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Chapter 14 Summary
Journalism is Freedom Journalism is the only media enterprise written into our Constitution. It is a requirement of democracy, for it seeks to educate citizens and aid them in intelligent decisions, such as electing officials and voting for policy. But in today’s 24‐hour news cycle and the wide expanse of the Internet, this integrity is seemingly crumbling. Chapter 14 dives into the inherent bias found in the news, the process of gathering information for public consumption, how stories are selected for their newsworthiness, information worthy of transformation into stories, and what ethical standards are operating behind the scenes. Neutrality – to be or not to be? Even historically, news can walk a thin line with propaganda. In the 1700’s, the partisan press was brutal: politicians regularly published slanderous pamphlets and planted fake news stories to brandish their opponents. But when newspapers began mass distribution in the mid‐1800s, publishers quickly learned that neutral reporting appealed to the broadest audience and, in turn, sold the most newspapers. That gold standard of objectivity became the norm until very recently, when access to more news sources exploded with the advent of television and the Internet. Today, with such a variety of news publishers, the tables have turned back to partisanship. Entities like Fox News, MSNBC and the Huffington Post appeal to niche‐markets, in this case, groups who share similar political leanings. And it only takes a stroll through the supermarket to see the variety of magazine publications, appealing to various hobbies, professions and interests. But even with the strong partisanship apparent in the press, journalists, and the public they serve, still place reporting objectivity high on a pedestal. But inherent human characteristics can make that neutrality challenging to come by. Ethnocentrism is the bias of reporting foreign stories through ones own culture lens, judging those different practices against familiar principals or values. Reporters often display a “Pollyanna” complex when it comes to reporting on democratic business practices, falsely assuming that business people are working for the greater good. This bias is called responsible capitalism. Journalists also overly romanticize rural life, equating it with innocence while reviling urban centers in a bias referred to as small‐town pastoralism. Finally, we often see a strong journalistic bias towards individualism, focused reporting on personal triumphs or tenacity rather than big reporting on large institutional failures or corruption. Ethical Responsibilities All journalists share a similar responsibility to adhere to a moral code—but the environment in which they operate can produce many a gray area in terms of ethics. The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) has adopted and published an ethics code to help its members navigate those gray areas and choose which rules to bend. Part of researching and developing a story may include deception or disguise, methods that appear unseemly in the general public’s eye. But when those methods expose an underground prostitution ring or a Ponzi scheme, the ends appear to justify the means. Another moral issue journalists must grapple with is privacy. We probably all agree that the paparazzi cross that line with their “photojournalistic” pursuits, but in pursuit of stories for the public good, like
Chapter 14 Summary
corruption, sometimes the value of privacy must be abandoned. The SPJ also warns journalists against placing themselves in a conflict of interest situation, something that would produce a story from which they might benefit personally. Getting the Story With each newsroom attempting to “out do” the rest, the race to get the scoop is often riddled with error. In April 2013, all major networks were huddled outside of Boston, MA covering the exhaustive search for the suspects in the marathon bombing. CNN reported breaking news that an arrest had been made, based on testimony from an unnamed source. In a glaring example of herd journalism, every other newsroom picked up this story until it was uncovered that the source had been incorrect and no arrests had been made. This episode exposes a catch 22 in journalism—they must often be reliant on outside sources for information. These sources may not share the journalist’s motives in pursuing a story, nor their ethics. In addition, in the hectic world of fast‐paced news and deadlines, journalists often find themselves going back to the same experts for quotes over and over again, injecting bias into their stories. In TV, reporters often rely on a sound bite to help inject outside sources and further their story. Sound bites are short clip of speech, a response to an event or opinion on an issue. These snippets can come under intense scrutiny when they are taken out of context. Reporting in the Age of the Internet Online news has dramatically changed journalism, for both better and worse. On the one hand, it means the public can access news instantly, as it happens, and no longer has to wait until the next day for the newspaper to discover what is going on. In addition, the Internet is limitless in terms of space and time—zero constraints on word count or broadcast time. But it also presents a special set of problems for journalists, who may rely on email rather than in‐person interviews which removes important non‐verbal cues from their reporting and eliminates spontaneity. In addition, the wide expanse of the Internet can make it easier, intentionally or not, to plagiarize. Another interesting consequence of the Internet is its empowerment of public journalism. We see this now sprinkled throughout Internet news sites in the comments section and even in contributed reports from ordinary folks. But the practice actually started out well before the Internet as we know it existed. In the 1980s, public journalism was an experiment to involve citizens in the news process. At the time, this involved creating public, in‐person forums at which citizens could actively discuss local issues. Though the practice continues, it has been criticized for undermining news credibility by removing the editorial process and injecting partisanship. Journalism’s Role in Democracy As mentioned above, news and journalism is a central tenet in our democracy. As citizens, we look to the news to educate us on all matters of issues and uphold the idea of the public’s right to know. This creates a social responsibility for journalists to advance opinions, encourage debate and create narratives that serve the greater good.