“Taboo topics in journalism today” discusses the wide array of issues that the media tend to shy away from, including the harmful effects of abortion, the violent nature of Islam, and the ineffectiveness of foreign aid. The media have the power to “set the national agenda,” and, as the author, Cliff Kincaid, suggests, because most journalists are liberal, readers and viewers are provided with a perspective that is consistently liberal.
Maybe it is because I am, as the author of the article suggests, so influenced by the biases present in the news today that I am unable to see current events objectively, but it does seem that the writer of this article is potentially as guilty of harboring biases as the “liberal” journalists that he is so quick to criticize. Although Kincaid’s basic point is that media consistently ignores some aspects of certain issues – I don’t see many articles focused on the harmful effects of abortions or the link between abortions and breast cancer – much of his article seems to be just as much about the absence of Kincaid’s personal opinion in the news as it is about the importance of unbiased reporting. In his list of taboo topics in journalism, he asserts, for example, that Islam is a violent religion as though it is a statement of fact. Although his assertion is apparently based on excerpts from the Koran, how can he make such a claim when there are millions of Muslims in America alone who have never performed violent actions against non-Muslims? Additionally, I would be curious as to whether Kincaid has actually read the Koran and its contents within the appropriate context of the entire work, or whether he has just read specific parts which help him prove his and many other conservatives’ point that Islam is a violent religion. It can easily be paralleled to taking parts of the Bible out of context and using them to prove a positive or negative point about Christianity; doing this is unfair and definitely shows a clear bias.
He claims that the media are shaping the way Americans think about current events and popular issues, but it’s difficult to draw the line between media influencing public opinion and media reflecting public opinion. Kincaid is a journalist too, and he has just as much responsibility to be objective as the “liberal” media that he criticizes. His article would have been more effective and I would have taken it more seriously if he did not display what I considered to be an obviously conservative bias. Journalists have a responsibility to be “fair, balanced and accurate” as the Accuracy in Media Web site suggests, but the best way to combat liberal bias is to report with as little bias as possible, not to retort with an opposite bias. Readers deserve that much.
Although “Help Wanted on the Religion Beat” concerns the lack of coverage of religion and religious issues in the news, it is a continuation of the idea of media bias discussed in the previous reading. The author, Julia Duin, claims that various news outlets – radio, TV, newspapers – are becoming increasingly less likely to hire religious reporting specialists, and in some cases, don’t even cover religion as a regular beat. Duin’s main concern with this issue is that although religion continues to play a serious role in decision-making for many people during election time, coverage of religion in the news continues to decrease. Duin asserts that a large part of the reason why religion is given little news coverage is that the people who make hiring decisions have a “fear and loathing of religion” and therefore do not want to devote resources to its coverage. At some papers that actually have religion reporters, seasoned religion reporters are leaving only to be replaced with new reporters fresh out of school. Duin claims that religion should not only be covered thoroughly, but by someone who has experience with the subject and is knowledgeable about religion. “A lot of TV and magazine political writers around the country spent a lot of time wading into a beat they didn’t understand, coming up with clueless observations about candidates and their faith,” Duin says about coverage of presidential candidates.
I agree with Duin that coverage of religion is not extensive enough, and it extends beyond just the religious beliefs of political candidates. What about Muslims? Americans would undeniably benefit from more balanced coverage of Islam, and such coverage could go a long way towards dispelling irrational fears people might have of Muslims or Islam, a religion which many Americans do not seem to understand at all. Religion is at the core of many of our country’s biggest issues: abortion, same-sex marriages, what should or shouldn’t be taught in public schools, and even U.S. involvement in the tensions between Israel and Palestine. Just as reporters give perspectives of people on both sides of gun-control or tax cut debates, they should also help shed light on why and how religion influences people’s decisions. “Why” is a question that journalists recognize as one of the most important in writing a fully fleshed-out article; “religion” is often the “why,” and it should be identified and explained as such.
In the article “Can media fairness be mandated?” Dante Chinni considers the pros and cons of the Fairness Doctrine, a set of rules meant to ensure presentation of various viewpoints by broadcasters. The Fairness Doctrine, though laid to rest almost 20 years ago, is being discussed by liberals once again as a potential means for curbing what they view as overwhelmingly conservative talk radio. Even some conservatives have criticized conservative talk radio because of many hosts’ negative attitudes toward immigration reform, which critics fear is negatively influencing public opinion about the issue. According to the article, Republican and Democratic senators alike, bonding together over the issue of immigration reform, have criticized talk radio hosts for being unabashedly biased and presenting issues in a one-sided manner.
Ultimately Chinni seems to think that reintroducing the Fairness Doctrine is a pipe dream, and I hope he is right. Although I understand the original motivation behind the Fairness Doctrine, which only had jurisdiction over public airwaves, its presence today would be outdated; as Chinni points out, the lines between public airwaves and “other forms of news are blurring as telecasts become webcasts.” Beyond the legality of the issue (the Fairness Doctrine’s potential to infringe on broadcasters’ First Amendment rights), audiences need to learn to listen with discernment. Although some liberals argue that liberal talk radio shows are overpowered by their conservative counterparts, this is not necessarily a reason for reinstating the Fairness Doctrine and essentially forcing equal airtime for conservative and liberal viewpoints. If liberals don’t want to listen to conservative radio, they don’t have to, just as conservatives don’t have to read The New Republic or listen to National Public Radio. Although the argument for the Fairness Doctrine is rooted in the belief that people who listen to conservative talk radio will have their opinions unduly influenced by what they hear, the reality is that most people who listen to conservative talk radio probably do so to further bolster conservative opinions that they already have.
The concept behind the selection of “20 Under 40” is inspiring for anyone who wants to work in newspapers or who currently works in newspapers, because all the people selected seem to have so much faith in the future of an industry that so many others are claiming will soon fall by the wayside with the ever-growing popularity online news. An excerpt from the survey that the candidates filled out that I particularly liked was this: “We’ll have to become truly platform-independent and recognize that we should funnel the appropriate content to the appropriate platform.” I interpreted this statement to mean that the online and print versions of papers should become independent of each other so that they both have unique and relevant information to offer to readers. Online news sites, especially online off-shoots of local papers, are so often regurgitations of their print counterparts. If the online and print versions of newspapers become independent of each other, they will become more effective as independent news sources and newspapers will stay relevant, even in the midst of this online revolution.
The “Jimmy’s World” case study we discussed in class left me wondering, like everyone else, how the story ever made it to print in a paper as esteemed as The Washington Post. Of the many warning signs in the article, the one that struck me was the point in the story in which Cooke described watching Ron give Jimmy an injection of heroin. I’m sure every reader of the story wondered what kind of reporter would watch an 8-year-old child be shot-up by an adult, so why didn’t Cooke’s editor wonder the same thing? Additionally, I know Jimmy is supposedly street-wise, but I have never heard a child his age speak the way he does in Cooke’s article; he talks more like an 18-year-old than an 8-year-old. There is a slew of other (in retrospect) obvious problems with the story, including the sensationalized tone of the story, the question of how Cooke located an 8-year-old heroin addict and convinced him to talk to her, and several instances of years and basic facts simply not matching up.
Reading “Jimmy’s World” with the knowledge that it is a fabricated story was excellent practice in thinking critically about what kinds of problems are presented in fictitious stories. It’s easy to point out problems in retrospect when other people already revealed the story to be fake, but that’s why reading such stories is helpful. Reading enough stories like “Jimmy’s World” can help develop a more discerning, critical eye. If editors read stories that came to them the way a person with background knowledge of “Jimmy’s World” would read it – just waiting to pounce on every suspicious aspect of the story – they would probably catch a lot more falsities in articles presented to them.
