Journalism

Journalism. It’s a difficult word to describe. Obviously we have the big news organizations on television and the ever-growing popularity of cable news who all claim to be unbiased. The bias more often than not comes from the money that runs the news organization. One shouldn’t anger the gods that pay the bills. So, where is the news of yesteryears? Or is this the same thing we just have a different perspective on it?
The glamorous age of turn of the 20th century journalism seemed to have a purity to it. “Just the facts.” Journalism though hasn’t changed. World news is more immediate. The computer generation has changed the way that we receive world news events. And even in some larger communities, the “community news” information is more immediate. I write for small town, weekly news. So when I think about those things that make items newsworthy like timely and proximal, it tends to become more blurred. It’s not possible to be timely. Often the news is definitely hours, absolutely days and more often than not weeks and months behind. And, all too often, the societally important information isn’t printed at all for fear of bringing attention to individuals in a small town that—I’ll say it—have power, money. Or ultimately the fear that a newspaper editor may let something go to print that may not be factually accurate and slip through an already overworked staffs fact-checking capabilities. Small town news is not known for its large fact checking staff.
It’s that battle that I’ve recently been debating. I know of at least two incidences where “damaging” information has been written about well after the initial event. My thoughts have been challenged as to whether the information should have been written about at all. My nosey newspaper nose tells me that if it’s public information, it should be written about. My personal attachment to the story tells me that maybe if a small town weekly newspaper can’t write about the information in a timely fashion, it shouldn’t be written about at all. Walking away from a story is never easy for a journalist. Especially if the story could bring prominence to the journalist.
Does a delay of news today indicate to the reader a different viewpoint than the delay of the 20th century? News is not unbiased. Journalists are in fact human. They have a responsibility to report the facts, but all too often, those facts are from the perspective on which the journalist wishes to center. So does printing a story months after the event lead the reader to render a different opinion than if it was more immediate? After all, if the news is now being written about only two things could have happened (note my fallacy in logic there):it just happened or the journalist has been researching and writing a factually accurate story so it must be true. Does the reader know the difference? Or care to know the difference? Or does the reader simply read the article to find out the dastardly details about someone else’s life? Maybe ultimately the reader doesn’t care if the story is true or not.
I walked away from a story once for a large publication that would have been impossible for me to write without a biased opinion. And, very honestly, knew that to find the true story would have closed doors tightly. The story would have furthered my career and brought me prominence, but I decided that the opportunity for both would happen again and knew that the other door would never be reopened. And it all came down to the slant. The publisher was looking for one kind of story and I believed that the truth couldn’t be written to fit that profile. I now know that my gut was correct and walking away was the right thing to do. But what if I hadn’t walked away? Would I have believed the same thing? Or would I have simply written it the way they wanted? And if the journalists aren’t sure how can we ever be sure that the reader will question what we write? And as a reader that’s their job in any kind of journalism today.
That ultimately, is the difference. Early journalism was accepted as fact and rarely questioned. But with the quick to print of today’s news, what can the reader trust? There has to be a happy medium between the small town wait and the immediacy of others.