News values are a pivotal part of the journalism industry.
However, this afternoon got me questioning how far is too far to go for a
story? Now as I’ve said previously, I want to be a war correspondent. So my
perception of going to extreme, extenuating lengths for a story may be a little
different to your average seventeen-year-old.
The problem is, when a journalist sacrifices his/her news
values to get to the core of an issue, that story becomes ridiculously popular,
whether through general interest from the greater public of because of the
controversy it creates. The journalists who successfully bend the rules of
freedom of information and privacy undoubtedly deliver the best scoop. It’s too
coincidental for the two to be mutually exclusive.
With our internet-based news-platform, we’re only seeing
more and more violations of the ethics of journalism. Is this a problem?
Probably. When we see other violations of individual rights, we think to
ourselves ‘their in the public eye, they had it coming. This was self
inflicted.’ Do we ever stop to ask ourselves how we’d react if that were us in
bold print on page two?
I believe that if it were, we’d have issues with our private
lives becoming someone else’s morning entertainment. Constant contradictions
and double-standards.
There has to be a line of how far is too far for a scoop,
preferably one that prevents situations such as the News of the World scandal.
The problem is, the moral barrier is so faint that sometimes we become so
caught up that we forget to look before we fall. And we end up flat on our
faces.
It’s not intentional that journalists pry – it’s in the
nature of the job.
You lose all consideration for everything else around you
and live in the story: one which now has a rather tragic ending. Potential
unemployment.
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