The nature of the journalist seems so noble when the most important rule is loyalty to the citizens. But as we found out, those lines get blurred when journalists inevitably have to report to a higher power. Even worse, there was already a growing division between the independent journalists and the rest of the team working for the firm.
For journalism of verification, two things that struck me were the ideas of transparency and humility. As a journalist, there is a responsibility to reporting the whole truth, the whole story - all of the facts. It makes you think about how we view different news sources as biased when that's not supposed to be the case. As for humility, I was pleased to see it in the text. I can safely say for myself - even when reporting on something - that I might not know everything I'm talking about. I think that is a refreshing conclusion to come to instead of pretending you have all of the answers. The hope is to try to find those answers, but you just might not know them.
The independence of ideology approach was fascinating when used in the example of Fox News. While considered a conservative news organization, the journalists at Fox felt they were reporting on the truth in the sense that they were creating a balance by giving airtime to a more conservative viewership. It was intriguing to think about the idea of journalism being based on this scale.
I was glad humility was included as well. I think acting like you have all the answers and know everything about a topic alienates readers. Instead of acting like an authority on everything I prefer to approach stories from the angle that I may not know all about this topic, but I'm going to do the best I can to tell you about it. I'm doing what I can to give you answers about this.
ReplyDeleteI also agree on the subject of humility. It's impossible to know everything about every topic you're writing about. Certainly there will be some topics about which you may know more, but even in those instances, a healthy dose of skepticism can be beneficial to you, your story, and ultimately your readers.
ReplyDeleteHumility is key when you're doing interviews. The worst mistakes I've made arose from interviews with Dr. Famous, where I wanted him (or her) to think I was smarter than I actually am. So I didn't ask for explanations that would have really helped me explain something complicated to a general audience. There are ways to get around this. Ask me when we talk about interviewing.
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