Chapter 3 A Return to Practice: reclaiming journalism as public

I question Meadows's take on the history of journalism, that journalism was some natural progression from 'public-sphere activities where disparate members of the public...met to discuss politics, sports, gossip...' It sounds all a little idealistic, a l little democratic for my liking. Somehow I don’t think the aristocrats or the upper class of the day would mingle in "pubs" and "cafes" with the underclass’s and working poor to have intelligent conversations about the politics of the day. It doesn't happen now and I wouldn’t have expected it to happen back then when class differentiation was much more pronounced.

So following on from that, I take issue with this idea of returning or reclaiming journalism as public conversation. I doubt that it ever was, or at least to the degree that Meadows claims. Actually I was told by one of the contributors to our wonderful text, Mr Steve Mac, in first year, that newspapers began as a way for businesses to push their political burrows. So I think there are different views on the 'purity' of the origins of journalism and Meadows's views (although he presents them as facts) should not be taken as gospel.

I would like to take one last dig at Meadows if i could :-P He relies heavily on one source, Carey, to back up his arguments. A quick count finds 15 out of his 21 quotes in this four pages of his chapter cite Carey, which I think this shows a serious flaw in his research and brings into question the credibility of his arguments.

Chapter 2: Comfort or Curse?

The journalist’s first priority, in theory, should be to objectivity, to balanced truth, to this lofty notion of the ‘public interest’. In practice, however, it is to their employers and ultimately to their advertisers; media is a business, a commercial enterprise and therein lays the fundamental conflict of interest in journalism. How do you critique the powerful when rely on the same powerful for your existence? For example if the state government threatens to pull their advertising from your paper cause of negative press, then what?

This quote stood out for me: ‘Newspaper design and packaging needs favour predictable stories that reduce journalists to the role of researchers’ (p:26).

Chapter One: What is Journalism?

As a profession, journalism seems to be exceptional in that the roles and expectations of its practitioners are fairly ambiguous.

Traditional professions such as doctors, lawyers etc appear to have clear boundaries defining their roles and responsibilities, with institutions and bodies to govern their behaviour.

Journalism, on the other hand, seems to be caught in a perpetual conversation with itself about what it is they’re doing, who are they doing it for and sometimes even if it is right to be doing what they do.

The Media Entertainment Arts Alliance has attempted to define the fundamental principals of journalism, numerous academics (including the Tapsall & Varley) have conducted studies and written texts on the subject but I wonder how much these contributions actually inform the practice of everyday journalists.

Perhaps we have to settle with this quote lifted from the first chapter: ‘There is no simple definition of what a journalist is’.