Essay On Journalism: My Personal Experiences

Foundation Course – Journalism

Throughout my media practice journalism course at __________ College I have found that some of the modules studied in my theory subjects sometimes overlapped with my work for journalism. Some of these subjects have both inspired and encouraged me with my work in my media practice and this has been reflected throughout the two years of development.

Capitalization of Media

One of the subjects that caught my attention throughout the course was that of media ownership. I had never realized the importance of this issue in modern day journalism and how it can influence what is published to its various audiences. This made me more aware of the limitations and restrictions imposed on certain publications due to the preference of the owners. The capitalization of media by the state and by individuals known as media moguls (e.g. Rupert Murdoch), definitely has its effects on journalism. Owners are able to control what is published and broadcasted, at times promoting their own personal views and interests, and considering that it takes large amounts of money to own media resources; it means that many media tends to reflect the views of the rich and we are therefore indoctrinated with their views and ideals. The capitalization of media is sometimes best seen during political elections. Major newspapers are seen to take sides with their preferred political parties and have at times attacked the opposition parties. For example, during the 1987 UK General Elections the media coined a derogatory term for the Labour Party, the “Loony Left,” which was extensively used by publications supporting the Conservative Party. Karl Marx was one of the first to point out how this affected society and how the bourgeois ideals trickle down through media. In The German Ideology Marx wrote, “The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it.”
Media ownership also manipulates journalistic media in a different fashion. Media companies are essentially businesses, used to generate incoming substantial profits, which creates a situation in which the content of journalistic media depends on what the majority of the population wants, in a bid to keep selling and making money, keeping their audiences happy by feeding their interests – this is also known as the “market model”. This notion may conflict with the idea that journalism should cater to everyone, including minorities in society. That idea is also known as the “public sphere model.” Jürgen Habermas argued that in democratic societies, the mass media should provide a space for the public to interact. In this space, information should be circulated and shared freely with everyone. These aspects of market limitations are also analysed by Hoynes and Croteau in The Business of Media; where they argue that markets are undemocratic, immoral and promote inequality.
This was something that I always kept in mind during my time working for the _______________ website. As an independent news site, I found that there were a lot more freedoms on what could be published on the site; of course it had to be relative to the areas that we were catering to, but the content had to be purely unbiased. During my work and throughout my articles I made sure that the language I used would not come across as offensive in any way. I wanted to make sure that the point of view in which my articles were written would be completely unbiased, regardless of my own opinions. By doing so, I was definitely representing the ideal “public sphere” characteristics. _______________ is unbiased, free, and available to all, and is controlled by many rather than just a select few powerful individuals who enforce their own personal views on it. There were some articles during my time on ___ where the actions authority of those in power in the East London boroughs was questioned. My personal feeling is that ___ acted as a ‘Free Market Watchdog’– “the principle democratic role of the media, according to traditional liberal theory, is to act as a check on the state. The media should monitor the full range of state activity, and fearlessly expose abuses of official authority.”
I really appreciate the fact that as a __________ owned and student-run news site ___ really provides a very unbiased and attempts to provide its East _____ audience with a wide variety of content; but always making it applicable and relatable to the local area. Throughout my studying of theory I also came to realize that this may not have been possible without the Internet and the rise of social media, or at least would have been extremely challenging.

Audience

Considering the audience is crucial for creators and owners who want their news segments to be successful. This also ties in with the ‘market model’ mentioned previously. One of history’s largest and most infamous media moguls, Rupert Murdoch, has previously stated how crucial audience is in the media market, especially in journalism during a Boyer lecture (2008); “When I was growing up, this was the key lesson my father impressed on me. If you were an owner, the best thing you could do was to hire editors who looked out for your readers’ interests – and give there readers good honest reporting on issues that mattered most to them.”
The basic principles of journalism all revolve around the audience, the journalist is important only as he or she relates to the audience. Basics standards in journalism dictate that the journalist’s primary duty is to tell the audience the truth. The foundations of democracy and freedom require support from informed citizens who rely on journalists to convey to them truthful and contextualized facts. A journalist who does not vigorously search out the truth is doing the audience a disservice. The process by which a topic is investigated is one of amassing and confirming the facts of a situation. Only after this process has been professionally and painstaking accomplished has the journalist met his or her obligation by the audience. Many websites and other purveyors of news rely on selling advertisements and otherwise cater to their source or sources of funding. When advertisers, stockholders, and others demand that their journalists loyalty is to their paychecks instead of their audience, then the journalist cannot perform his or her duty to hold the public interest as the highest responsibility. Journalists, be they reporters for websites or major stations, must be able to perform their jobs without pressure and intimidation from their employers. This first commitment of the journalist must be to the audience; that should also be the first commitment of the owners of the news organisation. If not, the journalist and the news outlet with suffer a loss of credibility eventually. The trust between journalist and audience cannot be comprised for friendship, politics, and certainly not for advertisers.
Obligations to the audience include a meaningful presentation and unbiased interpretation of the issue at hand. The audience is a multidimensional and dynamic entity, therefore the news as represented by a given journalist, website, or new outlet might not be palatable to all. However, to cater news stories to a certain demographic only automatically infringes on the rights of others in the audience to get the facts. Ultimately, credibility and honesty will win a journalist a broader audience and maintain audience loyalty.
Presenting carefully analysed and accumulated facts is not enough. Journalists must endeavor to make the audience understand the importance, magnitude, and consequences of a news story. On top of this, the news needs to be interesting. At its most basic, journalism is the art of conveying events in words and images without embellishment but with style. There needs to be a thorough understanding of what the audience already knows about a given subject and what the audience needs to know to draw an informed conclusion. The success of any given journalism piece will be judges by how successfully it captivates the audience and how it informs the audience. Journalists face the tough decision of determining which facts will be the most instructive to the audience and how to contextualize those facts. Summary
During the making of the magazine project, as a team, we were also very aware of the freedoms and limitations that come with becoming the creators and “owners” of a magazine. Our initial idea was to create a health conscious ecologically inspired magazine. We had a very clear image of who our audience was and we kept this in mind all throughout the making of the magazine, making sure that we kept our focus on what it was that they would want to read and learn from reading our magazine.
Throughout my time at ___________ I have come to learn a lot more about how media ownership affects journalism and the threats it poses in a democratic society and how it interferes with the notion of a ‘public sphere’. As I was working, I feel that these thoughts indirectly influenced the way I worked on ____, and furthered my understanding on the subject. Working on both ___ and the making of the magazine project also really made me reflect and consider who my audience was, and to complete my work always keeping this in mind.

REFERENCES

BARAN, STANLEY J., AND DENNIS K. DAVIS. (2012).  Mass communication theory: foundations, ferment, and future. Australia; United Kingdom: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
CROTEAU, DAVID, AND WILLIAM HOYNES. (2006). The business of media: corporate media and the public interest. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Pine Forge Press.
CURRAN, JAMES. (2002).  Media and power. London: Routledge. 
FOUST, JAMES C. (2005). Online journalism: principles and practices of news for the Web. Holcomb Hathaway.
HABERMAS, JÜRGEN. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere: an inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
MARX, KARL, FRIEDRICH ENGELS, AND KARL MARX. (1998). The German ideology: including Theses on Feuerbach and introduction to the critique of political economy. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
MURDOCH, RUPERT. (2008).  A Golden age of Freedom: Boyer Lectures 2007. Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Corp.
PSYCHOGIOPOULOU, EVANGELIA. (2012). Understanding media policies A European perspective. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.