Beckham Lecture Impressions

I attended Dr. Nicholas Mason's lecture entitled “The Rise of Mass-Media Puffery and the ‘Death’ of Literature in Georgian Britain.”  I am glad I went because it was definitely worth the time I spent there.  I have often considered going into the field of writing myself and hearing this lecture definitely made me think more about advertising in our modern world.  Something that really struck me was that the puffery and buttering up of advertising goes on on websites like Amazon.com.  I checked out this website after hearing the lecture in an attempt to focus on Dr. Mason's point and apply it to real life.  I also looked at Barnes and Noble.com, which was very interesting to me since I am a writer for that company.  I even looked at Sparknotes.com, which is the website I write for.  I found that there was some of this going on as there were reviews from editors and readers on all of these websites.  I don't know that I condemn it so much, though.  I think that these are lucrative industries and there isn't anything wrong with advertising or in trying to make a work look good.  It's up to the consumer to make a good buy.  All in all, I was interested in the idea that advertising does have this puffery involved and I'm definitely on the lookout for it now, especially being bombarded with it the way that I am.  I hope I can use this information to further my understanding of writing, publishing, and even advertising in journalism.

Ethics: Because Printing a Photo of a Dead Body on the Front Page is Generally Frowned Upon.

The subject of ethics is one widely discussed by journalists and journalist students.  As well it should be; I think it could be argued that an  unethical journalist cannot be a good journalist.  What are ethics, though?  There is room for a whole lot of debate in this area.  I think that there are facets or principles of ethics wherein there can be room for interpretation.  There are many hard and fast rules for ethics in journalism, though.  Every newspaper has a code of ethics, such as the New York Times.  These codes can largely be found on this list of freaking everyone's code of ethics.

Everyone has their own idea of ethics.  Everyone has their own limit to how far they will go to cover a story.  I think one of the most interesting aspects of ethics in journalism is whether or not the benefit of the story counteracts the harm done.  The Society of Professional Journalists says that "Ethical journalists treat sources, subjects and colleagues as human beings deserving of respect."  The Society goes on to explain several rules such as treating children with compassion, providing fair coverage of trials, being discreet about names of victims of sex crimes, etc.  There is some amount of specificity, clearly, but the above statement and even some of the rules can be somewhat vague.  In the end, as journalists we have to decide ourselves what is and isn't ethical.

I really think that an ethical journalist is a trustworthy journalist.  As journalists, we need to be sensitive and compassionate as well as honest and willing to investigate.  That is part of our chosen profession.  I think that anyone who disregards ethics in reporting clearly does not understand the field of journalism and what it means to be a reporter in this field.

Watchdog journalism is dying slowly.

In our last class we discussed watchdog journalism.  Which is the best way of saying "investigative journalism" ever, except for a term I have coined: super spy reporting 2.0.  This term has not caught on.  Yet.

Anyway, investigative journalism sounds awesome and exciting and all that, but what I learned is that it isn't.  Why?  Because it doesn't really exist anymore.  Investigative reporting used to be incredibly interesting because it brought to light political scandals and important secrets being hid from the public.  Now, as we discussed in class, it brings to light malfunctioning washing machines.  The fact is, it just isn't interesting or exciting or ANYTHING like that anymore.

There just isn't money to put a team of investigative journalists on a story that will take a lot of time to uncover.  We live in a society where people want their information ten minutes ago.  Uncovering something WORTH investigating takes a lot of time and time is money, as the old saying goes.  So it's pretty safe to say that watchdog journalism is on the decline, and plenty of internet sources will back me up on this.

For example: this article and this article and this article all point out the decline of watchdog journalism and attempt to figure out WHY it is declining.  There are a lot of different opinions out there, but I still have to think that it's the fact that a good investigative article takes time and no one wants to put in that much time when the focus of journalism right now increasingly has become keeping up with the internet.  Newspapers are worried about circulation, not how in-depth their stories are.

Basically the problem is all about money, which is actually what every problem in journalism is these days.  Good thing we've chosen a field so rich with opportunity.

Who the heck is a journalist?

Personally, I think there are many forms of journalism.  Twitter, online news sources, bloggers...all contribute to the big magical world that is journalism.  Some of these forms of journalism are less reliable (I don't consider Kanye West's tweets to be particularly groundbreaking in the field of journalism) but I don't think it's right to discredit them too quickly.  Journalism is changing; newspapers aren't as prevalent as in years past.  It's also important to keep in mind that blogs, twitter, and the like are fairly new innovations and that we may not be able to consider their journalistic merit completely for many years to come.  Then again, I do think it requires more than a whim to become a journalist.  Anyone can wake up and say, "Hmmm.  Today I want to educate the public on the news of the world.  AWWWW YEAHHH!" but that does not a journalist make.  There needs to be something there to give credibility.  I'm not positive whether I think a degree is required to make a good journalist; the training certainly can't hurt.  However, I'm also pretty sure that journalism is a field in which "amateurs" can be just as truthful, or even more so, as "professionals."  I've personally learned a lot about the situation in Egypt from Twitter.  In short, journalism can always benefit from new outlets, yo.  Also, I'm pretty sure Twitter is going to take over the world one day, so we might as well practice Twitter-nalism while the art is still young.  Just sayin'.

Who do journalists work for?

No, really.  Who do journalists work for?  The obvious answer to that question would be the people!  Of course!  Hurrah, hurrah, preserving liberty through the fair and unbiased reporting of the truth and all that jazz.  But is that just a concept that ought to be true but isn't?  Sure, journalists should serve the people first, but in this day the money is what it's all about.  Personally, as a future journalist (hopefully), I am pretty freaking serious about my duty to the citizens.  They deserve to know the truth.  However, the decline of the newspaper has made a serious dent in income for many respectable publications, so the reality is that journalists are encouraged more and more in their own line of work to be loyal to the corporation of journalism.  I very strongly believe that a journalists first duty is to the people, but I also think that recently there is more pressure on journalists to bring in money.  This means that being a watchdog comes second.  What a sad, sad, truth.  Oh well.  At least I can distract myself by watching Star Wars for six hours straight tonight.

Truth and Journalism

Truth is defined as, "The true or actual state of a matter" on Dictionary.com.  As far as I'm concerned, that's a pretty difficult phrase to understand.  The literal meaning of the words isn't hard to decipher, but when you actually begin to decide what that means, that's when there's a problem.  In class, we discussed whether truth is really something that a journalist even is able to publish.  We talked about whether or not something is true if we don't have all the information about the event at the time of publishing.  Truth is a tricky subject all around, not in the least because what is true to one person may be false to another.  Does that mean that an opinion can be true, even if it has opposition?  As journalists, we are told not to involve opinion in our articles and research, but is it even possible to get rid of every bit of bias?  And if it is, does that alter the truth?  Does the context of the event or the context of the writer's opinion add to the truth or detract from it?  The more questions you ask, the easier it is to see that a dictionary definition of truth cannot grasp exactly what truth is. 

Truth is what we, as journalists, much search for.  That means that we always have to ask ourselves what the truth is.  Truth is different in journalism.  To tell events in a true, fair fashion means providing relevant context while still knowing when context tampers with the ability of the reader to form an opinion.  That's our job.  To provide information in order to let readers decide what they think about a story.  That mission requires the truth, which is why there is so much talk about "spin" and bias.  People want to know the absolute truth about an event.  The fact is, truth is hard to share.  We all have our own views and they directly influence our writing and researching of a story.  The best we can do is share what we know to be true about a story at any given time.  We write about what is actually a hard fact about a case, and then we have to make a judgment call about how much context is necessary to help the story make sense.  Just like the swimsuit at the beach conversation that we had in class, context can make or break the truth to a reader.  So I would say that a lot of the truth lies in context.

Truth is not an opinion.  Truth is not something that you can decide arbitrarily and without thought.  You have to ponder it, detach an event from yourself, and give the plain facts.  You lay those facts out on the table and piece them together, picking out as much bias as you can.  Then you fill the gaps in between with context.  That's the only way we can get at the truth, is to look at is as something to be figured out and put together.  There really is a formula for discovering truth, in my opinion.  It isn't always obvious or blatant, and if we are being fair to the public, as journalists we must commit ourselves to reporting truth only with the utmost care and thought.

What "journalism" means to me

I've always loved the paper.  Call it cliche, but it's true.  I love the lingering smell of the ink, the way I can never refold a paper correctly after reading it, the neat columns and pictures.  I read and read and learn about wars and conflicts, a local cupcake business, a review of the newest Disney movie, and political endeavors.  Naturally, I registered for a journalism class in high school where I learned to edit, write, report, take a good picture, layout a page, and conduct an interview.  I learned all of these, but I also became aware of bias. 

Journalism should be an unbiased record of events.  Too often today journalists and newspapers push agendas throughout their writing, printing articles clearly spun to the left or right of the political spectrum.  Even articles that aren't blatantly biased are often printed only because they support a paper's agenda or are printed instead of an article that would challenge that agenda.  This is the corruption of Journalism, in my opinion. 

When I pick up a newspaper, I want to know that I can trust these reporters to bring me news of events without any withheld information or without an emphasis on information.  What I mean is that I shouldn't have to figure out which trick an article is playing on me.  I shouldn't have to wonder whether the information on the page is completely credible, or whether it has been taken out of context.  Journalists should have a fundamental passion for the truth.  They shouldn't accept any deceit, even if it isn't outright.  News outlets should NOT be another tool in any candidate's political campaign.  Rather, they should provide the public with an honest and relevant insight into these candidates and the circumstances surrounding them.  There should be no lying by omission, no careful selection of articles designed to subtly support one politician or another.  This is true not only of politics but is certainly most prevalent in that field.

To me, journalism is a promise.  When you open a paper, you should be able to trust that you are getting accurate, unbiased information.  A good journalist doesn't try to censor anything in order to support any agenda but has an unwavering commitment to the truth at all times.