The Death of Honest Journalism

Mikaela McGee
mm027214@ohio.edu

"But isn't journalism a dying field?" How many times have future or aspiring journalists heard that line when they speak of their major? I know that I've heard that specific question so much that I can anticipate exactly when it's coming. And personally, I do not feel that journalism is dying. I believe journalism is being murdered.

So who is it that is responsible for the slow death that is attacking good, honest journalism? The journalists themselves! This is because journalists are proving to the world that they are unreliable, self-serving, and dishonest in their reporting. For example, too many journalists these days are willing to exaggerate their story and make up bogus quotes just to have the better article.

In my journalism class last year we watched a film on ex-journalist, Stephen Glass. In an article by the Los Angeles Times, they report that Glass, to this day, is still retracting stories that he fabricated 18 years later. This is exactly the kind of dishonesty that makes journalists hard to trust and it is by their own doing.

The dilemma journalists face is being able to be timely, but also accurate. So many times people do not verify their information because of deadline pressure or pure laziness. Moreover, when the story comes out as completely false they are forced to write a retraction and apology. While yes, we should own up to our mistakes, there are also ways we should go about preventing them. Most of the time, it doesn't take much effort, it just includes finding credible sources to verify the information.

In an article written by the Harvard Business Review the author says the U.S. media is corrupt because, "it fails to do what it claims to do, what it should do, and what society expects it to do." It goes on to say that the media engages is manipulation, myth-making, and self-interest. This opinion of the media hardly serves as good news.

We need to be productive about this. There are very fast and tough social media outlets that journalists are up against, like Twitter, but that should not stop us. Sometimes being the last one to get a story out is worth the risk because you know it is completely accurate, the sources are credible and it has been fact-checked.

Journalists need to be completely transparent when it comes to what they're reporting. By doing this they show that they have respect for the public and are not trying to manipulate them. When journalists lie and try to maneuver their way out of their own mess they are negatively impacting their reputation and credibility. It looks horrible when a journalist tries to lie their way out of it only to be caught.

The American Press Institute published an article listing 5 ways to be transparent with your audience:
1. Show the reporting and sources that support your work
2. Collaborate with your audience
3. Curate and attribute information responsibly
4. Offer disclosures and statements of values
5. Correct website and social media errors effectively

Journalists need to stop worrying about themselves and start worrying about the field that they are unknowingly killing. While, people like Donald Trump do not help the situation with his attack on the media, we can at least fight to save good journalism instead of attacking it alongside him.