Defining anything is hard, but can it be done?
What I've learnt so far is that today, and maybe since journalism was invented, journalism is meant to hold up and represent values that are similar to what religion and the police force are meant to represent, or is that do?
It's suggested that Julius Cesare invented journalism when in 59 BCE he had posted in public spaces his Acta Diurna (Daily Acts). In other words, news. It was not all the news that was fit to print, but it was a start.
Journalism didn't become a specialised and autonomous filed until the 19th century. But, professional news people existed as far back as the 17th century. The first privately published English newspaper was the Corante. Its first edition was printed in 1621.
The functions of journalism are said to be...
- To act as a mirror of society
- To help keep the people in power honest
- To act as an agent for good
- To protect, inform and promote democracy
- To tell the world what is happening
- To protect the public interest
These edited six points come from News as it Happens, 2nd Ed by Stephen Lamble.
This list sounds unrealistic to me. Because few people in the world operate by these rules, or morals if you like, so why should they choose to obey these rules just because they work for a newspaper? If you've read any newspaper, you will see that they don't, though several try hard.
Today, creating news without views seems impossible. Editorials I find a waste of time. How is it that an editor thinks that they have a right to tell the public what is right for them just because they edit a newspaper? Even if editorials are written, or edited by a group of skilled writers, no newspaper has the right to tell people what is the right way to think about a subject.
Once, some person came up with the idea that NEWS stood for North, East, West. South. In a way, this is a good description of what news is. Because it comes from all directions with all the usual inflections connected to this information. An editorial comes from one direction and it is meant to tell you what to think. Rarely does an editorial suggest. Have a read of any editorial and you will find the word "must". Editorials tell you what you must think. They tell you what others must do.
You will notice in the six functions of journalism above that none mention you must listen to and act upon what an editor tells you. If I had a friend who told me what I must do every day, they would not be my friend for long.
Journalism is not about telling people what they must think or do. For me, journalism is about informing people about what is going on in the world. News should be news not views.
July 4, 2019.
July 4, 2019.
