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.