Week 8: Truth & Objectivity: Post Modern Casualties or Victims of PR Piracy?

(Meta, 2009)

Journalists, without a doubt, have a moral responsibility to play in the society. What they write inform their readers of an event, the society or even the world. News are influential to many; the impact may be far reaching to the extent of shaping perceptions, mindsets and behaviours of them. This thus explains the need for a credible and upright news media to report on the various issues, correctly and objectively.

Tickle (2001) stated that the two most important role of a journalist would be to interpret reality as honestly as possible for their audience and create a commonality of understanding for the public. News clearly should contain truth and objectivity, yet, the challenge of news writing often arise as the understanding of these two aspects - truth and objectivity, often vary from one person to another.

There may be thousands of books and journals that discussed on this aspect of journalism; theorists may even put forward a list of factors that affect truth and objectivity - religious convictions, philosophical convictions, personal integrity, lack of time, technology etc., thereby encouraging journalist to pay extra attention on these factors to ensure truth and objectivity in their reports. Yet, in the real world out there, theories do not fit nicely into actual practice; there are certainly grey areas are often debatable.

Some (Bowman, L. & McIlwaine, 2001) propose the need for journalist to stick to a three-stage enquiry process, encouraging journalists to participate in reactive reporting, analytic reporting and reflective reporting to ensure comprehensiveness, truth and objectivity of their writings. Nevertheless, in the modern news media where there is an intense competition over the speed of message transmission, perhaps sacrificing speed for the sake of paying more attention to the comprehensiveness, truth and objectivity of news is way too idealistic.

Moreover, news media may have other bigger concerns, be it for commercial gains or, like in Singapore, to support the government in bringing harmony to and begetting progress for the society. To demand for absolute truth and objectivity in journalism, are we being over-demanding?

Reference

Bowman, L. & McIlwaine, S. (2001), The Importance of Enquiry in Journalism: Theory in Practice, by Tapsall, S. & Varley, C., Oxford University Press, pp. 102-111.

Meta, P. 2009. Truth in News Media. [Image] Available from: http://blog.metaprinter.com/images/qqxsgWalterCronkite.jpg [Accessed 30 June 2011].

Tickle, S. 2001. The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but…, in Journalism Theory in Practice, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne.