Verification and Journalism

     Before one can understand the importance of verification in journalism, they need to understand that journalists are humans just like anyone else with opinions and biases.  Why then do we have journalists if they have biases and opinions?  Aren’t they supposed to be clear of biases?  We make judgments every day that it is impossible for human beings to have absolutely opinions.  So, it is inevitable that journalists will have opinions and biases.  However, when they follow certain guidelines of newsgathering, they can present the truth to their audiences.  A guideline that journalists need to follow is verification in their reporting.

One of the elements of journalism is “its essence is a discipline of verification” (Kovach & Rosenstiel).  A part of verification is transparency.  Transparency is vital because for journalists, it is the key to credibility.  In The Elements of Journalism, Kovach and Rosenstiel outlined 5 principles of verification:

• Never add anything that was not there.
• Never deceive the audience.
• Be as transparent as possible about your methods and motives.
• Rely on your own original reporting.
• Exercise humility.

Never add anything that was not there.  This speaks for itself.  Adding anything extra to your reporting and story is not being honest.  By adding information, one is taking the story out of focus and out of context.  When one adds anything that was not there, they act no different than paparazzi/tabloids and propagandists.  “This goes further than ‘never invent’ or make things up, for it also encompasses rearranging events in time or place or conflating characters or events” (Kovach & Rosenstiel 90).  In other words, what you have gathered, don’t mess with it. 

Never deceive the audience.  As journalists, we communicate to the public.  Deceiving or confusing audiences goes against the purpose.  Deceiving is also not honest.  There is always someone out there who is going to believe what you say.  If one person realizes that you have been misleading them, you lose trust with that person and eventually with many people.  “Fooling people is a form of lying and it mocks the idea that journalism is committed to truthfulness . . . This is a useful check.  How would the audience feel if they knew you moved that sound to another point in the story to make it more dramatic?  Most likely they would feel the move was cheesy” (Kovach & Rosenstiel 91).  No one likes a liar or someone who exaggerates.  So, don’t be one yourself.  It’s that simple. 

 Be as transparent as possible about your methods and your motives.  Walter Lippmann said, “There is no defense, no extenuation, no excuse whatsoever, for stating six times that Lenin is dead when the only information the paper possesses is a report that he is dead from a source repeatedly shown to be unreliable.  The news, in that instance, is not that ‘Lenin is Dead’ but ‘Helsingfors Says Lenin is Dead.’  And a newspaper can be asked to take responsibility of not making Lenin more dead than the source of the news is reliable.  If there is one subject on which editors are most responsible it is in their judgment of the reliability of the source” (Lippmann 226).  Transparency is revealing to your audience all that you know about your sources and methods.  This principle is considered to be the most important part of verification.  Being transparent gives respect to the audience.  This allows the audience to judge the validity of your story and your sources.  With this check on the journalist, it allows less room for errors.  It lets your audience know if there was bias in gathering information and reveals more about if your source is trying to deceive the audience as well.  Explain how you learned something and why you believe it so your audience can do the same. 

Rely on your original reporting.  Refer to what you have gathered and your sources.  Relying on your original reporting allows for you to be transparent and exercise humility.  By doing your own work, you can double check/verify information you have gathered.  It’s much harder to verify information that someone else gathered because you don’t know their motives and methods.  “The more honest the journalist is with the audience about what he or she knows and doesn’t know, the more trustworthy the journalist is.  Level with people.  Make no claims to an omniscience you cannot justify.  Acknowledging what is not known is a claim to more authority, not less” (Kovach & Rosenstiel 100).

Exercise humility.  New York Times religion writer Laurie Goodstein told a story of a reporter who through her mistakes illustrates the importance of exercising humility (Goodstein CCJ Forum 1998).  On the steps of the U.S. Capitol, there was an evangelical revival meeting.  She reported that the revival was hostile and quoted from a Christian radio broadcaster who said “Let’s pray that God will slay everyone in the Capitol.”  The reporter assumed that the broadcaster was meaning “kill” when he said “slay.”  However, the reporter was not Pentecostal and later realized that according to a Pentecostal, “slay someone” means to “slay in spirit, praying that they are overcome with love for God and Jesus.”  It was not only embarrassing for the reporter but the news agency she represented.  True, the reporter acted with common sense but it never hurts to check with your sources if you have little or no knowledge on the event you’re reporting.  Admit it.  We don’t know everything.  Journalists are humans too with shortcomings.  When one exercises humility, the journalist is letting the audience know that they will be honest in their newsgathering.  Being humble also means that you are open minded to what you collect because it only takes one source to change your entire story. 

As journalists, we are encouraged to be more thoughtful in acquiring, organizing, and presenting the news.  If we as journalists use these 5 principles of verification in our reporting, we will establish our credibility.  We will strengthen the relationship between journalists and citizens.  As journalists, we rely on the citizens to take what we say as truth. 

The Profession

            “Journalists see journalism as a kind of professional priesthood in which they, much like the clergy or even police officers, surrender to the higher calling of serving others” (Willis 13).   If you talk to any journalist, they will tell you that their career is a profession while others will say it’s a specialized craft.  Coming from a journalism student, it seems biased to say that it is indeed a profession.  However, studying both sides saying that it is a profession and the other saying it’s a craft, the arguments for profession spoke stronger than those who say it’s a craft.

            Journalism is a profession.  Not only does it serve to present information for citizens to act for themselves, but it serves as an additional check on the power of the government.  Historian Thomas Carlyle said, “[T]he British press was a powerful, unofficial branch of government, as important as the priesthood the aristocracy, and the House of Commons” (Carlyle 147).  Many journalists in a free society consider the press to be a “fourth branch” of government, standing as the watchdog for the government and society.  Recognizing its place and the impact it has on millions of lives, journalism takes on a serious role in the world.  It is the press that makes everything known and keeps most items of business under control.

            Journalism is a profession because its traditional practices have been passed onto any hopeful intern entering into the news business.  “A journalist learns what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior from other journalists who learned it from other journalists, etc . . .the term ‘professional priesthood’ has been applied to the journalism profession by many people over many years” (Willis 15).  Journalism is a profession because it has standard guidelines and ethics that must be adhered to in the field.  If journalism was a craft, people would take too much liberty in areas that don’t allow much interpretation.  The reason why journalistic practices have been passed on is because those practices have made journalism effective in societies. 

            Journalism is a profession because they do their best to separate themselves from others in the community, more so than other businesses.  “Our reporting and writing can be intimate, but we can still maintain an appropriate distance from our sources.  The simple equation is to remember our obligation to the reader, to fair, honest, truthful, and complete in our work.  Those old values are still good values” (Bhatia, The Oregonian).  This idea definitely makes journalism a profession because this characteristic is unique to other businesses.  No other business I know of tries to separate themselves from the community.  Businesses try often to get in touch with their community but journalists have to “remove” themselves and their biases to perform well in their career. 

Some questions popped up:  How can a journalist fully understand what an event, issue,  or person is really like if he or she constructs and maintains a distance in between?  On the other hand, if the journalist gets too close to the story and the people of it, the danger of losing a more “objective” orientation could threaten.  True, this is not an easy thing to accomplish or master.  That is why journalists train for years, intern and gain hands-on experience, and graduate with degrees because it is a profession that takes creativity and practice but follows guidelines. 

Journalism is profession because:

·         It serves an additional check on the government and people

·         It is practice where guidelines are enforced and follows an ethical code

·         It is the only profession that separates itself from getting too involved in a community.  A rare characteristic found in any business

Loyalty and Journalism

“Journalism is a business, and managers have business responsibilities for keeping budgets and attracting customers” (Kovach & Rosenstiel 51).

Journalism is a business because their paycheck is determined by shareholders.  Shareholders pay CEOs and managers who hire journalists/reporters.  Journalists ultimately have to satisfy their shareholders in order to secure their job from an economic standpoint. Hard to believe but journalists get paid just like any other professional in the world.   Putting the words business and journalism together seems unpleasant and contradictory to most people because journalists constantly stress how their core principles are finding the truth and serving an audience. 

This brings up the question: where do journalists’ loyalties lie?  Does it lie with the business because they’re the ones giving out the Benjamins?  Or does it lie with the citizens who rely on their messages in order to make daily choices? 

From my research, I believe that successful journalists’ first loyalty is to its citizens.  In order for journalism to thrive, it must keep the citizens in mind.  Journalism is a business but it can only survive if their first loyalty is to their citizens and they practice core journalistic principles.  In an article titled “Whom Do Journalists Work For?” Ken Auletta said, “If everyone in journalism, including the folks who sign our checks, truly embraced this assumption [that journalists – or the best public officials – that they are public servants], journalists would build in more checks and balances to our own abuse of power, welcoming more independent ombudsmen.  We would encourage the kind of transparency we demand from government and corporations, and would prominently admit our mistakes.”

 A study was done by the State of the American Newspaper Project in 1998.  The study revealed that 71% of editors employed Management By Objective (MBOs) in their companies.  MBOs are techniques that create newsroom accountability by: setting goals and attaching rewards for achieving them, a company can create a coherent system for both coordinating and monitoring what its executives are doing.  Half of those who practiced MBOs got 20-50% of their income from the programs. 

“The problem is that tying a journalist’s income to his organization’s financial performance in effect changes the journalist’s allegiance.” (Kovach & Rosenstiel 62).  News companies thrive best when they hire managers and journalists who put their audiences first.  When journalists’ first loyalty is to the citizens, it maintains that trust the public needs when they get their daily news.  The Elements of Journalism outlined points that news companies should embrace in order to satisfy shareholders and maintain a trust with its citizens:

1. The owner/corporation must be committed to citizens first.
2. Hire business managers who also put citizens first.
3. Set and communicate clear standards.
4. Journalists have final say over news.
5. Communicate clear standards to the public.

I would like to end this post with this quote.  I found it to be very fitting with the loyalty in journalism discussion.  “Journalism must reestablish the allegiance to citizens that the news industry has mistakenly helped to subvert.  Yet even this, ultimately, will not be enough.  Truth and loyalty to citizens are only the first two steps in making journalism work.  The next step is just as important: the method that journalists use to approach the truth and convey that method to citizens.” (Kovach & Rosenstiel 75).