What is Journalism? A Look at What We've Learned

What Is Journalism?

Journalism today is evolving, to be a journalist you no longer have to work at a newspaper corporation. The internet has allowed for all kinds of new ways to publish and share your information. The internet has also brought about a new aspect to journalism, a visual aspect. Because a 2x3 inch black and white picture is not longer deemed exciting, journalists are able to take digital photos and video and put them straight on the internet for all to see and enjoy. The basic idea of journalism, however, has not changed entirely. Journalism is a written art form; it must be accurate and truthful, it must be unbiased, and it must be interesting.

            Accuracy and truthfulness in journalism are what deem the information credible. To be a credible journalist is to be a successful journalist. Being accurate and truthful can be difficult at times, especially in this world filled with the need to know now, it is difficult to get out accurate information quickly.  In an article titled “Writing Follow-Up Stories” By Tony Rogers he says, “…many news stories are not simply one-time events but rather ongoing topics that can last for weeks or even months,” here Rogers describes the reason for writing follow-up stories. Because people want to know news as it’s happening, the accuracy and truthfulness can get confused in the beginning, a follow-up story helps bring clarity to the situation further down the road when more of the facts have been figured out.

Truth gets tricky when a journalist is asked to write on religion. Who’s to say what is truth and what isn’t when there are millions of different views on religion. The Deseret News highlighted difficulties on faith and journalism in January when they ran a story called, “Conflict and Politics Again Highlight Most Important Religious Stories of the Year,” written by Lane Williams and referring to historian, Dough Underwood. One portion of the article states, “Maybe this simplistic way of approaching religion [mix of politics and religion] in the news can't be avoided, Underwood writes. Journalism is tied to current events. Concerns like salvation and baptism rarely change, nor are rarely tied in directly with newsy events….And there are no easy solutions to this problem because a focus on controversy and dissent is an important part of what journalists do in their quest for truth.” This is one of the things that make journalism an art. Journalists must find ways to accomplish these hard tasks through their skillful writing and careful selection of word choice.

            While media corporations today are known for their political or emotional slants, the ideal form of journalism is to be completely unbiased. Journalism is the collecting of information and passing of that information on to the citizens. The information passed should be hard facts so that the citizens can form opinions and make decisions of their own. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines journalism as, “writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation.” Interpretation is left for the reader to decide, the journalist uses their skills to give interesting facts to the public, allowing them to make inform decisions about the happenings of the world.

            By looking at the above definition of journalism, one might wonder why can’t anybody be a journalist? That question is answered in the last bit of the definition of journalism; it must be interesting. News can very often be bland and not very engaging to the general public. As a journalist that works for the news industry, it’s crucial to get readers to buy your stories. Journalism must be interesting enough to everyone that they buy a copy of the newspaper, or subscribe to a magazine, or watch broadcast videos over and over again. Lucky for the rising generation there are all kinds of new and interesting ways to engage the audience, not only textually but visually as well. This is where the bloggers are separated from the journalists; when a journalist can write an article that is accurate, truthful, and unbiased while engaging their audience in an interesting and enigmatic way, that is journalism.

INFOtainment

 Engagement and Relevance

 

Don’t think of a red truck, ready? Go! Thought of a red truck didn’t you? It’s difficult not to in a situation like that, much like it’s difficult to not want to know a secret when someone tells you they have one but then teases you by saying they aren’t going to tell you what it is. Well surprise surprise, the news industry has discovered that people like to be in on the secrets. The concept called “infotainment” has taken entertainment and made it news, as a way to reveal the “secrets” to its viewers and readers.

As presented in class the idea of infotainment had a negative connotation associated with it because of the way news was portrayed by it and how it might be difficult to gain credibility after having worked in infotainment. But to me, the idea of presenting news in an entertaining and catchy way seems like the right way for the industry to lean. Now that news is everywhere constantly talking to us through TVs, the internet, portable devices, everything…industries have to come up with unique ways to catch the reader’s attention. If it’s secrets they want, give them secrets.

 Infotainment was defined as “playing to the strengths of other media and not your own.” But I the news industry can play to the strengths of other media while also producing a good story, now that would be infotainment to its best! I like the way Wikipedia defines infotainment more, they said that it was, "information-based media content or programming that also includes entertainment content in an effort to enhance popularity with audiences and consumers."  Changing the way we view the news doesn’t have to be bad, the world is changing so why don’t we go with it instead of being left behind.

Mapmakers

Comprehensive and Proportional

Mapmakers of the world unite! In writing news articles? That’s right, because a great analogy to describe journalism is mapmaking. I like this quote that describes mapmaking, but in a sense describes the art of journalism at the same time, “Map making requires not only precision and talent, but accuracy in order to be an effective tool for the user.” A mapmaker must be EXTREMELY accurate in their art because if they’re off by just a little bit on a map, it could throw the reader off by a lot. Parallel that to journalism and if you’re stories aren’t very accurate, it could throw the reader off. If a map is wrong a person ends up in the wrong place and doesn’t know where they are, if a story is wrong the reader ends up with false knowledge both of which lead to utter confusion.

 Another parallel of the two is that when a map is wrong the reader of that map will follow it blindly, end up somewhere they don’t like, and then throw that map away never to use it again. For journalism if a story is wrong, the reader will follow it blindly, end up with incomplete knowledge, and possibly never come back to that writer again. This one mistake can cause a journalist their credibility.

Mapmaking can also be an analogy to the idea of targeted demographics. Oftentimes in journalism this is used with a negative connotation as in to beware of targeting demographics because stations that cover a wider range of topics will have more of an audience. However, in an article speaking of mapmaking it states that, “No single map can show everything, so the features portrayed on each map are selected to fit a particular purpose.” (to read more Click Here). I believe that this can be related back to journalism in the same way. No one story can tell everything, so some stories may be targeted more towards certain groups at certain times.