My Final Blog

Question # 1 Objectivity

When discussing journalism, objectivity is often the subject of complaint. Everyone seems to be pointing a finger. Fox is too conservative, CNN is too liberal. Politicians don’t seem to help when they claim the media is out to get them. The gotcha conniving media, is what politicians claim when they are portrayed in an un-pleasing light.

So who can be believed? Is anyone being objective theses days?

In some cases, objectivity is being exchanged for money. With both the left and right claming biases because of the loss of objectivity, it becomes more apparent that people hear what they want to, no matter what the content. So now, news organizations, such as Fox, decided to just give people what they wanted. Now they are making great profits catering to a conservative white male audience.

The real problem comes in their level of transparency. Fox, for example, broadcasts under a banner that proclaims they are “fair and balanced.” Opinion, I think, has leaped farther and farther from the editorial page, and now finds its way into un-labeled and non transparent articles and broadcasts. If someone wants to lean one way, I don’t see a problem if they are open and upfront about it.

With most of the opinions on objectivity being centered on political views, I am worried the lack of a pursuit of objectivity could leak into all sectors of what the news is reporting. A journalist should have the ability to honestly cover a given story. Someone who is connected by family or friendship to a story should have enough sense of objectivity to give the story to someone else. If a reporter has financial obligations, or benefits from a story, again they could never be free to cover the story in an objective manner. If scenarios such as these ever did begin to happen, it would not be long until public trust and opinion worsened an already bad state of our news media system.

A journalist, at the end of the day, is human and will have their own opinions and feelings on different issues and people. However, with some standards, I believe all of these opinions can be put aside, and a practiced, professional journalist can tell both sides of a story without telling the reader who is right or what is wrong.

Other journalists who are exceptionally passionate, and wish to tell the world a story through their own eyes, do have a place. The important thing is that those who choose to pursue such avenues, are open and transparent with what they are doing.

As I speculate about my own future career decisions as a journalist, I hope I can be objective in order to provide fair and accurate news stories to an open minded public. I know I have biases and my own opinions, but unless I am offered an appropriate avenue to share them, they will be kept to my self. I think that will include keeping my personal political views or votes to my self so that I don’t give an ever wearier public a reason to distrust another journalist.

Question # 2 Excellence In Journalism

Excellence in journalism is defined by what it does for the people. Journalism and a free press are essential to democracy. The news is traditionally a watch dog for the public. They keep congress and politicians under a scrutinizing light and make sure corrupt businesses are kept in check.

Independence is the keystone to this excellence. Not only does the Journalist need to be independent from the story in order to cover it objectively, but likewise, the news organization as a whole must stay independent in order to uphold what is essential for the public. The founding fathers had this independence in mind, I believe, when they outlined the rights of free speech and press. If the government owned or controlled the press, then the press could never turn around and freely report on the government. We have already seen cases of this happening: for example, a newspaper reporting on the negative aspects of Ford cars while having to worry about their needed income from Ford advertisers.

The ability to examine and ask questions also remains essential for excellence in journalism. Through such reporting, the news becomes a public advocate for the outspoken or even minority voice. Public vigilance towards issues that are affecting everyone or just a few people, can receive needed attention through the public discussion and awareness a news story can bring about.

As I read and followed the Idaho Statesman, my hometown newspaper, I noticed several things. Little attention was given to national news, and instead, local issues made the front page of their newspaper and website. Often, they featured articles about local civic leaders, or local groups fighting for and against problems that were important to people living in their area. I think the Idaho Statesman knows they are not a national, public opinion driving newspaper. They are read by the people living in south west Idaho and therefore, stick to the issues not only important to their audience, such as football at Boise State, but also help hold up that areas own democratic processes.

Question # 3 Journalistic Truth

I honestly do not remember discussing journalistic truth much in class, so most of my thoughts come from reading chapter 4 of The Big Picture.

The argument of truth seems to me more of a philosophical discussion, rather than a journalistic one. Yes, truth in the end, I will admit, is relative to the speaker and receiver. What the truth is can depend on our perspective, which rarely, if ever, is the same between two people.

I believe society decides the starting points of truth. There are expectations and norms long since established that I believe the news works with. People who are aware of their surroundings, and society as a whole, know the general perspectives that the news reports with. If this was not the case the news might be filled with hours of arguing what was really seen or said, and what it means in the end.

Some basic concepts of truth are accepted by the Journalists and the consumer, and for me that creates the groundwork for creating societal and civic knowledge.

Question # 4 Where Is the News Going?

Over the last several months the News networks of print and broadcast have seen a glimmer of hope, and have had further devastating blows dealt by a global economic melt down.

Through out this semester I was very interested in what was going on with newspapers, and where they were going. It seemed all the news was depressing, layoffs, downsizing, and sliding confidence from the public. The glimmer of hope was from the presidential election fervor. People were watching the news more. Even young people were tuning in to the more traditional news sources it seemed. The real victory, especially for the newspaper world, came on the day after Obama’s win. Newspapers had record sales with papers selling out in many places, and special over priced editions selling like hotcakes. Yes people were buying the papers for the historical significance, but I felt like it was newspapers time to show they were still worth something and still an important profitable product.

Unfortunately, it does not seem as though that was accomplished. The Tribune Company, which publishes the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, filed for bankruptcy. So it might turn out Newspapers did not seize the opportunity of increased popularity as I had hoped.

In all fairness it is not the complete fault of news organizations. With the economy in gloomy times it has really been a two edged sword for newspapers and broadcast companies alike. For starters people pay more attention to the news when there are attention grabbing headlines like stock market crashes and giant financial collapses. On the other hand the bad economy affects newspapers through several ways. One, many newspapers are publicly owned and a bad stock market means bad news for those newspapers and an ever pressing expectation on the newspapers to increase their profits. Two, less advertising dollars because of a decline in add spending means a big chunk of revenue gone. Third, giant companies who also own news groups can’t spend as much money on the news so their solution is downsizing and layoffs for the news rooms.

Maybe the final blow came once everyone started to realize there is not a lot of money to be made from internet content. Over the past several years many decided to run as fast as they could to make their content available on the internet. To their credit many have done this, and done it well. However, where is the money in it? With disappointing add revenue from their internet sites even more newspapers are folding.

The scary part about all this is the stress and strain it places upon the journalists. Now a poorly paid crew of even fewer reporters are expected to accomplish what before took huge budgets and many more people. This causes not only less quality in the writing and reporting, but even the size and page count of the paper itself is decreasing. Most frightening though is what this means for our press as a public advocate and watch dog. If there is only one journalist keeping tabs on things that used to take 10 a lot more can slip by. A perfect example of this is the fact there is only one full time American journalist stationed in Iraq. What more could be reported and uncovered if news organizations were not being forced to be make cuts.

Obviously this also means a bleak outlook for my own future. In 5 or 10 even 20 years from now it is hard to say exactly what will happen. TV news, I believe, has many years until significant changes will be made, but newspapers will not last much longer. If I had to guess newspapers will consolidate and die off until only several larger ones remain. Perhaps even instead of newspapers gathering the news individually I could see the creation of journalists groups such as the AP network who will do all of the reporting, investigating and writing. Then these groups will sell the stories to the news outlets. This would be unfortunate and would make decent local reporting even harder to finance.

In the end my outlook remains positive. I think the need for journalists with good writing skills will always exist. Although how we view and report the news is changing at an accelerated rate the need will always be there for the public to be informed.

Just an added note I did not discuss the internet i.e. blogs and twitter a lot, but at the end of the day these online forums will never become the main news source for the general public. They will though, help the people who are reporting the news get more first hand and in-depth accounts of unfolding stories.

Question # 5 My Own Personal Code

When I have contemplated my future career I decided long ago that if I was going to spend the better part of my life doing my job that it needed to be worth more than just money. The more I learned about what journalism really is, the more I knew journalism has far reaching and significant affects on our society. My bumper sticker read a voice for the people and a voice for democracy. I believe journalism at its best does these two things. By giving first the people a voice public discussion and thought can be initiated. People can be empowered by the knowledge true news brings. With this empowerment of knowledge educated people can turn the wheels of democracy that our country is founded on.

Even in countries outside of our own journalists wage the war of independent thought and government accountability. We are blessed in this country to have the protection to print and say the truth. The more I think of my own chance to participate in something so great and bigger than myself the more excited I am.

As a journalist my own personal code would be to uphold and further this great journalistic legacy. I would hope I can accurately and objectively as far as it is possible present stories of our society to the public at large. If and when my opinion would be warranted I will be transparent and label it as such.

Hopefully what ever content I produce under the title of a “journalist” I will be sure to not do or say anything that would tarnish my own reputation, but even more importantly tarnish the reputation of journalists everywhere.

Citations

My thoughts and writings for this final have been based off of class discussions, personal thoughts, and current events I have discussed in my own class blog; with the exception of question three when I used some ideas from chapter 4 in the Big Picture book.