Comprehensive Journalism

One of the challenges facing journalists is how to cover all the newsworthy events and make them seem proportional in their coverage. News needs to be both comprehensive and proportional. As journalists, we should ensure that citizens can see themselves and their community in the news. A temptation is to make news more sensational and spend disproportionate time on sensational stories. This isolates the public because they can no longer see themselves or their communities in the news. A story on science line analyzed data from newspapers dating to the 1700s to discover that sensational stories were almost always on the front page of newspapers. Additionally, another study indicated that although viewers and readers like hearing about sensational stories, they begin disliking stories once they become too emotionally charged.

Another challenge is how to address demographics while attempting not to isolate the community. Advertisers try to target certain demographics and newspapers often respond by targeting the demographics advertisers want. A story on The Online Journalism Review suggests that although media is suffering, many new technologies including targeting demographics online could yield help journalism in the long run. Although this advertising method may work for online news, newspapers must continue to reach for the masses in order to accomplish the first principle of journalism: truth.

Soft news is increasing in journalism because it is less expensive and more often easier than hard news. However, Online Journalism Blog published a study by Jackie Harrison who concluded that soft news increasing was detrimental to quality journalism and informing the public. Although soft news does include many principles of journalism, it often does not significantly inform the public as does a hard news story.

In order to find the news that people are interested in and still provide quality journalism, market research is a necessity. These studies help journalists understand the likes and dislikes of the audience, which can then be applied to covering news stories that people enjoy reading. Market Research can encompass surveys, but often these do not reflect correct data and can be expensive to produce. The best form of market research is a focus group where a small group meets and participates in a discussion about what they enjoy seeing in the news. Although these help journalists understand what people want to see in the news, the consensus of a focus group can be swayed by one member of the group, which can adversely affect the quality of journalism.