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.