Like The Rock Says

When I was growing up, I had many different pastimes. I liked to read, especially about sports and politics. I liked to play sports. Unfortunately, my talent level didn't match my love of the game so I stopped soon thereafter. And, like most kids, I loved TV. Still do, but what I watch has changed. Instead of MTV, it's usually VH1. And instead of watching wrestling, I watch soccer. But from watching wrestling, I picked up a few slogans that I still remember. One of them, courtesy of The Rock, is, "Know your role and shut your mouth!". For some reason, other than the fact I just wanted to mention The Rock in an essay, I thought of this. There are probably many people who distrust, or just don't know, what journalists do and would like us to do what Mr. Rock said. My problem, however, is that I don't know what my role is. Is it to inform? To entertain? To meet the bottom line? I don't know, but it's probably a little bit of all of those.

It may have been in this class, but I heard somewhere that the term "journalist" was coined when a man would sit at a town bar, hear all the news, and then write it in a journal for everybody to read if they wanted. I hope and believe the profession has progressed a little bit since then. As is my understanding of the field, journalists are supposed to write news that helps the populace govern. It sounds pretty noble actually, and as Downie and Kaiser wrote in "The News About The News", "When journalists use resourceful reporting and vivid presentation to hold the powerful accountable for their acts, they fulfill their highest purpose. They help encourage the honest and open use of power, and they help make America a fairer society." But when journalists do their job in that way, that ambitious way, there can be some issues. The first being that some see that kind of journalism as biased journalism. Those people figure that if you see something as an issue, that means you have an agenda. In a case like this, where a universal wrong needs to be righted, the only person who may have a problem is the person who will be adversely affected by what happens. That is OK, if a wrong is being corrected. This should be the lone role of journalism, to inform. It isn't however. There are other roles that have emerged. Some of them can be meshed with the noble journalistic goals. Some, however, cannot.

One of those roles that has emerged is the role to entertain. In some cases, maybe it is acceptable for journalism to strive to be entertainment as well. It crosses a line, however, when a work is portrayed as a serious piece of journalism when it really isn't. A good example of this is the NBC Dateline series "To Catch A Predator". While it cannot be debated that the show is doing something good for society, the journalistic merits can certainly be debated. If the show was catching these perverts in the act, it would be solid. That would entail actually investigating people who partake in this activity and finding and catching them before they act on their creepy urges. Setting them up, talking to them, and having them arrested with cameras rolling is not journalism. It's pseudo-reality TV. It looks real but it was staged. Journalism should never stoop to something this low. Besides, sometimes, the best actual journalism can be entertaining. I wasn't alive when it happened, but my Dad always tells me how entertaining Watergate was. And that story was fueled by the intrepid work of two young journalists. Both Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein did their work correctly and properly. Not only did they make a difference, but it sounded pretty entertaining as well. Just because, as the book says, newspapers have lost the immediacy battle to the Internet and and radio doesn't mean they have to stoop to what Dateline has. And investigative reports such as what Woodward and Bernstein and Marc Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams did turned into some pretty entertaining stories.

Entertainment, whether journalists like to admit it or not, is something that fuels the bottom line. It's what determines what is consumed in media and what wasn't. Obviously, on Sunday evening around 5:30, people are going to tune in to the Super Bowl because it is the most entertaining thing on TV. It will also be the most profitable. Some companies have gotten into the newspaper business because they have believed it was going to be profitable. In 2000, the Tribune Corporation attempted to buy papers in Los Angeles and New York to try to expand its brand and set up bureaus for its whole media operation. That did not turn out to be profitable, as six years later, the Trib's stock has plummeted from where it was at the turn of the century. While the product of the main newspapers in question may have improved initially, they were all hurt by the disastrous financial results. Because of these losses, Trib. Co. had to make substantial cuts in its newsroom, and more will probably follow. This is a case where good journalism, or at least an idea for good journalism, did not turn a profit. Still, Tribune felt it was the role of journalism to make it a profit. In this case, it wasn't. When a newspaper is turned to for a profit, bad things can happen to the paper. It can become beholden to the advertisers, some of whom may make news that should be reported. Or, it can do what Dateline did, and just become sensationalistic. So, the role of the journalist should not be to turn a profit. That should be left to the people who sell advertising.

The role of the journalist has been skewed and obscured recently. It has left some wondering about the relevancy of the field and how it should be executed. The relevancy of the field has never been greater, there are plenty of injustices that need reporting, and nobody is better at that than journalists. The role should be executed the same, moral ways it always has been. And if it is entertaining, it will make money. But the last two should not be the main goal of the journalist. All they can control is how they do their job. It is their role to faithfully report to the people what happens. And nothing else.