Protecting the Values of Journalism

Andy Kovar
ak840511@ohio.edu

Journalism is coming increasingly faster and more competitive now living in the social media era. There are more people able to publish information on a highly used public domain. This puts more pressure on professional journalists to be faster in order to beat out the non-traditional journalists in order to retain their credibility and following. With this being some the case some of our core values are being lost in the shuffle in order to beat someone else to the punch.

Truth

The core value held above all else in journalism is the truth. If your audience cannot trust what you say then you have lost all credibility and will no longer be taken seriously whenever you report a story. In order to maintain accuracy throughout the story, a journalist must look at the story from all of it angles to ensure that they see the full scope of what's going on leaving all subjectivity out of it. Journalists often don't get a second chance to prove themselves after it has been proven that in some way that they have lied to the audience.
PewResearch did a three year study looking at what defines a journalist and the number one thing is telling the truth. Take Stephen Glass for example, a budding journalist coming out of the University of Pennsylvania who was writing for The New Republic. Glass seemed to always beat other journalists to these very unique stories. After awhile, people started to catch on that Glass was not being truthful with his work and he was eventually found out and removed from his duties. This not only effected his credibility, but that of the publication as well as now they must find someway to restore trust in order to stay afloat.

(Image used from Google)
http://www.sfexaminer.com/imager/stephen-glass/b/original/2688358/cd0a/stephenglass.jpg

Transparency

As journalists, we set the standard for excellence in our field. That means we need to be accountable for our actions as well as holding others around us accountable. It may seem wise to align with someone with power that could give you the scoop on a large amount of stories, but you cannot just take them at their word you have to check to make sure what they are saying is accurate leaving nothing out. Doing this allows the story to be told in a fair and ethical way that lets the reader decide how to perceive the news instead of the writer telling them or leading them toward a desired conclusion. 

As of late, people are becoming less and less trusting of the media much of this having to do with the fact that major news organizations are putting their political spin into the news story giving the audience a distorted view of what is really going on. When the reader catches on they must go searching for all the facts themselves which is the job and purpose of journalism in the first place. According to Poyner.com, we used to be a journalist community that believed independent journalism, but now it has shifted to more transparency or a type of checks and balance system where journalists prove or disprove other journalists to make sure their field stays honest to the readers.

Conclusion 

As journalists, we are accountable for our own actions as they carry weight throughout the entire community. The truth must remain our main objective even if that means sacrificing speed in which we reports the facts. Above all else we must let the reader be able to read our stories objectively so they can form their owns opinions and ideas of what the news is to them.