Assignment 1

Discuss the areas in which Walter Lippmann though journalism was flawed.

            Walter Lippmann was an American writer, reporter, and political commentator famous for being among the first to introduce the concept of the cold war. He was also responsible for coining the term stereotype in modern psychology. In his work, he tried to reconcile the tensions between liberty and democracy. Based in his research, he published an article titled ‘A test of the news’ that observed that the press was partial, biased, and inaccurate in its coverage.

            Walter believed that the press was biased in its coverage. He identified the tendency of journalists to generalize about other people based on fixed ideas (Lippmann et. al 1920). He argued that people, including journalists, are quicker to believe "the pictures in their heads" than come to judgment by critical thinking. He wrote that Humans condense ideas into symbols, and journalism, a force quickly becoming the mass media, is an ineffective method of educating that public.

            Even if journalists did better jobs of informing the public about important issues, Lippmann believed that "the mass of the reading public is not interested in learning and assimilating the results of accurate investigation." Citizens, he wrote, were too self-centered to care about public policy except as pertaining to pressing local issues. He therefore believed that given the biased nature of the press the information they fed the citizens would be inaccurate (Lippmann, 1991).

            Walter did not assume that news and truth are the same. For him, the “function of news is to signalize an event, the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts, to set them in relation with each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act.” Therefore, journalist’s version of the truth is prejudiced to how he constructs his reality. The news, therefore, is “imperfectly recorded” and too fragile to bear the charge as “an organ of direct democracy.”(Lippmann, 1989)

Sources

Lippmann, W. (1989). The public philosophy. New Brunswick, U.S.A: Transaction Publishers.

Lippmann, W. (1991). Public opinion. New Brunswick, N.J., U.S.A: Transaction Publishers.

Lippmann, W., Liffmann, F., & Merz, C. (1920). A test of the news. N.p.

Assignment 2

Describe how journalism does or does not fit in with our concept of the learned professions. (You should discuss what the learned professions are)

            Learned professions are described as vocations that are founded from specialized educational training whose purpose is to supply objective counsel to others, for compensation. In the past only three occupations were referred to as profession, these were divinity, medicine, and law. This concept has however changed over the years with more occupations meeting qualifications of being termed as professions.

            Most of these professions arise from the development of formal qualifications based upon education, apprenticeship, and examinations, the emergence of regulatory bodies with powers to admit and discipline members, and some degree of monopoly rights (Bullock & Trombley, 1999). Therefore, one can classify journalism as a profession because it meats all the standards set to established to classify a vocation as a profession.

            Journalism as a profession has professional bodies that are responsible for regulating it. These bodies are usually in charge of defining, promoting, overseeing, supporting and regulating the affairs of their members.

            Journalism is also autonomous. This means journalists have control over their decisions and can make independent judgments about their work (Bayles, 1981). This usually means the freedom to exercise their professional judgment. These two traits mainly illustrate that journalism indeed can be termed as a profession.

Sources

Bayles, M (1981) Professional Ethics. Belmont, California CA : Wadsworth.

Bullock, A & Trombley, S (1999), The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought. London: Harper-Collins.

Assignment 3

Describe the social responsibility theory of the press as outlined in Four Theories of the press and as amplified by the Hutchins commission

            Social Responsibility provides for private ownership of mass media in exchange for responsible use of that media. This theory is tied to a form of government that is based on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Social responsibility theory allows free press without any censorship but at the same time the content of the press discussed in public and media should accept any obligation from public interference or professional self-regulations or both. The theory lies between both authoritarian theory and libertarian theory because it gives total media freedom in one hand but the external controls in other hand.

            The Hutchins commission on the other hand was formed during a period when the public did not trust the press for they believed that the media was biased at the time. The commission was the first to come up with the social responsibility of the press. This theory proposed that the media take it upon themselves to raise society's standards by providing citizens with the information they needed to govern themselves. The commission warned that it was in the best interest of the media to do this for if they did not, the public would demand that the government regulate the media.

Sources

Blanchard, M. A. (1977). The Hutchins Commission, the press and the responsibility concept.        Lexington, Ky: The Association for Education in Journalism.

Siebert, F. S., Schramm, W., & Peterson, T. (1984). Four theories of the press: The            authoritarian, libertarian, social responsibility, and Soviet communist concepts of what      the press should be and do. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

 

Assignment 4

In class, we discussed how the press may be biased to the east coast. Describe other specific ways in which the press in this country may be biased.

            There are many forms of bias associated with the American media. This bias stems from personal and public opinions of few or many individuals and their thoughts on issues critical to the country.

            A profit motive bias is a result of the U.S. Medias’ pressure to create a stable and profitable business. This means that the news is always geared towards America’s corporate interests. This bias involves reporters and especially editors sharing and acquiring values with corporate elites in order to further their careers. Those that do not comply usually get weeded out or marginalized.

            Liberal bias occurs when liberal ideas have undue influence on the coverage or selection of news stories. On the other hand, Conservative bias in the media occurs when conservative ideas have undue influence on the coverage or selection of news stories. A survey conducted to prove that some media channels were inclined towards liberal ideologies than others. The survey found that most of these journalists were Democratic voters, whose attitudes were well to the left of the public on a variety of topics, including such hot-button social issues as abortion, affirmative action, and gay rights. The other Medias seem to promote the conservative party and their ideologies. These media houses do not air issues that they deem not to be conservative in nature. This type of bias is also observed in the coverage of presidential elections by the different media houses.

Sources

Noam, E. (2009). Media Ownership and Concentration in America. Oxford: Oxford University    Press, USA.

Ruschmann, P. (2006). Media bias. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers.

Sloan, W. D. (2007). Media bias: Finding it, fixing it. Jefferson, NC [u.a.: McFarland.