The Troubles of Journalism: A Critical Look at Whats Right and Wrong With the Press (Routledge Commu
News value is generally used to select stories for print, broadcast, blogs, and web portals, including those that focus on a specific topic. To a large degree, news value depends on the target audience. For example, a minor story in the United States is more likely to appear on CNN than a minor story in the Middle East which might be more likely to appear on Al Jazeera simply due to the geographic distribution of the channels' respective audiences.
It is a matter of debate whether this means that either network is less than objective, and that controversy is even more complicated when considering coverage of political stories for different audiences that have different political demographics as with Fox News vs. Some digital media platforms can use criteria to choose stories which are different than traditional news value. For example, while the Google News portal essentially chooses stories based on news value though indirectly, through the choices of large numbers of independent outlets , users can set Google Alerts on specific terms which define personal subjective interests.
This freedom has brought an explosion of digital practices and platforms, with in many respects new, more effective journalistic forms—but at a cost to institutional clarity and coherence. Sign in to annotate. All the reporters who collected the money chorused that they will write whatever he wants them to write. Lester, Paul — Photojournalism: In that respect, journalism is not some naturally existing category, but a complex and contingent assemblage—less product than process.
Search engines , news aggregators, and social network feeds sometimes change the presentation of content depending on the consumer's expressed or inferred preferences or leanings. This has both been cheered as bypassing traditional "gatekeepers" and whatever biases they may have in favor of audience-centric selection criteria, but criticized as creating a dangerous filter bubble which intentionally or unintentionally hides dissenting opinions and other content which might be important for the audience to see in order to avoid exposure bias and groupthink.
Audiences have different reactions to depictions of violence, nudity, coarse language, or to people in any other situation that is unacceptable to or stigmatized by the local culture or laws such as the consumption of alcohol , homosexuality , illegal drug use , scatological images, etc. Even with similar audiences, different organizations and even individual reporters have different standards and practices.
These decisions often revolve around what facts are necessary for the audience to know. When certain distasteful or shocking material is considered important to the story, there are a variety of common methods for mitigating negative audience reaction. Advance warning of explicit or disturbing material may allow listeners or readers to avoid content they would rather not be exposed to.
Offensive words may be partially obscured or bleeped. Potentially offensive images may be blurred or narrowly cropped. Descriptions may be substituted for pictures; graphic detail might be omitted. Disturbing content might be moved from a cover to an inside page, or from daytime to late evening when children are less likely to be watching.
There is often considerable controversy over these techniques, especially concern that obscuring or not reporting certain facts or details is self-censorship that compromises objectivity and fidelity to the truth, and which does not serve the public interest. For example, images and graphic descriptions of war are often violent, bloody, shocking and profoundly tragic. This makes certain content disturbing to some audience members, but it is precisely these aspects of war that some consider to be the most important to convey.
Some argue that "sanitizing" the depiction of war influences public opinion about the merits of continuing to fight, and about the policies or circumstances that precipitated the conflict. The amount of explicit violence and mutilation depicted in war coverage varies considerable from time to time, from organization to organization, and from country to country.
Reporters have also been accused of indecency in the process of collecting news, namely that they are overly intrusive in the name of journalistic insensitivity. War correspondent Edward Behr recounts the story of a reporter during the Congo Crisis who walked into a crowd of Belgian evacuees and shouted, "Anyone here been raped and speaks English? Many print publications take advantage of their wide readership and print persuasive pieces in the form of unsigned editorials that represent the official position of the organization.
Despite the ostensible separation between editorial writing and news gathering, this practice may cause some people to doubt the political objectivity of the publication's news reporting. Though usually unsigned editorials are accompanied by a diversity of signed opinions from other perspectives. Other publications and many broadcast media only publish opinion pieces that are attributed to a particular individual who may be an in-house analyst or to an outside entity.
One particularly controversial question is whether media organizations should endorse political candidates for office. Political endorsements create more opportunities to construe favoritism in reporting, and can create a perceived conflict of interest. Investigative journalism is largely an information-gathering exercise, looking for facts that are not easy to obtain by simple requests and searches, or are actively being concealed, suppressed or distorted. Where investigative work involves undercover journalism or use of whistleblowers , and even more if it resorts to covert methods more typical of private detectives or even spying, it brings a large extra burden on ethical standards.
Anonymous sources are double-edged—they often provide especially newsworthy information, such as classified or confidential information about current events, information about a previously unreported scandal, or the perspective of a particular group that may fear retribution for expressing certain opinions in the press.
The downside is that the condition of anonymity may make it difficult or impossible for the reporter to verify the source's statements. Sometimes news sources hide their identities from the public because their statements would otherwise quickly be discredited. Thus, statements attributed to anonymous sources may carry more weight with the public than they might if they were attributed. The Washington press has been criticized in recent years for excessive use of anonymous sources, in particular to report information that is later revealed to be unreliable. The use of anonymous sources increased markedly in the period before the invasion of Iraq.
One of the primary functions of journalism ethics is to aid journalists in dealing with many ethical dilemmas they may encounter. From highly sensitive issues of national security to everyday questions such as accepting a dinner from a source, putting a bumper sticker on one's car, publishing a personal opinion blog , a journalist must make decisions taking into account things such as the public's right to know, potential threats, reprisals and intimidations of all kinds, personal integrity, conflicts between editors, reporters and publishers or management, and many other such conundra. The following are illustrations of some of those.
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A partial listing of questions received by The Ethics AdviceLine: Jesse Owen Hearns-Branaman of the National Institute of Development Administration, Thailand, argued that journalistic professionalism is a combination of two factors, secondary socialization of journalists in the workplace and the fetishization of journalistic norms and standards.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article's lead section does not adequately summarize key points of its contents. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article.
Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page. This section needs expansion with: You can help by adding to it. This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. June Learn how and when to remove this template message. December Learn how and when to remove this template message. While some scholars like Kepplinger et al. There are obvious evidences to suggest that if a journalist acts in certain ways, members of the society will be quick to refer to the action as either unethical or unprofessional.
This suggests that to avoid unethical conducts in the process of packaging and dissemination of news, a professional who will work in line with the code of ethics of journalism is the right person for the job. The international organization, Society of Professional Journalists based in Indianapolis in the United States of America believes that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy.
Media ethics bibliography
Members believe that ethical journalism strives to ensure the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair and thorough. An ethical journalist acts with integrity. The Society declares these four principles as the foundation of ethical journalism and encourages their use in its practice by all people in all media: Professionalism in journalism becomes a necessity to act as checks and balance against the use of the media for personal vendetta and media power.
As a result news journalists operate not simply as conduits who disseminate information but as specialists who decide what information is public- worthy and who then shape it into particular forms for dissemination. This means that journalists can police a set of boundaries around their domain and protect their autonomy as specialists in particular knowledge areas and practices.
As beautiful as this definition is, many complaints have been heard from the public with respect to unethical practices even among professional journalists. In Nigeria, there are so many grey areas that need clarification when it comes to professionalism in journalism. Adaja [ 1 ] captured the confusion in this way: Practitioners are expected to be guided by a code of conduct which members are expected to comply with strictly, and to be enforced by a body acceptable to all the stakeholders.
However, journalism practice in Nigeria has raised a lot of questions as to the proprietary of referring to it as a profession. The loose definition of the criteria for membership has made the profession an all-comers-affair. A closer look at journalism within Nigeria will reveal that so many factors are responsible for the challenges facing the profession. This statement quoted by Barton [ 16 ] was an interview between the director of the International Press Institute IPI in Lagos, Tom Hopkins and students of the institute during its opening ceremony.
Stephen D. Reese
The statement points out to the fact that some people pick up a career in journalism just to make ends meet. Similarly, some pick up a career in journalism believing it will lead them to riches and when this fails to happen, frustration sets in leading to unethical practices. Having said this, it is noteworthy that the country has produced several world class journalists, including the Pulitzer award winning journalist, Dele Olojede, who was my boss at Timbuktu media in Lagos, Nigeria. The dissemination and discussion of information concerning the major problems the world and its people face is necessary to both democratic understanding and democratic action without which the problems cannot be solved.
There is therefore a great opportunity for the professional journalist to contribute to the advancement of peace, prosperity and progress in a society. But can the media respond effectively?
According to Downie et al. Ownership is probably the greatest influence on all three. It is one thing to make this suggestion and is another thing for it to be the standard by all media owners. In Nigeria, newspapers are not published on charity nor do broadcast media operate free of charge. They are investments that must yield profit to their owners. Some of the owners set up these media organizations in the country for political reasons.
Cases of ownership influence on journalists can be seen from the angle of stories published in the national dailies or broadcast on the electronic media. The Nation, which is owned by a member of the opposition party, is usually critical of government. The broadcast media owned by the government: The National Television Authority and the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria have turned to mere praise singers, painting the government in bright colours with limited paint.
There cases where journalists have lost their jobs for going against the ideologies of their proprietors. Whichever way one looks at it, Brown Envelope involves giving of money to a journalist. In other words, bribing a journalist. Though the reason for giving the money will not be stated at the point of giving, it is the amount that suggests that the giver wants something from the journalist in return.
In , the T. Joshua, the founder of the Synagogue Church for All Nations invited journalists to come and inspect the ruins of his guest house, which collapsed under mysterious circumstances leaving many people dead including non-Nigerians.
After the inspection, he offered each journalist the sum of N 50, each. A journalist, Nicholas Ibekwe turned down the offer. The story went viral on social media. The story had it that the prophet had given each reporter the said amount to fuel their cars, after which he asked them what they were going to write with respect to the collapsed building. All the reporters who collected the money chorused that they will write whatever he wants them to write.
A similar scenario had presented itself in Nigeria when in , the minister of information, professor Jerry Gana was reported to have given dollars each to international journalists after a press conference. These are two out of several incidences of offering of bribes to journalists in order to influence their views on stories no matter how important such stories are. Though the name is brown envelope, such monies could be given in white envelopes and even in bank accounts of the reporters or they could translate into things like parcels of land, automobiles or even the sponsorship of a holiday to a dream country of the journalist.
More worrisome and disgraceful is the manner in which some journalists go about demanding for brown envelopes after an interview with a news maker or a press conference as if it were a provision in the code of ethics of the Nigerian journalists. James — Media Literacy, London, Sage, Sloan, William David — ed.
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Accountable Journalism
Christians, Clifford — ed. Libois, Boris — Ethique de l'information: Pinto de Oliveira, C. Haller, Michael, Holzhey, Helmut, — ed. Beschreibungen, Analysen, Konzepte, Opladen, Russ-Mohl, Stephan — Journalismus. Ethik und professionelle Normen, p.