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