Week 6

Truth and Objectivity

Chapters 6 and 7:

There is no way that a journalist can be objective. A person’s world view is shaped by social groups, family, political groups, events in their lives, the country in which they live, the entire context of a person’s up-bringing and current life. Some of the biases that are articulated in journalistic publications can be both/either consciously or unconsciously put there.

Objectivity is an ideology to strive for.

Truth is subjective. Truth is different for every person because their perspective is subjectively shaped.

Language shapes our description of the truth – it is not an exact communication of our perceptions, “Language is an imprecise communication tool,” (Tickle, 2001, p. 89) and “language does not describe reality, it actually constructs it.” (Turner, 1993, cited in Tickle, 2001, p.90).

There are some obvious pressures that affect journalists in the level of objectivity of their work
- Pressures from their employer (consciously or unconsciously considered) to take an angle on a story or to only write certain stories depending on media partners, advertisers, sponsors, corporate links etc.
- Pressures from the commercial structure of journalism to create appealing stories for higher audience numbers or readers – infotainment, sensationalism, short stories, soft news etc.
- Pressures from their industry alliance or association to abide by their code of conduct or ethics (AJA, MEAA etc).
- Pressures from their own conscience to express a personal bias.
- Pressures from social, cultural, religious or political networks or associations to express a certain perspective on issues.

Due to these obvious and underlying pressures that affect one’s perception of the truth, different journalists can report quite different accounts of an event or issue. The images, the content and the framing of a story (through words and focus and layout) produce the audience’s understanding of the issue or event being reported.

The impossibility of objectivity in journalism leaves it to the audiences of journalistic productions to discern the truth from what they read, hear or see.

“Gaye Tuchman argues that all news events are inherently stories and should be treated as such” (Tuchman 1978, cited in O’Sullivan, 2004). – This perspective completely disregards the ideal of objectivity as a goal to strive for. Objectivity is impossible and why pretend that it is something worth trying for?

The three level system of enquiry:
- reactive reporting – information obtained from authoritative people and documents. Reactive reporting does not account for the whole story, but the immediate event and the information obtained within time constraints.
- analytic reporting – more than a superficial report. “Journalists are looking for the answers to how and why.” (Bowman and McIlwaine, 2001, p.105).
- reflective reporting – considers broad patterns and trends – social, political issues.
Bowman and McIlwaine state that a journalist should go through each of these levels in their news gathering process.

If such a pattern of news reporting is achieved, journalists will become more accountable for the events and issues they have covered. There will be a complete coverage of the detail of an occurrence and of the wider implications it has for a society.

This kind of reporting is an ideal for journalists to strive for. It is a good theoretical process to follow. However in reality, journalists would only go through such a process for the biggest and best stories – the stories where there is a lot of public interest, or the issue should be covered as such for the public’s interest to be served at its best.

The first stories that come to mind with this process occurring is the Dr Haneef case, the federal election (and all the stories within this), terrorist attacks, large stock market changes, interest rate changes, natural disasters etc.

News values would dictate whether this 3 level process of news gathering would occur for a story – is it affecting a large proximity of the population, is the impact of the event worth the coverage, is the event unusual enough to be covered, how long ago did the event happen and are the impacts still being felt? Etc.

Again – the issues covered this week serve to highlight to difference between theoretical ideals and the reality of journalistic practices. It is still important, in my opinion, to keep such ideals in mind when practicing journalism, so as not to lose sight of the reason for being a journalist or the reason for reporting the news. Reminding oneself of the theoretical reasons behind journalistic practices ensures that reality does not stray too far away from these ideals.

References:

Bowman L, McIlwaine S, 2001, ‘The importance of enquiry’, Tapsall S and Varley C, Journalism: Theory in Practice, Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 102 – 112.
O’Sullivan R, 2004, ‘Exploding the objectivity myth: A case study of participatory journalism’, ejournalist.au.com, issue 04/01, 23 pages, viewed 27/8/07, http://www.ejournalism.au.com/ejournalist/osullivan.pdf

Tickle S, 2001, ‘The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but…’, Tapsall S and Varley C, Journalism: Theory in Practice, Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 89 – 101.

Week 5

Chapters 4 and 5

Journalism: trade, craft or profession:

During class we looked at the notions of freelance journalists and citizen journalists and how these interact with the professionalism of journalism.

The Australian Press Council says there are no definite qualifications that are required to be a journalist – but they do expect journalists to be educated.

Are journalists that are not a part of an institution (or are not employed) more likely to act unethically?
Or are journalists that are employed and more subject to employment pressures more liable to act unethically?

Keely brought up the blogger and self-titled journalist Josh Wolf who filmed protests at an anti G8 demonstration at San Fransisco, July 2005. Police asked for the footage and Wolf refused to provide it. Wolf was jailed for 226 days – the longest any journalist had been jailed in America for. He did not fulfil the statutory definition of a journalist and was therefore not allowed any of the privileges of appeal or protection that journalists have.
This one scenario shows the consequences that being a freelance journalist or civilian journalist can have. In this case the Californian court did not recognise Wolf as a journalist because he was not employed – and therefore not a professional journalist.

The concept of a journalist is ambiguous and subjective – how is a journalist different from a social or political commentator? – ethics, employment, audience, frequency of publication, prime employment ???

Chapter 5 looks at the notion of journalism as a key function of the commercial world.

Can you imagine a journalist existing without the commercial world?

Oakham proposes the Ethno-marxism theory in which to frame journalism in the commercial world:
Blend of marxism and ethnomethodological approach (from sociology).
Marxism theorises that the means of production lies in limited capitalist hands – which directly influences journalistic production and therefore the ideologies that society subscribe to.
Problem – does not account for autonomous action of a jouranlist – this assumes that journalists are simply conduits of ideologies.
Oakham proposes a Marxist model of journalism that does not assume determinism. She quoted Chibnall in trying to create a framework to understand current professional journalistic practice : “media representations can be seen as being ‘the product of conscious decisions made by thinking actors within a framework of imposed limitations’’ (2001, p.82). Journalists are thinking and can act on their own accord – but are restricted by the limitations that the commercial world imposes. These limitations are the commercial boundaries that characterise journalism today.

So journalists are very limited by the capitalist structure of society and the commercial world that it enforces – however their theoretical responsibility to society outlined in their professional ethical standards can still be an aim for journalists to reach within these limitations.

Even public broadcasting is shaped by the commercial world – see this mediawatch video on the ‘Shallow End’ of ABC: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/watch/default.htm?program=mediawatch&pres=20070507_2120&story=2

The commercial world characterises journalism as we know it.
- News values (proximity, timeliness, conflict, quirkiness) all revolve around the sellability of a story.
- “The choices made are not objective, but are the result of balancing competing professional, ethical and commercial values.” (Burns, 2002, p.77).
- The very layout of newspapers, tv broadcasts, online articles are based on how best to attract reader’s attention – so that journalists can ‘sell their story’.
- It is because of the commodification of news that ethical standards are in place.
- It is because of this intrinsic relationship that the current journalism model exists today.

What if journalists were not professionals –Would this mean that the pressures that change the outcomes of stories, provided by employers, would no longer exist?
Self motivation (or the impossibility of objectivity) means that a journalistic production is always, consciously or unconsciously an advocacy piece. So why does it matter if the views being pushed come from the journalist’s personal values or the capitalist world that their employer operates within?
Do you think that journalism could exist in a non-commercial world? It wouldn’t be journalism as we know it. What would it be like?

References:

Burns L.S, 2002, Understanding Journalism, Sage Publications, London.

Oakham K M, 2001, ‘Journalism: Beyond the business’, Tapsall S and Varley C, Journalism: Theory in Practice, Oxford University Press, New York

Week 4 - Chapters 3 and 11

Journalism as public conversation:

• There is an ideal for journalism to be viewed as a public service – as a trigger for and documenter of public conversation.
• In class we discussed the tendency for journalists, in reality, to source information from more convenient sources – like PR agencies and the internet. There’s also a tendency for journalists to cover news that doesn’t require much investigation or expenditure of resources or money.
• Journalism theoretically exists as the Fourth Estate – plays as a watchdog, an adversary, independent, separate from other 3 estates, associated with middle-class professionalism.
• Journalism originally existed as a cultural practice – critiquing and discussing issues of the day.
• Journalism ideally is a platform for public discussion and for minority perspectives to be heard.
• The outcome of public journalism is a better informed public.
• In reality there is a growing disdain about journalists and their practices and ethics from the public.
• This growing separation of the public and journalists is represented in a Roymorgan News Poll: “Over seven-in-ten Australians (71%) believe Media organisations are more interested in making money than in informing society and 67% believe The Media is not objective enough . In addition the majority of Australians don’t trust newspaper journalists (63%), Talk-back radio hosts (57%) and TV reporters (53%) to tell the truth.” (Australian’s Sceptical of the Media, 2004).
• Today – journalists decide what is newsworthy and form the news agenda rather than just reporting on it.
• Public journalism should involve community response and interaction – this is present in most media forms in some small way –

o Talkback radio
o Television polls and emails
o Internet blogs, news forums and think tank sites
o Newspapers – letters to the editors, social pages

• There is an idea that exists only in theory perhaps, where the public sets the agenda – not the government and people in society with power.
• There is also the notion of citizen journalism – for example: people taking video of news events as they occur and supply it to news stations – both online and television – but this public involvement is still mediated by the editors and pressured journalists of media outlets.
• The ideal of journalism as a public conversation involves journalists attempting to localize global news, to create a connection between the global issues and the local environment.
• Is it possible to bring the ideal of journalism as a public conversation into reality? – considering the business focus of media outlets where journalists are employed? – with the pressures and time restraints that are imposed because of this?
• Opinion: I don’t think that public journalism is a reality. It is something that journalists can strive for by themselves – but they must do so without the support of the media owners and the editors and publishers they employ. Public journalism is more attainable in the public broadcast system (like ABC and SBS) – although still not common practice because these outlets find themselves having to compete with commercial practices.
  
  References:
  
  Australian’s Sceptical of the Media, 2004, Roymorgan Research, viewed 9/8/07, http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2005/3952/

Week 3 - Chapter 2

• Chapter 2 looks at the conflict between the perceived role of journalists, the different theoretical perceptions of journalists and the role of journalists in reality – and the implications of this conflict.
• Journalists are perceived by ‘the public’ as being untrustworthy people – or so the surveys rating public perceptions of professions indicate.
• Journalists are seen to be “process workers manipulating information for commercial purposes” (Burns, 2001, p. 24).
• They are constantly criticised for bias, for scare mongering, for sensationalism, for softening news, for inaccuracies, for being too pushy to get a story/photograph or for not doing enough pushing or investigative journalism to get the ‘real stories’.
• With all of this criticism from the cynical public and all of the pressures outlined in the previous blog – it’s a wonder anyone would want to be a journalist!
• Stereotypically – a journalist is someone who will stop at nothing to get the news and “‘tells it like it is’, whatever the personal cost” (Burns, 2001, p.25). This journalist does not recognise any other boundary than the law.
• In reality we know that this is a different story and boundaries are emplaced formally and informally from employers, from the journalist themselves, and from sources.
• McManus (1994, cited in Burns 2001) says that journalists are so restricted by these pressures because they are employees not professionals (who serve their clients/the public directly).
• Some theorists say that journalists are now expected to choose a story to push a certain agenda – and this is the result of the market-driven media environment.
• Journalists are now more pressured to value the attractiveness and sellability of their stories over their public service responsibilities – what the public’s interested in rather than what is in the public’s interest.
• Market-driven pressures to produce appealing stories rather than ‘hard’ news, is often linked with notions of journalists becoming entertainers rather than informers. However there has always been an element of journalism that reports the ‘softer’ news, the feel-good stories and reports entertaining information – this is a facet of a journalist’s role – and I do not feel that the increase in entertainment news has been to the loss of serious news.
• I feel that all of this concern and criticism over modern journalism becoming too entertainment driven or too market/profit driven – all comes down to a concern about the balancing of roles that a journalist fulfils. A journalist’s first responsibility is to the public – but it wouldn’t (in the commercial sector) happen without commercial funding strategies (advertising, profits). So a journalist has to try and juggle all of these roles and responsibilities – and will always be criticised for serving one role more than another. And this kind of public scrutiny of journalism is a healthy thing – it balances the pressures that journalists receive from their employees to serve market interests. In the end it places a lot of pressure on a journalist. Who would want to be one?
  
  References:
  Burns L S, 2001, ‘Comfort or Curse?’, Tapsall S and Varley C, Journalism: Theory in Practice, Oxford University Press, New York, pp.23-39.

Week 3 - Chapter 1

• Chapter 1 of the text defines a ‘journalist’ – why is this important?

- To remind a budding journalist of what their purpose is in society – ethical responsibility, social responsibility, civic responsibility.

- And to highlight the changing role of a journalist over the years.

• In today’s world, the text says, employers of journalists want someone who is good at learning how to learn, constantly.
• In class we came up with a list of skills and attributes that a good journalist should have:

- Listening skills, objectivity, determination, research skills, accuracy, curiosity, writing abilities, technology literacy, general knowledge or specialization, people skills, ability to work to a deadline, confidence, accept criticism, be fair, persuasive, empathy, notion of public responsibility, interviewing skills, analysis skills, resourcefulness, news sense, truthfulness, accuracy, integrity.

• In trying to describe what a journalist is – we have to merge theoretical perspectives and practical examples.
• Knowing what a journalist’s role is is also important for the public, “Otherwise news consumers may not be able to recognise or distinguish between good news, bad news and no news.” (Tapsall and Varley, 2001, p.4).
• Journalists are many things – they incorporate several roles.
• The text questions ‘who journalists are responsible to’? – The class concurred that in reality journalists foremostly see that their employers are who they should ‘serve’ or be accountable to – and in an ideal world it is the public that journalists should ‘serve’ or be accountable to.
• This conflict in theory and practice is why ethical standards exist and why in-house charters exist. However these standards have to be considered in conjunction with commercial/employment responsibilities in the making of decisions on a case by case basis.
• There is also a responsibility to sources, and a journalist must weigh up allegiances: to sources, to their employer and to ‘the public’ when making decisions about a story.
• Today journalists face perhaps more pressures in their occupation than ever before. Commercialisation of news media presents the ‘tyranny of the bottom line’ (Walsh 1998 cited in Tapsall and Varley), meaning news is business. This can translate into budget cuts, more responsibilities per journalist, time restraints (which lead to a reliance on PR bodies for ‘packaged information’) and also concentrated media ownership (which carries implications for hard, balanced, diverse and objective news content). Running news journalism as a business rather than a public service carries with it many implications and tends to have negative impacts on the news reports that journalists are able to produce. Or at least tends to produce journalistic work that doesn’t align with the theoretical perspectives of what journalists should be or do.
• But is it possible for news to not be treated as a ‘commodity’ or business? Besides the public service broadcasters, all other news providers have commercial responsibilities – which must be balanced with the ethical standards and theoretical expectations of what a journalist should do and be.
• Technology has changed what a journalist is. In class it was said that more and more today, journalists are defined by the way information is managed. This does not only refer to PR bodies or media ownership – but also to the impacts that the internet has for journalists. Now information is accessible to everyone – less time needs to be devoted to research, audiences expect constant online up-dates for news (more deadlines), it also increases the possibility for citizen journalism (camera phones, youtube, blogs etc).
• But what separates a journalist from the many citizen journalists out there? I think it all rests on the original reason for defining a journalist – they have ethical responsibilities, social responsibilities and civic responsibilities. They have to look beyond the commercial interests of their employer or self and serve the ‘public interest’.
• Opinion: I think that although the service to the ‘public interest’ is the one point that defines a journalist from any other position – it is often forgotten in the real world. I think that although this service to the public is represented in ethical standards and in the backs of the minds of many journalists – it is often too difficult, too time consuming, too conflicting with other interests (like an employers’ expectations) to take precedence. A journalist must, every day, weigh up the different interests that are at stake in a story; and it is all too often that other interests win over the public’s interest.
  
  References:
  Tapsall S and Varley C, 2001, ‘What is a journalist?’, Tapsall S and Varley C, Oxford University Press, New York.