Verification and Journalism

So far in The Elements of Journalism we've learned about journalism's obligation to the truth, its loyalty to citizens, and in our last class we went over the concept that "the essence of journalism is a discipline of verification." When I first think of journalism's connection to the word "verification" I  only think about the importance of legitimate sources and fact checking. While these are part of verification, there is still so much more! This quote below helps me realize everything verification does for journalism:

How do you sift through the rumors, the gossip, the failed memories, 

the manipulative agendas, and try to capture something as accurately as possible, 

subject to revision in light of new information and perspective? 

How do you overcome your own limits of perception, your own experience, 

and come to an account that more people will recognize as reliable? 

By watching His Girl Friday we were able to see a lot of the concepts we learned about in this chapter and from the group presentation in action; mostly in all the wrong ways. Some of the main concepts of verification are DO NOT ADD and DO NOT DECIEVE. A metaphor we discussed in class is this: when an argument arises at the dinner table, the journalists responsibility is not to report the story from their side of the table, but to leave their seat and record the facts from a bystanders point of view. The main character in His Girl Friday, Hildy, does exactly the opposite. Hildy becomes deeply involved in the story when she interviews the murderer and convinces him to think a certain way. In their interview Hildy puts words into the victim's mouth. Then, when she writes the article quoting the murderers 'girl-friend,' she takes the experience and turns it into an entirely different dimension. Instead of just stating the facts how they were, and using direct quotes to carry the story, Hildy dramatizes the event and deceives the audience to see the situation an entirely different way.  

These ideas lead to the concept of TRANSPARENCY. Transparency is the idea that we tell our audiences everything we know and how we know it, without hiding anything. That way they know what to believe, how to believe it, and what to be skeptical of if there is any reason to be. This cartoon makes fun of the idea in relation to politics. 

 

While this cartoon may mimic the idea of transparency, it's something that increases the reliability of journalism ten-fold. Which is ultimately the whole point of verification; to make a more reliable journalism.