Different degrees of press freedom is found in different parts of the world. Whether the country you are in is practising Western or Authoritarian theory of the press, it makes no difference to the fact that press freedom is relative and subjective. There is no true complete press freedom whether you are exericising rights to the Fourth Estate as watchdog of the state or constrained and restricted by governance.
Take the example of the Western free press where the government is not allowed to intervene with news written by journalists. Exemption from government's intervention in the free market may mean freedom from the government, but it is not freedom from the media owner. Where the survival of a newspaper is dependent on advertisments and subscribers, how free do you think news can be? News is written for its readers and what the readers want to know and hear is what determines the content of news. If a journalist writes something true, but is of no significance to the audience's life, the papers do not sell. If the papers do not sell, the publication cannot survive, and advertisers will not spend money on a poorly circulated publication. For this reason, some newspapers are circulated free, but these papers are unsustainable for serious news in broadsheet press. In other words, there is no freedom in free market press and the content of the papers are determine by advertisers and subscribers.
In an Authoritarian press environment, the control is primarily from the government. There may not be need for a law to censor what is allowed and what is not, because coercing through actions is good enough to perform wonders. Say a wrong word and you get sued or replaced, and automatic self-censorship and self-regulation wil fall in place. In so doing, the audience reads from the news, socially constructed perspectives of events, controlled by governance, to read and see things the way they planned.
Whether you are in a country that practices Western or Authoritarian or Communist or Developmental theories of the press, it is more or less the same. The content of all press is controlled by some form of governance and the only difference is in the degrees of 'press freedom'.
International journalism involves many facets of news reporting and includes areas like press freedom, news sources, objectivity, culture, and audience trends. Vincent Campbell (2004) in his book, Information Age Journalism, wrote on this subject. This blog entry provides an overview and critical review of the book.
The first chapter introduces the historical background of how journalism began and how it became what it is today. Current crises involved in international journalism mentioned by Campbell (2004) include technological development, emergence of commercial newspaper and broadcast industry, digital convergence, declining audience and diversity, tablodisation, and threats faced by journalists in non-democratic and developing nations (pp.3-27).
The second chapter looks into four theories of the press and explains why the belief of press freedom without state intervention is a myth, as there will always be some form of control, regardless of political or economic reasons.
The third chapter illustrates this point by showing how free market journalism and the role of journalists as watchdog in maintaining democracy in the Fourth Estate also face problems, such as audience preference for entertainment to serious news, reliance of news organisations on advertising revenue, influences of owner on editorial, and professional competition (pp.54-78).
The fourth chapter discusses the reliance of reporters on their sources for news (pp.80-83), and explains the importance of relationship between journalists and their sources. This relationship, however, can result in journalists' sympathetic tendencies to the cause and endanger the balance of neutral viewpoint in news (p.86).
News selection and gatekeeping are discussed in the fifth chapter to explain why audience's interest precedes the importance of news (pp.117-123).
The sixth chapter discusses the ethical issues of gathering and producing news, and the limitations of professional codes (pp.127-152). Issues discussed include human rights and privacy, taste and decency, confidentiality of information, bribery to write preferentially, news fabrication, unqualified account of events, erroneous foreign feed, adding of unknown facts, distorted presentation of information, and defamatory libel.
Threats to objectivity of journalism are covered in the seventh chapter (pp.153-154). These threats include the emergence of free market and commercialisation (p.156), exclusion and inclusion of ideologies (pp.166-167), reliance on official sources for news, and the dangers surrounding journalists' opinions and actual 'facts' (pp.173-175).
The eighth and ninth chapter looks into alternative news sources such as participatory and literary journalism, conglomerate influences, entertainment, sport, and lifestyle news.
The tenth and final chapter concludes the book by looking into the globalisation of journalism in the information age, wherein, Campbell says, "newspapers never really developed into international titles" because of the difficulty in producing and distributing news in synchronised content across countries, language barrier, and literary rates in certain countries (p.230). The rise and fall of foreign correspondents (pp.230-231) and new technology used in news gathering are briefly mentioned before the book concludes with considerations of the extent gatekeeping can be exercised in the new information age (pp.254-255).
As can be seen from the overview above, Campbell covered a large part of his book on topics pertaining to issues encountered by journalists in general news reporting situations, rather than in international context. The first two chapters provided a relative good start into the understanding journalism in a global scale, of the present day crises in journalism and the foremost important four theories of the press, with provides essential reading introducing international journalism. The topic on globalisation provides a good focus on journalism in international context, but it is only covered in the last chapter of the book, which leaves the rest of the chapters focused on general journalism topics. A first read of the entire book gives the reader the impression that the author may have realised nearer the end of the book that he has not met his intented goal and attempts to cramp everything on journalism in international context within a single chapter at the end.
REFERENCE
Campbell, V. (2004) Information Age Journalism. London: Arnold.
Photography news reporting can be interesting when it is placed in context with a written story. Being able to take good pictures is certainly a desired skill for any journalist, whether it is writing for print or digital media. Photo journalism however can be very dangerous if taken out of context.
One of the myths about journalistic photography is the perception of 'seeing is believing'. We assume visual representation in photographs is the equivalent of seeing the actual event, hence genuine in every respect, capable of conveying the truth about the happening. Unfortunately, all these are just mere perceptions as photography only records what has been captured and do not interpret the meaning of the picture. A photograph is therefore not seen reality, thus cannot be true evidence of what had happened (Kuhn 1985, p.26). Furthermore, with digital editing capabilities, creative intervention can tamper the authenticity of what is actually 'seen' through the camera eye.
Another misrepresented truth is in the area of photography portrayal of people. In 1988, the Museum of Modern Art in New York presented an exhibition of Nicholas Nixon's photographs called 'Pictures of People.' Among the people pictured by Nixon are people with AIDS (PWAs), each graphically portrayed as someone of colored skin and to be pitied or feared, often in a dehumanized state of deteriorated health. This pictorial message however is far from the truth, as many PWAs can continue to live a relatively long life after diagnosis through the use of experimental drug treatments. The real reason for the high death toll is in fact due to government inaction and the inaccessibility of affordable health care due to institutionalized neglect as a result of racism and sexism (Crimp 1992, pp.117-118).
Media representation of PWAs affects how viewers perceive the victims. Photography journalism can convey messages out of context when presented without the corresponding written story. Audiences can be manipulated if they fail to deconstruct media representations to understand the perceivable reality. Images from photography like the PWAs must be understood as simply representations, formulated not in relation to the 'truth' of the image, but in relation to a social governance and construct.
REFERENCES
Crimp, D. (1992) "Portraits of People with AIDS" in L Grossberg, C. Nelson and P. Treicher (eds), Cultural Studies. New York: Routledge: 117-131.
Kuhn, A. (1985) "Lawless Seeing", The Power of the Image: Essays on Representation and Sexuality. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul: pp.19-47.
Writing hard news is very different from writing features because it does not contain content of ideologies, anecdotes, or thoughts. It is not an editorial of opinions. It is all about facts.
The purpose of the inverted pyramid style of writing primarily serves the audiences and editors in the ways they read and edit articles. For the journalist, this method of writing reduces the time in processing thoughts and planning of how a story needs to be written. To the editors and gatekeepers, it allows a quick cut-off of content at the lower end of the story to fit the availability of space for print. To the readers, it allows quick content reading at a glance, with the gist of the story starting right from the beginning of the story, allowing them to move on to the next story even before the article is fully read.
For easier visualisation of how hard news is written, read my article on a court judgement at www.edvencomm.net.
