Hello, minions!
This is a generic post so it will stay on top forever (I hope)!
Anyway, welcome to this God-forsaken place. This is where you can find my opinion pieces on aspects of Journalism and let it be known that this is one of those "OH-MY-GOD-I-AM-FORCED-TO-BLOG-AS-AN-ASSIGNMENT-YET-AGAIN-NO-WAY" blogs.
Now you know,
Nurul Huda
Monday, 2 August 2010
Sunday, 1 August 2010
Week 8: In the Public Interest: Public V Private
The topic in brief
This topic highlights arguments in justifying the media's reporting on issues of public interest. It is about drawing the line between what is right for the public and what is right for the private individual/organisation. Perhaps the media has a duty in "telling it how it is" because the media act as a mirror of social reality. It is up to the public to interpret what has been given to them. Journalists must therefore be very careful with their choice of words when reporting sensitive issues because interpretation is shaped by language. An interesting question for discussion brought up in this week's reading is: Should media reports be modified to minimise any possible harm to those who are the subjects of those reports? Sometimes it is inevitable for subjects to be harmed when journalists tell it how it is. The best voice is thus the neutral voice. Journalists should not instigate matters despite the strong social resentment towards a crime for example. Therefore, by staying neutral, posible harm can be minimised without making a conscious effort to do so.
In this week's seminar by Anthony, Edward, and Julius
I think Anthony's stance on individual choice shows the extent of power journalists have and too often that power is misused or exploited for financial gains. There is also the self-delusion of personal interest being public interest. Even the code of ethics is ambiguous, allowing room for journalists to go around the laws. Then again, ethics is intangible and intrinsic. Ethics cannot be painted black and white but takes the form of shades of grey.
Edward revealed the possible shades of grey as three ethical philosophies: deontological ethics or absolutism, teleological ethics whereby ends justify means, and situation ethics where it all depends. I think the three ethical philosophies can be ranked into levels. The simplest way to justify oneself is by adopting situation ethics. We do what we do by looking at the possibilities and the opportunities we can make use of. I think journalists need to go beyond situation ethics and adopt teleological ethics with ends that correlate with public interest and protection of privacy, of course.
Julius used Archard's (1995) thought-provoking definition of privacy in his presentation which is "a person's control over oneself and to one's personal information". It implies that the breach of privacy is equivalent to the person's loss of control over himself and his personal data. So if that happens, the person's life is practically over. Unfortunately, the weight of my words is that of a feather to journalists who are forced to or keen on breaching privacy to report in the public's interest because if they do not do so, then their careers are over. For some, their careers are their life as well.
Conclusion
This is why we love Spider-Man -- he and the villains after him are the epitomy of the struggle between good and evil within oneself.
This topic highlights arguments in justifying the media's reporting on issues of public interest. It is about drawing the line between what is right for the public and what is right for the private individual/organisation. Perhaps the media has a duty in "telling it how it is" because the media act as a mirror of social reality. It is up to the public to interpret what has been given to them. Journalists must therefore be very careful with their choice of words when reporting sensitive issues because interpretation is shaped by language. An interesting question for discussion brought up in this week's reading is: Should media reports be modified to minimise any possible harm to those who are the subjects of those reports? Sometimes it is inevitable for subjects to be harmed when journalists tell it how it is. The best voice is thus the neutral voice. Journalists should not instigate matters despite the strong social resentment towards a crime for example. Therefore, by staying neutral, posible harm can be minimised without making a conscious effort to do so.
In this week's seminar by Anthony, Edward, and Julius
I think Anthony's stance on individual choice shows the extent of power journalists have and too often that power is misused or exploited for financial gains. There is also the self-delusion of personal interest being public interest. Even the code of ethics is ambiguous, allowing room for journalists to go around the laws. Then again, ethics is intangible and intrinsic. Ethics cannot be painted black and white but takes the form of shades of grey.
Edward revealed the possible shades of grey as three ethical philosophies: deontological ethics or absolutism, teleological ethics whereby ends justify means, and situation ethics where it all depends. I think the three ethical philosophies can be ranked into levels. The simplest way to justify oneself is by adopting situation ethics. We do what we do by looking at the possibilities and the opportunities we can make use of. I think journalists need to go beyond situation ethics and adopt teleological ethics with ends that correlate with public interest and protection of privacy, of course.
Julius used Archard's (1995) thought-provoking definition of privacy in his presentation which is "a person's control over oneself and to one's personal information". It implies that the breach of privacy is equivalent to the person's loss of control over himself and his personal data. So if that happens, the person's life is practically over. Unfortunately, the weight of my words is that of a feather to journalists who are forced to or keen on breaching privacy to report in the public's interest because if they do not do so, then their careers are over. For some, their careers are their life as well.
Conclusion
This is why we love Spider-Man -- he and the villains after him are the epitomy of the struggle between good and evil within oneself.
Week 7: Truth and Objectivity: Post-Modern Casualties or Victims of PR Piracy?
The topic in brief
In this week's seminar by Joachim, Aashajeet Kaur, and Se Young
With regards to the three levels of reporting and investigative journalism, Joachim highlighted the importance of enquiry. Enquiry allows journalist to report on a story logically despite the emotional quality of the story. A possibility for the lack of enquiry in journalistic process nowadays can be attributed to the shortage of time. Enquiry is time-consuming thus unfavourable for journalists rushing to beat the others in updating the public first.
Aashajeet Kaur then used the hierarchy of credibility by Becker (1967) to explain the shift in reliance of sources for journalists -- wire agencies are seen to have the highest availability of information. This has brought many implications on journalism itelf. Among those include the falsehood of a story's news value. It brings unnecessary pressure on journalists in reporting on the story despite its insignificance.
Se Young focused on the perversion of the notion of truth-telling as a result of lack of enquiry and credibility checking of news stories taken from wire and PR agencies. The lack of emphasis on truth-telling in journalism can possibly lead to the diminishing of news. News are supposed to reflect social reality and by failing to report truthfully, the reality becomes misrepresented. Altogether, a new preferred reality is created. One which indulges in entertainment and things people love to hate like violence.
From what I have gathered from their presentations, I realise the burden of journalists has increased in this twentieth century. It used to be about safeguarding oneself against sub-judice and defamation. Now, journalists have become more restricted to making employers happy and delivering what audiences want thus downplaying the real reason journalists become who they are. What was once a superhero outfit has turned into a puppet handled by strings.
Conclusion
This world exists in duality. In order to have truth and objectivity, deception and subjectivity need to co-exist. It is only practical to try and curb the lies and this is only possible in the journalism industry if journalists make a conscious effort to remain true and objective.
"Examining truth in journalism is an exercise in what social scientists call boundary work rhetoric" (Winch 1997, p. 3 cited in Tickle 2001, p. 89).Just how are parameters set to differentiate journalists from other media practitioners? Why is it important to do so? Such questions should be asked in understanding the effects of post-modernism and public relations (PR) on journalism. Death of true journalism seems imminent as news get mixed with entertainment and arise out of favours. The defence for infotainment is that the audience demands for it. While meeting the audience's wants boost ratings, meeting the audience's needs ensures quality in journalism. In order to do so, the news-gathering process should comprise of three levels of reporting -- reactive, analytic, and reflective (Bowman & McIlwaine 2001). This is probably a solution to the problem of "churnalism" whereby journalists feed off newswire agencies and not challenging press releases for their news value, putting in little effort to check the credibility of the stories they intended to publish (Davies 2008). Journalists are making it easier for PR practitioners and marketers to gain control of news media and turn them into promotional platforms. Where will that put news then?
In this week's seminar by Joachim, Aashajeet Kaur, and Se Young
With regards to the three levels of reporting and investigative journalism, Joachim highlighted the importance of enquiry. Enquiry allows journalist to report on a story logically despite the emotional quality of the story. A possibility for the lack of enquiry in journalistic process nowadays can be attributed to the shortage of time. Enquiry is time-consuming thus unfavourable for journalists rushing to beat the others in updating the public first.
Aashajeet Kaur then used the hierarchy of credibility by Becker (1967) to explain the shift in reliance of sources for journalists -- wire agencies are seen to have the highest availability of information. This has brought many implications on journalism itelf. Among those include the falsehood of a story's news value. It brings unnecessary pressure on journalists in reporting on the story despite its insignificance.
Se Young focused on the perversion of the notion of truth-telling as a result of lack of enquiry and credibility checking of news stories taken from wire and PR agencies. The lack of emphasis on truth-telling in journalism can possibly lead to the diminishing of news. News are supposed to reflect social reality and by failing to report truthfully, the reality becomes misrepresented. Altogether, a new preferred reality is created. One which indulges in entertainment and things people love to hate like violence.
From what I have gathered from their presentations, I realise the burden of journalists has increased in this twentieth century. It used to be about safeguarding oneself against sub-judice and defamation. Now, journalists have become more restricted to making employers happy and delivering what audiences want thus downplaying the real reason journalists become who they are. What was once a superhero outfit has turned into a puppet handled by strings.
Conclusion
This world exists in duality. In order to have truth and objectivity, deception and subjectivity need to co-exist. It is only practical to try and curb the lies and this is only possible in the journalism industry if journalists make a conscious effort to remain true and objective.
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