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May 26, 2004
Complex system...
Over the next few days I'll comment on each section of the new survey of American journalists conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Check here for the survey methodology. Pew has conducted this survey twice before, in 1995 and 1999.
Today's topic: Section 1, Views on Performance.
Journalism evolved into a profession in the latter 1800s, and objective methods of reporting became the norm in the early 1900s. For an excellent accounting of these changes, you should read Discovering the News, by Michael Schudson. Procedures and the values they assume arise together. These changes led to a system of professional ethics that prescribed professional behavior and normalized professional values. One of the longest enduring values of professionalization and objectivity is the notion that a free press is essential to democracy. And this value, among others, leads journalists to worry about their professional performances. This is one of the admirable traits of journalists.
Despite professionalization and objective methods, journalism remains an impossibly complex practice because, among other things, it deals with the human perception and evaluation of events and the relaying of those events in language and pictures. And at every conceivable point along the path from event to publication to consumption, journalists deal with coordination and collaboration in the production of an industrial product for two distinctly different customers--advertisers and readers. And let's not forget bias in all its variety in the human system and the bias inherent in the structure of journalistic practice.
How could anyone be satisfied with the product of such a system?
Posted by acline at May 26, 2004 8:45 AM | | Spotlight