cassidy.voase@gmail.com
Art Form
Journalism is an art that, just like painting or sculpting, must be mastered. Through the practice of ethical codes and reporting the truth, journalists learn to navigate the tricky and sometimes controversial waters of news reporting in the media and the balancing acts good reporting entails. In the field of journalism, there sometimes exists a contrast between the profession's two highest values: reporting the truth and minimizing harm. In addition, there are many different and varying codes in the field that are meant to be used as tools to guide the media in ethical reporting. How can we as journalists learn to both accurately report the full truth while still minimizing the harm these truths may inflict on the general public or on those otherwise involved in our reporting? This is the question that must plague our minds not only as journalists reporting news, but also as the audience choosing which news we readily believe and trust and which we should be more wary of.
Reporting the Truth
As a journalist, it goes without saying that reporting the accurate truth as a matter of fact is one of the core foundations in practicing ethically. After all, what is news if not truthful, trustworthy, transparent and factual? Journalists and the media are responsible for holding truth in its highest values. However, this truth can sometimes be distorted or misrepresented based on personal or organizational biases/opinions.
Minimizing Harm
Just as reporting the full truth is imperative to ethically right journalism, minimizing harm is just as important a factor to consider. This can be in regard to inflicting harm on the general public; for example, raising fear or alarm in a given country or exposing its people to a startling and undesirable truth of one of its leaders of power. While this is may be truthful and factual, these types of news also have the potential to cause unease or even raise safety concerns in the eyes of the audience indulging in the "harmful" news. Likewise, reporting the truth may sometimes raise controversy among the public or among various groups with differing opinions, such as social class, politics, financial or otherwise.
Balancing the Core Foundations of Journalism
As discussed above, reporting the truth and minimizing harm are equally important in journalism. Likewise, these and other factors must all be considered and work together to create one complete, successful and truthful story for consumption by the target audience. In addition to reporting the truth and minimizing harm, journalists and the media must also focus on acting independently and being transparent and accountable in their reporting. In this article, we see just how influential each of these foundations is in the field of journalism in which the audience relies on the media for accurate and helpful information.
Here and Now
Now more than ever, we see everyday how journalists and the media oftentimes exaggerate, embellish, or even misinterpret/misrepresent the facts of a subject. The media has a way of spinning stories to appear more favorable to the standard viewpoints of its given platform. For example, CNN and FOX news are often contrasting in the ways in which they paint a given political picture based on the fact that each respective outlet leans more to either the right or left wing. Therefore, the way CNN reports on an issue dealing with President Trump may differ greatly from the way FOX reports the same situation. In this article, we see how the two platforms are often at odds in claiming the other distorts the truth. This rivalry is even more present as of late in the Trump era. Likewise, President Trump himself is openly engages in the dueling on his Twitter account, in which he often refers to CNN as "fake news." In the below tweet, he even goes so far as to more or less blame the media for the hostility among political parties in today's society.
No comments:
Post a Comment