Efemena Efeurhobo
ee055313@ohio.edu
Moral reasoning for journalists
Follow the guidelines
"Journalism is the
activity of gathering, assessing, creating, and presenting news and
information. It is also the product of these activities."- Source
"Journalism
can be distinguished from other activities and products by certain identifiable
characteristics and practices. These elements not only separate journalism from
other forms of communication, they are what make it indispensable to democratic
societies. History reveals that the more democratic a society, the more news
and information it tends to have."- Source
What makes journalism so different now? The constant blogs you see up, the different online outlets you can voice your opinions on, and news reporting through social media; such as Snapchat and Instagram. If you consider yourself a real journalist, people might even question your journalistic abilities and make remarks such as "can't everyone do what you do?" Maybe even another remark such as "writing is so easy anyone can do it." Yes, the amazing thing about journalism is that everyone can do it and everyone does it almost on a daily basis whether they may know it or not. But you must ask yourself if you are someone who thinks it is so easy are you even doing it the correct way? And other questions such as, "Am I following APA guidelines and the SPJ code of ethics?" These are the two most important things when it comes to journalism. Without them we would certainly get wrong information or information that we were not allowed to report on for ethical and legal reasons. Followed by most of all sloppy work that is incomprehensible and hard to read.
Nowadays journalism might be seen as a joke because many news outlets spread fake news or make headlines that are click bait. Outlets such as twitter especially tweet out things that people believe to be true and have no fact checking right.
At the end of the day who is a journalist or who isn't it, really is up to everyone's own opinion. If you think that simply because you post blogs and that makes you a journalist then by all means that is your opinion. The journalism definition is open to very much interpretation and generally states that it is just content that is created and reported to give out to an audience to view. Just be sure to prepare yourself for the change.
Change in times
Change in times call for a change in the way things work. This is seen throughout history itself, and journalism now. We started spreading news with the printing press that was invented in 1440. To now spreading news via the internet. In the (Elements of
Journalism) there is discussion of how journalism started declining in the aspects of
public service. And that keeping citizens aware and informed fell to the back burner. Instead, because of competition of it a battle; no war on who has the more flashier headlines and who had better
advertisement to pay the bills. There is also a discussion of journalist's having a hard time exercising their conscience. There is the tension of all the other hard factors of being a media source for people to be attracted and want to read what you have to say. When revenue is down there is more constant pressure water down content. Meaning, having more native advertising, sponsored content, and maybe controversial things that you would not ethically want to put up.
This discussion can even be moved into todays politics. In todays news world there are so many politics involved then there
was in the past. For example different news stations blatantly being biased to
one political party. CNN is very left wing and Fox is very conservative. Now people have a preference of where they consume their media because
of this.- Source
It seems you must adjust yourself to appeal to your audience.
What will happen to journalism?
What will happen to journalism? Know one will really know, but I can foresee it turning into something we may not recognize today. I believe more people will have access to the world of creating their own content. We will need to understand how we will differentiate someone who is a journalist who has a job to inform people on truthful newsworthy information. And separate them from people who just provide content.
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