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The Culture of Journalism: Values, Ethics, and Democracy

The Culture of Journalism: Values, Ethics, and Democracy. Chapter 14. “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” — Thomas Jefferson. Newsworthiness. What is news and what is not? Gatekeeper function of media Determines newsworthiness

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The Culture of Journalism: Values, Ethics, and Democracy

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  1. The Culture of Journalism:Values, Ethics, and Democracy Chapter 14

  2. “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”—Thomas Jefferson

  3. Newsworthiness • What is news and what is not? • Gatekeeper function of media • Determines newsworthiness • Conflict • Prominence • Human interest • Consequence • Usefulness • Deviant, the bizarre • News helps the public make sense of prominent people, important events, and unusual happenings in everyday life.

  4. American Journalism Values • General belief that journalists should present news from neutral standpoint • Media claims for balance • Socialist Herbert Gans offers four subjective beliefs that shape news judgments: • Ethnocentrism • Responsible capitalism • Small-town pastoralism • Individualism • Reporters as neutral “channels” of information • As opposed to citizens actively involved in public life

  5. Ethical Dilemmas • Deploying deception • Is truth the only goal? • Invading privacy • Microphone in the face of the bereaved • Going through someone’s trash • Conflict of interest • Any situation where a journalist may stand to benefit personally from the story he or she produces • SPJ code warns against accepting gifts or favors.

  6. Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) • Code of Ethics (p. 444) • Seek Truth and Report It • Minimize Harm • Act Independently • Be Accountable

  7. Reporting Rituals • Cult of the new • With the1840s rise of telegraph, editors wanted to focus on the immediacy of the present. • Modern journalism tends to reject “old news” for whatever new event or idea disrupts today’s routines. • Old news doesn’t run. • Thus, news often lacks historical context. • Getting the story first (scoop) • Herd journalism • Reliance on experts

  8. Rituals (cont.) • “Balance” • Two-dimensionality of news • Helps generate story conflict • Misrepresents the multifaceted complexity of social issues • Adversarial relationship between prominent leaders and major institutions • Gotcha story • Tough-questioning style • Becomes an end in itself • Reporter located between “them” and “us” • Might be better to improve the quality of political discussions by asking, “Why is this going on?” and “What ought to be done about it?”

  9. Print vs. Television • TV journalism’s origins in print • Edward R. Murrow • TV driven by its technology • Credibility based on live, up-to-the-minute broadcasts • The image is everything. • Sound bite news • Broadcast format forces compression.

  10. Pretty-Face and Happy-Talk Culture • TV journalists face discrimination based on appearance. • Happy talk: ad-libbed or scripted banter between anchors and reporters before and after news reports

  11. Public Journalism • Tenets of public journalism • News accepts broader mission of improving public life. • No longer detached • Suggests policy alternatives • Recasts public as actors alive in the process

  12. Criticism of Public Journalism • Public journalism panders • Critics fear losing credibility built up over decades of “objective” reporting. • Removes traditional editorial role • Changes reporting style to conversational • No balance • Just a marketing facade

  13. Fake News and Satiric Journalism • Appeals to many cynical young people • Critiques the unimaginative quality of traditional news stories • The Daily Show and The Colbert Report • “There’s no journalist today, real or fake, who is more significant for people 18 to 25.” –Seth Siegel, advertising and branding consultant, on Jon Stewart

  14. Role of Reporting • Social responsibility: James Agee, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men • Deliberative democracy: journalists should be activists for public life • Representative democracy • Deliberative democracy

  15. “Neither journalism nor public life will move forward until we actually rethink, redescribe, and reinterpret what journalism is; not the science of information of our culture but its poetry and conversation.”—James Carey, Kettering Review, 1992

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