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