Week 7

Truth and Representation:

Chapter 8 has a focus on reporting on indigenous affairs.

“Indigenous people…have been positioned from, and within, the dominant ideas and assumptions of Anglo-European culture.” (Meadows and Ewart, 2001, p.127): This quote frames the context of reporting of indigenous people in Australia.

Reporting on Indigenous Australians, is like reporting on any other minority group in society. Reporting on issues surrounding minority groups can be criticised for being stereotypical, too negative or too forgiving. Journalists can also be criticised for reporting too often on minority groups for negative reasons, or for not reporting often enough.

Besides the subjective reporting on indigenous communities and people by Australian reporters (as is the case with any other community or people) – there is a problem with a lack of indigenous Australian perspectives in Australian reporting.

Chapter 9 deals with ethical questions in relation to cultural differences and ‘the other’. This relates strongly to the previous chapter of indigenous affairs reporting – in that journalists reporting on minority groups are faced with a set of ethical questions relating to cultural differences and differences in general.

If reporting on these minority groups, or ‘the other’ is unethical – or provides a distorted image to the public – it can have important impacts on society at large:
- reiterates societies’ stereotypes and stigmas of communities
- journalistic representations of groups in society can impact socially, culturally, politically and economically
- “The work of journalists in both news and entertainment media representations can cultivate and legitimise ways of understanding people, places, issues, and events,” (Scott, 2001, p.131).

During class we discussed the idea that university educated journalists may be able to better handle the ethically complex situations that journalists face when representing groups in society. Christina (our tutor) pointed out that university education provides us with a different, maybe a more analytical way, of thinking about things. And whilst at university we do study the ethical situations that arise in journalistic practice. However I feel that I am no more ready to face difficult ethical situations than someone else – because the decisions in such situations are inevitably subjective and you can’t learn this. One can refer to a set of ethical standards and make the best judgement they can about a particular situation, based on these standards – but this does not require a university degree. Perhaps the only advantage university educated journalists have, is that they are prepared and expect to face these difficult situations – and are aware of different sources of ethical guides that they can use to make their own ethical decisions. But I would be surprised to find that university educated journalists are better at dealing with ethical dilemmas.

References:

Meadows M and Ewart J, 2001, ‘More than skin deep: Australia’s Indigenous Heritage’, Tapsall S and Varley C, Journalism: Theory in Practice, Oxford University Press, New York.

Scott P, 2001, ‘On the fringe: journalism, representation and cultural competence’, Tapsall S and Varley C, Journalism: Theory in Practice, Oxford University Press, New York.