- What are the drawbacks of the informational mode of
journalism?
First, we
many just be producing too much information. Postmen believe that scientists,
technicians, managers, and journalists merely pile up mountains of new data,
which add to the problems and anxieties of everyday life. A second related
problem suggests that the amount of data the media now provide has questionable
impact on improving public and political life.
- What is news?
News is
defines as the process of gathering information and making narrative reports –
edited by individuals for news organizations – that offer selected frames of
reference; within those frames, news helps the public make sense of important
events, political issues, cultural trends, prominent people, and unusual
happenings in everyday life.
- Explain the values shift in journalism today from a
more detached or neutral model to a more partisan or assertion model.
Even
though journalists transform events into stories, they generally believe that
they are – or should be – neutral observers who present facts without passing
judgment on them. News media outlets that hope to survive no longer appeal to
mass audiences but to interest groups – from sports fans and history buffs to
conservatives or liberals. Partisanship has become good business.
- How do issues such as deception and privacy present
ethical problems for journalists?
Even
today, journalists continue to use disguises and assume false identities to
gather information on social transgression. In terms of ethics, there are at
least two major positions and multiple variations. First, absolutist ethics
suggest that a moral society has laws and codes, including honestly, that
everyone must live by. In other words, the ends of exposing a phony clinic
never justify the means of using deception to get the story. At the other end
of the spectrum is situational ethics, which promotes ethical decisions on a
case-by-case basis. If a greater public good could be served by using deceit,
journalists and editors who believe in situational ethics would sanction
deception as a practice.
- Why is getting a story first important to reporters?
Reporters
often learn to evade authority figures to secure a story ahead of the
competition. There is an important role journalisms play in calling public
attention to serious events and issues. It is not important for stations to run
self-promotions about how they beat competitors to a story. Journalistic scoops
and exclusive stories attempts to portray reporters in a heroic light: they
have won a race for facts, which they have gathered and presented ahead of
their rivals. With a fragmented audience and more media competition for news,
the mainstream news often feels more pressure to lure an audience with exclusive
and sometimes sensational stories.
- Why have reporters become so dependent on experts?
A ritual
of modern journalism – relying on outside sources – has made reporters heavily
dependent on experts. Today, the widening gap between those with expertise and
those without it has created a need for public mediators. Reporters have
assumed this role as surrogates who represent both leaders’ and readers’
interests. With their access to experts, reports transform specialized and
insider knowledge into the everyday commonsense language of news stories.
- Why do many conventional journalists (and citizens)
believe firmly in the idea that there are two sides to every story?
The quest
for balance presents problems for journalists. In recounting news stories as
two-sided dramas, reporters often misrepresent the complexity of social issues.
People whose views fall somewhere between positions are seldom represented. In this
manner, “balance” becomes a narrative device to generate story conflict. In
claiming neutrality and inviting readers to share their detached point of view,
journalists offer a distant, third-person all-knowing point of view, a narrative
device that many novelists use as well enhancing the impression of neutrality
by making the reporter appear value free or value less.
- How is credibility established in TV news as compared
with print journalism?
While
modern print journalists are expected to be detached, TV news derives its
credibility from live, on-the-spot reporting; believable imagery; and viewers’
trust in the reporters and anchors. Viewers tend to feel a personal regard for
the local and national anchors who appear each evening on the TV sets in the
living room. The three top news outlets with the highest “positive” rating from
those polled were “Local TV news”, 60
Minutes, and ABC news.
- What roles are pundits now playing in 24/7 cable news?
Prior to
cable news (and the internet), most people turned on their local and national
news late in the afternoon of evening on a typical weekday, with each program
lasting just thirty minutes. But today, the 24/7 news cycle means that we can
get TV news anytime, day or night, and constant news content has led to major changes
in what we consider news. Because it is expensive to dispatch reporters to
documents stories or maintain foreign news bureaus to cover international
issues, the much less expensive “talking head” pundit has become a standard for
cable news channels. Such a programming strategy requires few resources beyond
the studio and a few guests.
- In what ways has the Internet influenced traditional
forms of journalism?
Both print
and TV can continuously update breaking stories online, and many reporters now
post their online stories first and then work on traditional versions. This
means that readers and viewers no longer have to wait until the next day for
the morning paper or for the local evening newscast for important stories. This
might allow readers and viewers to see full interviews rather than just
selected print quotes in the paper or short sound bites on the TV report.
- What role do satirical news programs like The Daily
Show and The Colbert Report play in the world of journalism?
News
satires tell their audiences something that seems truthful about politicians
and how they try to manipulate media and public opinions. But most important,
these shows use humor to critique the news media and our political system. For
example: SNL’s sketches on GOP vice
presidential candidate Sarah Palin in 2008 drew large audiences and shaped the
way younger viewers thought about the election.
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