Are journalists part of the news?

Charlie Hatch
gh181212@ohio.edu

Everyday, a journalist has to make quick time decisions that can define its career in more ways than one. Unlike many jobs, the occupation of a journalist is very transparent—or at least it's supposed to be. 

Journalists have very public jobs. 

What they do—or don't do—is open for the general public to make note of and observe. (It's important to remember this isn't just in news, but also in sports, fashion, music, etc.)

As important as it is to report accurate news to the public, there has to be an audience to receive the information.

And when a member of the media messes up, that audience quickly capitalizes on the mistake and can question the legitimacy of the reporter.

With social media embedded into an individual’s daily routine, there’s never been a time in human history for people to able to interact all across the globe so quickly and easily. Thus, it’s easy for a journalist to reach a broader audience, which in theory, is a good thing.

Queue the old cliché, with more power comes more responsibility.

Perhaps the best way to examine a journalist’s effectiveness delivering the news to the public would be to search #FergusonOctober on Twitter.

Ignore a few random tweets, and tweets from journalists covering the story immediately begin to pop up.

Ohio University graduate Wesley Lowery has been at the forefront of all coverage, and was even arrested this past summer while covering from Furguson, MO.

The ability to inform the world what is going on at a community's Walmart or on a neighborhood street is powerful, but it's also damaging to a journalist's ego. 

Journalists need to remember that it's important to report the news, not become a part of it. And that's the fine line members of the media wrestle with. 

Even Lowery had to ethically decide how to attack his coverage after he was arrested in a McDonald's restaurant. 

Once he was detained and ended his appearances on national television networks, such as MSNBC, Lowery told Twitter that his own parents reminded him that he wasn't the news, he's there to report it. 

But that's what makes a journalist's job so difficult.

Sure, getting arrested and losing your right to free speech is an important story that need to be made available to the public. 

But doing so, and potentially moving the spotlight away from the news a journalist is supposed to report becomes a difficult situation, ethically. 

These are the questions journalists need to think about, and potentially mention to their readers. It's important to understand the coverage an audience wants, while also making sure a story has the maximum coverage possible to provide such an audience. 

Going back to Lowery, once he informed the public of the conversation his parents had with him about his role as a journalist, the reporter refrained from mentioning how his life or job had been impacted by the news in Furguson. 

He delivered hard-hitting, important journalism, free from any bias, and both ethically and morally correct. That's exactly what journalism needs.