Sunday, July 5, 2020

The Importance of Basic Ethical Values in Journalism

Sarah H.
sarahellen222@gmail.com

From the beginning of time journalism has played an important part in society. Journalism of course has progressed over time which has allowed people of society to indulge in the news in a variety of different ways. News materials are now at the tip of our fingers. I can get an important news article pinged to my phone the exact moment the news is posted. Although the way that people in society receive news has changed throughout time, the basic news values have remained relatively the same.

I found it interesting that the book we were reading titled, "Elements in Journalism" societies in Africa categorized a messenger of their news, or journalist, as "People who could run swiftly, gather accurate information, and retell it in an engaging way."

The book "Elements in Journalism" discusses that there seemed to be a decline in the importance of ethical values when creating news stories. There was a focus on salacious stories and entertainment pieces to gain higher pay and less of a focus on the quality of the work being published.

I found a blog that focuses on the idea that has been a clear decline in ethical standards in journalism. This blog:
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis/2018/09/06/the-new-media-ethics-journalism-has-never-been-respectable-but-journalists-should-have-self-respect-guest-blog-first-in-a-series/
It discusses the way that newsrooms have changed and the way that ethical standards have been lost in some forms of journalism.

Our president, Donald Trump, often talks about this notion that there is "fake news" meaning that there is news that is published in the media that is not accurate. I think this plays into the belief that some ethical standards are lost in journalism. Although there he throws the words around very easily there is some truth to the idea that there can be news out there posted about famous people or celebrities that are exasperated or completely false.
  Sites discussing the fact that Donald Trump claims continuously that there is fake journalism being posted about him. 


A post from the Washington Examiner also iterates the way that President Trump claims this idea of consistent publishing or discussion of "fake news" in the media. Unfortunately, the president has uttered these words flagrantly and inaccurately. There are many famous people or celebrities that experience yellow journalism or fake news however, Trump uses it simply when he doesn't like something a journalist is saying.
In this post, you can read about the discussion of the loss of ethical standards in journalism. 


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