Faith and Journalism

Journalism and Religion a Difficult Combination

Religion and journalism are very difficult to put together. It’s hard to get correct facts concerning the religion, it’s hard to cover stories that make the religion look bad, it’s hard to write about your own religion without being biased, and sometimes its hard not to loose your own religion when you have to cover a story on it. William Lobdell showed the world of journalism in his book “loosing my religion” that it can be too hard to keep a religion when you have to cover stories of the scandalous things that occur within them.

A big question that comes up within the topic of religion and journalism is whether or not a journalist should be able and allowed to cover their own religion? Will a journalist be too biased, and turn the story into more of an activist story? Or will they be the best person to write that story because they know more about the religion then the average Joe would? My solution to this inquiry goes off of a subject we covered in class last week of journalistic forums. Perhaps religion should be covered by forums, that way all sides and all information on the matter can be brought to attention by whoever wants to write something.

There are many places that are geared towards the religious side of things in general. A few brought up in class were CBN, The Christian Century, and Christianity Today. These news stations are straightforward about their views in religion and can therefore have the journalists write about their own religions because it’s a known fact that there will be a bias.

As far as religious journalists go I think it’s important to remember that the core of your religion is the truth of it, and not to let stories about human flaws change or effect the way you feel about a certain religion. Also, any journalist covering any religion be it their own or not, they should cover that religion the way you’d want your own to be covered.

Beckham Lecture

I had the privilege to attend the Beckham Lecture at BYU today that focused on the becoming of literature and advertising. Some sections of his lecture that I enjoyed were the birth of advertising and his example of Amazon, and the rise of puffery. He spoke about the rise of the internet and how it allowed for the world’s largest book store. Amazon was created in 1995 after the internet really took hold. And it was Amazon that then began a new type of marketing; selling their books as if they were other kinds of everyday merchandise. The makers of Amazon knew that we use the same cognitive process to choose books as we do to choose which brands to buy, which cereal to eat, etc. So they used the same ideas from ads for everyday things to sell their books online.

Puffery (click here for an example) essentially means that the publisher attempts to sell their book in an unusual or new way, but the word puffery is generally used with a negative connotation. People presume it to be an advertisement in disguise and publishers are just trying to talk up something that is not as good as they same it is. This idea of puffery then leads to literary criticism which was a way for people to find out about book without having to read everything. However, much like a disease puffery encrypted this too and authors would then become their own literary critics and just rave about their book, once again hoping to get more sales.

I enjoyed the Beckham Lecture, he was very professional and had interesting points that through all my studies of communication I hadn’t heard about before.

Journalism As a Public Forum

Technology Changes the Public Forum

In class this week we discussed journalism as a public forum and how technology has completely changed this idea. There are many different kinds of forums including radio call-In shows, TV talk shows, editorial pages, blogs, chat rooms, and public polling. Technology however has reinvented a few of these forums. With the internet, information is spread much quicker than it ever could have been before, and there is the ability to have instant audience feedback.

Wikipedia is an example of a public forum, it’s an online encyclopedia that anyone can write articles for, edit, and access for information. There is a much debated discussion between students of this new technological age and their teachers and professors concerning Wikipedia. Most teachers do not allow for students to use this online encyclopedia as a source for any kind of written assignment due to the possibility that the information is incorrect. Students on the other hand, have grown up using the internet for everything, any time we had a question we wouldn’t walk to the library we’d turn on the computer. While Wikipedia may have some articles that have incorrect information, the ratio between correct and incorrect information within Wikipedia versus within what our search engines bring up is much larger in terms of correct information.  

Professor Cressman made a comment about Wikipedia during our discussion and he mentioned the idea that Wikipedia and technology like it has made it redundant for teachers to actual lecture. The way the world is turning these days students can get information very easily and very quickly. There is no reason for a teacher to lecture about things that a student can just bring up on their computer and learn themselves. Public forums have created a whole new way to learn, and gain an education.  I would venture to guess that in the next thirty-five years all schooling will be able to be done on a computer. Much like Wikipedia has done, many more forums will open up online where people can edit, and share their information. Discussions and peer to peer teaching will be able to be done through chat rooms, blogs, and other forums that are all online. The world of learning will literally begin at our fingertips.

Risky Business

Risky Business

Investigative reporting; are you getting the whole story? Is the reporter in charge agenda setting? Or have you been put into a situation where you are actually stunting and not doing real investigative reporting? These are a few reasons why investigative reporting is risky business.

 You may not have to put your life on the line, or travel far from home to do it, but investigative reporting takes a lot of work. It’s important to be persistent in getting the entire picture, which is difficult when you’re reporting on something that’s not entirely yours. Agenda setting, which is “the theory that the mass-news media have a large influence on audiences by their choice of what stories to consider newsworthy and how much prominence and space to give them”, is easily done and can go straight over your head if you’re not careful. Investigative reporters must have an eye for what is important and should definitely always know what’s going on in the world. Stunting is publishing faux investigative reports designed to generate ratings, and it is called stunting for a reason, it’s not real investigative reporting. It is reporting to make the company happy, not the reader.

There are also a few pitfalls to be aware of when choosing to do investigative reporting. First is becoming biased. Because investigative reporting has to do with searching out a single subject, and delving deeply into that subject, it can be easy to form an opinion or sway to a specific side. This is especially true in the instances of crime, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing.

Investigative journalists have come to find that to be a balanced journalist they must provide sufficient room for alternative views. This is a good rule to write by since there is always going to be some kind of human bias, this rule however allows for that because even if you have that bias you make sure that you’re allowing for the article to contain alternative views. Computer Assisted Reporting has also become a large tool for investigative journalists allowing them to verify the information they get from other sources. Both of these tips allow for the “Risky Business” of investigative reporting to remain in check and headed toward their top most important technique, getting the actual documents.

Journalists as Ideologues

Journalists as Ideologues

Plumes of smoke emerged from the buildings, people stood shocked all over New York City unable to look down from the tragedy occurring before their eyes. The Twin Towers were hit by two hijacked planes taking them from their high of 1368 feet crashing to the Earth below. Lives were taken, families were ruined, and America was threatened. This immensely emotional occasion had the news in a frenzy. Hundreds of stories, reports, and videos were created and distributed all over the country. Did journalists stay unbiased; did reporters keep their emotions out of these stories? Situations like the destruction of the Twin Towers are extremely difficult to report on when there is such an intense emotional application. I believe the idea that journalists can become ideologues in their reporting, but I don’t believe this is a negative thing.

Many would say that ideologues are blocking the whole truth, but I say if we have enough ideologue journalists then every side can be represented. Without the ideologue style of writing stories would be very distant, boring, and lack the emotional draw. Journalists should be reporting the feelings and thoughts of situations and stories so that the true story comes through.

In a more negative look toward ideologues one could bring up the idea of reporting on religion. Will someone with a different religious view report accurately about a religion or will they block the whole truth? For situations like this I still believe that ideological views or not necessarily bad. Sure one might skip over a few facts about a religion causing people to think differently about that religion, but then the next reporter comes along and fills in the missing pieces. Media is such a large part of our society today that there’s never too little. The facts all eventually come out anyway, so why not have a few different points of view. 

Journalism is not Activism

Journalism is Not Activism

There is a reason newspapers have a specific section for ads. Journalists are not advertisers, nor are they activists, or propagandists of any kind. What’s the difference? Advertisers, activist, and propagandists all fall into the same general category; they push the audience to think their way. They have perfected the art of persuasion. Journalists, on the other hand, give information in a non-persuasive, hard-up facts kind of way allowing the reader to get information and make decisions for themselves.

Sometimes it is difficult to write from this point of view though. Especially if you’re attached to the topic or subject in some kind of emotional way; be it that you’re involved, in charge of it, or living it. Sometimes the writer will put in false dramatizations which then make the story incorrect. They may not have said anything that was necessarily wrong, but the context and dramatic ways in which the situation was portrayed becomes a way of “rooting for” a specific side of the story. False reference is also a way that journalists can become activists. Referring to a person, place, or thing in a derogatory way, or with a connotation that is negative will sway the reader to think like you. Or this can be done in reverse, to refer to a person, place, or thing in a way that makes them seem special or better than the rest is also a form of false reference. If a journalist becomes too involved with those that they cover these underlying forms of activism can come through their writing without them even knowing that it is there.

Much of the journalistic goal is to stay unbiased in our writing. We know that this is impossible; no one can be completely unbiased in every situation. But to be as much as humanly possible journalists must stay independent from the people and the situations that they report on.