Talk:Journalism

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Why can't journalism question its own environment?

Its about interdependence, mostly because journalism is an industry, based upon the growth of profit and accumulation of capital. For the individual journalist it is their occupation, from which they depend. Would you ever raise questions to your boss about the way your employer conducts business related to profit making? It's not likely but it is possible. So it is about a lack of self-examination and I think it is a form of social engineering. A guy called Qualter has written about this and I wrote up a brief article last year - Agenda-setting research: Where has it been, where is it going?. There are a few more here

For example, Fox News would never present articles about how abandoning copyright, trademarks and other anti-capitalist, anti-american ideas would be a good thing. So the range of stories, articles, questions and answer that are needed for the public to be accurately informed never gets asked. Another good example is the terrible lack of reporting about open source. Very, very rarely will you hear that phrase on television. Why would that be?

Where is the law that says no journalist is allowed to say anything about the "true" state of the economy?

It's not a law, just the way news, reporting and journalists have developed and work. Think about windows worms and security breaches. Can the journalists, editors, etc be replied upon to bring accurate reporting when they use or advertise windows products? I dont think so.

Of course journalists can tell "the truth".

I hear them say "Dont trust me" all the time. They say "Go read a book and dont pay attention to what the media says" too. They never say "Stay with us" or "Dont go away".

It has nothing to do with some Big Boy pulling strings behind the scenes, it has to do with WHAT SELLS. If people don't want to hear "the truth", then journalists won't give them the truth. There is nothing wrong with that - it's all about supply and demand. -- Amw

So you think people dont want journalists to tell the truth? Maybe I should move some of the sentence you refer to, into Media which is a group of companies, instead of journalism which is made up of individual journalists. - ABliss

Not so much people don't want the truth, as people want the facts presented in a way that they enjoy. Everyone knows that all the news networks have their own spin, but people flick through all the networks and choose the one whose spin is closest to what they are comfortable with. Fox isn't explicitly trying to mislead people - they're simply providing what the public want. If the public wanted something different, Fox would provide something different. This is not about social engineering, they're not trying to brainwash the masses - there is no ulterior motive - they just want MONEY. That's all. By catering to a specific audience that was previously un-catered-to they have found a good source of money. As a result some of the other networks have changed their format to try to "cash in" on the latest trend (less left-wing/socialist reporting). None of this is a conspiracy, it's just business.

So actually what you are saying is true to a certain extent, just aimed wrong. If you expect journalists to report The Actual Truth all the time, you're going to be disappointed. Journalists will only report The Actual Truth if that is what's going to sell. For the rest they will just report whatever stories their employers think will "sell" best. But if this bothers you, it's not the companies or journalists you should be complaining about - it's society. If you want to get The Actual Truth all the time, you're going to have to convince hundreds of thousands of other people to want it too. And the companies and the journalists will change - they will do whatever earns them the most viewers and (thus) the most money from advertizers. -- Amw

"One thing is for sure, people think journalists are highly unethical and rate those employed in the field with low honesty levels." I'm wondering if that's a USA-centric statement. Are you sure that counts for non-USA countries as well? What about reporters versus journalists? -- dpi