Sunday, October 18, 2009

Can I handle the truth?


In summing up my earlier thoughts about truth, I guess I need to come to some sort of definition of truth. If not a complete definition of the term, at least one within the field of journalism. The truth should be seen as an unbiased account of events, where the person accounting news consciously believes they are giving the most accurate account of events. I think this is what all journalists set out to do, but the problem is that with tight deadlines, and the increasing need for timeliness and newsworthiness morals become skewed along the way. This is unfortunately not something I can see changing in the near future, with tighter deadlines and increasing competitiveness for jobs the news will continue to feed the public what sells papers. This happens to be gossip and celebrity news. All I can hope for is that the morals which we set out with as first year communication students stay mostly in tact, obviously when you are getting a pay check, and your editor tells you something needs to be done, you just do it. But at some point integrity and accuracy, and most of all the ability to write will prevail as the important aspects of journalism. Or at least this is what we should hope for.

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