Comprehensive and Proportional

Journalism should keep the news comprehensive and in proportion.

            “Journalism is our modern cartography.  It creates a map for citizens to navigate society.  That is its utility and its economic reason for being.  This concept of cartography helps clarify the question of what journalism has a responsibility to cover.  As with any map, journalism’s value depends on it completeness and proportionality” (Kovach & Rosenstiel 208). 

The Fallacy of Targeted Demographics

            “If we think of journalism as social cartography, the map should include news of all our communities, not just those with attractive demographics or strong appeal to advertisers.  To do otherwise is to create maps with whole areas missing” (Kovach & Rosenstiel 209).  News organizations tend to cater to their audiences through demographics.  The good side to using demographics is that you’re providing what matters most to your audience, therefore, ratings and viewership goes up.  The down side to using demographics is that it leaves communities out and it doesn’t include all of the news that is out there that is still important for citizens to know.  Therefore, targeted demographics make audiences misinformed.  When citizens are misinformed, they will tend to make poor decisions.  As journalists, we must find ways to serve a wide range of audiences and communities.  In 1998, the Project for Excellence in Journalism found through studies that stations who covered a wider range of topics were more likely to be building or holding on to their audience than those that did not.

The Pressure to Hype

            “We’ve reached the point where the entertainment divisions are doing the news and the news divisions are doing entertainment.” – ABC News correspondent Robert Krulwich.  This part mostly pertains to the broadcast and radio networks, but a main part of how a news organization stays in business is based on ratings.  Therefore, if it appeals to viewers whether it seems interesting or important, people are compelled to watch.  Some organizations feel this pressure to get more around the world to watch their station.  Some organizations will sensationalize their content though most will deny that they sensationalized any of their material.  A popular technique is that those who are released/kicked off a reality TV show will be the main story for a network the next day.  How many of us tuned into watching the contestant’s response on American Idol, The Apprentice, Survivor, The Biggest Loser, etc.?  Is this really considered news necessary for the public to function and make decisions for themselves?  Or are these stories that will generate ratings to keep businesses in business?

Marketing

            How new organizations are able to target their audiences is through marketing and research techniques.  While marketing has proved to be helpful in finding out what is currently concerning our citizens, it makes citizens seem as customers or numbers.  We see them as satisfying what they want, asking what products they use, etc.  Instead, journalists “need to stop using market research that treats our audience as customers, asking them which products they prefer.  We need to create a journalism market research that approaches people as citizens and tells us more about their lives” (Kovach & Rosenstiel 219).  Just ask the people what they’re doing and what’s important to them rather than what do they prefer.  Asking their preference does not present their full judgment.  It only gives their opinion on such as short range.  You are only giving them 2 options when, who knows, there could be many factors in their opinions. 

            Besides using effective marketing methods and including a wider range of communities, journalists must treat each story with great story telling techniques.  A good journalist can make any story, whether relevant or not, of great importance depending on how they handle the story.  In fact, storytelling is key in marketing, reaching more communities, and letting audiences know that your story is of worth to the world. 

            In conclusion with some remarks from Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel’s book, The Elements of Journalism:  “The answer is not to return to a day when journalists operate purely by instinct.  We hope we have spotlighted a group of new cartographers who are developing tools to chart the way people live their lives today and the needs for news these lives create.  They are providing one of the most important tools a news organization needs to design a more comprehensive and proportional news report that attracts rather than repels the audience.  Now it is up to journalists to try.”