Journalism, independence, and a terrible metaphor involving a lemonade stand.

Journalism ought to be independent.  As far as I know it should be, anyway.  You have advertisers, politicians, readers, and basically everyone else in the world offering their take on events, and as journalists, there's a balance.  We have to be separate from all these people and groups in order to report fairly and without bias (which, by the way, has also been called into question in class.  Can you report unbiasedly?  Do biases show through your writing no matter what?  Should we just accept our biases and declare them openly as journalists? WILL I EVER GET TO HAVE A PET KOALA?  These are the questions that haunt me).  But seriously, though, if news outlets are constantly worried about what the sponsors say and what the politicians say and what the readers say then the news gets distorted.

Think about it.  Let's say Timmy has a lemonade stand.  His lemonade is awesome, unbiased lemonade (?) and everyone is all, "TIMMY.  YOUR LEMONADE MAKES ME WANT TO DIE BECAUSE IT IS SO GOOD."  Well Timmy is makin' bank.  Then an economic miracle occurs (I'm a journalism student.  Don't judge me.) and Timmy needs to have enough money to buy, like, lemons.  So Timmy gets Mr. Dodson, his piano teacher, to pay him for advertising.  Well now all of Timmy's cups say "TAKE LESSONS FROM MR. DODSON BECAUSE HE IS AWESOME AT PIANO" and all is well cause Timmy has enough money to sell his lemonade AND to make money doing it.  But his mom gets all up in his business because, noticing that all the neighborhood kids come over to the stand to sip lemonade in the afternoon, she starts urging Timmy to tell all his friends that they must wear bicycle helmets, lest they die on their way to the stand in a horrible and gruesome accident.  Timmy doesn't want to because he isn't lame, but if he doesn't, his mom will ground him.  And now Mr. Dodson is all, "YOUR LEMONADE NEEDS LESS SUGAR BECAUSE I HAVE DIABETES AND IF YOU DO NOT LEAVE OUT THE SUGAR I WILL NOT ADVERTISE" and his mom is freaking out because he won't tell all that they need helmets to purchase lemonade, and all the kids are ticked cause suddenly there is no sugar in the lemonade and nobody is happy and then Timmy has a nervous breakdown and doesn't go to college and becomes a traveling hobo.

Are you happy now, MR. DODSON??

What does this have to do with journalism?  Well, as my clever metaphor demonstrates, when separate parties get involved, even out of necessity, things are gonna change.  You HAVE to please people from different groups, otherwise no one buys your lemonade.  This is a unique situation with Journalism because journalists don't just have to sell lemonade, they have to make that lemonade unbiased and it has to tell the truth, despite what Dodson or Mom or the neighborhood kids say.  But how do journalists become independent of advertisers and politicians and readers?  Well, I'm not sure.  I feel like I'm just discovering a lot about journalism as an unbiased news outlet AND a business AND a forum for the public.  How to balance these elements is definitely at the root of this issue.

We all have our resources that we THINK are independent.  We all have our own perceptions of what "independent" really means.  For example, I trust The Drudge Report pretty freaking explicitly.  I feel like the news I get there is unbiased and unaffected by too many outside parties.  But is that just my perception?  CNN International is known for straight reporting, but CNN America panders to a culture obsessed with "soft" journalism and celebrities.  In fact, even now as I looked at these different web pages, I see that International has a story about revolution taking place across the world.  On the U.S. page, the headline is about the "snowiest, craziest" winter ever.  Also, 6 rebellious women in history.  I weep for America.  Not really, we have soft pretzels and Jimmer, so I actually figure we're in good shape, but still, you get my point.

So basically what I'm trying to say is that independence in journalism is a pretty difficult topic.  I mean, there are funds dedicated to this stuff.  I think journalism needs to be as independent as possible, but at the same time, I realize that it kind of can't be.  Without money for lemons, you don't have lemonade.  (Notice how I cleverly incorporated my incredibly clever metaphor involving a business niche that has rarely been explored in metaphors previously.)