Journalism is the timely reporting of events at the local, provincial, national and international levels. Reporting involves the gathering of information through interviewing and research, the results of which are turned into a fair and balanced story for publication or for television or radio broadcast. Journalism is not just about fact-finding, media analysis, opinion writing, or, commentary although all of those aspects can play a part at times.
According to “The Elements of Journalism”, a book by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, there are ten elements of journalism. In order for a journalist to fulfill their duty of providing the people with the information, they need to be free and self-governing. They must follow these guidelines:
1. Journalism's first obligation is to the truth.
2. Its first loyalty is to the citizens.
3. Its essence is discipline of verification.
4. Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover.
5. It must serve as an independent monitor of power.
6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise.
7. It must strive to make the significant interesting, and relevant.
8. It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional.
9. Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience.
10. Its the rights and responsibilities of citizens.
Generally, publishers and consumers of journalism draw a distinction between reporting — "just the facts" — and opinion writing, often by restricting opinion columns to the editorial page and its facing or "op-ed" (opposite the editorials) page. Unsigned editorials are traditionally the official opinions of the paper's editorial board, while op-ed pages may be a mixture of syndicated columns and other contributions, frequently with some attempt to balance the voices across some political or social spectrum. The distinction between reporting and opinion can break down. In the UK, the Press Complaints Commission states that "the Press, whilst free to be partisan, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact" but some commentators have suggested there can sometimes be a blurring of opinion and fact.[5] Complex stories often require summarizing and interpretation of facts, especially if there is limited time or space for a story. Stories involving great amounts of interpretation are often labelled "news analysis," but still run in a paper's news columns. The limited time for each story in a broadcast report rarely allows for such distinctions.
However in all over the world journalism is transforming into activism, which could be described with current fast pace requirement of journalist activities in which media company apply all possible campaigning operation to make stories for news. The current tool for activism is being popular is “Citizen Journalism”, through which Media companies invite common citizen to participate in their newspaper or news channel. However they edit the news received by citizen journalists.
Activism is also contrast the real journalist job through following operations:
1. Fabricated media stories by exaggerating simple things into complex
2. News and stories with journalist personal point of view, and when a journalist tries to impose his/her point-of-view on rather than the facts.
3. When Media become party supports only one side and show only one side of story
4. Activist journalist also include selected and biased experts for their point of view
5. Behind every activist action there must be some interests of some country, political party, capitalist or any mafia etc.
6. Due the most activist deeds in journalism many times rights of common people are not considered and journalists apply every ethical or unethical exploitation of news for just gaining personal benefits.
Activism usually build following transgression in society
• Culture of sensationalization
• Politics and Economy
• Gender Discrimination
• Conflicts: Human security issues
• Mass Media and Public Interest: Norms and Ethics of Media
• Mass Media and Democracy
• Media Change and Social Change- Promoting Violent Behaviours
Regards,
Muhammad Owais
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