JOSHUA MAHLER
COMM 351-001/
Chapter 1 Notes
Convergence – the coming together of media in the same newsroom, even for journalists. This is take advantage of the different strengths of print, television, and online.
-convergence today includes such media conglomerates as NBC, Microsoft, and AOL Time Warner.
What news is?
Important Elements in a
News Story:
The audience influences what is important
or newsworthy; they change and influence the demands of journalists
What Readers Want as
stated by the American Society of Newspaper Editors:
-Richard Saul Wurman, Information Anxiety, classifies news into hope, absurdity, and catastrophe. Journalists emphasize and focus on absurdity and catastrophe, while the audience hungers for hope.
The New Journalism:
Public or Civic journalism is based on two ideas…
-
-Journalists need to be aware of major issues such as biology, sociology, and statistics.
Accuracy, Fairness, and the
Problem of Objectivity:
“The best obtainable version of the truth.” --Bob
Woodward
Two questions every responsible journalist should ask:
Putting Frames around
Stories:
-the viewpoint, or perspective, from which you tell a story, serves as a frame for that story. Every reporter should choose the frame that seems to reveal that story most fully and fairly.
Objectivity:
-the best journalists keep objectivity in minds, along with any questions pertaining to the story and any other limitations.
-in 1947, the Hutchins
Commission on freedom of the press concluded that what a free society needs
from journalists is “a truthful,
comprehensive and intelligent account of the day’s events in a context which
gives them meaning.”