s about time that they showed the other.  

Edward R. Murrow did a lot for broadcast journalism, and thanks to his very bold steps forward we were eventually able to unlock the full potential of broadcast journalism. 

 

http://www.journalism.org/2011/09/26/role-local-tv-news/

http://www2.suffolk.edu/34258.html

Rise in Documentaries

Filmmakers like Morgan Spurlock and Michael Moore have been instrumental in the increased popularity of documentaries. Since the early 2000’s the viewership of documentaries has increased to an astounding level. While this particular brand of journalism has been extremely influential, the higher amount of documentaries has led to a level of bias and opinion that is generally left out of typical news reporting. In general a documentary focuses on real life people and contains footage of actual events. While these movies have been considered a form of journalism, more and more documentaries are made with a purpose and an agenda; causing a debate about whether or not a documentary should be unbiased. http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2009/nov/09/sheffield-docfest-documentary-films

Our speaker in class brought up a point that I felt to be quite poignant. As a person who’s not planning on going into journalism, being completely unbiased is a difficult concept to grasp. However, I do understand the need for keeping an author or broadcasters opinions out of news reports, and making sure that the unadulterated information is available for the general masses to form their own opinion. But with the increased rate of documentaries, I feel that they are the perfect opportunity to bring forth the “empathy and passion” that exists in every warm-blooded journalist.

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2011/mar/20/documentaries-brian-cox-nick-fraser