The scoop of digital and print journalism

Papers have had a history of channeling misinformation. The first thing to note: there are different types of newspapers such as entertainment, watchdog, and investigative journalism at the local and corporate level. Popular newspapers and broadcast media include ABC World News and The Washington Post. 

North Central College’s O’Donnell notes that there was a time where networks such as ABC, CBS, and NBC lead the evening news. Viewers would receive information that they knew was credible and had all the same stories but each in a different tone.

Opinionated segments would be given towards the end which gave the viewers a clear distinction between hard news and commentary. Regarding politics and political campaigns, the Fairness Doctrine would also apply in newspapers, where an equal-length story with the same sized photo, headline, and word count would be present, hopefully also written in the same tone.  

Metea Valley Stampede’s 2016 Editor-in-Chief, Turner Smith, believes that although newspapers and broadcasts work to find truth and report the facts, most of them are also for-profit. This means having an agenda, such as selling subscriptions or picking what caters to their audience.

Smith also believes that journalists will have personal beliefs and their own ways on how to go about the story. However, journalists are encouraged to be intentional in what they are creating and to amplify the voices of as many sides as possible. Those who intentionally use their biases and constantly reinforce the same beliefs do not contribute to diversifying the story and can easily become an unintentional opinion piece. 

“The best thing that we can do is just diversify our viewpoints,” Smith said. “I don’t think it’s so much about saying ‘okay I’ve pulled the facts out, and I’ve identified which part is commentary.’ Even if you could do that, which is remarkably difficult to do a lot of time, I don’t think that’s the long answer. I think the answer is to get as many different pieces of commentary as we can, and then to be informed as that will make you, and then decide, you know, what is accurate.”

With a driven agenda, there is also a debate of whether or not consumers should trust news outlets, with the continuing presence of corporate incentivized interests. Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Dr. E.J. Fagan, notes that the news media chooses news based on what people are willing to tune in for. He emphasizes that viewers look for conflict and debate, especially on national television. Although there seems to be more aggression, there is still an agreement between people in power. 

“You know there is more conflict than ever, but there’s still agreement kind of underneath that surface,” Fagan said. “That’s why I encourage people to look at elite policy communities because there is a lot more agreement there than you often see otherwise.”

Now, how trustworthy would the reporting be if the large news media companies are corporately incentivized and are able to make damaging mistakes? One example is the defamation lawsuit against The Washington Post and CNN by 2020 Covington Catholic alum Nick Sandmann. The lawsuit was in light of the face-to-face confrontation between Sandmann and Native American protestors on the Lincoln Memorial in Jan. 2019. News outlets began painting Sandmann and his classmates as instigators, while Sandmann said he was attempting to diffuse the situation.

“They did agree that they had overstepped their characterization of [Sandmann],” O’Donnell said. “So that shows you that even the big [journalists] of the news industry can make a misstep… [Journalism] is a crucial public service, so maybe if we were better at emphasizing that and reminding people that out of that whole newspaper there are a few errors in there, but there are 1,000 correct things too. When you do get hit with something, you have to acknowledge it and try to do better, very openly, honestly, and transparently.”

What about social media? Is it a form of journalism? There are mixed opinions since the digital age also falls on the emergence of social media. It is a way to communicate information or the latest stories. Whether it is a form of journalism, however, is up for debate.