The Big Five

In my readings of The Elements of Journalism (http://tinyurl.com/ylk9m4u) I have come to a new found respect for the five characteristics discussed:

1. The Owner/Corporation must be committed must be committed to citizens first
2. Hire business managers who also put citizens first
3. Set and communicate clear standards
4. Journalists have final say over news
5. Communicate clear standards to the public

(for reference please see pages 70-73 of the book mentioned above which is by the authors Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel)

The first characteristic is important due to the fact that citizens, who are the consumers are put first. However, besides this as it protects the independence of the journalists who cater to the citizens and not to the corporation. With a few exceptions, it seems that the journalism industry is losing all independence as corporate greed is taking its seat of our ever evolving "Pro-Corporate Reich" and destroying the real meaning of Journalism.

Characteristic number two is vital as a manager who puts the citizens first will have greater respect for the journalists of whom the audience [citizens] consume their information from. The management would then be more about the consumers [citizens] than about the "mulla", power, and other greedy incentives often found in a business.

Note: please see this YouTube video on media trust. If you are up to date with your BBC media you will understand how this relates to characteristics one and two. Corporate greed got a hold of the media and what citizens were being exposed to happened to not be the truth. http://tinyurl.com/6cb2pkr

Number three is more than important. In fact, it is vital! With no clear standards there might as well not be standards at all as unclear standards allow for "loop holes" and other problems

Number Four: Oh, yeah, us journalists have the final say! Power in us! Okay, maybe not completely. We will still have that guy who we call our boss only because he signs our paycheck, right? Well, at least this concept is respected as without it being respected then corporate greed would be able to manipulate the media and, therefore, the citizens who put their trust in the media.

Characteristic number five is pretty important as people will usually only consume from sources that they trust and they are more likely to trust a media source who flat out says "These are our standards and we follow them".

In the first paragraph of the section concerning the fifth characteristic there was a segment from the speech of Edward Seaton. I was so intrigued that I decided to look it up online. It basically expands on what he already said in his quote. My favorite quote by him is "Without ethics, there is no quality. Without quality, there is no credibility, and without credibility, there is no future."

Here is the link: http://tinyurl.com/5vzqfau