The Social Role of Journalism - Essay Example

?The Social Role of Journalism A journalist's job is to look for new information that would be of interest to his audience and present it in an objective way. A journalist must be able to choose from millions of things that happen every day and pick those particular incidents that may be of maximum interest to his audience. He must than package this information in a way that is easily understandable, without losing the objectivity. In modern day, round the clock news channels require journalists to come up with a lot a more news worthy items than at any time in the past. The result is that journalists have a lot less time to find and process news worthy events, leading to commoditization of news. But journalists have a responsibility to accurately and objectively present events that enrich society and makes it more aware so that humans can build a better future. This is especially more so in the present age of internet and citizen journalism, when anyone can go online and post news and opinions. This increases professional journalists responsibility to check the facts and present only the complete and objective truth. This essay shall argue that news is not a commodity and that journalists have a social responsibility and when they do not follow this basic mandate of journalism, both the society and the journalist suffer. The essay shall also look at the counter arguments and justify the reasons why those arguments are not valid. Objective and well-researched journalism not only keeps us informed but also helps strengthen the democracy. According to Kovach (2005), "journalism enables us as citizens to have our voices heard in the chambers of power". In the twenty first century, when blogs and other social media can quickly reach the politicians, it may be argued that citizens no longer need journalists to give them a voice. However, journalists do more than let the citizen's voice be heard. They also keep the citizens informed and an informed society is the very first condition for a thriving and strong democracy. Hence, journalists cannot be complacent about their job because the strength of the democracy depends on their ability to present factual information objectively. If journalists fail to present well researched factual information, the citizens do not have the necessary facts to make informed decisions. Journalists also need to be objective and refrain from including their personal opinions and prejudices to the news they report. When presenting viewpoints, they must ensure to present the varied points of view on a topic so that their audience can get a complete picture. In the twentieth century, editors and reporters decoded what events became news and were presented to the consuming masses. The social media has ensured that the citizens can decide for themselves what they consider news. Yet, it remains the job of the journalist to present this news in an unbiased and objective manner, something that untrained citizen journalists are not equipped to do. A well informed citizenry is the first and most important component of democracy and journalism have the responsibility to keep the citizens informed. When journalists fail to present the facts, they not only hurt the society but also their own credibility and hence it is in their own interest to well research the news that they report. In the past, newspapers took pains and spent a lot of time to check and crosscheck the news they presented so that there were no factual mistakes in the news reported. But the globalization of news media and the internet has increased the competition and journalist no longer have the luxury to carefully research every news item. Also, in the recent decades, newspapers and TV news channels are increasingly owned by media conglomerates that lay a heavy emphasis on profitability above everything else. As a result, even well respected newspapers are increasingly reporting news that were earlier relegated to tabloids and political, international and other human interest news are being sacrificed at the expense of "scandal news" (Tumber, 2001). However, journalists and media conglomerates need to realize that when they sacrifice quality to meets targets, financial or otherwise, it can come back to hurt them. The New York Times and its editor, Howell Raines, learned this as a result of Jayson Blair's bogus news articles. The scandal led to Raines losing his job and The New York Times losing its credibility as a serious newspaper (Schwarz. 2012). The fact that the newspaper continues to struggle financially, proves that there is no substitute for quality. Hence, it is the newspapers own interest to ensure highest quality standards when reporting news. One argument in favour of mass production of news is that in the current information age, audience has access to a number of varied sources to news and, hence, in order to retain their interest, a media channel must be able to present huge amounts of news on a number of varied topics so that it would appeal to its diverse audience. This argument is the result of pressure from media conglomerates that require profits at any cost. However, the fact remains that traditional news sources like newspapers and even some television channels are struggling. Obviously, these media outlets are not able to provide the kind of news that their audience is looking for. If these news media hope to reverse the trends, they need to better understand what their audience wants and instead of trying to flood the channel with all kinds of varied news, they should target specific audience segment with good quality news. Quality over quantity makes sense even economically. Thus, we see that thinking of news as a product can prove to be counter-productive, both to the news media, as well as the society. It is the responsibility of news media to ensure that the citizens remain well informed. With the onslaught of alternative news sources such as social media, news media cannot afford to shrug off their responsibility. With so much information around, news media have an even greater responsibility to sift through all this information and present the citizens with nothing but the whole, unbiased truth. References Kovach, B 2005, "A New Journalism for Democracy in a New Age", Journalism.org. Accessed on 30 April 2013 from http://www.journalism.org/node/298 Schwarz, DR 2012, EndTimes? Crisis and Turmoil at the New York Times, 1999-2009. New York: SUNY Press. Tumber, H 2001, "Democracy in the Information Age: The Role of the Fourth Estate in Cyberspace", Information, Communication & Society, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 95-112. Critique The article "The “Gate Keeper”: a case study in the selection of news" by D.M White is essentially the report of an experiment conducted with the help of a single editor to of a wire newspaper to determine what factors go into the reporting of a news. Since only one editor's point of view was used to conduct this experiment, a "case study" better defines the process. The aim of the case study was not to do an intensive study of the various factors that go into deciding which event is newsworthy and which is not. Instead, it was to get a preliminary idea of why one particular editor made the choices that he did. The case study was inspired by the idea by Kurt Lewin that as news travels through communication channels a variety of "gatekeepers" decide which news is newsworthy and formulate its structure before it ultimately becomes available to the audience. White looked at the last "gatekeeper" in the process, the editor who decides which news goes on the newspaper and which gets rejected, and carried out the study to get an idea of the basis on which news are classified as newsworthy. The editor under study was a middle aged man with 25 years of experience as reporter and copy editor who was at the time working a wire editor for a morning newspaper in an industrial town. The editor was asked to write a note on all the rejected content about the reason for rejection. The rejected content was than compared against the published content to get a percentage of material used in the newspaper. The resons given were rejection were also studied and divided into two categories as (i) not worth reporting and (ii) selecting from several news of same event. The editor was also asked four follow-up questions to determine his reasons for usually selecting or rejecting a news story. A careful study of the results showed that the editor's choices were mostly subjective and his personal biases played an important role in the selection. The case study established that through his role as a "gatekeeper" of news, he ensured that his community only heard news that he consciously or subconsciously believed to be true. The study established the highly subjective nature of deciding the newsworthiness of any story. The case study follows all well known basics of a good qualitative case study. Baxter and Jack (2008) list four conditions which must be met for the use of the case study approach. According to them, the case study method should be used when the focus of the study is to answer the "how" and "why" questions. In this case, the aim of the of the researcher was to find out "why" the editor chose certain stories while rejecting others. The second criteria for using the case study approach is that the researcher should not be able to manipulate the behaviour of the person involved. In this case, the editor was asked to continue doing what he would normally do and only after he was done with the day's work was he required to put remarks on the rejected stories. Hence, his decisions on selecting or rejecting the story were based on his usual work and not affected by requirements of the case study. Also, the researcher was not present at the site when the editor was doing his work and so there was no undue pressure on the editor which could have in anyway changed his normal behaviour. The other two conditions for using the case study approach are regarding the context and in this case the context of his job as a newspaper editor is inseparable from his job of selecting newsworthy stories. Hence, the case study was the right approach to use in this particular case, given the complexity of the situation. Another method, such as a survey, would not have been appropriate because it would have recorded the editor's thoughts after the fact rather than actually recording his actions. The presentation of the article could have been better if the author had used clear headings such as "methodology", "results" and "discussion". However, this is a minor issue and article itself is well researched and properly illustrates the various issues under study and how the case study hopes to resolve these issues. All the aspects of the case study are very well documented and clearly explain the various steps taken both by the editor being studied as well as by the researcher. Since the article is based on a single case study, there is not enough data to determine if this subjectivity is true to all editors across all newspapers, or if it is typical of only this particular editor. The author is of the view that the one editor studied is representative all editors working at similar positions across the country. This is a very gross generalization based on just one example and may or may not be true. It is possible that while this particular editor's personal biases are reflected in his newspaper, other newspapers or editors may have a more objective way of deciding what is newsworthy. Or even if the test of newsworthiness remains subjective, other editors may be able to keep their personal biases aside while selecting stories for publication. In absence of a wider range, the conclusion that the particular editor is a representative of his class seems to be uncalled for and may actually reflect the author's own biases. In conclusion, the article under critique is a well researched case study from the early twentieth century that looks at what goes into deciding the newsworthiness of a story for a local newspaper. The paper meets the criteria for using the case study approach and White takes adequate steps to ensure that the research results are not tainted. However, the conclusion arrived at by White is based on the assumption that the editor is a representative of all editors and this generalization may not be true. References Baxter, P & Jack S 2008, "Qualitative Case Study Methodology: Study Design and Implementation for Novice Researchers" The Qualitative Report, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 544-559. White, DM 1997, "The “Gate Keeper”: a case study in the selection of news". In D. Berkowitz. (ed.) Social meanings of news: a text reader. London: SAGE Publications, pp 63-71. Read More