Lecture the Elements of Journalism

7/31/2019 Lecture the Elements of Journalism

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The Principles of Journalism

Thinking about the professionof journalism, as well as the citizens

to whom journalists write for.

Lecture-cum-discussion onThe Elements of Journalism

(Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel)

Sources: Kovach and Rosensitel; www.journalism.org/resources/principles



Background• There seems to be public distrust to journalism (reference:

United States)• So a group called the Committee of Concerned Journalists

(convened by the Project for Excellence in Journalism) began anational conversation among citizens and journalists to reviewthe profession and identify clearly the principles that

journalism should stand for. – Held were more than 20 public forums across the US, a reading

of journalism history, a national survey of journalists – Outcome: The Elements of Journalism



What is Journalism For?

• The primary purpose of journalism is to provide people with theinformation they need to be free and self-governing

• Thus, this purpose associated to journalism is defined by thefunction that news plays in the lives of people

– News media help define our communities as well as help us create acommon language and common knowledge rooted in our reality.

– Journalism also helps identify a community’s goals, heroes, andvillains —as well as reflects a community’s understanding of howcitizens behave

– Pushing people beyond complacency• Note: “The Awareness Instinct”— that people have that desire to

know what’s happening, so journalists must provide that need bythe curious public for information



An Interlocking Public

• There is an interactive relationship between the journalist andthe citizen; even if this relationship changes or evolves, thisrelationship does not disappear

• The job of the news media, in this respect, is to give this morecomplex and dynamic public what it needs to sort out thetruth for itself over time.

• The role of journalism is to help facilitate the understanding of events as a means to help enhance democratic freedom.



Principle 1: Journalism’s firstobligation is to the truth

• Democracy depends on citizens having reliable, accurate factsthat were put in a meaningful context. Truth seeking is theprimary mission of journalism so that people find that truthuseful and reliable in their daily lives

• Truth is to be pursued in a practical sense, so journalists developprocedures and processes to arrive at a practical or functionalform of truth —truths that we can operate on a day-to-day basis

• What about accuracy, fairness, balance? They still matter, butthese are practical means, not abstract ends, to present a truth .People still have their own biases (e.g. bias against a city mayor),but journalists should pursue methods that are accurate, fair, andstrike at getting all sides of the story



Principle 1: Journalism’s firstobligation is to the truth

• Thus, journalists pursue the search for a “journalistic truth” thatbegins with the professional discipline of assembling and verifyingfacts. Then journalists try to convey a fair and reliable account of their meaning —valid for now, subject to further investigation.

– Providing context, interpretation, comment, criticism, analysis anddebate —even if many people are talking online and offline, andinformation is overwhelmingly abundant

• Journalists should also be transparent to the public in how did

they get their stories so that audiences can make their ownassessment of the information presented to them.

• Citizens have more need for identifiable sources dedicated toverifying that information and putting it in context



Principle 2: Journalism’s first loyaltyis to citizens

• Journalism / news media serves many publics (includingadvertisers and shareholders that provide resources to the newsorganization). But to report without fear or favor, the allegiancemust be to citizens and the larger public interest.

– This commitment leads to credibility —that the news coverage is notslanted to friends or advertisers, and helps build loyal audiences

– Economic success then follows if there’s credibility • The balancing act: working for the public interest and for a

newspaper that strives to earn private profits• Commitment to citizens also means journalism should paint a

representative picture of all constituents in a society. Ignoringsome of them has an effect of disenfranchising these citizens (e.g.

poor who cannot buy a newspaper, low-class municipalities)



Principle 2: Journalism’s first loyaltyis to citizens

• Pieces of advice – The owner must be committed to citizens first (tough challenge) – Hiring business managers who also put citizens first (tough too) – Set and communicate clear standards (i.e. having codes of conduct

that reveal the relationships between the news media andadvertisers)

– Journalists have a final say over the news – Communicate clear standards to the public (telling the public how

news organizations operate, e.g. Bill of Rights by Viewers• Challenge: Public distrust over the news (e.g. sensationalism). So

to reconnect people with the news, and through the news to thelarger world, journalism must be loyal to the truth and to citizens(including conveying to citizens the news methods done)



Principle 3: The essence of journalismis a discipline of verification

• “The science of verification”— using accuracy, fairness andbalance as techniques to develop and verify news. These are notthe goals of journalism, but they are there to help us get closer tothe truth by conducting more thorough verification and depictinga reliable version of the events

• The science of reporting – Never add anything that was not there – Never deceive the audience – Be as transparent as possible to audiences about your methods and

motives – Rely on your own original reporting – Exercise humility about your own skills (being open-minded of how people

can change the entire meaning of your story, or tell that there’s no story)



Principle 3: The essence of journalismis a discipline of verification

• Techniques of verification – Edit with skepticism (editing the story line by line, statement by statement) – Keep an accuracy checklist (see page 105) – Assume nothing (don’t rely on officials or news accounts. Get as close as

you can to primary sources. Be systematic. Corroborate) – Be careful with anonymous sources (Guide questions: How much direct

knowledge does the anonymous source have over the event? What, if any,motive might the source have for misleading us, or hiding important factsthat might alter our impression of the information?)

• The discipline of verification is what separates journlaism fromother modes of communication (propaganda, fiction,entertainment)



Principle 4: Journalists must maintainan independence from those they cover

• Independence is a cornerstone of journalistic credibility.Independence of spirit and mind, rather than nneutrality, is theprinciple journalists must keep in focus

• Maintaining distance from faction. You cover them, but youreport not to win their loyalty

• The source of journalists’ credibility is still their accuracy,intellectual fairness and ability to inform —not their deovition to acertain group or outcome

• “Journalism of affirmation”— somebody else offers atruth/opinion; is not about reporting the news, but making senseof the news



Principle 5: Journalists must serve asan independent monitor of power

• Journalism has an unusual capacity to serve as a watchdog overthose whose power and position most affect citizens. As

journalists, we have an obligation to protect this watchdogfreedom by not demeaning it in frivolous use or exploiting it forcommercial gain.

• Watchdog role is many times misunderstood. But the role meansthat journalists watch over the powerful few in society on behalf of the many to guard against tyranny. It also means that the press

should recognize where powerful institutions are workingeffectively, as well as where they are not.



Principle 5: Journalists must serve asan independent monitor of power

• Rise of investigative reporting —or the uncovering anddocumenting of activities previously unknown to the public

• Rise of interpretative reporting —develops a story as a result of acareful thought and analysis of an idea as well as a dogged pursuit

of facts to bring together information in a new, more completecontext that provides deeper public understanding.• Reporting on investigations —Reporting develops from the

discovery or leak of information from an official investigationalready underway on in preparation by others

• On the watchdog role of journalism: It requires special skills, aspecial temperament, a serious commitment of resources, adesire to cover serious concerns, and a press independent of anyinterest except that of the ultimate consumer of the news.



Principle 6: Journalists must provide a forumfor public criticism and compromise

• The news media are the common carriers of public discussion,and this responsibility forms a basis for our special privileges. Thisdiscussion serves society best when it is informed by facts ratherthan prejudice and supposition.

•

Role of the public forum: To illuminate about the issues, not toagitate a few. The news media should also strive to fairlyrepresent the varied viewpoints and interests in society, and toplace them in context rather than highlight only the conflictingfringes of debate. As framers of the public discussion, we not

neglect the points of common ground where problem solvingoccurs.

• The role of the Internet in facilitating a public discussion; citizensare increasingly becoming involved in the news throughcommentary.



Principle 7: Journalists must make thesignificant interesting and relevant

• Journalism is storytelling with a purpose. It should do more thangather an audience or catalogue the important. For its own survival,it must balance what readers know they want with what theycannot anticipate but need.

• Criticisms against infotainment; the usual way of presenting news – Character is missing —sources become templates, not real people – Time is frozen so that everything happened yesterday or this evening – Information is designed for a single audience, not multiple ones – News is presented as a conversation of insiders – Stories don’t illuminate a greater meaning – Little attempt to globalize the local and localize the global – Storytelling is predictable and formulaic – Internet is used as a new place for old material rather as a distinct

technology




• New questions to ask in news reporting (directed at the citizen):a) what’s this story really about? b) Who is the audience for thestory and what information do these people need to know to makeup their minds about the subject? c) Who has the information? d)What is the best way to tell this story.?

• A new definition of the 5 Ws and H: Who is the character, whatbecomes the plot, where becomes the scene or setting, whybecomes motivation or cause, and how becomes narrative. In doingsuch an approach, information and storytelling can blend. Though,this requires more reporting and curiosity on the part of thereporter.




• Doing other means for reporting particular stories – A profile – An explanatory piece – Issues and trend stories – Investigative reporting – Narrative (story with a character, scenes, and tension) – Descriptive day in the life (focuses on a particular moment) – Voices or perspective story –

Visual story (photos, illustrations, graphics as “stories”) – Hour-glass technique – Question and answer articles – Fly on the wall (letting subjects tell their stories) – Using the Internet (videos, audio of interviews, chats, slideshows, graphics)



Principle 8: Journalists should keep thenews comprehensive and in proportion

• Keeping news in proportion and not leaving important things outare also cornerstones of truthfulness. Journalism is a form of cartography (map making): it creates a map for citizens to navigatesociety. This map should include news of all our communities, not

just those with attractive demographics. News that inflate eventsfor sensation, neglecting other people in communities, that dostereotyping or making news disproportionately negative all makea less reliable map. The map is only an analogy: proportion and

comprehensiveness are subjective, yet their elusiveness does notlessen their significance.• Asking citizens (not as news media’s customers) about their lives –

what are they doing, what are their communities doing.



Principle 9: Journalists have an obligationto exercise their personal conscience

• Every journalist must have a personal sense of ethics andresponsibility —a moral compass. They have a personalresponsibility to voice their personal conscience out loud and letother around them to do so as well.

• Journalists should also be willing to voice differences withcolleagues. News organizations do well to nurture thisindependence by encouraging individuals to speak their minds, inorder to stimulate intellectual diversity (this being the real goal)

to understand and accurately cover an increasingly diversesociety.



Principle 10: Citizens, too, have rights andresponsibilities when it comes to the news

• On principle 1 (truthfulness) and 3 (verification): Citizens havethe right to expect that the verification efforts to get the news bemade transparent. The citizen has an obligation also to approachthe news with an open mind.

• On principle 2 (loyalty to citizens): Stories should answer ourneeds as citizens and not just the interests of player and thepolitical or economic system

• On principle 4 (independence): Citizens have the right to expect

that commentators, columnists and journalists of opinion areserving the interests of citizens’ debate rather than the narrowinterests of a faction. Citizens also have the right to demand thatopinion writers’ pieces have examined others’ ideas.




• On principle 5 (monitor of power): Citizens have the right toexpect monitoring on the most important and difficult centers of power (not just government, but others as well). Citizens alsoexpect the use of investigative reporting to uncover things that

are important and new and that change community paradigms.• On principle 6 (public forum) and 10 (personal conscience):

Citizens expect news providers to create several channels throughwhich citizens can interact with the news media.




• On principle 7 (proportionality and engagement):Citizens have aright to expect journalists to provide us with the need for timelyand deep knowledge of important issues and trends in ourcommunity. We expect journalists to use their unique access to

information to put the material they gather in a context that willengage our attention and see trends and events in proportion totheir true significance in our lives.



THE FINALS•

3JRN3: Divide into groups with 15 members (with one group with14 members) / 3JRN4: Groups with 13 members (with one groupwith 12 members)

• Each group will draw lots of the locale that their groups willproduce reports on: Manila, Quezon City, and UST.

• Once they have drawn their locale for their reporting, groups willconduct a journalistic market research to know the lives of citizens in these areas, and to identify what information isrelevant to their lives. They will do this exercise for one week.

• Once the market research is done, then groups will design a newsblog targeting people from Manila/Quezon City/UST, and designan online news publication about the people in Manila/QuezonCity/UST.



THE FINALS• Each group will have its own roster of editors and reporters, as

well as web/blog design staff and photographers/illustrators• For their news blog, each group must present a framework for

their news stories and must explain the information andnews/features they provide

• All staff members must write one story apiece (400-1000 wordsper story). The editorial board will then package the stories into anews blog. The packaging of the stories must try to abide byprinciple 7 —to make the significant stories interesting andrelevant (see next slide)

• On October 16, the news blog must be online. Student groups willalso submit the following: a) all hard copies of the articles written;b) a 2-3 page written report about their community marketresearch; and c) printout of the news blog.

Lecture the Elements of Journalism

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