1.4 Role of journalism

Disseminators of information? Watchdogs? Interpreters of events? Journalists have

many roles to play.

Journalism mainly involves practices of print journalism in general, and newspaper in particular, because newspaper journalism remains a good grounding career in television, radio, magazine and online journalism.

The role of press is to be awatchdog and act as a catalytic agent to hasten the process of socially and economic change in the society. Journalism is the voice of the people about corruption, the government, and the use and misuse of power. It should be noted that Journalism too is part of the political process, craves for power, is made up of people with personal ambitions and aversions, preferences and prejudices. As perhaps the largest advertisers, the government supports and strengthens the press. Both the government and the press represent the ‘power elites’ and therefore reflect their interests. This is why the interests of the poor are rarely on the agenda of public discussions.

The press is so obsessed with politics that even a silly rumor hits the front page. What the Journalism profession urgently needs is creative,investigative and development reporting chiefly on non-political themes like unemployment, malnutrition, exploitation of the poor, miscarriage of justice, police atrocities, development schemes and the like. For example, in India, the Bofors pay-offs, the Harshad Mehta securities scam, the ‘hawala’ payments to top politicians etc are all incidents where follow-up investigations are lacking. Such ‘crisis’ reporting sells newspapers but does little to bring the guilty to book or to educate the public about the context of corruption.

Credibility is indeed the very life-blood of the press, no matter which government is in power. Journalism is an awesome responsibility, which rests on the shoulders of journalists because in the final analysis they are the custodians of the freedom of press. If they prefer careerism to standing up for their rights, they are letting down their profession. Unfortunately, journalists are inclined to accept many favors from government and therefore, their news stories will ultimately favor that particular government.

New paradigm features

•Journalism, have a role in society to link the individual to the world. The journalists need to give the audience a sense of what it is to be in the place they are reporting and connected to the world.

•Our audience is diverse and complex. So There needs to be a consciousness of diversity: not just in terms of race and gender but also class, rural/urban and youth/aged.

•Journalism must emphasize context; interpretation; research; investigation; complete reporting and analysis.

•The journalists must foreground the storyteller (the individual and the media organization).

•They should respect the audiences and engage in dialogue

In our use of sources the journalists should move beyond “the authorities”. Audiences are also sources. They must remember to foreground and situate who the sources are.

•Ownership: symbolically the audience needs to feel they “own” the medium.

•Ownership: economic -this needs to be diverse and needs participation by all

stakeholders in media.

•Control and structures within media organizations – there should be respect for storytellers and storytelling and these should be given status and compensation. From this we drafted the policy statement which reads: “In recognition of our role in society as storytellers; as the link between citizens and the world; we strive to promote:

•Stories, told in a multiplicity of voices that are well researched; conceptualized; analytical; interpretive; in dialogue with, are considered respectful.