By the end of the twentieth century, in deed if not in name, America's journalistic leaders had been transformed into businesspeople. Half of them report that they spend at least a third of their time on business matters rather than on journalism.Based on your reading of Chapter 3, write a response to this assertion. In other words, should we be alarmed that journalism is a business? Why is this a problem? What difference does it make? Or is it a problem at all? If not, why not?
As citizens, we should be alarmed.
Refer to the examples in the chapter (or other recent examples you discover) and write a short essay of about 150 words (about 10 sentences) in response to the Kovach and Rosenstiel statement. Post your response by midnight Sunday. We will discuss these responses in class on Monday. See you then.
5 comments:
Zak Patterson
Of course citizens should be alarmed that journalism is turning into a business. "After Vietnam and Watergate, and later the advent of the 24-hour cable news, journalism became noticeably more subjective and judgmental. Coverage was focused more on mediating what public people were saying than simply reporting it" (57). This created more of a focus on telling people what they wanted to hear, rather than the actual facts. You can look at FOX news and CNN and how the portray the news differently, because they are trying to please their "customers," if we're thinking about business. When I think of "journalism as business," it springs to mind the petty journalism that exists today. The other day I saw a headline that said "Salma Hayek sizzles in photoshoot." Well, that doesn't really seem like a journalistic work critical to society. So much journalism focuses on celebrity gossip/worship, because that is what people read. It is a business. Rather than trying to please the celebrity worshippers of the world, journalists should focus more on topics that are necessary to enlighten citizens.
barrett hunter
I do agree with this statement. Kovach and Rosenthal say that above all journalism has to be loyal to the citizens. I interpret this as journalism has the responsibility to report news to us completely unbiased and void of any other intentions other than to inform us with the full and accurate truth. Even the News channels such as Fox News and CNN are completely biased. And this political bias is extremely evident in the present day presidential campaign coverage. Both news sources are geared towards a target market like any other business. Journalism has become a business in the sense that it is presented in a way entertain instead of inform. For example, the creation of the “paparazzi” is astounding to me. How much does it affect our well-being to know what celebrities are doing on an everyday basis? Journalism started as a way to spread news and ideas and has changed into another big business no different than food chains.
Andrus Rodriguez
Yes, of course we should be alarmed about journalists investing more time on their MBOs (Management By Objectives) as their bottom lines rather than focusing their time to investigating stories. This is a problem like Sandra Rowe said in the book, “Are they journalists who understand business? Or are they businesspersons who understand journalism?” (62) The creative drive to want to write the wrongs in society will be gone. There will be no more truths to reveal in the face of sponsorships because of the luring dollar signs on media. And it may be considered fine to teach your staff on business points to assure the survival of that particular media as Rowe said, but it’s the price that we as a society pay for going along with the illusion. So what’s the difference? The difference would only matter if you as the individual cared at all. We all have the responsibility to want more out of the media. It is a luxury that some of us are not taking more advantage of by expecting more than what they want to spoon feed us and to questioning what is pulled through the tube as news that really means something to us other than what is promotional.
Michael Thomas
I completely agree that we should be alarmed that journalists of today focus more on the business side of things. My reasoning for this is that, as said before on the topic of ethics and utilitarianism, we should seek what is the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Taking this system into a business or economical stand point would translate to a very basic form of supply and demand. If the demand for certain focus of news is high, then people will be enticed by the journalists that report on it. And in making the decision to invest physically, mentally, and financially in that which is in demand, is almost always a sound business decision. For instance, the presidential campaigns are very important topics every four years.
Maggie Tracy
I definitely agree with my classmates that this is alarming; how else will we know what is actually and truthfully happening in the world if we cannot trust the sources we turn to because we know they are just trying to further their popularity. We should not want to the news to tell what we want to hear but rather what we need to hear. What I found to be pretty shocking was the story Kovach and Rosenstiel told about newspapers “isolating” certain groups of people. They say, “In television, that meant designing the news…” (59) which is of course incorrect because the news is and should be things that actually happened to real people that are actually important. It should not be the news that news stations and papers think we want to know. If we cannot trust our news sources to give us complete and accurate news, who can we count on?
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