Journalism and the Values on Which It Is Based - Coursework Example

Running Head: JOURNALISM AND THE VALUES ON WHICH IT IS BASED DYING Journalism and the values on which it is based, dying Name: Institution: Date: Introduction Globalization has mixed up a paradigm shift within the value system of many professions with no exception of journalism. Journalism is considered as one of the leading ethical pursuits across the globe. This has made journalists to face ethical dilemma in their daily jobs, thus making journalism and the values on which it is based to dying. In addition, the future of journalism has united journalists, commentators, academics and editors from BBC and to extensively debate on the current issues that affect journalism which arose within their daily work. In the contemporary world, as technology transforms the lives of journalists and their clients, assumption on the really definition of journalism and how it is being practiced are re-examined (Schultz, 1998). Since we live in the current era in which journalism and the entire public within the United States and world at large are struggling so as to reach a consensus on the really constituents of a good journalism, readers and viewers need to agree that journalism plays an important role in democratic society. In addition, value-based journalism which is an evolving concept based on the widespread core value needs to be practiced. Such values guides the general public on how to distinguish between right and wrong, what to do or not, good or bad. Based on the understanding that journalism is a public service, these values can be considered as guiding principles in behavior management that journalists must follow. This should be taken into consideration as they provide true and accurate, unbiased as well as transparent news, views and analysis to their civic societies. The study provides a critical analysis on how journalism and the values it is based dying based on Australian Press Council report on trends in newspaper, emerging technologies and other literature presentations. It also presents suggestions on how to build a better journalism (Australian Press Council, 2006). One major factor that continuously drives the sluggish journalism job market is the rapid change in the medium through which consumers receive their news. However, several factors hinder the value-based journalism among the newspaper journalists, particularly in Africa. Such factors include circulation difficulties, government control, legal information, access to information, inadequate training as well as poor internet connectivity. Some age groups have been discovered as not reading newspapers so much and the circulation is also threatened. Nearly half of the individuals who happen to read Australian metropolitan newspapers are approximately fifty. However, successful responses to the challenges posed by the Internet challenge were considered essential. This implies that journalistic practice largely runs into very serious problems in considering its target audience and methods of news reportage. It also seems to be a particular problem the commercial television stations that garner nearly all of their profits basically from advertising sales. For instance, sales which depend on a selling target market that is shared through a channel as well as its potential advertisers (Australian Press Council, 2006). Larsen (2001) examined that with less notable exceptions, all the forms of media are increasingly in decline based on their journalistic performance. He also claims that the desperate search for the readers and viewers to a larger extent corrupts the process of news reporting. The question remains what happens in case certain news story fails to appeal the news product of a given target market, does it have to be tailored in order to become more attractive? Or generally left out? This stimulates others questions such as what happens if the news product fails to suit its own target market? Do the ratings drop? Do advertisers pull out? The resistance of mainstream news media has on large scale prevented the segments of journalism and its education from exploring. This reap what could be considered as solution to the long-term economic hardships associated with aging, dwindling readership and the threats to vitality of the daily newspaper. The contemporary crisis of corporate journalism is driven in partly by the revolution in digital communications. This not only reduces the cost, but also leads to a dramatic democratization of production content. For instance, it would appear to be a grave mistake to support the development of a corporate journalism with the pubic funds or make policy changes that may aim at restoring its governing positions within the public sphere. According to Schultz (1998) traditionally most of the news media have been examined as the watchdog of democracy. This view has survived for almost two centuries. Schultz also argued that unlike how it was in the eighteenth century, newspapers are perceived to be a small section of the news media, methods as well as scale of the contemporary media which are vastly distinctive to the counterparts in the eighteenth century. He added that media is currently a flawed watchdog and a huge international business that highly suspected of practicing the self-interested political and economic power instead of providing the disinterested check role on power abuse by others. Blogs are considered by certain segments of the traditional journalism as part of the threat in journalistic practices. This is because the format does not several qualities that have the traditional definition of journalism. The ability of the entire public to contribute widely to the online blogs, acts as sources for public stories without the presence of journalists or to develop their private online publications creates a new element within the field of journalism referred to as citizen journalism. This combination in the ubiquity of cameras and the alleviated transformation has made non-journalist to get the original photos to newspapers prior to the arrival of police. Certainly, such individuals are not able to manage the news reporting in either way, and thus the public get news as it occurs. However, this incidence raises questions related to public relations such as the need to have balance and fairness in the material as well as check for their accuracy (Blood, 2003). Newspapers have, therefore, increased difficulty in the prevention of public inaccurate material, creating for themselves a chance for reputation destruction. The high expectation trend by newspapers that a new staff is required to be all-purpose, multi-skilled, very ethically sensitive as well as infinitely flexible work-horses and ready for any happenings over the thirty-year careers, seems to be a big ask. This implies that training institutions and the newspapers themselves need to become wise by devoting a substantial amount of resources to the task of staff development. In doing so, it becomes easy to ensure that the industry cope with the dying situation of journalism and it is based values (Dube, 2004). A number of news corporations have created their private and separate codes of professional conduct to guide journalists as well as other media professionals. For instance, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) are major news institutions identified with the ability to host all-inclusive sets of journalistic standards within their charters, complaints, review procedures and editorial policies. Although much is known concerning all the collective efforts made, minimal work has been accomplished to systematically make interrogations in the continuity of pressing issues across the entire field of journalism (Palser, 2002). Technological change and application such as the use of internet is considered as one major agent of change that is associated with profound impact on aspects of journalism. Although perceived to be fragmenting the traditional journalism across the newly developed information platforms and participants, technology is a way to become inclusive and democratizing. It is clearly indicated that traditional journalism is undergoing tremendous transformation and evolution. One of the major challenges that are currently contributing to the dying of journalism and values it is based is to come up with the best way to compensate for the good and solid journalism within this changing environment. It has also become a difficult task to sustain and develop the audience. Additionally, the general public is left with task of deciding on how they expect journalism to be described in the future as well as how to reinvent the journalism profession with either revenue or business models that could muster the challenges faced today. It is not clear how exactly journalism will be perceived in the coming era. However, some values embedded within the legacy journalism such as journalistic ethics and benchmarks, truth and balance as well as credibility are the key values that have to be considered to make journalism survive the evolution amidst the onslaught of positioned news markets once controlled by the large scale operating companies and producers (Welch, 2003). Building a better Journalism Good journalism should be perceived as a public good that develops a positive externality since it can create a value that exceeds the revenue stream it produces. Therefore, productive journalism benefits a society by watch-dogging the public and private sectors. It is required to regulate waste fraud and the associated abuses as well as inform the general public on the significant issues of the public policy. This suggests that ongoing crisis within the field of journalism should be considered as an opportunity to establish an institution that is essential our worldwide democracy more than democratic itself. It is so obvious to examine that enriching journalism may be the task of persons who participate in developing it and how flawed it appears to be when limited to the few privileged people (Heyboer & Kelly, 2004). The most important task that we can implement as media advocates and true activities is to basically shepherd journalism from its current state to where we expect it to be. It is apparent that the challenges which journalism faces are very complex based on various levels. For instance, the landscape of journalism is literally varying from angle to angle and perspective to perspective. Journalism is basically about people, not the technology In order to survive and develop within the digital age, journalists have to to adopt the new way of thinking as well as approaching their journalism craft. Although re-examining the skills and technology can be the easy way, there is need to recognize people as part of the new information ecosystem and the best decision to develop in the journalism world. For example, the pace of distraction for the mainstream media that include daily newspapers, magazines and the local TV stations is making efforts to become in full force. This implies that the development of the business model is receiving the true focus it merits, meaning the general public has already started to glimpse how the next materialization of the sustainable journalism appears to be (Welch, 2003). Conclusion One major factor that continuously drives the sluggish journalism job market is the rapid change in the medium through which consumers receive their news. In addition, the major challenge that is currently contributing to the dying of journalism and values it is based is to come up with the best alternative to compensate for the good and solid journalism within this changing environment. Newspapers have, therefore, increased difficulty in the prevention of public inaccurate material, creating for themselves a chance for reputation destruction. Good journalism should be perceived as a public good that develops a positive externality since it can create a value that exceeds the revenue stream it produces. References Australian Press Council. (2006).The state of the news print media report 2006 (Chap. 1 & 2). Australian press. Blood, R. (2003). Weblogs and journalism: Do they connect? Nieman Reports. 57(3), 61-63. Dube, J. (2004). Blogs are still rare, but fostering community. CyberJournalist.net. Retrieved July 29, 2011 from, Heyboer, K., & Kelly, J., (2004). Bloggin' in the newsroom. American Journalism Review, 25(8), 10-11. Larsen, J. Z. (2001). On the roller coaster', Columbia Journalism Review, November/December. Columbia. Palser, B. (2002). Journalistic blogging. American Journalism Review, 24(6), 58-59. Schultz, J. (1998). Reviving the fourth estate (Chap. 10). Australia, Cambridge University Press Schultz, J. (1998). Reviving the fourth estate. In reviving the fourth estate: democracy, accountability, and the media (pp. 230-238). New York: Cambridge University Press. Welch, M. (2003). The new amateur journalists weigh in. Columbia Journalism Review. 42(3), 21-22. Read More