Truth. Or not?
Truth is not a very commonly used word in journalism cause lets face it... nobody wants to hear or read the truth. Our society has worked so hard at not telling the truth that when it is said, or written, the people who are behind that truth they claim are scolded and frowned upon. As journalists we need to keep a newspaper, magazine, website, or blog up and running and keep our readers entertained and tuned in every day,week, or month to what you are writing about.
There is a article http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/102541/Journalisms-First-Obligation-Is-to-Tell-the-Truth.aspx and in the this article it tells us that journalists have an obligation to tell the truth and sometimes people are fuddled to what the truth means exactly, or truth doesn't excite at all. That journalists for years have been saying that there are no steps to take for journalists to find that absolute truth. It ends with no definite answer with how can we tell the truth as journalists, or what the definition in truth for journalism is, but leaves it open ended like the author wants us to end it for him, but saying that finding the truth in journalism is a continuing process.
Finding truth in anything is a continuing process like faith. You have so many people trying to tell truth which is basically God in faith; Christianity, but you have so many different influences in the world of faith today it's hard to believe just one person, or one church because a lot of times in faith we can't always have what we want and we want everything. We want everything we want and have it be the exception. Just like us journalists we want our articles to have everything we want, and have our articles be the exception, we want them to grab peoples attention, have them talk about it, have an interest in it, and may or may not support it.
As people, the consumers, we are somewhat blindsided to this so-called "truth". We mainly believe what we read, we're not critical thinkers today because we depend on others most of the time for news, facts, and information. That's where us the journalists come in and as of now a lot of news is trash and not truthful. The news is trash because it's not real news if it's not truthful and yes, we want our articles to strive and be the best, but our we doing good by our society?
Loyalty comes with truth meaning as journalists we have a certain obligation (again) and allegiance to tell the truth to our readers. As an aspiring journalist I know I have done most of what it is said of journalist when it come to loyalty and giving consumers truth. It is after all our duty to do so and I rather live and read of a world full of truth then not.
I really liked what you said about journalists wanting our articles to be different and exceptional and stand out above others. We want people to understand our truth and to understand the amount of work we do to get those truths. Our truths become very important to us, but that doesn't mean they will be important to our readers.
ReplyDeleteYou make a great connection to Faith here. I think that Truth could be a Faith issue at a lot of levels. At one point, as journalists, we have to have faith that the stories we uncover are true and we have to have the confidence to pass it along to others. It's not the same as religious faith by a long shot, but I do think faith plays a role in truth.
You consider yourself a journalist, and I'm so glad you do. You have a thorough understanding of the truth and the implications behind the loyalty and allegiance to the truth.
This is a great first blog entry. Thank you!