The Voice of Humanity

I remember the summer after my freshman year, fresh out of J200 and armed with the ideals of Kovach and Rosenstiel, someone asked me what I was majoring in. When I said journalism he quickly expressed his ideas about the industry—it was declining, untrustworthy and essentially an embodiment of everything that is wrong with the world. I argued with him that it wasn’t true. Journalism is an essential cornerstone of democracy. We give voice to the oppressed, check leadership and, above all, make a difference. His reply was something like this, “What you said—I wish it were like that.”

Unfortunately, this young man is not an isolated example. Data shown in class reveals that an increasing number of people distrust news sources, with the number of people who thought journalists got their facts straight falling from 55% to 35%.

At first this news looks alarming. Blogs and celebrity gossip are becoming a legitimate source of news. And while readers show a rapid decline in their trust of news organizations, the most alarming statistic shown was the fact that readers see celebrities as people to trust. According to class data, one-half of a group of adults surveyed said they “regarded celebrities as a fair and reliable source about public issues.”

I believe, though, from that data stems one of the biggest of the problems with today’s news providers. Yes, media needs to adapt to changing times. Yes, newspapers may see a shift to a more online product or have to change the way they present news. But none of those things really matter if people don’t trust the news. And why don’t people trust the news and look to celebrities? I believe one compelling reason is that people are in search of humanity.
Although celebrities may not truly be “real” people, that’s what people see in the faces of celebrities—someone that they can relate to or at least someone who they can dream of living like. Often that real person is hard to find on the television news, and even harder to find on the newsprint pages.

Before we are journalists, we are citizens, and before we are citizens, we are humans, but often our humanity is left out of our journalism. In The News about the News, it says, “Good journalism does not often topple a president, but it frequently changes the lives of citizens, both grand and ordinary.” (p. 3) I wonder if today’s journalists have become so concerned with toppling a president or crusading for an extraordinary cause that they forget about who they are serving and representing—ordinary human beings.

Good journalism can have a tremendous positive impact on society, but The News about the News goes on to describe the negative impact of bad journalism. The most striking word to me that it uses to describe bad journalism is “superficial” (p.6). Superficial means “presenting only an appearance without substance or significance (Webster’s Dictionary).” As “good” journalists, we would be quick to assign that adjective to many of the celebrity magazines that people are avidly reading, but would be hesitant to describe newspapers that way. But falling into the trap can be easier than what we think.

In the Columbia Journalism Review, reporter Peter Holley grapples with a story he wrote about a middle-class white girl who become a heroin addict (January/February, p.10-11). The story, which adopted the cliché of “the Fall and the Redemption,” brought the girl all the way to the limelight on Dr. Phil. But in spite of the media attention, Holley realizes he has perhaps made a profound mistake. He may have been so caught up in the image of a white middle-class girl that he missed the true story—the true tragedy of her humanity. Holley presented an “appearance without substance or significance.” Even when trying to embrace the fringes of society journalists can still run the risk of being superficial.

Our class power point presented three different kinds of news: authoritative (created by professionals), created (produced by audiences) and opinionated (with an attitude or voice). While it is important for reporters keep an authoritative voice in their papers, other avenues like blogs give them an opportunity to share a more opinionated voice with their readers. In the American Journalism Review, Dana Hull discusses the controversial role blogs can play in today’s newsrooms (p. 63-67). While I do believe blogs must be monitored to some extent, I also believe they can be a great avenue for reopening lines of communication and trust between the newspaper and the community. Blogs help readers to know and understand the reporters they read in the newspaper at a deeper level, as a real person. A person is much more likely to trust someone that they know. If news providers withdraw from this important area than it will become solely a “created,” but if journalists take advantage of this medium it becomes a place to inform and build relationships with readers.

During the 20th century new technology brought many changes to newspapers, but through it all newspapers still remained, even with changes to appearances (The News about the News, p.18) As the media industry once again embarks on a road of change, it is not the changing landscape that will cause journalism to die. Journalism will die if journalists forget the responsibility they hold to represent both the big and small people of the world. If journalists are not afraid to embrace their own humanity and the humanity of those they cover, then true journalism, even if packaged differently, will always remain important because “whether widely noticed or not, good journalism makes a difference somewhere everyday” (The News about the News, p.4).