Response to chapter 1

There’s a thing about journalism that sometimes works as a double-edged sword. There are multiple definitions and ways to understand it. It can be broad or incredibly narrow in scope and nuance. And oftentimes it’s misunderstood for something else. Or something else gets classified as journalism when it’s not. The objective of The Elements of Journalism is to help the reader get closer to the mission and the purpose of journalism, while helping journalists to find the element of service that seems to be forgotten or left behind at times.
One of the main underlying themes in the first chapter of the book is the question of how can journalism adapt to the new technologies available without renouncing to the core mission of providing the information that the public needs to make informed decisions about their life. One of the most consequential decisions of public life is casting a vote, and an informed electorate is vital for the good health of a democracy. “The primary purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with the information they need to be free and self-governing” (16-17). In order to provide information that your public needs, you need to be in touch with the community that you serve. The theory of interlocking public is an interesting tool that presents a viable way to address an increasingly diverse public that doesn’t consume news in a uniform manner and that doesn’t engage in the same way across the board.
It’s a theory to engage the public, but for modern outlets, it can serve as a philosophy to better serve their audience. Providing an array of different topics in which the public can experience different levels of engagement, so they can stay current in the topics at the top of their interest pyramid, learn new information about a subject that is less familiar, or find new areas if interest altogether.


It might seem like it’s an outdated idea. Super specialized websites, publications, and tv programmes are everywhere. Finding incredibly nuanced and specific information about every subject is easier than ever. But that super specialized interest can bring negative consequences and work against the idea that general knowledge of the world that surrounds us is a positive thing. By making a deliberate attempt to diversify the news that is offered to the public, and the news we consume, we are contributing to a community that’s better suited to govern itself and the overall health of its democracy. 

Comentarios

Publicar un comentario

Entradas populares de este blog

Melissa Noel and Her Reporting on "Barrel Children"

Melissa Noel is an award-winning freelance journalist. She has worked for NBCNews.com, Huffington Post, Caribbean Beat Magazine and Voices of New York and the recipient of a Pulitzer Center grant to report on Caribbean children left behind by their parents when they migrate to another country.  On November 28th, she stopped by LaGuardia to talk about her reporting, the challenges she faced, the opportunities she found, and the children at the center of these stories. Being the daughter of Caribbean parents, from Guyana, to be more specific, it was only natural that this subject didn’t seem foreign to her. In early 2016 Noel attended a Caribbean Film Academy screening in Brooklyn of the short film “Auntie” by Barbadian filmmaker and Barrel Stories Project founder Lisa Harewood. Both the fictional film and the documentary project highlight some of the very real ways migration and separation impact Caribbean families. After the screening, she met Melissa Elias, originally from Tri...
Leer más

News Matters response

The notion that journalism is a public service is not widely spread among society. Most journalists might certainly understand it that way, but in recent times it’s been more than clear that the public doesn’t completely trust in the capabilities or rather, the motivation, of the Fourth Estate to exercise as a watchdog of government. Certainly, this lack of trust has hindered the ability of the media to exercise as checks and balances with the three branches of government. It’s very hard to demand accountability when the public trust doesn’t back the effort. The first chapter of News Matters is a powerful reminder of the responsibilities of the media, as well as the consequences of both good journalism and bad journalism. It’s a good reminder that when exercised correctly, journalism can impact the lives of the community it serves in a highly positive manner. Corrupt officials and the party structures that sustain them can be brought down with methodic and responsible use of good j...
Leer más

Chapter 11 - Pushing Civil Rights Into the National Agenda

The struggle to achieve equality for African-Americans wasn’t over with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Polling taxes, grandfather clauses, and outright intimidation were some of the tactics used for the next hundred years to restrict voting rights for people of color. “Separate but equal” was the slogan and driving force behind the segregationist movement. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, considerable momentum began to build around the idea that segregation was as harmful as voter suppression. Journalism, and TV, to be more precise, was the catalyst for that change in public opinion.  Brown vs Board of Education was a landmark Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal”, the Court ruled. In the summer of 1957, African-American leaders in Little Rock tested the Supreme Court decision by enrolling nine black s...
Leer más