This Saturday 6 June 8-9 PM on It’s A Question Of Balance with Ruth Copland we consider ‘Do we still value professional journalism?’
“Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.” So spoke Thomas Carlyle in his book On Heroes and Hero Worship about a parliamentary debate in 1787 on the opening up of press reporting of the House of Commons in Britain. It is one of the first comments about the power of the press. Recognising this power, standards grew up around professional journalism. According to The Elements of Journalism (written by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel) “Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth” and its “essence is a discipline of verification”. New technology has given rise to ‘citizen journalism’ with ordinary people creating blogs about news and spreading information about issues and events through social media both in written and visual form. This kind of informal journalism isn’t held to the same standards; it is often not fact-checked or supported by second sources. Sometimes it wilfully spreads disinformation with the audience often accepting this news at face value. Is this as a problem? Or do you think the benefits of getting breaking news or less traditional perspectives is worth the risk? Do you have trusted sources of information for news that you defer to or do you have an egalitarian approach to news sources? Do you weight citizen journalism equally when it comes to news gathering? Or do you still value professional journalism?
What do you think? Ruth Copland gets the views of people on the street for our Out and About feature. Join us on Saturday 8-9 PM! For more info on the show and to hear past shows visit www.itsaquestionofbalance.com
