Journalist as a Ideologue

           An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one’s goals, expectations, and actions (Wikipedia).  Many journalists profess to live by this idea that they leave all of their personal beliefs at the work door.  Journalists will say that they don’t bring their ideologies into the work field but in reality their ideologies decide what stories to cover and how they are covered.  In fact, “journalists can no more disconnect themselves from their worldviews and value systems than can anyone else” (Willis 61).  I believe that journalists have more knowledge about what is going on in the world regardless of their beliefs compared to other citizens in the world.  However, journalists are editors to an extent because they have to decide for the world what to cover.  Everywhere has news but all of it goes through a filter of importance. 

In class, we did an activity where we were given a list of stories that we had to choose to broadcast if we were a news company.  We were divided into 4 groups.  As we heard the other groups, we choose some of the same stories and some were different.  What may seem important may not seem important to another person.  Should this be a serious problem?  I think not.  What proves to be more newsworthy are journalists selecting stories that fall under Herbert Gans’s enduring values rather than broadcasting the same stories as everyone else (Herbert Gans, Deciding What’s News [New York: Vantage, 1980]).  Stories that have these enduring values have qualities important to Americans which makes it ok if not all the same stories are covered.  Stories that tend to be newsworthy fall under these categories:

• Altruistic Democracy:  Stories about the government, especially when they make a horrible mistake, it becomes news because we rely heavily on our government to be trustworthy and responsible. 
• Responsible Capitalism:  Stories about businesses and businesspeople are important because money and the economy affect not only the country the people live in but other countries as well.  Money has a huge impact on people’s lives that it can change behavior.
• Order:  Crime stories tend to draw lots of attention because crime poses a threat to order. Crime is newsworthy because this country is built on order.  When there is chaos, we like to see justice triumph. 
• Moderatism:  It is said that America tends to be moderate on issues.  However, there are extremists from both ends and it is the extremists that are often heard more often than the moderates.  America favors being in the middle because the two extremes poses a threat, instills fear, and far from reality.
• Leadership:  Just like altruistic democracy and responsible capitalism, stories about important figure doing something out of the ordinary, whether it be good or bad, is of some interest to the people because they want to trust their leaders and feel safe.
• Small town Pastoralism:  Americans love the simple life despite their busy lives.  They believe that the agricultural community contains most of the goodness compared to the big cities where most of the corruption lies.  Events that affects the suburbs becomes big news because Americans believe most of the moderates and “good” people reside there and if there is a crisis, we feel empathetic. 
• Rugged Individualism:  Americans feel refreshed every time there is an individual or group who acts as the underdog, who would stand up for a greater cause. 

Not all of the news companies will cover the same stories.  However, journalists will tend to pick out stories that contain some of these values.  When they select stories that have these values, they become newsworthy and better serve the audiences they represent.