Final thoughts

Final Exam
#1-Objectivity
Firstly, I would like to say that objectivity is not only an element of journalism, but is essentially the element of journalism. Without objectivity what a newsperson does ceases to be journalism. This is not to say that the other principles of journalism are unimportant; nothing could be further from the truth. Without good fact checking or isn’t hard hitting enough that makes it very poor journalism, but it still can be defined as journalism, even though it is poorly done. Simply put, journalism without objectivity cannot really exist. When objectivity is taken out of journalism it becomes propaganda, or public relations, or advertising, or talk radio. These things are perfectly fine, and not inherently bad, but they are not journalism, and the one thing that separates these things from journalism is objectivity.
Of course, that is not the whole story. Objectivity means little without being put in context. When I first look at “objectivity”, the word objective jumps out at me. It seems to me that it should simply be the state of having an objective, i.e. a goal, something that you are striving for. And for those aspiring to be journalists, that objective must be the truth.
This leads me to my personal definition of what objectivity is, without having looked at any dictionary definition. (I think that my explanation would be more pure and sincere without being contaminated by the popularly held definition.) Objectivity in journalism is having a complete and undivided commitment to finding the truth. It means that any biases or preferences that the journalist may personally have to do not compromise his or her reporting. Things like political preferences, moral issues, traditional biases, or, perhaps more frequently, concerns over advertising revenue can all become objectives other than truth for the journalist.
One thing that I want to make clear though, is that complete neutrality in journalism, or balance, are not the same thing as objectivity and should be avoided. Balance and neutrality could be defined as practicing journalism which does not favor or benefit one group or ideal over another, but that is not objectivity, and is, in fact, opposed to it. The truth will rarely be neutral. In any story it is likely that the truths of that story will benefit or harm one side of an issue more than another. The truth quite frequently does take sides. Fore example, if a news organization shies away from certain stories, or modifies them, because those stories would harm one political party more than the other, and does so to avoid being criticized by that party, than that news organization has compromised their objectivity. The desire to appear balanced can become a competing objective with the commitment to truth.
Having objective journalism does not in anyway preclude a journalist from having strong opinions on the issues of the day. Anyone who does not have opinions on the really crucial issues of the day must be completely ignorant of those issues, and I doubt that anyone would want to have journalists that know absolutely nothing of what they are reporting on. It would be impossible for journalists not to have strong opinions on the important issues, and it would be undesirable to have that even if it was possible. Journalists must simply be very aware of their opinions and personal biases and remove these from their journalism. I said “simply”, but of course, this isn’t very simple at all. Doing this is not easy; it is, in fact, quite difficult. That is one of the major regions that we go to school to study journalism and why, in the end, people end up getting paid for it. Creating journalism unaffected by your own personal opinions is not easy, but it is very possible.

#2- Excellence in Journalism
Excellence in journalism depends greatly upon how well that journalism succeeds in embodying certain important journalistic traits. A few of these qualities that I would like to mention are fearlessness, quality, accuracy, and entertainment. There are other important journalistic traits and qualities, but I think that these four cover some of the major points.
In excellent journalism what I call fearlessness here corresponds with what is in the elements of journalism called public vigilance or is commonly referred to as being “hard-hitting”. It is the practice of journalists going after those stories which really matter. These are stories about political corruption, the criminal element, or corporate disregard for the masses. These stories are ones which are not easy to do and are often hidden and made secret. These are stories that could make powerful enemies of the journalistic organization. How an example of journalism goes after the stories which pertain to the powerful, but can really affect the public is an important part of excellence in journalism.
The quality I refer to above is quality of writing. Aside from the investigational side of journalism, or the part where journalists gather the information, the actual writing of the story is very important, and it is difficult to think of how any journalism would be considered excellent without having excellent writing. Even in radio or television journalism the importance of quality writing cannot be overemphasized.
It matters little how fearless or how well written your journalism may be if the facts it presents are fundamentally incorrect. Accuracy, or verification, is crucial for any type of journalism. Perhaps one of the greatest sins that journalism can commit is to get an important fact in a story wrong. We have all seen what happened to veteran newsman Dan Rather when he presented a news story which the organization had not properly verified beforehand. A good journalist needs to verify everything and not automatically trust the information that a source provides. Excellent journalism will certainly be identified by having a reputation for accurate reporting.
Journalism that is otherwise excellent has little effect if it no one sees it. Excellent journalism should be entertaining and interesting to many people. While this does not mean that it needs to be the next Harry Potter or the most watched show on journalism, it should be accessible and entertaining to the average person. A dry scientific study could very well be fearless, be well written, and completely accurate, but journalism needs something more. Part of the job of being a journalist is to entertain those that would view, listen to, or read the story, and that is not something bad. A journalist does not need to compromise the quality of the journalism to be entertaining and appeal to the audience. Excellent journalism will be fearless, have quality writing, be accurate, and will likely be popular.

#3- Journalistic Truth
Journalistic truth is by and large the simple truth. In reality, truth is viewed differently from a multitude of viewpoints and is incredibly complex and rarely simple. Absolute truths, like those of philosophy or religion are often deeply profound but often not particularly practical, and rarely agreed upon by the consensus opinion. Journalistic truth is one that deals mainly with those practical truths. It deals with the who, what, where, when, and why (but not too much why). Journalism generally deals with questions which can be answered with a few words, or at most a sentence or two. The journalistic view of truth takes a more pragmatic outlook than some others. Journalism must seek out that truth which is most helpful to the average person.
#4- Future of Journalism
Newspapers are failing at a startling rate and television organizations have begun downsizing as well. For those of us who are planning on going into journalism as a career. This is definitely some important information to consider. Due to our current financial crisis, it would be easy to blame much of the problems on the news industry on the recession, citing that basically every industry, with the exception of the repo-man perhaps, is feeling the economic downturn, but this would just be ignoring the problem. Problems for news organizations have been occurring for a long time. For many years the readership of newspapers has been steadily declining nationwide.
These facts do not necessarily mean that the demand for journalism has gone down, in fact, one could probably argue pretty well that the demand for news, and the amount of news taken in by the average American, has perhaps never been higher. The failing of newspapers is certainly due mainly to competition from the internet. Not only can a person quickly and easily find news information on the internet without buying a newspaper, but the internet is also taking away much of the most important advertising revenue that the newspapers rely on. Craigslist, for example, takes much of the business that would have once been put on the classified section of the newspaper.
While broadcast television news has yet to be so affected by these changes as newspapers have, they are far from immune. An ever more technologically savvy audience has already started to force television news to make changes and they will need to continue to do so even more if they are to avoid becoming less and less relevant. I do believe that television news has been able to adapt to changes somewhat more quickly than newspapers and that those of us who plan on going into broadcast news won’t face as many implications of this as those who are going into print. Five years from now I imagine that I would have a standard reporting job where the story for the newscast is considered to be by far the most important part of the job. I imagine that after finishing the story for broadcast I will need to write a text explanation of the story for the website include observations in a blog. Ten years from now I imagine that my job will require the creation of the story for television broadcast to go hand in hand. A short version will likely be made for the news program and perhaps a more involved version for the website. In all likelihood, the story will go on the website before it is broadcast, and may be more important for the organization than the television side of the equation.

#5- Personal Code
While writing the other sections of this paper, I believe that I have made apparent at least a part of what my personal code of conduct as a journalist is. I will try to avoid going over those same issues at length while sharing my opinion of how I should act as a journalist. Perhaps I should first say that I suppose that I am a bit of an idealist when it comes to my views on journalistic ethics. I truly believe that it is possible for journalism to be unbiased and objective even though the journalist may have extremely strong opinions. I think that although concerns over advertising revenue and money issues are matters that are unavoidable in the field of journalism a journalist should always strive to not let these matters affect his or her journalism and that if I start to view these issues as “just part of the job” I will be less of a journalist than I would otherwise be.
To put it clearly, I plan to not declare as fact on air or in print anything that hasn’t been fully verified. I commit to practicing journalism without any motivation greater than that of finding the truth or having any goal which would compromise an honest reporting of the truth. I will seek out those news stories which are untold and those stories that are truly important. In my reporting I will strive to be respectful of people’s privacy and emotion and balance this with the need for the public to know. Ideals are rarely fully realized in actual life, and I understand that it is unlikely that I will always be able to live up to my code of conduct, but I don’t believe that this takes away from the importance of having these ideals. By striving to fulfill this code of conduct I believe I will be a better journalist, and be able to achieve excellence in my own journalism.

Think tank or rumor mill

Social media sites like Twitter were able to show their importance and their real value during the attacks in Mumbaii last week. In situations like the terrorist attacks in Mumbaii conventional means of communications are hobbled and the confusion and disorder can cause normal sources of information to have a very limited effectiveness. As soon as the attacks began, masses of individuals in and out of Mumbai used twitter to communicate.

Many of these tweets were eyewitness accounts of what was happening in Mumbai, and much of the information used by such news organizations as CNN or MSNBC, stemmed from these sources. The utility of twitter was not limited simply to journalism. People sent tweets asking for help, explaining how someone could get to safety, or emploring people to go give blood at hospitals that were running dangerously short. Dina Mehta from CNN described how twitter was used to provide messages of solidarity and support. The high point of sites like twitter is in this; enabling the crowd to work together to provide a clear picture and to solve problems, similar to sites like wikipedia.

Of course twitter does not always live up to this ideal, and the reaction to the attacks in Mumbai showed the darker side of twitter as well. Quoted by CNN, Tim Mallon said "I started to see and (sic) ugly side to Twitter, far from being a crowd-sourced version of the news it was actually an incoherent, rumour-fueled mob operating in a mad echo chamber of tweets, re-tweets and re-re-tweets." Relative anonymity and a type of crowd mentality often leads to extremely abusive tweets, and accuracy is often a casualty.

Twitter, and similar sites, can be a great tool for journalists, but cannot be safely relied on. It can provide great details and information, but because it can turn into just a rumor mill and the impossibility of checking a posts credentials, info garnered off sites like twitter must be supported by separate sources.

Trouble for Broadcasters

The New York Times ran an article today about the many local news anchors which are being fired due to budget cuts. Local news stations have started to generate less revenue due to the current economic problems. Car companies and dealerships are some of the biggest advertisers on news programs, but with the crisis that auto companies are dealing with, there is much less money being spent on advertising. Looking to save money wherever possible, some stations have begun lowering salaries or laying off the most experienced anchors- those that command the highest price.

I wonder what effect this has, or could have, on those of us that plan on going into broadcast news. For the past several years it has become apparent that the print journalism business is shrinking and that there are less jobs available than there once were. Perhaps broadcast news is not immune to these same problems that plague print journalism.

When to call it?

The way that polls of the presidential election are looking the news media may face an interesting decision next Tuesday. Several battleground states lie on the east coast, for example Florida and Virginia. If Senator Obama wins either of these states he has effectively won; just winning one of these combined with states in which he has lead of over ten percentage points would put him over 270 electoral votes. Virginia's voting closes at 7:00 p.m. eastern time, a long time before the polls close on the west coast or in competitive states such as Nevada or Colorado. With exit polling the national news agencies could have a very good idea of who is winning the state well before the polls close.

So when will they call it? Certainly journalists remember the 2000 race in which some stations mistakenly called the election for Al Gore due to flawed exit polls in Florida, so journalists will likely only call a state if it is far from close. Beyond this though, journalists might consider the ramifications of calling the election before all voting is closed. If the media declares that Obama has effectively won the election before many citizens have voted, there is little doubt that many of these people will decide not to vote at all. After all, why bother if the election is already determined? While this could cause both Obama as well as McCain supporters to abstain from voting, I imagine it may effect a larger number of McCain supporters. This could have a tremendous effect on races downticket. Senate races in Oregon and Texas are very close and could easily be effected by less voters from one party or another showing up to vote. I am sure that we can all agree that having less people show up to vote, and this possibly changing other races, would be a bad thing. Understanding this, journalists may have to make a difficult decision come election day.

Interview

Lisa Larson from the The Spectrum in St. George gave me her answers to questions about journalism. Although Lisa is a newspaper reporter, she did not study journalism in college. Lisa studied public relations and advertising at SUU. Unable to find a pr job after graduating in 2001 she applied for an assistant features editor position for the Spectrum and discovered after a short time that she really enjoyed it. Lisa's view of what makes good journalism is fairly simple: 'information that can help people'. She also emphasized that good journalism also requires that you treat your sources well and fairly.

In terms of public journalism, Lisa feels that it can be very valuable to also hear the opinions and points of view of everyday people who aren't professional journalists. But she cautioned that because they do not play by the same rules, citizen journalists may not act with the caution, i.e. fact checking. Along with this, Lisa suggested that those currently studying journalism should be well versed in the online facets of the news industry. She said, "Be prepared to write for online first, print second when you get into the field."

The fact that a newspaper is a business, according to Lisa, is something that she, and most starting journalists, don't fully realize. During her years working in the news Lisa has learned that there is often not a great divide between the newsroom and the advertising executives, and that sometimes stories are changed or softened because it may alienate a certain advertiser. Although newspapers nationwide have felt the sting of drops in circulation, Lisa says that her newspaper is lucky that they have been able, so far, to cut costs and not jobs.

Electoral Map

It seems like every few days the various news organizations have a news nationwide poll to show how the presidential race is going, but do these polls really give important information. The presidency is decided state by state, not by the popular vote. Recently I've found a website I find very interesting that aggregates all of the statewide polls and shows what it would mean for the election. The website is http://www.electoral-vote.com/ The site cites all of of the polls it uses and if you click on any state it will give you a graph that shows all of the polls of that state for the last few months. I thought you guys might like this site.

Same job. New medium.

Today in comms we talked the future of newspapers. Since the advent of the internet the demand for newspapers has steadily declined and newspapers have become endangered. Newspapers are reducing budgets, laying off staff, and basically doing whatever they can to cut costs. The ability to get news with the internet easier than with a traditional newspaper, faster, and at no cost has caused newspaper distribution to plummet (sp?) and online sites like craigslist have eaten away to newspaper's revenue stream. Although there is something to be said for the tactile feel of holding a paper, and how much information is gained compared to surfing an internet news site, this doesn't seem like enough to save newspapers. There will always be some market for traditional newspapers, but in just a few years they may become an oddity.

Even though newspapers are on the wane I feel that newspaper reporters and those students studying print journalism have little to fear. Newspapers may be failing, but that in no way shows that people care any less about news. In fact, using the internet, the average person likely gets news information from more sources than they would have years ago. The profession of a journalist is based upon writing and I personally cannot conceive of a time in which people will not need the news digested and well written. The journalists 0f tomorrow may very well not be working on a newspaper staff, but they will have plenty of opportunities to write for news websites. These internet sites gain a profit off of advertising space, much like a newspaper, and as the internet continues to grow and the industry learns how to best use advertising on the internet, more and more positions will be available. It's the exact same job, just on a new medium.