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.