JOUR 275 Chapter 1 Notes PDF

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These cover the first chapter of "News Reporting and Writing."...

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Introduction to Journalism – Chapter 1 Reading Notes -

Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision on allowing gay people marry o NPR posted about it on their website o Huffington Post followed up with more information o Barack Obama’s twitter sent out a tweet about the decision; this tweet doesn’t count as journalism

Journalism and the News “News is what’s new”; it’s what happened today or what happened earlier and was just discovered today Journalists are the ones who report, analyze, and present the news Not everyone who writes or talks about the news is considered a journalist “The purpose of journalism is to provide people with the information they need to be free and self-governing” (The Elements of Journalism – Bill Kovach & Tom Rosenstiel)

Ten Principles of Journalism 1. Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth 2. Its first loyalty is to citizens 3. Its essence is a discipline 4. Its practitioners must maintain independence from those they cover 5. Journalism must serve an independent monitor of power 6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise 7. It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant 8. It must keep the news compromise and proportional 9. Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience 10. Citizens also have rights and responsibilities when it comes to the news “The public journal is a public trust…(and) acceptance of a lesser service than public service is a violation of this trust.” (Journalist’s Creed, Walter Williams) Walter Williams – founding dean of the world’s first journalism school at the University of Missouri

Getting Information Today Social media – online sites and apps designed to enable content-sharing and network. As opposed to the mass media, social media allowed people to communicate with friends informally Hard News – coverage of the actions of government or business, or the reporting of an event like a speech, a crime, or an accident. The time element is often important

Explanatory Journalism – journalism that explains not only what happened, but how. The use of this technique distinguishes professional from citizen journalism Soft News – stories about trends, personalities, or lifestyles. The time element usually isn’t important Feature – a story that includes little or no breaking news Commentary – an essay, column, or blog that comments on rather than just report the news

The Media Revolution The Pew Research Center’s “State of the News Media 2015” reports that network TV news increased its audience by five percent; local TV news audience grew three Conv New players like Google and HuffingtonPost.com collect, reorganize, and often link to work originally done by others – sometimes without full credit or payment Added roles of journalism: curator and fact checker

Elements of a Good News Story Standards used by journalists to evaluate news are summarized by three words: Relevance, Usefulness, and Interest

Most Important Elements -

Impact Conflict Novelty (stories that may be interesting and newsworthy because they’re unusual or bizarre) Prominence (the bigger the name, the bigger the story) Proximity Timeliness Engagement Solutions

Convergence in Journalism Convergence – generally used to describe the coordination of print, broadcast, and online reporting in a news operation Crowdsourcing – the practice of inviting unpaid readers and viewers to submit their own stories, photographs, and video and sometimes lend their expertise to help solve community problems Public Insight Network – a network of citizens sharing their insights with professional reporters

The Role of Journalism First amendment protects these five freedoms, which were deemed important by the nation’s founder -

Freedom of speech Freedom of religion Freedom of the press Freedom of petition Freedom of assembly

Challenges to American Journalism National Surveys by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press -

More than half of the public see the bias in the news About half say that journalists’ reports are often inaccurate Fewer than half say journalism protects democracy while about a third say it’s hurting democracy

Journalists’ Responsibilities in a Democracy -

Journalists report the news Journalists monitor power Journalists uncover injustice Journalists tell compelling stories that delight us and some that dismay us Journalists sustain communities Journalists set the record straight

Agenda setting – the placing of issues on the public agenda for discussion and decision Gatekeeping – the process by which some events and ideas become news and others don’t Gatekeepers – editors who determine what readers or viewers read, see, and hear

Accuracy, Fairness, and Bias Bob Woodward, former editor at the Washington Post, describes the goal of journalism as “the best obtainable version of the truth” Woodward’s description highlights the realities and limitations of journalism

Accuracy and Fairness Names must be spelled correctly, numbers must add up, quotes must be written as they were said; plus, everything must be written according to the correct context

Being fair requires asking yourself if you have done everything to uncover all the relevant facts and have delivered the facts in an impartial way

Dealing with Bias As stated by the earlier study, many citizens believe that journalists don’t do enough to keep bias out of the news Does journalism seem more “liberal” or more “conservative”? -

Conservatives tend to respect authority and support the status quo On a service level, many conservatives and some liberals view journalism with a liberal bias At a deeper level, journalism is profoundly conservative as journalism rarely examines the foundation stones on which the American way of life is based A conclusion: In societies that aren’t free, free press is a revolutionary instrument; In a society like 21st America, which considers itself free, the press is fundamentally conservative

The Issue of Objectivity Sociologist Gay Tuchman states that objectivity is a “strategic ritual” that conceals a multitude of professional sins while providing superficial and sometimes misleading coverage Objectivity was a way to apply the scientific method to journalism -

In science, researchers tend to explain their objectives, their limitations, their findings, and their methods Journalists rarely describe their methods or their limitations

The Elements of Journalism (Kovach and Rosenstiel) -

Objectivity in science doesn’t require the balance between two sides of a dispute Scientists are only expected to state their findings and how they got those findings True objectivity would add scientific rigor to journalistic art; without that, journalists and audiences can be misled

What is Not News Reporting the news isn’t the same as expressing an opinion A reporter’s job is to communicate pertinent facts along with enough background information to help the audience understand the facts The Hutchins Commission, in 1947

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Concluded that a free society needs from journalists “a truthful, comprehensive and intelligent account of the day’s events in a context which gives them meaning”...