The new Journalist! - being a 'real' journalist

It was a great experience to have Steve Molk as a lecture for the last lecture. One thing I really liked about the lecture was that he spoke about the real life situation with his own personal experience. After learning about all the basic theories of journalism it was much easier to apply and understand the real life situations of Steve.

One thing that really hit me was how he said, “You have to start now.” I personally always had a thought of working in any industry after I graduate my degree and when I have knowledge about the certain job. Steve, however, emphasised on the fact that building experience is also important and that we have to use our opportunities around us. In this case he talked about blogs, twitter, and online news industries such as fairfax media etc.

Steve focused on social media platform especially, twitter. Twitter is a source where information spreads rapidly to many people around the world. He said that it was loved by many of the journalists due to these characteristics and that we should also be effectively using these types of platforms contact with other experts in the field.

He said during the lecture that it was nothing, and that he was not going to change the world with his radio spots, implying the fact that it is easy to start and encouraging us, as students of journalism, to begin building our experience for our future career. By this I realised that I may have been thinking too much about the core aspects of journalists and was scared to start anything. As I posted on my blog about the lectures, I strongly believe that a journalist should be someone who changes the world. The major reason was because many people consume and are influenced by the media. For now, I don’t want to be a journalist writing news and so on. I want to be a producer for a radio channel. I might change my career throughout however; this is what I want to be. Therefore, I couldn’t perfectly apply myself in Steve’s lecture, but what he was saying and how he encouraged us throughout the lecture is long lasting.

Through this lecture I learnt how the theories discussed throughout the semester can effectively apply in real life and what I should be doing in order to be successful in my career. Steve implied that blogging can be a great help to build experience. When we started blogging to be ‘the journalist’ our selves, I didn’t understand how it was relevant in becoming a journalist. I just thought it was a practice of writing my thoughts and facts. It was, however, clear in this lecture that blogging helps us to build experience and that it can be used in the actual work force. Through the JOUR1111 I have learnt many aspects of Journalism, both good and bad, and I have come to understand ‘journalism’ and ‘journalist’ better compared to the start.    

Investigative journalism - Whats happening now?

The one word that stuck into my mind during the lecture was “trust.” It was stated that we, as a journalists, need trust from the participants. This was due to the fact that there could be a lot of risks while you are inside a certain place in order to obtain information for the general public.

This lecture was contrasting to the other lectures where we talked about ‘light’ journalism such as, churnalism commercial media and so on. Investigative journalism, however, is a critical and thorough journalism which is quite serious. What investigative journalism was different with others that were previously learnt was that ‘the journalists were active participants.’ In other words, they don’t write by copying PR releases or depending on other secondary information they actively search and obtain the information needed for the work.

There are many positive aspects of investigative journalism. It is thorough, thus, a lot of time and effort is put into the work before it is actually released. Also, they check and analyse in order to produce correct information for the public. There are, however, threats to this investigative journalism; the online news and Public relations.

This was a surprise to me as I was someone who believed that every type of news, including online, was researched as thoroughly as investigative journalism before it is posted up onto the internet. Through this, however, it was evident that online news meant less investigative journalism. As technology evolves, old news is slowly dying which meant that journalism industry is slowly dying as well. By this, it seemed like investigative journalism was linked to the old news, as thoroughly researched journalism is somewhat old fashion. There are many social media platforms used in our society today and many of the general public uses these social media platforms as their own journalism site. In other words they post up information or news they think others would enjoy reading or watching. The problem with this is that many of this news maybe false or just a gossip. I personally believe that this development of technology has influenced the journalism industry. Many journalists seem to focus more on entertaining the audience instead of conveying an important message to the readers or viewers. Thus, instead of spending time and actively participating in obtaining information they spend less time writing about gossips and scandal. This is probably why the online news is the most threat to the investigative journalism.

Another threat mentioned was Public relations. Public relations have been mentioned throughout the semester in the lectures as a threat to journalism. I don’t completely understand why as I believe Public relations and journalism are two very distinct categories. I still don’t fully understand how it is a direct threat to investigative journalism, however, due to the characteristic of PR, such as, propaganda by truth which is quite opposite to journalism, could influence some aspects of it. This is something I would like to further investigate throughout my course of journalism and communication.

After this lecture, which is the second last lecture of this course, I came to find myself such a naïve student. News, to me always had the image of being ‘true’ and a source that could always be trusted. This was because the thought of journalists checking thoroughly and only publishing information when it is proved to be true. I guess, this stereotype or image of news has developed throughout the years. I believe journalists and general public should help investigative journalism to endure so the “trust” between the public and news sustain.  

Agenda setting - a manipulation??

At the very beginning of the lecture, it was stated that similarly to news values, agenda setting was a concept that was quite obvious. Which I personally don’t agree with, however, throughout the lecture it was evident that it was not a very difficult idea and that it was very important in journalism.

There were four parts to the agenda setting; Public agenda, Policy agenda, corporate agenda and media agenda, which are all interrelated. To me, agenda setting seemed like ‘how well a media manipulates the audience.’ The media sets an agenda which suggests what the public should focus on and further, how they should think about an issue. So, is this bad or good? Two weeks ago we learned about ethics, so, if agenda setting manipulates the thoughts of the general public ethically, I believe it is good. However, if they set the minds of the audience in an unethical way, such as Adolf Hitler and Leni Riefenstahl it would not be considered as ‘good.’

There were many strength and weaknesses of agenda setting within media, such as explanatory power, predictive power, organising power and many more. There were, however, also some weakness as people may not be well informed, deeply engaged, thoughtful and sceptical. I believe the strength of the agenda setting could also become a weakness depending on what information for what purpose is manipulated to the general public. The strength and weakness seems like it did not really matter, what actually mattered was what information was set to agenda.

Through this lecture, I started to think that the concepts of journalism can be considered as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ according to the journalist. If a journalist only writes for their benefit and manipulate or affect the public in anyways, the strength of any concept, in this case agenda setting, would no longer be considered as strength. Also, it was evident that ethics is everywhere and that if the journalist is ethical, then whatever they write would an ethical product.

New Values - is it obvious?

Personally, ‘news values’ was the easiest concept out of all that was learnt in the lecture. Well, that was what I thought at the beginning. This was probably because it seems like a common knowledge and something you can generally learn outside of the course. Of course, this was not completely true and there were some elements that were completely new to me however, it was still a bit easier to understand (compared to any other lectures until now) and to apply.

One fact that struck me was that the news values vary across the different news services, country and culture. I thought that news values would be similar all across the news industries due to the fact that I thought that ‘new values’ was a generalised concept. It wasn’t. Some news services focus on the importance of the presented information and some focuses on how much the story appeals to the audience. This was not only distinguished between the services but also between the countries and culture. Thus, news values or newsworthiness each news services, country and culture priorities are different.  

There were also threats to these newsworthiness or new values. The fact that Public Relations effected journalism was an interesting fact. I am currently enrolled in COMU1052. Yes, you guessed right, it is ‘Introduction to Public Relations.’ In public relations, you have to work with the media, news, and advertisement in order to achieve what you ought to achieve and these involve journalism. Journalism helps PR but PR threatens journalism. It was hard to understand at first, however, as the concept of ‘Chrunalism’ arose throughout the lecture it explained the basic meaning.

Churnalism was when information like PR releases is repurposed in to an article. The major problem with this was that the person who repurposes such information does not check and clarify before they produce it. This idea of ‘churnalism’ is shown a lot in PR releases however, done in television as well. This is a dangerous act as there is a high risk of releasing a false new out to the public.

Through such concepts that are used in journalism it has come to me to think that what exactly a news value is. Is it something that attracts the audience? Or is it the importance of the information? I personally believe that both of the aspects are a great news values as both audience and information are important within news. Thus, as a general public and a student learning journalism, ‘churnalsim’ is something that is quite pleasant to know. In some sense it could be lying as churnalism has a high chance or producing false information. Therefore, I believe the most important news value all across the news services, country and culture is truth, or the trust between the news and the audience.

ETHICS? ETHICS!

The Ethics lecture was the lecture that made me think about the ‘real world’ journalism. Ethics, according to the dictionary is; a complex of moral precepts held or rules of conduct followed by an individual. Here, the word we should most focus on is ‘individual.’ Thus, the definition of ethics is different to every people.

The lecture opened with different types of advertisements, billboards and many more. Our task was to fill in a chart sorting out whether the ads are good taste, bad taste, ethical or unethical. Through this task it was evident that many people had a similar concept of the taste and the good and bad were quite easily distinguished. Everyone, however, had different ideas about ethical and unethical category. As for me, it was very hard to determine whether the ads were ethical or unethical.

Also, it was raised during the lecture that many people get confused between the unethical and bad taste. I thought that an advertisement was “bad” when it didn’t have a story or meaning in it. Through the statement, however, the fact that ethics and taste are two very distinct concepts it didn’t necessarily mean that the ad is unethical just because it doesn’t have any story. So, what exactly is ethics in journalism?

There are three paradigms; deontology, consequentialism (teleology) and virtue. Deontology was the rules, principles and duties we have to follow when producing the advertisement. Thus, it was stated that when you follow the rules it is ethical. I, however, disagreed with this fact. The rule stated here is the rule of general television broadcast or company. Thus, if you don’t follow the rules it doesn’t necessarily mean the advertisement is unethical. It might not seem ethical due to the images and might be repulsive in some aspects, however, if the message conveyed in the ad is reasonable, it could still be ethical. As previously stated, people have different definition of ethics, therefore, the rule set by an individual may not satisfy others.

Ethics, is something that is broad which can be different to many people. It is something that can be confusing as its borderline is very thin, however, it is something that can change the world dramatically. Also, ethics in journalism may be restricted under some rules, however, the message conveyed should always be considered before determining whether it is ethical or not. We should always consider what we want to say to change the world, not limiting ourselves to the rules given.