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/