The first accountability of journalism is to present information with social significance as it is. There may be hardly any reason for journalists to precise their personal opinion on points or facts. Forming a judgment or an opinion or idea primarily based on a journalistic report is the readers’ prerogative. However, journalists are the narrators of details or reality, not campaigners for upholding or selling an thought or opinion. Apart from describing or narrating what stands in the open, journalists need also to dig deep so as to look into the roots; inviting the readers to have a look at it with them: Journalism becomes significant when it tells us the stories which might be hidden behind what all of us can see.
Journalists ought to and should not give undue importance to sensational news that should not have much significance within the lives of the readers and the viewers alike; this kind of observe primarily comes from the desire to attract consideration of the latter, which, more usually than not, overshadows the first journalistic responsibility of presenting socially important information that concern the readers and the audience in a technique or the other.
It’s solely, and only, the readers and the viewers who are the ‘jury and the judges’; journalists ought to and must let them pass their judgment on numerous issues, – it’s their responsibility, while a journalist’s accountability is to provide the readers with sufficient information for them to kind correct judgment on varied points and themes. Sometimes journalists try to influence public opinion in favor of a specific side of a difficulty; this is probably a deadly observe, particularly if the side the Fix Media takes is the flawed one, and the public opinion has actually tilted in favor of that particular side in consequence of such position on the part of the media.
Setting heinous crimes similar to rape and homicide themselves as socially significant issues with out giving undue (and virtually indecent and inappropriate) importance to social identity of individuals towards whom these crimes have been committed is one of the fundamental prerogative of the journalist. So much so that when a woman is raped and murdered; the news must be anticipated to be on the front page, better still if it comes out because the ‘lead news’ of the day regardless whether or not the sufferer is a poor lady from a street corner or an actress, a star, or a girl from a rich or upper-center class family. This strategy makes room for treating news involving the identical crime on equal footing regardless the social identity of the victims in each case, and goes a great distance in forming public opinion against heinous crimes.
It might be the case that in a society crime news, akin to news of rape and homicide, haven’t been given due remedy and importance for a fairly lengthy period of time, as if they are not very critical issues. This could in the end end result within the basic tendency of taking heinous crimes like rape and murder lightly in that society. A really small and ‘carelessly written’ news of a murder or rape of a girl from among the many frequent people on the back-web page or at the remote corner of an inside-page of a newspaper makes murder or rape look like nothing a lot or even less than that. Correct understanding of which type of news is socially more important than the other (varieties) and the capability for grading news items in accordance with their social significance or possible and probable social impact is the hallmark of true journalism. The social significance of a news merchandise that does not profit us in the least (although, it’d make us amused or sad in an detached means) is way less than that of a news item that makes us really feel very fearful about our personal safety. That is so, because this type of news also makes us aware of our personal safety and security.