The Thinking Journalist
A Thinking Journalist is the Best Journalist
Introduction
Journalism is an art that is enhanced when one attends a journalism class. But it is also a career like any other and so journalists are also faced with challenges and obstacles, just like people in other professions. In almost all professions, there are rules and regulations that guide people on how to go about their duties. Some of these rules are ethical while others require one to undertake actions that are not ethically right. It is upon the employee to choose whether to go against that which is believed to be right or just break the rules of engagement and do that which is ethical. In most cases, journalists find themselves in situations where they are supposed to act unethically (Shah, 2009). However, journalists do not act out of their own will, but they are pushed by inevitable forces. These forces may include; time, owners of the media houses, organizational cultures, government forces, public interest and opinion, gender, plurality, and ethnicity among others. These pressures force journalists to act not out of their will, but in a way to satisfy one at the expense of the other (O’Grady, 2014). Despite the challenges and the forces, some journalists stand up for that which is right. This breed of anchors, reporters, and authors present the news as they are, with no compromise. The latter can be referred to as thinking journalists. The aim of this essay is to elaborate on the obstacles faced by journalists, the causes of the challenges and finally to describe why a thinking journalist is the best.
The Thinking Journalist
A thinking journalist is one who can think critically. Critical thinking entails evaluation of credible data (Doyle, 2016), a characteristic which will be seen later as being useful to a critical thinker. To one person, critical thinking is the ability of a journalist to be able to discern how his/her manager would do a given story, and to another; it is the ability of a journalist to be in a position to view a story from more than one side (Geisler, 2005). Geisler further elaborated and defined critical thinking as “ the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action” (2005, np). A thinking journalist does not allow outside forces to dictate the acquiring or presenting of the information they have gathered to the public. A thinking journalist is characterized by; independent thinking, fair-mindedness, the ability to explore the thoughts and feelings underlying each other, clarity of issues, conclusions, and thoughts, evaluating the credibility of information and the sources of the same, and analyzing arguments among other character traits (Geisler, 2005). With the characteristics mentioned above, a thinking journalist is able to overcome pressures and forces and in the end, acts ethically.
Journalism, the Opportunities and the Obstacles
According to Louis Heren (1973 {1996}), just like acting and prostitution, so is journalism; a vocation (Harcup, 2004). Journalism involves chaotic earning and it is full of opportunities as well as obstacles. Some of the obstacles are that journalism lacks an accepted career structure, requires no entry requirements, and lacks a system that is effective in governing self-policing (Harcup, 2015). Journalists act as the ears and the eyes of the public and they are perceived to act in the public interest. The latter trait calls for journalists to be the thinking type of journalists for them to achieve their purpose. The public sphere poses a challenge to journalistic works. The public sphere can be described as the space in which people engage with each other in both debate and critical reflection (Harcup, 2004). Back in the day, the activity of the public sphere was happening and it was respected, but it has since been replaced with progressive privatization.
A thinking journalist will often argue from the free press point of view. Free press means that a journalist has the freedom to publish an article in the dailies with no licensing by those in power (Harcup, 2015). The people in power are a major obstacle to journalists as they stand in the way of journalists exercising their freedom of expression. The thinking journalist is, however, not restricted by such obstacles, as they will find ways of getting the story published in the end. There are journalists who are timid and will go for the licensing and in the process are forced to publish that which the mighty want to be in the newspapers. The owners of the media houses are also an obstacle experienced by the thinking journalists. The work of the newspapers in let’s say Britain is to report news, play the role of watchdog for the citizens, check the government’s doing, defend the public from abuses by those in power, and unearth any unethical doings; but this is not the case, instead; the media is driven by greed and the urge to make money (Harcup, 2004). The thinking journalist falls into such temptation as he/she is also looking forward to foot their bills.
Time is another obstacle that has been observed to affect journalists as they undertake their duties. In one instance, a journalist is expected to handle 12 stories in a day, whereby they are expected to write, edit, and publish the stories. The same journalist is expected to drive traffic to the media house’s or organization’s website and engage with the same surfers (Harcup, 2004). The latter is too much work for one person to handle in a day but the organization requires that the journalist handles the task in a day. For a thinking journalist, it may not be much of a workload as they will find ways of simplifying the task and this makes them best suited for the job. The journalist is also expected to reply to comments made by the readers and sometimes the public can be rude and inconsiderate (Harcup, 2015). Such a journalist is under pressure and he/she may end up acting unethically, such as being rude to the readers or putting up comments that may tarnish the image of the organization they work for.
In current times, the world is full of conflicts and most of them are a result of the media and are performed in the media (Cottle, 2010). Cultural differences were mentioned in the introduction as one of the forces that put pressure on journalists. According to Cottle, identity politics has been on the rise in Western countries and this has given birth to late modern societies that in turn put the media at the ‘centre stage in the cultural politics of civil societies’ (2010, pg.2). The media cannot escape this menace and therefore, finds itself responding by creating ethnicity and other conflict facilitating factors. Cultural politics lead to factors such as ethnicity, radicalization of indigenous minorities, feminism, gay politics, and sexuality among other individual-based factors that lead to conflicts (Cottle, 2010). Although the thinking journalist will make efforts to turn around the situation, the pressure from those in power and the government is always overwhelming.
The politics of recognition is here to stay and the media cannot fight but join in and continue spreading the enmity that comes with this new wave. According to Cottle (2010), journalism has been observed to be one field that actively marginalizes, denigrates, and demonizes a given social group. Journalists label these social groups as outcasts, dangerous and unworthy. The groups are exposed to hostility from the rest of the public and they are even shunned from the community. Such actions generate ethnicity and racism which in turn give rise to conflicts and cultural differences (Cottle, 2010). The media is also forced by circumstances to infuse with the conflicts they have already created and in the process they make the situation even worse. Journalists no longer act according to ethics but they air stories and cover news that are money generating, even though they may result in stereotyping of a certain social group.
Ethics is an important aspect that is meant to govern any person from all professions, journalism included. However, that is not the case when it comes to sports journalism. In recent times, sports journalism has been a victim of ethical deficiencies (Vegas and Torrijos, 2016). The issue mentioned above is in a major way ruining sports journalism. The ethical approach in journalism is wide and it can be subdivided into various sections. One way that ethics is not being applied is the virtue of gender, race, and disability inequalities when it comes to employment (Vegas and Torrijos, 2016). One can see that in most sports programs being aired on radio or television, men are the dominant breed of journalists. Very few women air or even feature in sports-related programs and if they are, they come from a specific race. Studies have also confirmed that public service missions are lacking (Vegas and Torrijos, 2016). The journalists are not putting the needs of the public at heart; instead, they are just on air to get rich through the use of warlike language. Sports and other journalists are in most cases not in a position to take responsibility for their publications. The journalists are not accountable for what they write and this is unethical. It is the work of the media to be accountable for any story they air and all the news they feed to the people (Vegas and Torrijos, 2016).
The media is tasked with representing the public interests and opinions. However, this is not the case with most media houses. At times, the media has been seen to present public opinion in lower percentages than expected. Research conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and The Press showed that public opinion in the economy from 2007 was at a higher level than that which the media was covering (Pew Research Center, 2008). The media may have been influenced by various forces into giving the economy issue less air time. The latter is a breach of ethical requirements of the media which entails representing the public opinion as it is. The gap between public interest and media coverage was also observed to widen on the issue of gas prices whereby 60% of Americans confirmed to have been following this issue but the media coverage on the same was only 3% (Pew Research Centre, 2008). The media as seen earlier is driven by greed and the urge to make more money as it has now become a business avenue just like other profit-oriented organizations.
Media ownership was identified as one obstacle that hinders journalists from acting ethically. According to O’Grady (2014), the power and influence of media houses are in the hands of the powerful few. Yes, there is the Internet where people express their issues and get news, but still what is to be presented to the people and what grievances are to be attended to are decided by the few who are on the many media houses. Journalists are not in a position to express their genuine concern as they are dictated on what to do. The governments have also been seen to be in control of media houses in various countries (Shah, 2009). The government controls what is to be told to the public, thus hiding its wrongdoings from its citizens. A thinking journalist will often defect from such a media house and tell the public the real situation in the government. Such journalists receive threats and at times they disappear never to be heard. The thinking journalists have identified the latter as a major problem and they are forming organizations that are meant to fight for their rights. TUC and the National Union of Journalism have come together in support of The European Initiative for Media Pluralism (O’Grady, 2014). These initiatives are fighting for pluralism which is at the moment lacking.
There are powerful corporations that have great control over mainstream media, thus preventing journalists from acting ethically (O’Grady, 2014). These corporations will influence the media as the latter survive on commercials that are paid by these corporations. The media also survives from advertisements from big companies and they are influenced based on the news they air. The stories are either biased or omitted so as to protect the interests of these corporations and advertisers and to ensure that they are not offended (Shah, 2009). Journalists end up being tongue-tied and since they need the resources, they act unethically. The citizens are also affected in their decision-making process as they will be guided by false information. The country is hence at stake.
Turkey has also been a victim of government influence on the media and political and commercial pressures on journalism (Ethical Journalism Network, nd). The owners of the media houses dictate what is to be fed to the public, thus pressuring journalists to give misleading information to the viewers. External interference and self-censorship have been observed in Turkey to be the major force behind the media’s unethical behavior (Ethical Journalism Network, nd). The media is forced to air commercials and programs it cannot afford and ones that are not of help to the viewers. According to the Ethical Journalism Network, the media has been for a long time the battlefield for both political and self-interest (nd). The government denies journalist the freedom of expression and those who express their genuine concerns are in most cases sacked. Despite the setbacks, the thinking journalist still finds a way to tell the truth and thus make him/her the best.
Conclusion
Journalism is an interesting field if handled in the right manner and journalists are allowed to go about their business ethically. However, in the present world, the media has become the source of all bad things such as conflicts, misguided opinions, misleading information, altered opinion polls, and many other unethically performed tasks. However, not all players in this field are poisoned by the many pressures and forces. The thinking journalist is still out there giving the right information and telling the people as it is, despite the consequences. The media is negatively influenced by the media owners, the government, the few powerful individuals, and also the public. Sports journalism specifically is full of unethical actions. One finds that most people working in the sports segment are men and the few women are from a specific race. The latter leads to gender and race biases. The media has been accused of acting unethically by causing and spreading conflicts. Journalists achieve the latter through marginalizing and stereotyping a given social group and labeling its people as dangerous and outcasts. Such actions lead to the spread of ethnicity and racism which in the end cause conflicts. The influence of government and big corporations on the media is widespread as countries such as Turkey and Britain are victims of such acts. The citizens end up receiving wrong information and thus make misguided decisions. The thinking journalist has realized that it is wrong to be unethical and together with fellow journalists, they have come up with organizations that help them fight for their freedom of expression.
References
Cottle, S. 2010. Mediatized Conflict. McGraw Hill. Open University Press.
Doyle, A. 2016.Critical thinking definition, skills, and examples. The balance. [Online]
Ethical Journalism Network. nd. ‘Media Ownership: An Open Door to Government Influence.’ Ethical Journalism Network. [Online]
Geisler, J. 2005. ‘Critical Thinking: What Do You Mean by That?’ Poynter. [Online]
Harcup, T. 2004. Journalism: ‘Principles and Practice.’ SAGE. [Online]
Harcup, T. 2015. Journalism: Principles and Practice. SAGE
O’Grady, F. 2014. ‘Media ownership: power and influence in the hands of the few.’ National Union of Journalists. [Online]
Pew Research Center. 2008. ‘The News vs. Public Opinion.’ Pew Research Center. [Online]
Shah, A. 2009. ‘Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership.’ Global Issues. [Online]
Vegas, X R and Torrijos, J, L, R. 2016. ‘Mapping media accountability instruments in sports journalism.’ [Online]
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