America Needs a Media Watchdog

 Kendall Kraft

kk922418@ohio.edu

Photo from Tri-c.edu

People are trusting the news less and less. From biases, bribery, and hacking, news organizations emphasize that they need to be independent. It is prevalent now for people to associate news organizations with political parties. And for ESPN, it is a huge problem to be paying the leagues they have contracts with and report about.

So many of the institutions that ESPN is supposed to cover would not be where they are today without ESPN. But, there are biased reporters throughout this network due to their sports pass and conflicts of interest with whom they have contracts and pay.

It is so easy for big corporations, such as ESPN, to take bribes or look the other way when something illegal is apparent because they are profiting from it through sponsors. In this case, journalists must remember why they are in the industry and remind themselves of their own ethical and moral codes, not just journalism ones.

Money can cause problems in all aspects of the world, especially the news. The journalist/ source relationship can easily be corrupted once money becomes an aspect. Bribing public officials and people with information just for a good story causes conflict within the news organizations from the start. Also, as a citizen, a person would more likely take an interview with a journalist offering them money than one that isn't. 

Bias is frequently hard to avoid, which will ultimately lead to conflicts of interest. As a journalist or news organization, you must make all biases apparent when reporting. If you try to hide the bias or attempt to say it doesn't exist, that is when it causes a bad stigma to an organization's name. You don't want your company to be known for biases or conflicts of interest, so if it is unavoidable, make it clear what the conflict is and explain why it won't affect the story. To maintain public trust, journalists must remain ethical and unbiased.