TRUTH + PEOPLE = JOURNALISM + MULTI--SIDED STORIES vs. PUBLIC RELATIONS + SHINY SPIN: "*
*Public relations is designed to put the most positive spin on anything** done by an institution like a college, a company or a government agency. It's designed to make the entity look as wonderful as possible...
**JOURNALISM**, on the other hand, isn't about making institutions or individuals look good or bad.
**It's about portraying them in a REALISTIC LIGHT, good, bad or otherwise**.
All of this would've seemed very
**obvious to the baby boomer generation** that came of age in the 1960s. That was a generation of young people who grew up
**ACCUSTOMED TO QUESTIONING AUTHORITY**, whether it be a university, a corporation or the government.
**COLLEGE STUDENTS OF TODAY**, however are very different. They've come of age in a time in which it's
**much less common to challenge those in power**. It's not that they won't do it; it's just that it
**doesn't come as naturally to them** as it did to their parents or grandparents.
It's
**important for JOURNALISTS to QUESTION those in power** because that's part of our PRIMARY MISSION: to serve as a kind of adversarial watchdog keeping an eye on the activities of the powerful, to try and ensure that they don't abuse that power....
**It's simple: We are here to tell the truth**.
#journalism #truth #truthbetold #versus #publicrelations #marketing #spin #election2016 #politics #economics #Storytelling SOURCE:
**WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PUBLIC RELATIONS AND JOURNALISM?**-- article by Tony Rogers, About.com
Tony Rogers: B.A. in journalism, University of Wisconsin-Madison. M.S. in journalism, Columbia University. Rotary International Scholar
http://journalism.about.com/od/ethicsprofessionalism/a/What-Is-The-Difference-Between-Public-Relations-And-Journalism.htmRELATED:
**THIS ISN'T REAL JOURNALISM, SO LET'S NOT PRETEND IT IS**-- article by Grant Feller, Forbes, Dec. 30, 2015, 7:38am
"There is a single word that encapsulates everything that is great and terrible about journalism. Free... Have they been bought or are they being honest? Does it even matter? I was thinking about this when reading this week that the UK’s advertising watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority, has criticised a national newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, for publishing an article that praised Michelin tyres
**without making it clear to readers that the piece was in fact a paid advertisement... that is specifically designed to resemble old-fashioned editorial**...
Every day publications and their websites are filled with content marketing, native advertising, whatever you want to call it [it's not journalism]
**When there are various pieces labelled ‘the 50 best buys** at this weekend’s Christmas/Easter/Black Friday sales’, do you really think journalists find such items themselves or do
**they rely on favoured PRs sending in their clients’ wares and possibly one or two freebies as well, just to grease the wheels**? .... All of these are ‘
**marketing communications**’
http://www.forbes.com/sites/grantfeller/2015/12/30/this-isnt-real-journalism-so-lets-not-pretend-it-is/#138cdf3755a4RELATED: (April 11, 2003)
**JOURNALISM: TRUTH OR DARE?**-- article (Book Review) by Roy Greenslade, The Guardian, April 11, 2003, 20:40 EDT
"Seen from today's perspective it is plausible to suggest that journalism is in crisis... His press career includes the editorship of the Independent and the New Statesman, and the deputy editorship of the Financial Times... broadcasting... director of news and current affairs at the BBC.
In Journalism he explores a number of overlapping themes, worrying over the
**merging of news with entertainment, the conflation of journalism and public relations**, and the perversity of rolling 24-hour news leading to a
**shortened attention span** among viewers.
**News has... become just another commodity**...Journalism cannot escape the consequences of the system that owns and controls it.
**The pressure to yield CORPORATE PROFITS is journalism's loss**... what happens when we are left only with the unbelievable?... Thus far the net has manifested anarchy, providing an overload of information which is virtually - and I use that word advisedly - impossible to trust.
**The net is the ultimate example of quantity over quality**. Meanwhile,
**the marketeers hold sway**."
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/apr/12/highereducation.news1RELATED: (May 27, 2015)
**BILL MOYERS: THE CHALLENGES OF JOURNALISM IS TO SURVIVE THE PRESSURE COOKER OF PLUTOCRACY**The following remarks were made by Bill Moyers at the presentation of the Helen Bernstein Book Awards for Excellence in Journalism. The ceremony took place at the New York Public Library on May 26, 2015.
-- posted by Bill Moyers, May 27, 2015
"*
*WHAT HAPPENS TO A SOCIETY fed a diet of rushed, re-purposed, thinly reported “content?” Or “branded content” that is really merchandising — propaganda — posing as journalism?**"
A free press, you see, doesn’t operate for free at all.
**Fearless journalism requires a steady stream of independent income**.
Above all, we need journalists and writers like those you honor tonight. They participate in what the iconic filmmaker John Grierson called “
**the articulation of our time**.” No matter the technology employed, it is the deeply moved and engaged individual who can transcend the normal province of journalistic convention
**to see and speak truths others have missed in all that is hidden in plain sight**.
http://billmoyers.com/2015/05/27/bill-moyers-speech-challenge-journalism-survive-plutocracy/PLUTOCRACY:
**Government by the wealthy**...an elite or ruling class of people whose power derives from their wealth.
"The term plutocracy is generally used as a pejorative to describe or warn against an undesirable condition.
**Throughout history, political thinkers** such as Winston Churchill, 19th-century French sociologist and historian Alexis de Tocqueville, 19th-century Spanish monarchist Juan Donoso Cortés and today Noam Chomsky
**have condemned plutocrats for ignoring their social responsibilities, using their power to serve their own purposes and thereby increasing poverty and nurturing class conflict, corrupting societies with greed and hedonism**."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy**AUTHENTIC JOURNALISM**:
"Authentic Journalism is a term used by Al Giordano to describe a
**journalism unadulterated by money** that "has a clear vision, a vision consistent with an
**authentically DEMOCRATIC society**." He describes it as:
"*
*journalism that doesn't pander to the interests of the advertisers** [...] That doesn't go and look for more upscale readership in order to please those advertisers, but rather SERVES PEOPLE – in a way that the people come to believe and to know that the newspaper, or whatever media it is, is part of them and serves their interests.
As defined by Mario Menéndez Rodríguez, who coined the phrase, Authentic Journalism is defined by the following process:
"FIRST, we gather the people together to
**identify their problems in their own words**, and the
**newspaper gives public voice to those words**.
SECOND, we
**gather the people**, all the people, the very same people together
**to determine what are the solutions to those problems**, big and small, and the
**newspaper gives voice to those solutions**.
And THIRD, we gather the people together to force the authorities to either solve or get out of the way of the solutions the people want, and
**the newspaper is on the side of the people** in that struggle to the ultimate consequences."
He further rejects the "alternative" label, saying that large media (like The New York Times) are the actual alternatives to real journalism, for the reasons above."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authentic_Journalism
