Verification

The human body depends on the heart to pump oxygenated blood throughout the body to supply vital organs with the nutrition it needs. It is crucial that it continues to beat all day and all night, if not death is imminent. In journalism, the same goes for what is reported and how the information has been verified. Verification is the beating heart of credible journalism in the public interest and without it a journalist is nothing (http://tinyurl.com/3avjurn). Verification allows the work that is presented to stand on its two feet and supply the audience with the vital information they seek.

I present to you five techniques, which allow journalists to thoroughly verify their work before it is published or aired:

1. Edit with skepticism- Ask questions like, why is this here? Can it be supported? Can it be proven? Don’t settle with information you receive. Instead dig deeper and find the source to be sure of its legitimacy.

2. Keep an accurate checklist- Make sure you have a good list to check your work and balance the sides in your work. Also, don’t be afraid to add to this checklist. You can add procedures which help your final outcome be even better.

3. Assume nothing- This is referring to not allowing any room for complacency. It is important to get as close as you can to the source for your work. Think of a target and having the immediate source in the middle. Going out from there you have eyewitnesses, primary sources and then secondary.

4. Tom French’s Red Pencil- this is, or should be, another part of your checklist. It simply means to get the red pencil out and put a check next to facts and assertions to double check that your work is true(http://tinyurl.com/3odwxzt).

5. Be careful with anonymous sources- with anonymous sources it is hard to determine what their intentions are, so go back to step one and be skeptical. Ask yourself what their motivation is (why?), what other alternatives their might be to check that the information is verifiable and determine what importance their message really has http://tinyurl.com/3vopo8s).

The Profession

While reading a book called The Mind of a Journalist by Jim Willis, it was very interesting to find a chapter with the title, “The Priesthood of Journalists.” What does that mean exactly? Well, it seems like many journalists see their work as surrendering to a higher calling of serving others (http://tinyurl.com/3lssjos), not unlike the clergy of a church or even police officers. They describe this priesthood with two important theories: hegemony theory and news work theory.

The hegemony theory is directed at journalists’ beliefs, comprised of their social, cultural, and ideological beliefs. Beliefs being defined as convictions about whether something is true or false. The problem with this theory is that many critics come out and state that editors and reporters of the news media are the ones who decide what is important and report what they want the public to know or not know. However, many of us know that, by and large, those days are over, because of technology that lets the public not only have feedback (http://www.cnn.com/feedback/hdlns/), but also have a say in which news they want for themselves.

The second part to this priesthood of journalism is the news work theory. Within each office there is a type of news culture and these norms and ethics are passed down from older generations to newer generations of journalists (http://tinyurl.com/fmg37). Some of the norms are not for all and among journalists there are debates on what is right and wrong. One of those debates is how detached journalists should become from their community to report with less bias and be equal to all parties. That is usually left to each office and is determined by the news director or editor.

Journalism and Loyalty (plus future of news update)

Journalists position themselves to be right in the middle of what’s happening in their immediate community or around the globe. They present, or relay, what they see and hear to their audience which makes them intermediaries. This is why the second principle of journalism is so important to the audience. It is that journalists’ first loyalty is to the citizens.

In many countries corruption not only rules law enforcement, businesses, but also journalism (http://tinyurl.com/6rrrjw). Money is what drives those to give in to change stories and sometimes even forget what was seen or heard. Fortunately, many journalists feel a need to bring the truth out without being bought out or influenced by those in power. Journalists have even gone as far as declaring they won’t let their self-interests cloud their decisions when reporting an event. This movement has even spread to whole organizations, making a code of ethics standard in the work place. Some of those organizations include the NY Times, Washington Post and LA Times (http://tinyurl.com/3wac3gr). They include regulations such as fairness to the audience, avoiding conflict with them and even correct attribution (journalism sourcing). This makes it easy for journalists to know that all within the workplace are held to these standards. Unfortunately, even with these principles and regulations, we find examples of occurrences when journalists give in to an outside source and change their story. Sometimes it might even be that journalists don’t convey clear messages to the public and are later caught in situation where they can’t explain themselves, which happened with Dan Rather and the Killian Documents (http://tinyurl.com/5fwam).

It so important for journalism to understands its role in peoples’ lives and for journalists to accept their position as middlemen. They chose be who they are and should stand up for what they know. Their loyalty is not to their boss, their mother or their religion. Rather, it is solely to their TV, radio, newspaper, or magazine audience.


Update
If you read this NY Times article (http://tinyurl.com/3e56go3) about a Pew Media Study, you will find interesting shifts in media consumption among different age groups. I wanted to note that as younger generations are shifting to the Internet for most of their news and information needs, many TV stations might have to change their news agenda. The reason being, many Internet web portals offer everything from local community issues to national news feeds, but adults still read the local paper and watch news on TV. According to this study, adults watch TV for weather, traffic and breaking news, but with the slow death of local newspapers, where are other important local topics going to be found? It is interesting to think about how the downfall of one channel might change the presentation of another.