"I am the Founder of Diversity Tomorrow, becuase today is almost over."

This is a subject that journalists discuss time and time again, or at least that is the way it feels in my journalism classes. Because it is discussed so much I think that sometimes we tend to let it slide, to think we already know it, and don't take it as seriously as we should. As journalist we need to be independent from not only the topic we cover, political parties, and big businesses, but also from our close relationships and friends. As a member of the press we cannot show our political affiliations and support. The best way to describe this is, as said by group 7, is "True to a set of ideas rather than a member of a team, someone who put his readers first."  This is what we need to strive to do continually. This is what separates us from the millions of bloggers, tweeters, and mlia-ers.

We also need to be aware of the readers. We need to giver independence to our readers regardless of economic status, race, ethnic, religion, gender, etc. We cannot only cover certain types of people and isolate the rest. We also need this independence in the newsroom. As a good friend of mine, Michael Scott would say, we should celebrate diversity.

John Swinton, former Chief of Staff of the New York Times, is attributed to saying that there is no such thing as an Independent Press in America, nor has there ever been.  (http://tinyurl.com/6cl8le) We are all too connected with the people around us. So how are we supposed to be fair to the readers if we can never be truly independent? It is our ethics and morals that do this. The study of professional journalists has many useful links and outlines on the conduct that journalist should maintain throughout their career. While looking through this I realize how tough it can be to do this, but it is something that is necessary to be done in this career field. (http://tinyurl.com/cyuot5)

Change From Within

Verification: The beating heart of credible journalism in the public interest. I love the imagery of the beating heart, but when I think about it, it's literally the beating heart of our profession. Without constant and thorough verification, we cease to be journalists and turn into normal citizens reporting news. In a sense, we die and become someone new. Verification is what sets us apart from the rest.
Unfortunately, with the onslaught of fast and easy media sources open to the public, this is getting harder. Not only do we have to verify our facts, but any pictures or video that we decide to use as well. Images and video can be easily doctored and played with. Last month a guide was produced to help journalist learn how to verify images. (http://tinyurl.com/42puhcd) This guide goes step by step on how to figure out if the image you wish to use is authentic. In this it talks about a website called http://www.tineye.com/. This is a reverse image search website that can take any image you have and find where it came from and what has been done to it. Usually. I'll admit it isn't quite 100% accurate, but it is extremely helpful for journalists.
Along with verifying, a journalist must also be open with their audience. This is called transparency. This means to show your audience why and what you are doing. This involves explaining how you learned something and why you believe it (if you are using an anonymous source). This will help gain the trust of your readers. I think transparency is extremely important. You need to be completely open with the readers and hide nothing, or else you could end up with no readers at all.

This video is inspiring. This was a call for change in New Orleans called silence is violence. It was started when the city was struggling with violence tremendously. One out of every five people in the city was in prison. The goal was to reform criminal justice for the people of the city.  The people had no face, no voice, and no one cared. They were the invisible men in the community. A community organizer, a journalist, and a public defender made this short series shared these members of society story. How did they get this story out? Transparent journalism. They were raw, open, and truthful stories and images that the public was before blinded to. Because of this story the real life of the "faceless" men and women of New Orleans gained their voice. The story is called a Change from Within. It is one of the most open, moving, and real pieces of journalism I have seen in a very long time. It is the perfect example of transparent journalism.

For the Love of the Job

In my past post I've spent all my time talking about why I want to be a journalist and why I think the media is important but haven't once said what journalism actually is. While this answer seems simple, like most things, it is not.  Journalism is not just the newspaper or the news. As I was searching for words to describe it I found an interesting site called savethemedia.com. Deep in its archive(http://tinyurl.com/ddao3a), I found Gina Chen, a newspaper journalist for 20 years. She described journalism as, "Telling true stories, communicating information that will help people make sense of their world, and getting the story behind the story." I think this is the perfect description of what all journalists truly want to do.
One of the key things that hit me while learning about this was how important world views are to journalist. Having an open mind about the world is extremely important as a journalist. Where you are from, so for me Happy Valley, also influences how and what type of things you will report. As a member of Happy Valley, I may tend to report things from a different point of view than others. In this article (http://tinyurl.com/ylcadwz) the author calls for a more unbiased press. She calls the media biased because of our world views. I disagree with her. Like Gina Chen said in her article, we are to help people make sense of their world. As strange as it sounds, we all are living in different worlds. Everything we do, see, taste, hear, smell, or communicate will change the way we view the world, so in a sense we can never be unbiased.
As journalists this means we have to make certain we have pre-set beliefs, attitudes, and values. We need to make sure we report the truth in the best, most fair, and accurate way we know how. Then, maybe one day, we will be lucky enough to report on a story like this:

An Interesting Sidenote...

In a recent PEW study (http://tinyurl.com/3e56go3)
 about the public consumption of news, we learn that while television is still the most used source of news, the other sources (yes, this even includes radio) are catching up. This is good news for us aspiring to be in the journalistic business in the near future. While this was very exciting, what interested me most about this article is that it said younger adults, so my generation, are especially unconcerned about the death of local newspapers, or where they get their news from. Not only is this frightening, but more and more relevant the older I get. Most of my peers don’t get any intake of news in a normal week besides the weather. When they do, it is usually something they heard in passing, and they never know if it is true or not. We are seeing a large case of "Well I heard that (insert random fact her)." No one is checking their facts! No verification! How scary can this be! Why would people think that the news business is failing when they look at the up-and-coming generation and see a bunch of people relying on word of mouth? I feel it is my duty to at least make sure the word of mouth is correct.

Those of my friends who do take in news, they do so online, and still don’t care if the local newspaper company goes under. "I'll get it online," they say. I doubt they realize that the news they are getting online comes first from the newspaper. It is a case of cognitive dissonance if I ever saw one. I know this may not frighten all of my blog stalkers (thanks to those who even read this far) but it frightens me. It just reminded me of why I so desperately want to get into this field. I feel it a personally duty to check the facts for those who don’t have the desire or time. I want my generation to be informed correctly.

Let's Get Ethical!

One of the major conflicts we as aspiring journalist will face is the battle between who we give our loyalty to; either the people who will be reading our paper or watching our news, or the one paying our paycheck. Like most difficult decisions in life, this at first seems like a simple enough to solve problem, but on delving further into the issue we will soon realize it's not quite as black and white as it first appeared. Yes, I completely believe that as journalist our first loyalty is to the citizen. If you are not first and foremost doing your job to help inform the people who rely on you for their source of news, you are not doing your job correct.

This brings up the question, if journalists aren’t working for the public, who are they working for? There is a general distrust of the media lately. People believe we work for the government, big businesses, owners, and the like. This is when I pull out the argument of all of the major papers and news stations code of conducts, like the New York Times here: http://tinyurl.com/lcjgdq. The respectable press works extremely hard on following hard news and telling the public what it needs to know, despite consequences.

Then why are we still hearing stories about the silence of American press on certain issues. One writer for The Oregonian (http://tinyurl.com/2u7j6j ) sent out a call for reports to talk about the possibility of American nuclear secrets being leaked. No reporter responded. The public noticed and wanted to know why. Where does our code of ethics stand there? Should reporters go against the government and talk about issues that are private, or do we speak up at the risk of our jobs? This is a dilemma we will face unless we know where we stand.

The Newseum, my favorite museum in Washington D.C., recognizes the dilemma that journalist face. To help the public understand this, they've created an interactive game table. Here the public can pretend to be in charge of putting the paper together, facing all the real challenges of pleasing the editor, the public, and the owner. It shows the real-life pressure put on journalist today, and is a fun way to learn what it would be like in a real news room. Check out http://tinyurl.com/64m2l97 to learn more about it!