In light of recent of events, I have been asking myself what exactly it means to be a journalist and what responsibility journalists have relaying unfiltered and unbiased information. On the surface, journalism is defined as the act of “the activity of gathering, assessing, creating and presenting news and information. It is also the product of these activities. Further than that, it is described as a “utility to empower the informed.” The idea of journalism is to supply citizens with necessary information about the workings of the world around them so that they can use this information in ways that best suits their own lives. In more democratic nations and countries, journalism tends to be more free-flowing and accessible.
In less liberal countries, access to media journalism or any kind of information at all is carefully monitored and restricted. I have always believed that writers, along with journalists, are the record keepers of our world and therefore invaluable to the knitting of societal fabric. I hold journalists in high regard, and I am always paying attention to the journalist and the manner in which they do their jobs just as much as I pay attention to the information they bestow. American media has always seen biases of all kinds, and I don't know if that is inevitable because media is a commodity, or if it is inevitable because American journalism emerged during times when patriarchy, sexism and racism were matter-of-fact, the norm in American life.
When it comes to the recent social justice strife of race and the #blacklivesmatter movement, I have been paying so much attention to media, journalism and rethinking my ideas of what journalism should be. When reporting on cases of black men mugshots are used, their names are often omitted, trigger words like “criminal,” “thug” and “danger” and slipped seamlessly into headlines and delivered smoothly by reporters. Narratives are written that demonize entire groups of people, stories are purposefully sugarcoated or exaggerated to elicit either fear or comfortability to readers and viewers.
I always saw journalists and writers as the arbitrators who delivered the facts and the truths surrounding the facts independent of their own feelings and opinions. Within the last year, I have been extremely perplexed as to how this is so far from American journalism. Journalists insert themselves and their ideals into the news they report and deliver it to consumers like fact. Here's the thing. As a journalist, you are literally responsible for the education of the masses. You are responsible for daily conditioning of real people in a very much real world so there should not be any place for any kind of malice and ignorance in your reporting.
People believe the news to be the most up to date and accurate source of information for what is going on in the world around them. If people turn on the news or pick up the daily newspaper and the information they receive tells them to be afraid, they will be afraid. If it tells them that they are being threatened by a group of people they will feel threatened. Regardless of if they are being targeted or not they will believe it. You have the ability to start wars, and I don't say that as an exaggeration.
Accountability and ethics in journalism are not something we can afford to throw away again. Not in a country whose past is currently plaguing it. Particular media outlets are owned and backed by various corporations and political parties, so their allegiances and reporting or usually one-sided and of course biased. The problem with this is television news is still the largest platform for journalism even though social media is a different kind of beast where you can find various narratives that are far less filtered and biased. My question then becomes if the major players in journalism are delivering information that harms particular groups, should those groups then create their own journalism platforms specific to the interests? Doesn't that also negate the very essence of journalism? Doesn't that also tear at the credibility and integrity of the information delivered? Or are we now at a point where it is absolutely necessary? I believe so. Minorities have always been forced to cultivate their own spaces and platforms when mainstream has shut them out. From BET to Essence Magazine to HBCUs. We have always coped and progressed when we have decided to take matters into our own hands. In terms of journalism, I believe it's about that time. If ethics and accountability are no longer valued held by broadcasters, the underdogs must again jump the fence.
