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.