What makes journalism?

Trista Thurston
tt531411@ohio.edu

Anyone can be a journalist, that much is clear. What I have always loved about journalism is how inclusive it is for every kind of voice. Journalism is best when there are varied stories. The best stories are those that share experiences with unique perspectives, yet still provide relevant facts and necessary information. Therefore, I have always thought that the argument of who is allowed to be a journalist is a little isolating and not in the spirit of the profession.

The better question is what makes journalism beneficial to society? Our founding fathers intended for us to say something meaningful with our First Amendment rights, but what makes those ideas good?

Journalistic credibility comes from subscribing to common ethics and goals, and not the title alone. Simply subscribing to these ethics is not enough to make readers trust a reporter, though. Most journalists would not call themselves unethical, just as most doctors would not call themselves quacks.

What people think of journalists, as illustrated by Google's auto-complete feature 

Ethical Call and Response

Readers should know what ethics guide the media they’re consuming, just as journalists should know what their readers expect of them. There should be a dialogue between readers and reporters about ethics and news media. One of the best places to do this now is Twitter. With Twitter, citizens can reach out directly to those telling the stories they care about and vice versa.

Changing Landscape, Rising Cost

Integrating technology and journalism is no easy task, though, even if it is as simple as using social media. When I hear my classmates, who are not journalism majors, talk about the state of the media industry, I cringe. Their suggestions to turn the journalism industry around include developing robust mobile apps, local community coverage and expanding reporting topics, as well as expanding social media presence. All of these ideas sound wonderful. And expensive.

Developing internet properties for radio, television and newspapers requires servers, designers, dedicated editors and so much more. News outlets cannot just radically overhaul their distribution methods without a lot of time, energy and monetary resources. These are things that most newsrooms just do not have in excess.

As presented in The State of the News Media 2013 from the Pew Research Center, Google is eating away at what little profit digital news advertisers make. Digital news has not quite figured out how to be profitable yet without piggy-backing on legacy media or other established companies and services.

The Expense of Quality

Quality reporting is expensive. Sending a reporter on scene and equipping him or her with the tools needed to tell a comprehensive story, like a laptop, camera and relevant software, is something only the national outlets are able to afford. However, even those reporters are discovering that they are outnumbered at press conferences nowadays.

“‘You would go into these hearings and there would be more PR people representing these big players than there were reporters, sometimes by a factor of two or three,’” said David Barstow from the New York Times of the 2010 Gulf oil spill. “‘“The muscles of journalism are weakening and the muscles of public relations are bulking up.’”

This means that not only are there more public relations workers out there at major news events, but they outnumber reporters and are better financed.

So now what?

It took 10 years for 90% of Americans to own a mobile phone. That same technological penetration took 50 years for landline telephones. Technology has wrecked what we thought we knew about journalism, journalists and their ethics. Or has it? Do the core principles change just because the distribution methods do? I argue that the core ethics of journalism to seek truth, minimize harm, act independent and be accountable and transparent can last far beyond any possible technological fad or innovation.

Now we just have to figure out how to monetize it and how to make our readers trust us. Easy, right?