Religion and Journalism

Religion and Journalism often seem mutually exclusive because journalists are trained to find the truth and repot it, but religious truth differs depending on the subject of the story. Regardless of the differences, many consider the religion beat to be of upmost importance to the newspaper industry. An article Catherine Rolfsen she tells about a lecture given by Columbia professor Ari Goldman where he claimed that religion was the most important beat in the newspaper. “I think the best beat in journalism is religion,” Goldman said. Writing about religion allows reporters to delve in into the minds of their subjects and get past the news stories and understand the motivations of the sources.

Although journalists seek for objectivity, the view of Muslims in America is mostly negative due to poor press coverage of the Muslim faith. The media often reports only the extremes rather than the middle stance meaning that Americans hear about the radical Muslims, giving many people a negative view of Muslims. A handbook called Reporting on Religion: A Primer on Journalisms Best Beat, gives history of the religions and advice of how to cover them. It explains that America was founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs and Islam has now joined the pack as one of the more frequent religions in America.

Goldman explains that religion can compromise neutrality because religion is an important identity marker for individuals. An ethical dilemma religion reporters face is whether to disclose their own religion to their sources. Some do, but many decline by saying that although they won’t disclose their religion, they are sensitive to other religions. The Reporting on Religion handbook gives several options including being upfront, using general terms, using humor to avoid answering, or refuse to answer.

An Article by Christian Century says that religion reporting is declining amidst the economic troubles of newspapers. Although religion is very prominent in the world, there is little news about it. Often religion news is negative towards religions because they’re reporting a story in which a religion organization did something against societal norms. Gustav Niebuhr an associate professor at Syracuse University teaching both religion and journalism told journalists that covering religion was extremely important. “I cannot think of a time when your work is more important … You are going to challenge the dark times,” said Niebuhr.

Journalism as a Public Forum

Journalism has always provided a public forum for comments and citizen journalism. However, with the burst of technology in the journalism world, the public forum has been expanded because everyone can contribute to journalism. In an article by Christine Chinlund, she talks about the public forum has expanded in all media outlets. In broadcast and radio news, talk shows have increased and with the advent of the argument culture, the talk shows are focused on the polarization. The opinions of the hosts and guests are almost always the extremes, which leaves out the majority of Americans whose ideology falls between the extremes.

Additionally, the internet has expanded the public forum, which makes it more difficult, but necessary to rely on good newsgathering techniques. “The new communication format … already has demonstrated that the urge to comment replaces the urge to verify.” This in turn leads to the rise of news commentators, who often lack experience in journalism and democracy, but are often called journalists.

Roy Peter Clark, the senior scholar at the Poynter Institute says that the media has become alienated from the public by becoming a professional class. However, the media needs to be more like the public in order to properly serve their audience, which sometimes requires crossing the line of journalistic independence and becoming involved in community organizations. However, if journalists become more like the public, they can form a more effective public forum where readers can comment and have a say in the news.

An Article in the Press Gazette talks about how one of the functions of the media is to provide a public forum. The most basic form of public forum through the media is the op-ed page where columnists can write their opinions, and the audience can write back. Because the responses are published, it opens up a dialogue between journalists and the public, which increases the capability of the media to understand and write about the public. Additionally, talk shows are becoming more popular with the book referring to over 175 hours of news every day. The article says that although this provides a public forum, it does not enhance the public discourse. However, the internet and citizen journalists have massively increased the public forum because the public can respond almost immediately after the story is published. Although this increases the public forum, it is not always quality information that has been verified and often are personal insults towards other commentators.

Ethics in Journalism

Frequently, journalists are faced with ethical dilemmas where they must use their own moral conscience to decide what information to publish and what to leave out of a publication. The society of professional journalists has laid out a set of ethics that journalists should adhere to when making difficult decisions. This includes four aspects that the society believes all journalists should adhere to.

1. Seek Truth and Report it. Journalists should be looking for the truth and reporting on things going on in society in order to inform the public. This includes verification of facts in order to make sure that the entire story is completely true and free of factual errors. Additionally, journalists should not use headlines or photo that misrepresents the story. Rather, readers should be able to read a story and trust that it is true.

2. Journalists should minimize harm. Journalists should not seek to embarrass people for wrongdoing, rather they should report the truth in a fair and accurate way so the public is informed and the sources of information and the center of the story are not harmed. This is especially true in covering court proceedings.

3. Journalists should act independently. This means that the business aspect of the news should not affect the stories that are being published. The journalists first obligation is to the public and they should seek to inform the public and act independently of any corporations that the news organization is affiliated with.

4. Journalists should be accountable for what they publish. They should be willing to back up their information and answer questions their audience has. The newsroom should be transparent and the audience should know how news is being gathered and reported.

Many news organizations have an additional code of ethics in addition to the society of professional journalists. Among these organizations is the New York Times who state the purpose of their company and then explain how they gather news and then explain their code of ethics in every department of the news room.

An example of ethics in the newsroom would be the Pentagon Papers. Although this information was considered top secret by the government, the New York Times and Washington Post believed that seeking truth and reporting it outweighed any government interest. This in turn resulted in one of the greatest steps forward for the First Amendment when the New York Times won the Supreme Court Case making prior restraint unconstitutional. An article by Ben Easaugh explained the ethical dilemmas that faced the reporters, publishers, and reporters as they debated whether to publish the information contained in the Pentagon Papers.

The Watchdog Principle

Part of the role of journalism is to be a watchdog on the government. This is one of the most important roles of journalism because unless the government watches the government, no one will keep the government in check. Along with being a watchdog, the media is expected to be a whistleblower when the government is doing something they should not be. Watchdog journalism is more of an activist role because journalists hold the government accountable for their actions.

According to the Dewitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy, watchdog journalism is an essential part of a healthy democracy because someone is holding the government accountable for their actions. ”Citizens need to know how well their government is handling its responsibilities in order to engage in the political process in a meaningful way,” said an article published by the Dewitt Wallace Center.

The watchdog principle can be misunderstood by people who believe the media is only out to “afflict the comfortable.” In some ways, some investigative reporting can be handled less responsibly and makes the media seem as if they are searching for sensationalism. Even if some investigative journalism is sensational, there is also really good investigative journalism that holds the government accountable, such as the Watergate Scandal. A story about bridges collapsing published in the Investigative Reporters and Editors website shows that the media holds local governments accountable for their promises. After a major bridge collapsed, the local governments promised to work more on the bridges in the community. A year later a story was published showing what bridges were still unsafe thus holding the local government accountable for their promises.

Additionally, many news organizations now have investigative teams focused specifically on investigating things in the community and reporting on it. This holds large corporations accountable as well as the government. KSL in Utah has an investigative team that investigates many issues such as legislature transfer fees, abandoned meth houses, and healthcare billing practices. Many of the investigative teams will spend weeks on a story researching the story to make sure that it is the best that it can possibly be and all the information is accurate.

Ideology of Journalism

A main theme of the principles of journalism is whether objectivity is an obtainable goal and the conclusion that I have noticed is that no reporter can be completely objective. Journalists can be neutral, but it is impossible to leave cultural values at the door of a story. However, values enhance stories and make them more interesting. It is difficult to write about something that is not important to our values, but when writing about something that we care about, the story comes to life as newsgathering techniques are heightened and the writing quality is better.

Politics are a big source of news because one of the functions of the media is to be a watchdog for the government. This means that journalists are to report on politicians who are doing something wrong. However, as both the government and media have evolved the relationship has become more mutual. Politicians depend on journalists to get their names out during campaigns and journalists depend on politicians to get news stories. In a story by The Daily IIJ the mutual relationship is discussed. The ultimate conclusion is that neither journalism nor government is as strong without the other group. Several news groups are turning more towards a particular party, making modern day journalism reminiscent of early American journalism where every newspaper supported a particular political party.

A story by The American Enterprise Online says that political journalism can be good journalism. “Partisan reporting--never to be considered mutually exclusive with good reporting--is the norm in British and European mainstream media, and is nothing new in American media either.” Many American news networks are more partisan because there are so many facts that it is impossible to print or read them all. This means that difficult decisions must be made when determining what to publish and journalists use their values and ideology to determine what information to publish.

Another difficult decision faced by journalists valuing objectivity is whether to help in human tragedy. Often helping a group of people removes objectivity because the journalist appears to be taking a side. However, when dealing with natural disasters there is not an opposing side to the story. Journalists should put down the cameras and the notebooks in order to help suffering people. They first should report on the situation to inform people and encourage others to help, but after the reporting is done, they should help the situation. It would be nearly impossible to watch suffering happen without becoming emotionally attached to the suffering people.

Anderson Cooper traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake and wrote on his blog “on a story like this you need to see it with your own eyes.” He also talked about different experiences in Haiti that he has had throughout the years and has been both criticized and praised for helping a bloody boy on camera. I believe it would be impossible to see the boy that had been struck by bricks and not try to help him regardless of whether you are a journalist or not. At some point, humanity trumps everything else and professionalism stops mattering in order to help suffering people.