Task 10

1. Factual Writing Copy
Task 10 – Responsible Journalism
Patrick Gouldsbrough

2. Social and cultural awareness
Writing about a group that the consumer don’t have first hand experiences of is something that is commonly done
in journalism. Even though you would think this would be an uninteresting news story, media producers will be
trying to communicate their ideologies on certain groups that may become a big issue in the UK and therefore, it
will be in the public interest. In this scenario, these journalists must ensure that they aren’t creating an untrue or
biased account of this group.
In news reporting, there has been many examples of where groups haven’t been portrayed in the best light and
therefore this group have been misrepresented to the consumer of that particular media product. Some examples
include:
Asylum Seekers
As you can see from the image on the top right, The Daily Telegraph have misrepresented Asylum Seekers in a bad
light and therefore hasn’t thought about social and cultural awareness when producing this story. This particular
news producer has published other stories on the matter and each time they have misrepresented the asylum
seekers. Even though this group might have a bad name amongst some British people, when reporting the news,
which should be in a factual manner, you can’t bring personal ideologies into the story. On the other hand, some
media producers look at it the other way and show how asylum seekers can be positive in terms of economy and
financial stability of the country. This is all well and good if it’s factual and hasn’t been take out of context.
Therefore, the right thing to do when trying to represent a group is what the Daily Express have done on this
occasion (bottom right) they have reported what is happening in terms of asylum seekers and is communicating the
situation in a factual manner.
Benefit claimers
Even though The Daily Express got it right in the last section, on this occasion, they have fallen short of representing
benefit claimers in a balanced and fair nature. This article by the media producer features no facts to back up their
claims and no expert opinions communicating some form of statistic to the consumer to try and make this headline
that The Daily Express have gone with more credible. Instead, the news report has jumped to conclusions and
reported the negative side to the story. Even though migrant benefits have been banned, they fail to mention that
some migrants can still claim benefits and some migrants actually earn an honest wage in some of the most highly
regarded sectors. Therefore, without any of these features, The Daily Express disregards any social and cultural
awareness in this article.

3. NUJ Codes of practice
If journalists are unsure if they have shown disregard for social and cultural awareness while writing a news article,
they can check the NUJ codes of practice. These are a set of rules that journalists choose to follow if they are in this
particular union. However, the problem is that journalists doesn’t have to opt into this union and can therefore
choose not to follow the codes and fall short of the ethical codes that journalists should follow, which sometimes
includes the legal codes also. The codes are as follows:
• “At all times upholds and defends the principle of media freedom, the right of freedom of expression and the right
of the public to be informed” – This means that a news story that is controversial has to be reported because it’s in
the public interest to do so, which means, the public needs to know. However, on very controversial stories,
journalists may have to break some later codes to get the story published. For example, media producers like The
Times, found it necessary to publish the story on tax avoiders, due to them believing that the general public should
be informed on the matter. This resulted in an angry, and most say rightful, backlash on the tax avoiders, due to the
working and middle class having to pay more in tax to make up for those that aren’t.
• “Strives to ensure that information disseminated is honestly conveyed, accurate and fair” – News stories can’t be
made up or the information can’t be taken out of context, it must be presented through facts and how it would be
seen if the consumers were actually there at the time. An example of this would be the story on the right hand side,
second from the top. This story communicated to the consumer that fans in the Hillsborough disaster picked the
pockets of the victims and were beating up police officers that were helping the victims. These allegations by The
Sun were later found to be false and dishonest. This story gave a bad name to the fans of both teams of the
Hillsborough disaster, as well as breaking this and a few other NUJ codes in the process.
• “Does her/his utmost to correct harmful inaccuracies” – This involves journalists correcting information that they
see or know to be false. This can be the editor of a newspaper/magazine that corrects a copy writers inaccuracies or
this can be a newspaper correcting facts and reporting the truth, even if they have received the distorted
information from another media outlet. Newspapers have to sell and be striking to the audience, they need stories
that are interesting. However, these stories must be obtained legally and ethically and must stick to the other NUJ
codes. On The Sun website, the media producer did correct the harmful inaccuracy that they had made by publishing
that story and apologised and put the record straight. However, this was too late, the damage to the fans and the
credibility of the newspaper was already done. On one hand, they broke this code because they failed to amend the
information before publishing the story, while they did correct it second time round, meaning they still broke the
code but tried to make up for it (Baring in mind, it wasn’t of their own accord, it was done because they were pulled
up about it from consumers and official publishing bodies)

4. NUJ Codes of practice
• “Differentiates between fact and opinion” – This falls under the same bracket as biased information, which I covered in
Task 2. Journalists, according to the NUJ, are meant to report stories in a factual and unbiased manner and must not put
their own opinions in this piece of news reporting, which involves the journalist deciding whether a certain piece of
information they have received or collected falls in the fact or opinion category. The Daily Mail have broken this NUJ
code by been unable to differentiate between fact and opinion on this article (top right). From the headline of ‘The Mail
accuses these men ok killing. If we are wrong, let them sue us’ you can tell that the producer of this article has already
started opinionated and biased from the outset. As the article continues, the sheer biased nature also continues, with
the Mail accusing these five men of been murderers without any proven information, which isn’t then factual, or any
official quotes from people such as the police. Incapability to tell the difference between fact and opinion in news
reporting could lead to what the Mail expressed in the headline, a lawsuit.
• “Obtains material by honest, straightforward and open means, with the exception of investigations that are both
overwhelmingly in the public interest and which involve evidence that cannot be obtained by straightforward means” –
This means that information generated by the journalist must fit an ethical and legal specification and the information
hasn’t been found by illegitimate means. As the quote states, there ere some exceptions, which only apply f it’s very key
for the public to know about the story and if so, this information can be obtained through any means possible (this is
only in very extraordinary circumstances and it doesn’t happen often). The most notable breach of this NUJ code is the
phone hacking of the news of the world journalists, which then led to the Levesson inquiry to be set up. The code states
that information must be obtained using open and straightforward means, unless it’s overwhelmingly in the publics
interest. The hacking of high profile celebrities and dead schoolgirl, Millie Dowler’s phones was not an open means of
generating information and it wasn’t crucial for the public to know about it. Therefore, the news of the world journalists
(Clive Goodman, Glenn Mulcaire, Andrew Coulson and Rebecca Brooks) had broken this NUJ by hacking phones for the
media producer.
• “Does nothing to intrude into anybody’s private life, grief or distress unless justified by overriding consideration of the
public interest” – This is linked to the previous NUJ code and states that journalists should not intrude on people’s lives,
especially when they are in grief or distress. Like most NUJ codes, people think the line of intrusion is different and due
to the fact there isn’t a regulatory body on these NUJ codes, the media producer can’t be adjudged to have gone too far.
Some news outlets do step the wrong side of the line on occasion. A high profile case of this would be the Madeleine
McCann abduction news story. While it was reported factually at the time of the event and most newspapers managed
to follow the NUJ codes at the time of the abduction, since then, media producers have pestered and intruded on the
lives of Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann. This involved going round to the house, trying to generate
information while they were mourning the death of their daughter and multiple other forms of intrusion.

5. NUJ Codes of practice
• “Protects the identity of sources who supply information in confidence and material gathered in the course of her/his work”
– Many newspapers choose to collect sources from people to back up and give their stories more content, while the consumer
may trust the story if they have information provided from someone in the know, whether this is an expert or a trusted
person. This also involves the newspapers giving those sources that wish to remain anonymous, anonymity. If they fail to do
so, their credibility as well as the person who has leaked the information to the media outlet will be challenged. Edward
Snowden, the man who leaked many US government and world secrets, had anonymity from the newspapers (The Guardian
in particular) when he first started to leak this information. When he first started to rendezvous with Guardian Journalist
Glenn Greenwald in 2012, The Guardian kept Snowden secret and only published the information that the American was
providing to the media producer. The newspaper headline on the top right proves that The Guardian were profiting on
information from Snowden at that time and producing various articles about world secrets before other news reporters from
newspapers like The Times and Telegraph, knew about them. Of course, Edward Snowden was eventually unmasked but this
had nothing to do with The Guardian outing him, he was eventually unmasked by the NSA, by which time Snowden’s period of
anonymity was over. For all that time, Glenn Greenwald and The Guardian had kept the secret, they had upheld this particular
NUJ code.
• Resists threats or any other inducements to influence, distort or suppress information and takes no unfair personal
advantage of information gained in the course of her/his duties before the information is public knowledge” – This means
that journalist should not take or give bribes in the form of money or threatening abuse to generate information for their
news stories. This, of course, would give them an advantage when collecting information and is one of the most serious NUJ
codes of them all. Continuing on from the news of the world hacking scandal, Journalists from this this particular news outlet
bribed senior officials and high up police chiefs to gain information for their stories. It was reported by The Guardian that
News Of The World journalists were paying these sources £100,000 to give them official and classified information. This
worked and the media producer published a few stories with this bribed information, before the corporation were found
guilty at the hacking scandal (formally The Levesson Inquiry) and eventually was shut down in 2011, with a few of the
journalists in question going to jail for this offence.
• “Produces no material likely to lead to hatred or discrimination on the grounds of a person’s age, gender, race, colour,
creed, legal status, disability, marital status, or sexual orientation” – While I covered this NUJ code in the social and cultural
awareness section, the code goes into more detail and documents every group that you can’t show discrimination or
prejudice against and what kind of hatred is not tolerated in news reporting. Even though journalists should be clear on
discrimination already, this NUJ jut reiterates what isn’t tolerated when reporting the news. Newspapers like this headline by
The Daily Express are exactly what this NUJ code is there to prevent. A racist and discriminatory statement about the beliefs
and dress of other religions and faiths is the main theme of this article and falls short of this NUJ code. This isn’t the first time
this media producer has fallen short of the codes, a few weeks before this article, they produced a similar story that had the
headline ‘Ban It’ on. Aside from the NUJ codes, this newspaper can be seen to break the legal and ethical requirements we
expect from a media outlet in the UK.

6. NUJ Codes of practice
• “Does not by way of statement, voice or appearance endorse by advertisement any commercial product or service save for
the promotion of her/his own work or of the medium by which she/he is employed” – This means that journalists can’t
actively endorse products or companies in their articles or any other form of media. In print media, this mistake is rarely
made when mentioning a particular company but if a media producer does, they take the same approach as the BBC; they
normally state “other brands/products are available” and this will cover them legally as a media outlet.
• “A journalist shall normally seek the consent of an appropriate adult when interviewing or photographing a child for a
story about her/his welfare” – With celebrity culture such a huge part of news reporting these days, so too is celebrities
children. However, there are codes protecting the children of those celebrities, which involves consent been given to the
journalist by the celebrities, or if they are members of he public, parents. If this consent is not achieved, the adults can sue
the newspaper for publishing content without consent. Many celebrities have had their children pictured over time, some
have been done wit consent, while some have not. None other than Halle Berry had images of her daughter published in US
and UK publications without giving consent to those paparazzi, which led her to join the anti-paparazzi debate, which was
reported by The Guardian earlier this year (middle right)
• “Avoids plagiarism” – You would think this NUJ code would be always avoided by journalists. Copying someone else’s work
is the direct definition of plagiarism and in news reporting, copying the work and then not crediting the original owner is
also considered plagiarism too. Johann Hari, a journalist for The Independent, was caught up in a plagiarism storm when it
was pointed out by Private Eye in 2003 and again by Yahoo Ireland editor Brain Whelan in 2011 that his interviews were
similar to others that had been published by other journalists that had interviewed the same subject. What followed was an
investigation into Hari by The Independent and then Hari’s decision to leave the media producer in 2012.
Conscience clause
This new clause that was established a little after the Levesson Inquiry and states that journalists don’t have to produce
work that their editor or other members of seniority are asking them to produce because it breaches on of the twelve NUJ
codes. In addition, the NUJ website (https://www.nuj.org.uk/about/nuj-code/) states that: “The NUJ believes a journalist
has the right to refuse an assignment or be identified as the author of editorial that would break the letter or spirit of the
NUJ code of practice” before going on to say “The NUJ will support journalists who act according to the code” which means
that the NUJ will support journalists if they are punished for refusing a particular task they feel breaks the rules of the NUJ.
This is one advantage of been in the National Union Of Journalists. Like I mentioned earlier, you don’t have to be in the NUJ
but if you aren’t, scenarios where you feel you’ve been unfairly treated will have to be handled by yourself and not the
union.

7. Connotation
Journalists have an important job in terms of conveying the news to the public; their words can shape our views on a certain
topic, group or person, it’s important they use the right words when reporting the news. If they select the wrong words, the
connotations of that word may misrepresent or lead to discrimination and hate toward that certain group. A connotation is
the feeling that a word or phrase creates as well as the denotation (the literal meaning of the word).
Connation in an every day sense is that the colour red may connote anger and rage, while black may connote sadness and
sorrow. While these connotation can be transferred to a media sense, there are stronger connotations in news stories than
colours. After all, the overall view of a group is in the balance when a media outlet is reporting on them.
The newspaper example by The Daily Mail on the top right uses the word ‘Asylum’ in the headline, this connotes that the
people who have immigrated here are here wrongly and should be sent back to their native country. Even though this whole
headlines should possibly be changed, the word asylum could have been substituted for a word such as immigrants. This
article may have prompted the viewer ship of The Daily Mail to have a negative view on immigrants and their impact on the
British economy.
Another example I have found of a newspaper article that connotes a negative view against a particular group of people.
This time, people who claim benefits are the target of this article. However, instead of using the phrase ‘people on benefits’
or ‘benefit claimers’ The Daily Express have used the word ‘scroungers’. This connotes the feeling that these people are
wrongfully claiming from the government and don’t deserve these benefits, while they are doing all the rest of the general
public a disservice by claiming these benefits, despite some people needing these said benefits to survive in this country, a
view that the media outlet hasn't thought about when producing this article.
The thing with connotation is that people interpret words in a different way to others. For example, some may see the
article on the bottom right and identify with the word ‘homo’, however, most of us would see this terms as derogatory and
discriminatory towards gay people. This 2007 newspaper article by The Sunday Paper uses the word which was extensively
complained about. Like the last example, this whole headline is wrong but because the particular word the media producer
has used has negative ties towards it and when teamed with the word in the headline, it makes it seem like it’s a problem in
society, when in actuality, this is a problem that a small minority in society has. A word such as ‘gay’ would have been less
offensive to the particular group and would have avoided much, but not all, of the discriminatory nature.
If news producers are unclear on the rules when news reporting, they can read the NUJ codes or consult the NUJ
themselves, through the phone line that the union have set up for journalists. If they have any queries on which words will
cause least offence and not be challenged legally, journalists will consult the materials available.

8. Alternative readings
Most media outlets have a target audience they have established through viewership statistics, but they must also account
for alternate viewers consuming their work also. While they don’t have to make their products accessible for other
demographics, they have to be open minded and not discriminatory against certain groups of people. Before publishing
their work, journalists have to think about the possibility of other groups reading their works and if the article is biased
toward a certain group or will hatred be generated toward a certain group if they publish it. Cultural theorist Stuart Hall
explored the use of alternative reading and reception theory and came up with the encoding and decoding model, which
helps to explain how a consumer decodes messages and connotations within media and other walks of life.
For example, different people may have a different view on an article, compared to another person from a different group.
A British male may not have the same reading as an African American male, while this is true for all different groups. It of
course depends on the certain persons experiences of life and what they have one through before they resd the article in
question, have they been a victim of a crime, gone through poverty or war or have they gone through mass tragedy, can
they link themselves to the article and understand what a certain person or group is going through because they have been
through the same ordeal, and some may not, some may not fully understand the extent and severity of certain subjects if
they have not been there themselves.
Newspapers will often report on the same story from a different viewpoint each time, this is to please all groups, however, I
would be much more simpler to generate a balanced argument that pleases all groups of people. As well as this, before all
the versions have been generated, there is always a particular group that will be discriminated against in the article, unless
they over all viewpoints in the same publication but on separate pages.
The information in the article in the top right is biased against mental patients and therefore an alternative reading can be
taken from it. They state that 1,200 people are killed by mental patients each year but they don’t state a balanced argument
or even an element of stating some form of sympathising element with the mental patients, instead, deciding to create this
hatred towards them, which may become part of the newspaper readers ideologies. If you put the encoding and decoding
model in place on this article, it doesn’t take long to decode the negative messages from the headline alone, you can tell it
will be a negative story towards the mental patients, while the media producer hasn’t even taken into consideration people
who have been or are going through mental illness reading this article.
As for the other article, it shows a disregard for anyone who is in the group that have been victim of this article. The Daily
Express state that if you’re an asylum seeker and gay, you will automatically be given preferential treatment. This leaves no
interpretation for readers in the affected groups and is generating hatred towards them. If the story showed some form of
proof with official statistics and toned down the headline, while reporting in a factual manner, this news story would be
following the NUJ codes and would be open to an alternative reading from certain group.

9. Credibility
The main attributes of a journalist should be trustworthy and reliable. If they are not, the consumer will
question the credibility of the journalists themselves and the media outlet they report for. It is in the
media producers interest to have credible journalists working for them, this can be the difference between
consumers buying and consistently buying the publication and consumers buying other, more credible
media products. If credibility isn’t achieved, it diminishes the value of the article that has been written, as
well as the future articles of this journalist and the company that this writer works for. For example, if a
journalist is reporting in a war zone and is writing the story without going right into the thick of the action,
they are making up some of the story and assuming some facts in the news story, therefore, if they re
found out, their credibility will be challenged.
To be credible, journalists must ensure that they follow and take into account the rules of:
•Objectivity
• Accuracy
• Truthfulness
• fairness and balanced arguments
Objectivity
For objectivity to be achieved, journalists must be impartial, unprejudiced and unbiased, with all these
functions been applied to every story they write. This often doesn’t happen, due to journalists and media
producers having political and other agendas and therefore aren’t objective 100% of the time. If this is the
case, journalists will disregard all information that doesn’t support their points and include sources and
information that does back their particular agenda. Doing this will not provide the consumer with an
independent view of the news story and will have lots of views and opinions of the journalist, instead,
which may lead to the consumer been swayed or influenced in some way by the stories this journalist is
producing. While this idea of journalists been objective exists, it’s far from the reality of news reporting,
due to the political agendas of most newspapers and media groups. For example, the left wing of labour is
backed by publications such as: The Guardian and The Independent, while the right-wing of the
conservatives is occupied by The Telegraph and the Express amongst others. These political agendas come
into play all the time but are the most strongest at election campaigns, where newspapers have been
known to massively impact the result of the future government. For example, in all of Tony Blair’s election
campaigns, the Sun’s backing, to the extent of them writing “The Sun backs Blair” can be seen as a massive
influence on the result and Blair’s eventual success in his elections.

10. Objectivity
In the 2010 election, most newspapers had political views, some changed sides from the previous 2005 elections, while many backed the
conservatives over the labour party (there was only one newspaper that backed the labour party, this was shown in the results as the
conservatives won by a landslide, but still had to form a coalition to overthrow the previous powers).
While the Times, who backed Gordon Brown’s Labour government in 2005, decided to switch allegiances and backed the conservatives in
2010. While The Times didn’t claim that they had won the election for David Cameron, like the sun did with Blair, their credibility as a media
outlet and the mass viewership they had definitely swayed the votes of the consumers and helped the conservative part on this occasion.
The only newspaper to back the labour government on this occasion was The Daily and Sunday Mirror. While they printed positive stories
about the labour government and negative stories about the other political parties, it wasn’t enough to sway consumers of The mirror or
readers of other media publications, the conservatives still won by a large margin. This might have something to do with the Mirror finding
themselves embroiled in more legal disputes than The Times, therefore the credibility of this media company is less than that of The Times.
Both newspapers had a political agenda during the 2010 election and
both wrote negative articles about the political parties that they hadn’t
pledged allegiance to (pictured left) While The Times had a big
impact on the election, the sheer volume of media output that backed
a conservative government also had a sizeable say on the next prime
minister (pictured below) despite many of these media outlets having
little credibility due to the printing of discriminatory stories, legal and
ethical issues and mass inaccuracy of articles on occasion (The Sun
and The Daily Express in particular)

11. Accuracy
Accuracy, amongst the other codes, is something journalists have to do in order to be taken as a credible and
highly regarded journalist. Things like names, dates, times and quotes, as well as other features that support
evidence in reports must be produced correctly, and in some cases, must feature in the article to further the
articles credibility. Adding a quote of an expert to a piece can add a trusting nature from the consumer to
your story. If you can then supply a name and a date to that quote, your credibility as a journalist, along with
the credibility of the article, will increase. For example, when reporting on fracking, The Guardian included a
quote from the energy minister, publishing the quote properly and keeping in context, while administering a
name to the quote also; this is how journalists keep accuracy in a story.
The stories that a journalist produces must also be accurate in nature. This requires the news reporting to be
of the facts and not of some libellous story or opinion of the journalist. If this function is not met, the story of
the journalist could cause harm or distress to the main focus of the story, which may lead to this person’s
public profile been destroyed. A recent example of this is that of Cliff Richard. In early October, it was
announced that the South Yorkshire Police had raided Sir Cliff Richards house for proof of an alleged child sex
offence, which it then unfolded that the BBC had gotten exclusive footage and had broadcast the raid on
television. This, along with The Daily Star’s choice to with the headline ‘Sir Cliff Richard Child Sex Shock’ which
suggests the pop star is guilty before the media outlet had established all the facts of the story, therefore
accuracy and credible journalism wasn’t achieved in this particular case.
If a person or group feels that a news story is inaccurate in any way, they can choose to submit a complaint to
the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), formerly the Press Complaints Commission. After this
stage, the press standards organisation will investigate the case and will force the media producer to print a
retraction or correction if required. The Hillsborough tragedy would be a key example of a correction in the
story. Despite this correction spanning more than 20 years, The Sun did correct a story they had initially
falsely reported on in 1989. Harm and distress was caused to the families of the 96 people that had died at
Hillsborough by reporting in an inaccurate fashion that vilified both the fans that lost their lives that day and
the fans who escaped from the crush. However, in 2012, the tabloid newspaper corrected their facts and
issued a apology to the families of the 96 fans. This is failing to be an accurate and credible journalist on a
monumental scale, not many inaccuracies are as big as this one.

12. Truthfulness
Truthfulness is one of the most key attributes when in journalism. Presenting truthful information to the
consumer is key to a journalists credibility, which will then reflect either positively or negatively on the media
producer they work for, dependant on if they are truthful and therefore credible. The journalistic field is all
about facts and truth, while staying away from libellous and untruthful information while writing a news
article.
If journalists are to break this truthfulness in their stories, they are writing in the fiction category instead.
Along with a journalists credibility been questioned, this aspect of credibility can have serious legal and ethical
repercussions if truthfulness is not met. Even though these consequences stand as a serious reminder for
journalists, this rule is constantly been broken by journalist and publications alike, due to these media
producers been desperate to grab the attention of the consumer and sell as many newspapers as possible.
Attached to this, there is also objectivity tied to this; newspapers may not be truthful because they have a
political agenda and are actively making up libellous and untruthful stories about the political parties they
have not pledged allegiance to. For example, the image on the bottom right depicts The Mail’s reporting of
the Andrew Mitchell ‘Plebgate’ scandal. While this looks like it was done truthfully, it was established that Mr.
Mitchell hadn’t asked for that sum of money and The Mail had made up statistics and figures in this news
story. While The Mail backed the conservative party in the 2010 election, they have printed a number of
libellous stories about the conservative party in the past years, which may suggest a shift in their political
agenda, however, truthfulness has still not been achieved by this news publication on this occasion.
As well as the overall viewpoint of the story been twisted, statistics and figures can often be twisted to back
up the points that the journalists have made and can potentially increase the credibility of the story, if they
are added in the correct context. However, due to all news publications using statistics to back up their
arguments, it’s sometimes difficult to establish the correct ones, unless the PCC or IPSO pull the media
producer up about it. Another example of where truthfulness hasn’t been met by journalists is The Daily
Mail’s false reporting of a mutant Ecoli been in Britain. The news outlet reported that after making it’s way
through other countries, it has found it’s way to Britain. Even though it is in the public interest to print this,
due to members of the public needing to be informed about public health risks, it wasn't a truthful story to
begin with, therefore, the credibility of the journalists and the newspapers was compromised again, along
with the Mr. Mitchell ‘plebgate’ incident.
Due to the confusion to establish the truthful and credible nature because of the way journalists twist facts,
it’s easy for media outlets to make allegations about people that have no basis in reality and didn’t actually
happen, which would be classed as untruthful, as well as potentially libellous.

13. Fair and balanced arguments
Journalism should be open-minded and should be approached with a non-discriminatory nature toward a group or certain person. The NUJ
codes that I wrote about in the previous sections states that journalists that are in the NUJ should not produce articles or news stories that will
lead to hatred or discrimination against a certain group or person (“Produces no material likely to lead to hatred or discrimination on the
grounds of a person’s age, gender, race, colour, creed, legal status, disability, marital status, or sexual orientation”)
To achieve credible journalism, the writing of journalists should be even, which involves giving a balanced account of both sides of the
argument, that then leads to the consumer been able to make up their own mind about the story, instead of the ideologies of the newspaper
or journalist. This is key, but is an ideal world, due to journalists stating their opinions in all forms of journalism (political in particular) to try and
gain an unfair advantage in things such as elections. Earlier, I used an example of The Sun backing Tony Blair, which included the news
publication emblazoning “The Sun Backs Blair” on the front of one of their 2005 newspapers. This example would also be relevant to this
section of credibility and would be an example of how a news outlet can be one sided and not balanced in their reporting of news events.
Like truthfulness, objectivity and accuracy, this is often overlooked by newspapers and journalists when reporting on news. Consumers might
like a fair and balanced reporting to be the way in journalism but the reality is that in journalism, all publications are likely to break the rules,
regardless of how highly they are thought of and how credible they have seemed in the past. As soon as an election is on the horizon, these
media outlets show their political agendas and write biased and unbalanced stories on various political parties, including the one that they are
backing. The bottom example from The Daily Telegraph shows how the newspaper has a political agenda, which is reflected in the main copy.
From the start, the news story is biased and isn’t balanced and doesn’t do anything for the publication or journalists credibility. They have also
used a technique that many try to try and convince the consumer and IPSO that their article is balanced; they have made the first 4 paragraphs
unbiased, while adding a balanced paragraph on the end, which many consumers potentially won't even read.
An aspect of fair and balanced arguments that links to alternative readings is the fact that news publications constantly give precedent to news
stories which will suit their target demographic. This aspect shows that newspapers will ignore those who aren’t in their target audience and
concentrate on the people who are; this includes the ideologies of the audience been reflected in the news stories, so the media company
don’t lose consumers, while they will also use a biased nature towards all aspect of their newspaper to try and keep the remaining viewers they
have. In addition, newspapers will use emotive stories to lead with and push the less interesting stories to later in the paper, after all,
newspapers see emotive subjects as a means of sales and increased sales. The Sun’s coverage of the Colonel Gaddafi killing was a prime
example of the emotive articles that publications use to boost sales of their newspapers. The mix of anger
and pain conveyed by The Sun may communicate a powerful message to the consumers and get them to buy
the newspapers, not only to read the story, but because the anger and pain aspects of the story is in
their own sets of ideologies. In terms of a balanced and fair argument, this news article doesn’t fit into this
article and instead states all the negative things about Gaddafi and not reporting on balanced grounds, which
is difficult when reporting on an evil dictator like Gaddafi, but must be attempted by journalists.
They don’t feature on piece of information that can’t be misconstrued to be positive, it’s all negative and
therefore it’s an unfair and unbalanced piece of journalism.