Assignment #10: Journalism and Religion

In our last class, we discussed a subject that is very pertinent to us at BYU: journalism and religion.  Religion in the context of journalism is quite interesting.  Obviously we know it is wrong to write an article or news story with a bias toward one religion or another.  Likewise, as journalists, we cannot let our own religion influence what we write or how we write it.

However, there are many other issues besides journalistic bias surrounding the issues of religion and journalism.  Are we covering religious events and stories?  Are we equally representing all religions?  In class we talked about how intellectual diversity should be the ultimate goal of any newsroom.  I definitely agree.  It is important to have people with a cornucopia of beliefs in a newsroom so that a variety of perspectives can be represented.  

David Waters once said: "Religion is the most pervasive yet least understood topic in global life."  His statement is so true.  Despite what many may think, the majority of people around the world and specifically in the United States believe in some sort of higher power.  While they might not attend church every Sunday, our country was founded on religious principles and religion continues to be a pervasive topic.  One's religion usually has a major affect on their actions.  Even though religion is important to many and widespread, it is one of the least understood topics.  Thus, I feel that it is the responsibilities of journalists to cover religious events or religious influences or factors in human behavior.  In order to do this correctly though, journalists need to be sure to check their facts in order to portray different religions correctly.

While covering religion, journalist's need to be aware of ethnocentrism.  Ethnocentrism is defined as the belief in the rightness of one's own culture/subculture.  This is a problem many journalists can run into.  For example,  a Christian journalist should not write in such a way about a Jewish person or group that makes it seem like they are doing something wrong simply because they are not Christian.  

The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Journalism Ethics website has an article entitled "Reporting on religion: When neutrality and faith collide".  In it, the author, Catherine Rolfsen discusses reporting on religion. She discusses balance, neutrality, and advocacy.  She highlights how often in our news media, we see stories about radical Muslims and their actions.  We do not often see the more mainstream Islamic faith portrayed.  While this is probably because stories about radicals are often more interesting, it is still not right.  Because of this lack of coverage on the mainstream Muslim, 35 percent of Americans express negative views of Muslims despite the fact that the majority of Muslims are not radicals.  Journalists need to cover all religions, and divisions of religions, equally so that our world view is not skewed to favor or look down upon certain religions.  

Another problem with covering religion is discussed on a blog that I found where the author discusses how often journalists are scared to cover negative religion stories because they fear that they will look like they themselves hate the religion.  The author gives the example of how many non-Catholic journalists were afraid to cover the sex abuse story because they are fearful of looking like they hated Catholics.  This is an issue that journalists will continue to face, but as long as we report with fairness an balance, this problem will not be a big deal.

In the group presentation, ReligionWriters.com was introduced.  This website is an excellent resource for journalists.  It offers journalists free tools and tips on writing about religion with balance, accuracy, and insight.  It offers FAQs about writing on religion as well as a calendar of holidays or other important days in the main world religions.

Mormon Media Studies Symposium

Instead of class last week, I attended a session of the Mormon Media Studies Symposium.  This symposium was made up of many different sessions.  The session I attended was the Young Scholars Speed Session.  During this session, five different student-written papers were presented.

The first paper presented was entitled "People Watch Conference Like This: Male and Female Viewing Styles During LDS General Conference".  This paper described research that two students did to study the differences between the ways males and females watch General Conference.  The conclusions of their research were:

1. TV is the most used medium to view/listen to conference.
2. The topic of the address is the most influential motive for watching a certain talk.
3. Less attention is paid to the talks of auxiliary leaders.
4. Females watch more sessions of conference, pay more attention to Relief Society and Primary speakers, and  were more influenced by speaking style.

The second paper was entitled "The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News’ Coverage of the 1978 Revelation: An Historical Analysis".  This paper discussed how right before the revelation that allowed all worthy males to receive the priesthood, much of the media coverage of the church shifted from praise of its welfare program to highlighting its seemingly "racist" policy.  After the revelation, both the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News dedicated about the same amount of space to the story.  Both portrayed the revelation as positive.  There was not much opposition to the stories.  One of the only differences was that the Deseret News had more of an LDS perspective while the Salt Lake Tribune was slightly more skeptical.

The third paper was entitled "Games Mormons Play".  It discussed two different Mormon trivia games: Celestial Pursuit and 3P2K.  Celestial Pursuit's game board mirrored the Plan of Salvation and six different categories of questions.  Many of the questions were extremely difficult which brought up the question of whether or not Mormons were expected to know such things.  In the newer game, 3P2K, the fact that it was a Mormon game is not explicitly stated on the box.  This game focuses more on gospel principles and is much simpler than Celestial Pursuit.

The fourth paper was entitled "Viral Mormonism: A Case Study in Why Videos Go Viral Using the MormonMessages YouTube Channel".  It discussed the different elements of certain MormonMessages and why they go viral or not.  It was determined that timing and topic were two of the main factors that influenced how many views a video got.  For example Thanksgiving or Easter videos posted during the respective seasons got a high number of views.  Likewise, the broader the topic, the broader the audience.  Thus, those with more general or nondenominational topics got more views.  For example, this video on the war in heaven only has 45,174 views while this video on marriage and divorce has 245,829 views.

The final paper was entitle "From Foe to ‘Friend’: Shifting the Portrayal of Older Characters Through a Religious Children’s Magazine".  This paper discussed how elderly people are depicted in the Friend Magazine.  Through research, it was discovered that in comparison to other media, the elderly are depicted in a more positive manner in the Friend.  The paper talked about how there is an "ageist" tone in much media today.  However, the opposite was found in the Friend.  Older people were often viewed as children of our Heavenly Father in the Friend.

Assignment #9: Watchdog Journalism

In last week's class, we learned about watchdog journalism.  In my opinion, one of journalism's main purposes is to be a watchdog.  I feel that without journalism, the government would be free to do whatever it wanted and would not be held accountable for its actions.  One of the main points of our reading is that journalism must serve as an independent monitor of power.  Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black said, "The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people.  Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government."  I couldn't agree more with Justice Black.  Journalists need to act independently and need to expose any wrongdoing by the government.  In fact, the freedom of the press that allows journalists to serve a watchdog role here in America is what gives power to the people.  Orlando Sentinel editor Charlotte Hall said, "Watchdog journalism is a state of mind for the whole newspaper: Journalism that gives power to the people."  I agree with Hall.  Watchdog journalism needs to be a state of mind for a whole newspaper or news organization.  It should be the main purpose of journalism, not a secondary one.

Watchdog journalism requires a lot of investigative journalism.  There are three types of investigative journalism that our text talked about:

1. Original Investigative Reporting - involves reporters themselves uncovering and documenting activities that are unknown to the public

2. Interpretative Investigative Reporting - involves bringing together information in a new and more complete context that offers deeper public understanding

3. Reporting on Investigations - involves reporting on the developments of  investigations already underway

Bob Woodward of the Washington Post shares some of his insights about investigative journalism in this video.  He shares a story (that was shared in our class presentation as well) of his experiences that highlights the importance of verification of facts especially in investigative reporting.

I also found an article that discusses watchdog journalism on the Nieman Reports website.  The author of the article, Murrey Marder, makes an interesting point.  He says that a journalist should not be listening to what is going on in an interview.  Instead, a journalist needs to be thinking about if an interviewee is answering the questions asked and thinking about whether or not more questions should be asked.  Marder says that a journalist should act as a "pseudo-surrogate for the public".  A journalist is in fact giving a voice to the public so he or she must always try to ask the same questions the public would.

Today, however, we see the watchdog role of journalists being weakened.  Recent cutbacks in the news industry have hurt watchdog journalism.  Watchdog journalism is not cheap.  It requires a lot of hard work and investigation which can cost quite a bit.  With cutbacks, news industries may try to take shortcuts in investigative journalism or just do less of it altogether.  However, in an article I found, the author, Butch Ward, explains that watchdog journalism is not only an important journalistic principle, but also a long-term business strategy.  He says that even in an age where the newspaper business faces many challenges, watchdog journalism should remain a top priority because it will make the newspaper essential in the life of the community.

With the advancing world of technology, it is becoming increasingly more possible for everyone to do investigative journalism.  Also, watchdog journalism is becoming more important not just in government but also in the nonprofit and corporate worlds.

Assignment #8: Independence and Journalism

Independence is an essential part of journalism. It is one of the factors that helps journalists remain as objective and unbiased as possible.

I found an interesting video clip in which Susan Bennet, the vice president/marketing and deputy director of Newseum in Washington D.C., shares her thoughts on the newspaper journalists staying independent from the business side of a news company.

Dr. Kris Wilson also speaks of his experiences as news director and explains the importance of keeping journalists independent from the sales side of a news company in this video clip.

Journalists must also stay independent from their sources or the subjects of their reporting for obvious reasons. If a journalist becomes too close to their subject or sources, it is going to make it extremely hard to keep their articles or news stories free from bias. Think about it. How hard would it be to write a negative article on your mom?

One of the ideas we discussed in class was whether or not it is a journalist's duty to reveal their beliefs to their audience. I personally do not believe it is essential that journalists must reveal every detail of their personal beliefs in their stories. However, if one of their personal beliefs would affect the story in some way, they do need to let the audience know. For example, I think that it is necessary for a homosexual man to reveal that he is gay if he is writing an article on Prop 8. However, it is also appropriate for a straight man to reveal his orientation when writing a similar article.

I found an interesting article that talked about journalistic independence on PoynterOnline. In the article the author, Bob Steele, includes a list of roles that journalists play and then lists the corresponding role that shows the degree of involvement or independence these roles imply. Here's Steele's list:

Independent Reporter..................Messenger

Detached Observer........................Interpreter

Advocate..........................................Watch Dog

Supporter........................................Promoter

Opinion Leader...............................Intermediary

Agenda Setter.................................Convenor

Builder.............................................Participant

Activist............................................Thinker

I also discovered a blog post in which journalistic independence was discussed in the context of war. The blog author argues that there are moral obligations that are more important than journalistic independence when trying to protect a nation from its enemies. However, the blogger goes on to discuss the difficulties and complexities of knowing who our enemies are.

Another concept that we discussed in class was whether or not a certain type of person should do stories on the same type of person. For example, should an African American person cover a story on African Americans. Or should a Mormon do a story on a Mormon event. Technically, they wouldn't be entirely independent from the story or issue considering they share common characteristics with the people they are covering. However, we discussed in class that there may be some advantages to this type of reporting. For example, a Chinese Americans might feel more open or comfortable around a Chinese American reporter. Thus, the story produced could potentially be more realistic or true to the Chinese American experience.

Journalistic independence is extremely important. However, there are many issues to deal with which makes it extremely complex.

Assignment #7: Verification

Verification is one of the most important parts of journalism. In class we discussed the differences between journalism of verification and journalism of assertion. In journalism of verification, journalists do their own research or at least check facts multiple times to make sure what they are reporting is the truth. In contrast, journalism of assertion is when journalists simply report things that are heard through other sources just so they can get the news out there and be among the first to do it. Journalism of assertion is often responsible for perpetuating errors in research from the original source. Our book gave the example of a time when Al Gore was misquoted by the Washington Post and The New York Times. Our text also discussed that as the amount of information we have access to grows, journalists will become receivers than gatherers. With the internet, it has become increasingly easy to just "receive" information rather than to go out and do original research.

I found further interesting information on verification on the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism's website. It had a whole page dedicated to the principles of journalism. In the verification section, they explain that objectivity does not mean journalists themselves are free of bias but rather that their methods of verification are free of bias. It says that journalists should use consistent methods of testing information to keep journalism objective. This site says also that while many methods have been developed to check facts, there has been no method for testing the reliability of journalistic interpretation.

We also talked about a set of concepts that form the foundation of the discipline of verification. They are:

1. Never add anything that was not there.

2. Never deceive the audience.

3. Be as transparent as possible about your methods and motives.

4. Rely on your own original reporting.

5. Exercise humility.

Transparency is extremely important in journalism of verification. An interesting point our text brought up was that transparency in journalism signals a journalist's respect for the audience. It allows the audience to judge for themselves whether journalism is true or not. When journalists attribute information to the source, it gives the audience to check if they want whether or not the article or news story can be trusted. Our text also mentions that transparency shows that journalists are on the side of the public and have their best interests in mind. This establishes credibility. Journalists need to make sure they include everything the audience might need to check facts for themselves. Journalists must also be transparent with their sources. They must not mislead their sources in order to get the information they want for their stories. Anonymous stories are also an issue in journalism. Journalists have different rules for when they use anonymous sources. For example, Don Meyers told our class that he only uses anonymous sources when there is no other way to get the information. He also mentioned that he always reveals the identity of his anonymous sources to his editor. Whatever a journalists guidelines are for using anonymous sources, it is important that they let their readers know why anonymous sources are anonymous and what standards they applied to that decision. Transparency also helps bias be lessened (although it can never be entirely eliminated). When a journalist is transparent, the audience is at the same level as the journalist instead of the audience being below the journalist.

Transparency is obviously extremely important in journalism. However, I found an interesting article from the American Journalism Review that argues that journalism is becoming too transparent. The author explains that today a lot of news sources have become seemingly obsessed with apologies and explanations. From this article we can see that journalists need to find a happy medium of transparency.

Intellectual humility is also important according to the authors of the textbook. They explain that in addition to being skeptical about what they learn through secondary research, they should also be humble in their own skills to correctly interpret what they personally see and hear. Journalistic humility also includes accepting the fact that the next person you talk to may entirely change the entire meaning or direction of your story or even convince you that you have no story.

Jonathan Grove, whose blog I stumbled upon, blogged about an example of journalistic humility he discovered. He tells of Jay Rosen, an NYU professor and blogger who is well-known in journalistic circles, who was humble enough to ask a question via Twitter about the World Cup. Rosen then went on to post on Twitter the different response he received; thus, he was transparent in showing where he got his information. While Twitter is not "traditional" journalism, it is still a form of journalism as well which means transparency is just as important. Grove felt that more journalists should emulate Rosen in his humility to admit that he does not know everything.

Assignment #6: The Profession

In our reading, journalism is compared to a professional priesthood. While this comparison does seem a little bizarre to me (considering the Mormon definition of priesthood is pretty different than the the rest of the world's definition), I can see why the comparison was made. I do agree that many journalists see their profession as a sort of "higher calling" in which they "surrender to the higher calling of serving others." I think it is important that future journalists share this same perspective as well because as soon as journalists forget that they are "called" to serve the public, journalism will spiral downward. If journalists do not see the need to or feel like it is their duty to inform the citizen, journalism will no longer be trusted by the public.

I found an interesting article entitled "Journalism as a Calling" by Kenneth Harwood from Media Ethics Magazine. It further discusses this idea that journalism is more than just a profession. The article continues to draw parallels between journalism and religion (more specifically the Bible). Harwood also talks about how journalists should be willing to pursue the truth and educate the public because they feel it is their moral duty and not just because they are getting paid to do it.

The second chapter of our reading discussed the world view of journalists and how it is different from the average person's world view. The author discussed how many journalists often reject the notion that they have a world view especially when they are supposed to write "objectively." However, the truth is everyone has a world view whether you like it or not. Journalists' world views are different from those of an average person. For example, many journalists see themselves as outsiders or at least try to view situations which they are reporting on as outsiders. Instead of experiencing an event and relating it to themselves as most people would do, journalists try to get an outsider's perspective so that they can try to be as objective as possible. Journalists often try to look at the big picture and the effects of an event. However, I also think that the world views of journalists are often more similar to our own than we think. Everyone's world view is shaped by their experiences and journalists experience many of the same things that an average person does everyday. Thus, a journalist will have similar world views to us simply because he or she grew up in a similar environment to us.

While world views do seem to vary among journalists, they also vary among those of different cultures. Our reading mentioned how Americans are generally quite optimistic. This optimism comes as a result of our history. For example, the United States has been victorious in the majority of the wars they have fought in. In addition, large-scale tragedies are not a regular occurrence here. An article from Forbes highlights this American optimism. It reports that polls from last year show that a large percentage of Americans are surprisingly optimistic even during the recent hard economic times. However, in other countries such as Germany, there is less optimism. In fact, according to an article from a German news source, a study shows that Germans are generally more pessimistic than other Europeans. Unlike America's history, Germany's history is not so bright. Germany's past includes much government unrest and unsuccessful wars which leads to the general pessimism in the country still today.

Finally, Don Meyers, a professional journalist, spoke to our class last week. One point he made was especially interesting to me. He talked about how one of a journalist's responsibilities is to minimize harm. However, he emphasized the point that this does not mean that journalists should lie if it means less harm. He says minimize harm means that journalists' stories should not do any more damage than is necessary to report the truth. I had never really thought about this concept. Obviously, I had never planned on lying to minimize harm, but I had never considered the concept that by reporting the truth, sometimes there is potential "harm" that could be inflicted by our writing.

Assignment #5: Loyalty and Journalism

While truth may be the first principle of journalism, loyalty is a close second. Journalists can be loyal to many different people, businesses, or organizations. However, it is imperative that journalists must be loyal to the PEOPLE before anyone or anything else.

Many newspapers and television news channels are owned by larger companies. For example, ABC is owned by Disney. So, what are the odds that ABC news programs will report anything negative about their company? Probably close to zero. Likewise, NBC is owned by General Electric. Bill Kovach, the author of one of our textbooks, also sees problems with such mergers according to an interview I found. He fears that companies such as Disney and General Electric do not put the same value on journalists being the "watch dog" of the large companies in the private sector as they traditionally have been. Situations like these put journalists in a tough spot. It is their responsibility to report the wrongdoings of large companies to the public, but when the same large companies own the news source, journalists might think twice about what they are reporting. Journalists are having to pick between being loyal to the people and being loyal to their parent companies which often means keeping their job or not. Thus, I do not think large companies should be able to own news sources.

Even if news sources are independent of large companies, they are still loyalty problems that arise from the advertising side of journalism. Newspapers and television news needs to be profitable to survive and the way to make money is with advertising. However, this means that news companies feel that they cannot report anything that would hurt any of the companies that by advertising space. Thus, another loyalty comes up. Should we be more loyal to the advertisers or the people? The answer is still the PEOPLE. We discussed in class the concept of "the wall." We talked about the five "bricks" needed for such a wall do be built and keep journalists loyal to the people. The are:

1. The owner must be committed to the citizen first.

2. Hire business managers who also put citizens first.

3. Set and communicate clear standards with the company.

4. Journalists have final say over the news.

5. Communicate clear standards to the public.

When followed, these guidelines could be extremely helpful. However, the world isn't perfect. Thus, it seems we will be fighting a never-ending battle to keep journalism loyal to the people.

Another interesting question of loyalty deals with loyalty to one's country. An article from the Digital Journalist discusses this issue. Should journalists reveal secret government information to the public? Is it more important to tell the public everything? Or should some things be kept secret especially if it helps the country win a war? One of my classmates, Allison Goett shared her opinion on this issue in one of her last blog posts. She talked about how having a father who is a disabled veteran influenced her opinion that journalists should consider the effects of revealing certain information might have on the soldiers before they leak secret government information. In such an age of technology, she brings up the point that all the information we read or see in news media is also fully available to our enemies. Allison makes an interesting point that I definitely agree with.

I guess what I have been trying to say throughout this entire post is that loyalty is a tricky thing. While I do believe, journalists should first be loyal to the people, there are so many issues that play into this loyalty. There is a ton of gray area with such an issue and unfortunately, it will be this way for a long time.