COMM-125 Introduction to Journalism

Section 1- Language of instruction English

Wednesdays 15:00-18:00
Venue: NEWTON Amphitheatre

Lecture no. 3

1

From the time of the earliest known
journalistic product,

a news sheet circulated in ancient
Rome called
2

the Acta Diurna,

published daily from 59 BCE,

hung in prominent places of the city to
record important social and political
events
3


the earliest newspapers printed using
wooden plates in China
4


the world's first newspaper, published
in Germany in 1605
5

the first American and Cypriot
newspapers,

printed in 1690 and 1878 respectively,
as we saw during our previous
meeting,

6


journalism aims at providing
citizens a free flow of information.
7

Any suppression of this flow, known as
the suppression of the freedom of the
written speech,

results in censorship, as we also saw
during the previous lecture.

8

However, is that only what journalism is
for? To initiate and fulfill the free flow of
info in any form?

Are there any educational, professional
and ethical requirements, to becoming a
journalist?

9
Journalism: Art or Science?
There are educational requirements to
becoming a journalist, otherwise you
wouldn't be in this class!

There are also scientific requirements to
becoming a journalist, one who knows
the technology (machines, software
etc.)





10

BUT, since the journalistic profession is
not yet officially safeguarded (like
medicine, architecture, law etc.),

people from other disciplines, like the
ones mentioned, can also become
journalists.





11

Journalism as an art

To connect this with education, in
journalism, having scientific degrees
and diplomas only, is not enough.
12


Because, becoming a journalist entails
a considerable percentage of
attribution and talent, complimenting
our knowledge.

13

Journalism: a profession or not? or
more?

Of course journalism is a job and
journalists do need to feed their kids,
or pay of loans and mortgages,
14

but being a journalist is not like working
in any other profession.

For example is not like just producing a
commodity or product to sell in the
marketplace.
15

Journalists, though the free flow of
information,

inform society about itself and make
public that which otherwise be private.
16
Hence journalism is also a liturgy,

offering a public service or a service to
society,

like the service offered by the teachers,
or the clergymen.
17

Thus journalism is rather an important
job, you might thing,

with a distinct role in society,
18

having its distinct culture, norms,
conventions and expectations of
behavior

from those who are part of the culture.
19


Many of those expectations are fueled
by the public service aspects of the
profession.
20

For instance, the feeling among
journalists that they are working for the
public good,

not just for their private benefit and self
interest, as most other professions.
21
This 'social responsibility' theory,

puts the journalists into a normative
framework,

which states that they should be driven
to benefit the public!
22

In journalism there are both
professional and ethical standards.

Today we are going to deal basically
with the professional ones, although
the two are difficult to be separated.

23

For example, because journalism's first
loyalty is to the citizenry,

journalists are obliged to tell the truth.
24

This is definitely the highest
professional code. However if
journalists lie,

then we have an unethical dimension,
violating the ethical standards and
undermining professionalism,
25


Irrespective of the fact that these
standards are in most of the cases
prescriptive, (telling what ought to be
done).
26

According to our course outline
however, we will discuss the ethical, or
unethical dimension of journalism
separately, in the last week (no. 13).
27
Back to the role of journalism in
society, which dates back in the 1920s,

as modern journalism was just taking
form,

with the well known Walter Lippmann
vs. John Dewey public debate.
28
In the 1920s American philosophers
Walter Lippmann and John Dewey

engaged in an ongoing debate about
the role of journalists.

The debate never really ended.
29

What they both agreed on was that
journalists play a vital role in a
(democratic) society.
30

Where they disagreed was how that
role should be played.

They argued about whether the press
should be leaders or teachers of the
citizenry
31
Lippmann viewed modern society as
too complex for the average citizen to
make informed choices.

In his view, trained experts were
needed to make decisions and explain
those decisions to the citizenry. A
paternalistic approach!
32
Dewey argued that democracy
required the active participation of
citizens.

According to him it was the job of
journalists and the government to
figure out how to engage the entire
public in the decisions that would affect
them all in the end.
33

At the heart of this debate is whether or
not journalists should really be viewed
by themselves or by society as
professionals.

Lippmann would argue they should.
Dewey provides a caution.

34

Unlike other professions such as law,
medicine or accounting any standard
of journalistic competency

must be centered on practice rather
than theory.
35

For this reason calling a journalist a
professional

would require a peculiar taxonomy to
define a profession.
36

Furthermore, putting journalists to the
realm of professionals is undesirable

because it implies limitations that
diminish the important role they play in
society.

37
The 10 "commandments" of journalism,
according to the Pew Research Center
Journalism Project

1. Journalisms first obligation is to
the truth
Democracy depends on citizens having
reliable, accurate facts put in a
meaningful context.
38

Hence, the first and primary duty of
journalists today, as per the majority of
professional codes globally, is

the seeking and reporting of the whole
truth. Is this feasible or utopian?
39

On this issue, there is absolute
unanimity and also utter confusion:

Everyone agrees journalists must tell
the truth. Yet people are confused
about what the truth means

40

This desire that information be truthful
is elemental.

Since news is the material that people
use to learn and think about the world
beyond themselves, the most important
quality is that it be useable and reliable

41


Truth, it seems, is too complicated for
us to pursue.

Or perhaps it doesnt exist, since we
are all subjective individuals.

42

There are interesting and valid
arguments

on some philosophical (religious) level
about truth
43

but journalism does not pursue truth in
an absolute or philosophical sense.

Journalism canand mustpursue it in
a practical sense.
44

This journalistic truth is a process that
begins with the professional discipline
of assembling and verifying facts.

Then journalists try to convey a fair and
reliable account of their meaning, valid
for now, subject to further investigation.
45

Journalists should be as transparent
as possible about sources (*in week 5
we will discuss the right to protect
confidentiality of sources)

and methods, so audiences can make
their own assessment of the
information.
46

Even in a world of expanding voices
and media saturation,

accuracy is the foundation upon which
everything else is built:
context, interpretation, comment,
criticism, analysis and debate.
47

The truth, over time, emerges from this
forum. As citizens encounter an ever
greater flow of data,

they have more neednot lessfor
identifiable sources dedicated to
verifying that information and putting it
in context.

48

Similarly in academia, when preparing
an academic/scientific work/paper

identifiable sources for verifying
information are a must!



49

According to Badiou,

a complete truth is a fiction because a
truth is never complete, it never
finishes: there is something infinite in
truth.



50



In other words, truth has many
aspects, faces, or sides.


51


From this you can understand that truth
is not single, one, singular, whole,
complete or absolute.

52
Take for example historic truth:
Communist philosophy on the one
hand says that there is only one
historic truth: the one written by the
peoples

While the nationalistic approach says
that the only truth is that of the nation.
53

Hence the well-known verdicts,

our nations truth, their propaganda
or our freedom fighters and heroes,
their terrorists or suicide killers and
vice versa.
54
Similarly, we have other kinds of
bipolar, or dilemmatic truths, such as:

the sex/gender truths (men vs. women,
feminism vs. phallocrat approaches),

the black/negro versus white truth and
so on.
55
There are also many and differing
theories of and on truth.

The five major ones are the following:
correspondence, coherence,
constructivist, consensus and
pragmatic. Each theory presents
perspectives that are widely shared.

56
Of the 5 major substantive theories on
truth mentioned, the Correspondence
Theory best explains the truth of
applied journalism (or journalistic
truth),

since out of it sprang the idea of
"objective reality" representation.
57
Thus, essential/objective truth in
journalism, essentially means that
journalists

do not always promise to tell the truth,
the whole truth and nothing but the
truth.


58

Since, as we explained, this is
practically impossible.

This is understandable and acceptable.


59


If however they choose/decide not to
portray even the objective
reality/truth,



60

either by withholding information and
facts they have, or

by fabricating or altering them and
consciously lie, then this is both
unprofessional and unethical.


61

So what does a journalists obligation
to the truth mean?

Journalists themselves have never
been very clear about what they mean
by truthfulness.

62

This is one reason why the discussion
of objectivity is problematic as well and

has become such a trap!

63

In reality journalism attempts to get at
the truth in a confused world by
stripping information first of any
attached misinformation, disinformation
(half-truth), or self-promoting
information and then letting the
community react.
64

2. Journalisms first loyalty is to
citizens

While news organizations answer to
many constituencies, including
advertisers and shareholders,
65

the journalists in those organizations
must maintain allegiance to citizens
and the larger public interest above
any other

if they are to provide the news without
fear or favor.
66

This commitment to citizens first is the
basis of a news organizations
credibility,

the implied covenant that tells the
audience the coverage is not one-
sided for friends or advertisers.

67

Commitment to citizens also means
journalism should present a
representative picture of all constituent
groups in society.

Ignoring certain citizens or groups, has
the effect of disenfranchising them.
68

3. Journalisms essence is a
discipline of verification

Journalists rely on a professional
discipline for verifying information.
When the concept of objectivity
originally evolved, it did not imply that
journalists are free of bias.
69

It called, rather, for a consistent
method of testing informationa
transparent approach to evidence
precisely
70

so that personal and cultural biases
would not undermine the accuracy of
their work.

The method is objective, not the
journalist.
71


Seeking out multiple witnesses,
disclosing as much as possible about
sources,

or asking various sides for comment,
all signal such standards.

72

This discipline of verification is what
separates journalism from other modes
of communication,

such as propaganda, fiction or
entertainment.
73

But while journalism has developed
various techniques for determining
facts, for instance,

it has done less to develop a system
for testing the reliability of
journalistic interpretation.
74

4. The practitioners of journalism
must maintain an independence
from those they cover

Independence is an underlying
requirement of journalism, a
cornerstone of its reliability.
75

Independence of spirit and mind, rather
than neutrality, is the principle
journalists must keep in focus.

We will discuss the struggling with
your inner self when writing!
76

While editorialists and commentators
are not neutral, the source of their
credibility is still their accuracy,

intellectual fairness and ability to
informnot their devotion to a certain
group, cause or outcome.
77

5. Journalism must serve as an
independent monitor of power

Journalism has an unusual capacity to
serve as watchdog over those whose
power and position most affect citizens.
78

This is recognized to be a barricade
against despotism.

As journalists, we have an obligation to
protect this watchdog freedom by not
downgrading it in frivolous use or
exploiting it for commercial or personal
gain.
79

6. Journalism must provide a forum
for public criticism and compromise

The news media are the common
carriers of public discussion. This
discussion serves society best when it
is informed by facts rather than
prejudice and supposition.
80

It also should strive to fairly represent
the varied viewpoints and interests in
society,

and to place them in context rather
than highlight only the conflicting
fringes of debate.
81

Accuracy and truthfulness require that
as framers of the public discussion

we do not neglect the points of
common ground where problem
solving occurs.
82

7. Journalism must strive to make
the significant interesting and
relevant

Journalism is storytelling with a
purpose. It should do more than gather
an audience or catalogue the
important.
83


For its own survival, it must balance
what readers know they want with what
they cannot anticipate but need.
84


This means journalists must continually
ask what information has most value to
citizens and in what form.
85


Journalism is a form of cartography
and recording: it creates a map for
citizens to navigate society.


86


Inflating events for sensation,
neglecting others, stereotyping or
being disproportionately negative, all
make a less reliable map/record.
87

8. Journalism must keep the news
comprehensive and proportional

Keeping news in proportion and not
leaving important things out are also
cornerstones of truthfulness.
88

The map also should include news of
all our communities, not just those with
attractive demographics.

Majoritarian and minority ones,
mainstream and alternative.
89


This is best achieved by unbiased
newsrooms, with a diversity of
backgrounds and perspectives.
90

9. The practitioners of journalism
must be allowed to exercise their
personal conscience in the
newsroom

Every journalist must have a personal
sense of ethics and responsibilitya
moral compass.
91

Each of us must be willing, if fairness
and accuracy require, to voice
differences with our colleagues,
whether in the newsroom or the
executive suite.
92


News organizations do well to nurture
this independence by encouraging
individuals to speak their minds.
93

This stimulates the intellectual diversity
necessary to understand and
accurately cover an increasingly
diverse society.

It is this diversity of minds and voices,
not just numbers, that matters.
94

10. The practitioners of journalism
must adhere to predefined ethical
standards

(to be examined in week 13)
95