Opinion and Journalism

Picture of Heather Mallick

I enjoyed the discussion today in class, it honestly sparked something inside of me to want to actually think a little bit more about journalism and what it really is. The art analogy stuck with me, and I walked away from class thinking maybe journalism has become its own art of sorts. Perhaps a journalist like an artist is in the eye of the beholder.

For example the journalist I interviewed said he thought good journalism was “Accurate reporting, as objective and well written as possible, ABOUT THE SUBJECTS THE AFFECT THE READERS’LIFE.” So maybe in this day an age where everyone is embracing individualism and finding various means to feed into what they define themselves as being perhaps journalism and news has become just another niche product made to please the consumer. What affects my life, what interests me, and how I define the importance of different topics depends less lately on society as people seem to look more inward to answer the questions.

With that said I am trying to say that it is not the writer, or the “news” that is currently defining journalism, but instead the viewer/ consumer. In that sense it is like art because the person that sees it or reads it can decide what divides the art from chaos, or in our class’s case what divides news from entertainment and opinion.

Major news organizations have held onto more traditional journalistic values. One news organization called the CBC in Canada has recently had to make a judgment call in the case of content not going along with their self described guidelines of good or responsible journalism.

I read this story today in the New York Times and it caught my eye because the headline read ‘Boss Is Not Ammused After Columnist’s Humor Brings A Retort From Fox News.’ In one of my earlier blogs about the daily show I posed the question about humor and satire being used more in print news and thus I read today’s article eagerly to see what type of humor had gotten this columnist in trouble.

It turns out the columnist Heather Mallick wrote about Sara Palin writing among other things that she “has a toned-down version of the porn actress look.” Upon reading that and other comments she included in her column I immediately thought wow this is a real life example, coming from a legitimate news source, of the “Obama is the anit-christ” example from class.

These comments then of coarse en-flamed an onslaught of conservative criticism, and as the headline suggests several upset phone calls and questions from Fox News corp. back in America.

This back lash caused the government founded CBC to remove the article from their website and issue an apology. John Cruickshank made several interesting comments about what had been written and how it did not fallow the journalistic aspirations of the organization.

Cruickshank said it would have worked just fine if it had been labeled as satire. However, Mallick disagreed saying “It wasn’t satire though; it was straightforward political commentary, admittedly with jokes.”

Cruickshank in his apology also said “every news organization needs to have an opinion dimension. Access to different viewpoints helps readers, listeners and viewers make reasoned choices, especially during an election campaign. As a public broadcaster we have an added responsibility to provide an array of opinions and voices to complement our journalism.”

The last part especially interested me that he said these opinions are not really news, but instead he says the opinions are there to complement their journalism, and by so saying I think he draws that line that opinion and journalism are two distinct things. Yes, things that go hand in hand, but never the less separate entities indeed.

Mallicks website where you can find her original article

exerpts and commentary from Mallicks article