Journalism Independence

The job of the journalist is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable or at least that what is said in America. This is a very common phrase about how journalism should be. Basically the reporter should act as a watchdog but there’s a time where we have to question ourselves when do I stop being just a spectator where is the line that separates me from being an observer and becoming a participant. The line sometimes can become really blurry. I think that reporters are always involved in various social events and when the relationships that you build in your personal life and the values and ideas that you share can start crossing that line before we can notice it. In many cases our own values can be threatened and we will want to stop being just that observer and let our own emotions an opinions fill the stories that we cover.

I guess that this is something that we have to have present at all times to make sure we avoid it. To remain independent at all times in the reporting we do we must be careful of things that may seem harmless. When we build relationships we are exposed to receive personal gifts or favors, the question we will have to ask ourselves each time is if it is ethical to accept them and what interference they can have in our career.

But juts moving on the concept of being an observer if found an article that was very interesting about the Journalism independence. In the article Dog Clifton, the editor of the Herald said: “The newspaper that practices public journalism should be able to provide help, related to problems of public education, health care delivery, and criminal justice, not by dictating a solution, but by facilitating broad, purposeful discourse on the issue, by celebrating victories, by diagnostically noting failures, by encouraging citizens involvement, by outlining and assessing available courses of action." in other word my view of being an observer just completely change, by providing the public the information they need we are giving them what they need to be involved, the information.