The Importance of Political Journalism in Society - Case Study Example

Your name: Course name: Professors’ name: Importance of Political Journalism Political journalism is involved in gathering and dissemination of key information related to politics of the day from organizations, politicians, governments, non-governmental agencies, key individuals and other players of the nation’s politics. Political journalism is vital and plays an important role in the society. When addressing the importance of political journalism in the society, the discussion will not only focus on the dissemination of information but will also assess the quality and relevance of the information availed to the public. What role do political journalist play in gathering and dissemination of information, do they always act in the best of public interest? Political journalists play a critical role in the democracy of a nation. They have always been present in addressing the politics of the nation. They have enjoy a privilege no other industry enjoys since they are protected by the constitution. In this light, political journalists see themselves as “watchdogs of democracy.” Many people will agree with this, but sometimes their coverage may be biased and nor represent the public interest. When pursuing their democracy protector roles tension often rise between the press they represent and the politicians. Therefore, to avoid this it is prudent for them to disseminate verifiable news. The political power of the journalists is often a subject on most peoples’ minds. Therefore, the journalists are simultaneously praised and blamed for many aspects in the Australian political life. Sometimes political journalism through some of their coverage is accused of endangering national security, concentrating too much on only the negatives of the nation, oversimplifying or overlooking important issues related to public policy, and a perceived aspect of political bias (Beecher 2011). However, political journalism has been able to stress their responsibilities in deepening democracy and public interest. Investigative reporting has led the dismissal of corrupt government officials. This has made their role as been effective government watchdog credible to the public. The investigative reporting has led to the development and growth of a media culture that enhances discloser and transparency that elevates Australian democracy. Since the journalists are always investigating the government, officials in the public sector have become more accountable. According to Wilson (2014), operative journalism has been employed as an effective tool for promoting democracy in the society by airing political issues, addressing ethnic diversity and addressing various issues that affect the society. Australian public broadcaster ABC has emphasized the role of investigative journalism as an effective tool of ensuring accountability and democracy is upheld at all levels. Political journalism has assisted in building peace and social consensus. Without these two aspects, democracy is threatened. Political journalism offers a platform for peaceful mediation between the government and the governed. Peaceful political journalism seeks to promote reconciliation by giving voice to all the affected side. Report by Kelly (2014) dubbed “Politics in crisis and the nation in denial,” asserts that political journalism plays a role of shaping the public opinion of the government. On this light, some journalists and media houses are manipulated by certain interest groups in the society. Therefore, they contribute to the decay of democracy since the public interest is not upheld. In addition, media houses sometimes coerce their journalist to pursue biased reporting thus contributes to the inability of the journalist to fulfil their democratic obligation. From the above, political journalism play an important role in the society. However, to ensure accountability they must ensure honest reporting. They must ensure they are not biased in their reporting. Political Journalism and the Political Process Political process can be defined as the process of formulation and administration of the public policy; usually effected by interaction of the political institutions and social groups or relationship between the public opinion and the political leadership (Coleman 2011, p.42). Political journalism plays a central role in the political process. In many ways, political journalism illuminates the political process. The 21st century has seen dramatic and drastic changes affecting both the politics and journalism. The rise of digital communication has seen a decline in the traditional mass media which has an insightful impact on political journalism. Although the way politicians and journalists interact or communicate are changing, political journalism remains dominant to the political process. Political journalism is regarded as a fundamental part of the political process. Political journalism presents politics by engaging in criticising and praising those in positions of power, encouraging certain political actors, vies and issues. Therefore, keeping the society at least informed to some extent about the politics regarding public affairs. They often mobilise the public for political action often done in concert with some other estates. In the late 20th century, public politics pursued by politicians covered by the mass media was intertwined with different but distinct national diversities of political journalism, established within broadcasters and newspapers that reached a larger audience. Today, journalism is still at the heart of politics. Political journalism is reinventing itself as a profession and craft (Norris 2001, p.247). The journalist are faced with a sceptical audience, more scattered, and less interested. They work independently or for media companies. Thus, the journalist has to investigate thoroughly to come up with verifiable stories about the politics of the day. With this, the public always get political information through various press. Political journalism plays a vital role in the formulation and administration of the public policy. They carry out investigations and reports on the relevance of various public policies that have been put into place. According to Lester and Hutchins (2012, p.657), the press through the political journalists offers a platform that enables effective interaction and communication of the various players of the policies. Policies that govern specific sectors of government are often influenced by politics. The appointed officials managing the policy need to be accountable and focussed on ensuring discloser and openness is upheld. In an election process, media through investigative reporting play a vital role in availing news to the public. Formation and progress of political parties is evaluated by effective reporting. Public opinion is vital in evaluating the progress of a political party in a national election. Political journalism has the role of providing the society with news that are based upon views that can be highlighted, expressed, analysed and informative decisions made with reference to social and political issues. With effective reporting political journalism forms an important pillar in shaping the political process of a nation. Journalists and the Public View about Politics The public needs to be informed of the politics of the day. However, most people in the society want to monitor the nation’s politics with minimal effort (Rothwell 2011). They want to monitor and find out how the politicians and other government officials handle and manage public funds. Therefore, most people perceive what is reported by a journalist as it is and would not go further to validate the reported news. The objective of the journalists is to produce relevant political news that attract a massive audience. Often people tend to discuss what was reported in the local news in their social groups or setups. The discussion on politics in a society always has a reference to the political journalists. Therefore, journalists shape the way the society think about the politics. Citizen are often busy with their daily schedules; thus, they are less involved in the political process. What they do is air their views through relevant medium; mostly through social sites such as twitter. As a political journalist and the press would assume, most people in the society do not offer scrutiny on the political news as their power to influence such events is limited (Matthews & Brown 2012, p.809). However, political news has an enormous effect on the general public. This can be proved by the enormous contribution and interaction of people in interactive media such as twitter on their views about a certain happening in the politics of the nation. Journalists not only keep the public informed it also enables the public to have their voices heard and thus enables citizens to monitor and moderate the various sources of power that shapes their lives. The revolution of communication technology in the past few decades has enabled the public to air their views and interact on a global aspect. With relevant medium, the public can effectively communicate their message to the rest of the people. Journalists shape the opinion of the public through their reporting. For instance, when journalist Nick McKenzie exposed the bribery scandal that involved the Reserve Bank of Australia, there were heated debates and discussion in the public mostly through the social media. Individuals contributed their views about the scandal and the possible solutions to such scandals in the future. The media through the journalists act a watchdog for democracy. Journalists have the role of informing the society of the political happenings of a nation. Investigative reporting has led to exposure of major government scandal. All this works in the interest of the public. Therefore, since the media plays an important role in what the public thinks about the politics of the nation, journalists should ensure they maintain professionalism in their reporting. They should publish or air news that are verifiable. Since journalists have a major impact on public opinion, they are often coerced by media houses and politicians to produce news that are favourable to a certain group of people or party (McNair 1999, p.82). With increased competition in the media industry, media houses are coerced by the politicians to publish and air news that are biased. Therefore, some of the news reported may not be in the best of public interest. Media houses and journalists should uphold professionalism and good ethics when addressing the public. Judgement of many citizens is influenced by the media. Political parties employ the media in an election process to convince the public to vote for a particular party or individual. When a journalist reports that one candidate is leading the polls with a huge gap, some people may be inclined to vote for the person. Therefore, journalists shape the way the citizens think about nation’s politics. Relationship between Journalists and Politicians When journalists present their reports, they either praise or crucify the politicians. Some of their reporting may be viewed as collaborative while some as adversarial. It all depends on the actual action performed by the politicians and other government officials. The politicians want the journalist to produce only the reports that are beneficial to them sometimes without regarding the public interest (Megalogenis 2010, p.22). However, the journalist produces reports that reflect the public opinion. Thus, if a politician is involved in shoddy errands and operations, it is the obligation of a journalist to report honest news about the situation. Politicians through the media politics strive to conduct the politics of their office via effective communication through the media to reach the general public. To realise this, they involve the journalists who are actively engaged with the politics. The objective of the politicians is to use the media via the journalists to establish public support so as to realise their goals such as winning the elections and enacting policies in their offices. The politicians want the journalists to a collaborative conveyor of their various press releases and public statements (Tanner 2011, p.111). However, journalists want to be independent and would prefer to carry out their journalistic obligation in order to give the audience or the public distinctive news. On their own time, they will carry out investigation and analyses to address the various problems associated with a politician. Through this, most of the time the journalists will be conflicting with the politicians. The politicians do not want the journalist to get candid about all of their operations and would only want the journalist to report what the office gives. However, the journalist will go further than that to try and make a captivating story. Therefore, politicians detest political journalists. However, if the journalist played a collaborative role always with the politicians, then political journalism would not be as satisfying and lucrative. Journalists should be keen on their adversarial role to politicians. This is because politicians seek to create favourable news releases that please the citizens. They normally achieve this by developing campaign agendas that are captivating and compelling, thereby; journalists will be obliged to report their agendas to the public as news. When the journalist follows the politicians lead, they will be playing a collaborative role and may be blinded to overlook the entire process or operation. Politicians are cunning and would regulate what get reports to the citizens. According to Turner (2009, p.421), politicians often attempts to avoid the news conferences, and they would only want to be associated with likability, honesty and competence. Thus, journalist should investigate fully politicians reports so that they give the audience valuable news that is of public best interest. The Internet and Political Journalism Internet has revolutionized the journalism industry. Journalism is being altered and transformed based on the way it is formed, distributed, and used. There is an emergence of new tools, techniques and practices that are yielding a flurry of new mechanisms to produce information and redefinition of professional journalism in today’s world (Alterman 2008). While there’s a perceived fear with regard to the damaging repercussions of such trends in dissemination of quality journalism and the survival of political journalists, these developments may be paving a path to a better and advanced journalism with more independent journalists. Journalists are working on a digital environment where they can interact with the public through the available online platforms. With such mechanisms, more stories are being unearthed on a daily basis. There is more feedback from the audience that is being integrated with the reporting. Therefore, with the integration of the public feedback, diverse perspective of the stories are being availed to the public as news. With the internet, the stories can be archived for a long time. This enables comprehensive reporting where a reporter may use previous reporting to stress current news. The internet has made the world a global market, thus journalists through the internet have gained popularity throughout the world. For instance, Hala Gorani, a CNN correspondent in London uses her twitter handle to get the views of the public about the various stories she reports. Most of the journalists use this platform to make comprehensive reporting of their stories. According to report by Jericho (2012, p.211), internet provides a platform where the journalist can gather information, analyse it, and spread is to more people. The journalists are getting more help from the public than ever before. The interactive discussion in the social media provides them with effective analysis that they can apply to their reporting. Since the internet has changed the media industry, the public is demanding more analysis and interpretation of the news given to them by the journalists. For instance, the youdecide2007 website offers an interactive platform where the community can air their views about elections and other major political events in Australia. The platform enables the member of the public to create a user-generated news. Though some have argued that this platform works negatively for the journalists, it provides an opportunity for them to gather and analysed valuable stories from the public. However, there has been increased competition between the journalists and bloggers in social media. The bloggers have attracted a huge following which can be damaging to journalists. More people are visiting their social sites to catch up with the local news. Newspaper and radio are losing their popularity at an alarming rate. Therefore, journalist employing such media are affected. With the internet, streaming of the local broadcasting networks is available. Therefore, the internet has taken over the media. Journalists should view this as an opportunity to develop more independently while using interactive platforms to address the public continuously (Flew 2009, p.91). Conclusion Political journalism is vital and plays an important role in the society. Journalism and media play an important role of gathering and dissemination of information to the society. Most people would agree that political journalists function as ‘watchdogs of democracy.’ Political journalism illuminates the political process and plays a vital role in the formulation and administration of the public policy. With effective reporting political journalism forms an important pillar in shaping the political process of a nation. The relationship between the journalists and politicians is perplexing. Some of their reporting may be viewed as collaborative while some as adversarial. It all depends on the actual action performed by the politicians and other government officials. However, the journalists should be nonpartisan so that they can report news that are of public interest. The discussion on politics in a society always has a reference to the political journalists. Therefore, journalists shape the way the society think about the politics. The internet provides a platform where the journalist can gather information, analyse it, and spread is to more people. Though there is a perceived fear of the repercussions of the internet on quality of journalism, journalist should employ this platform to interact with the public. References Alterman, E 2008, “Out of print: The death and life of the American newspaper”. The New Yorker URL: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/31/080331fa_fact_alterman?currentPage=all Jericho, G 2012, “Journalists all a Twitter”, The Rise of the Fifth Estate: Social Media and blogging in Australian Politics, Melbourne: Scribe, pp190-228. 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It's an opportunity!” 18 July 2014, Guardian Australia. URL: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/18/why-cry-over-the-return-of-populist- politics-its-an-opportunity. Read More