The Role of Journalism

What is the role of journalism? At the beginning of the semester, I answered this question by stating that I believed the role of journalism was to inform the people. While this simple understanding was correct in its foundation, after studying journalism over the course of this class, I’ve learned so much more about the role of a journalist.

In today’s society, the concept of journalism has broadened to incorporate not only newspapers, but outlets such as magazines, online sources, and most recently blogs as well. Because of this, the idea of what a journalist does is drastically changing. Some people believe that an education is an unnecessary step to becoming a journalist. However, there are many aspects of journalism that are necessary to know and understand before a person can produce excellence in journalism. Elements including independence, verification, and a sense of civic duty are some of the imperative features a journalist must understand in order to produce quality journalism.

As stated in "The Statement of Shared Purpose" there are nine principles which comprise this theory. These include: that journalism’s first obligation is to the truth, its first loyalty is to citizens, its essence is a discipline of verification, its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover, it must serve as an independent monitor of power, it must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise, it must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant, it must keep the news comprehensive and proportional, and its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience (journalism.org). Without understanding and adhering to these rules and guidelines, a journalist cannot truly reach excellence in his or her work.