The Principles of Journalism: Overview and Gathering Sources.

 

In this text, we will define the idea of principles, present an overview of the 10 principles of journalism, and look at all the principles that a journalist needs to think about when they are gathering sources.

First of all, it's important that we understand what a principle is. A principle is a fundamental, really important truth that is the basis of something. So the principles of journalism are the things that journalists have to remember to do all the time.

There are 10 fundamental principles of journalism. The first two principles, verification and objectivity, are important for journalists to remember when they are finding their sources or information. The next four principles, originality, completeness, transparency, and fairness, are the principles that a journalist needs to remember when they are telling the story, meaning when they are actually writing their article. The final four principles include restraint, humanity, accountability, and empowerment. These principles are about how journalism can impact people, meaning how people are affected by the articles that a journalist writes.

Let's start by talking about the principles that journalists need to remember when they are gathering sources, meaning they are talking to the important people in a story. For example, if there was a car accident, a journalist needs to talk to the people who actually saw it happen. We call these people eyewitnesses. When the journalist is talking to these people, they are gathering sources.

Another example is when a journalist wants to know more information for a story, and so they go to a library or research online. This is also gathering sources.

Okay, so now we know what principles are, and we also know what gathering sources means. Let's talk about some of the important principles that a journalist needs to remember when they are gathering sources, verification and objectivity.

The first important principle is called verification. This is when journalists make sure that the information they get is accurate or true. How can they know if their sources are true and accurate?

Let's look at these two ideas. Being accurate means always having the correct facts, such as names, dates, places. When a journalist gathers sources by speaking to a witness or researching documents, they should always make sure that they write down the correct information so that it's accurate when they use it in their article.

How can journalists verify a source to know that the information they get is accurate and true? It's not always easy, but they can consider these things.

Is the source primary, meaning is it original?

If we consider the car accident we looked at earlier, an eyewitness is a primary source, while someone who just heard about the accident is not.

Does the source have expert knowledge? For a car accident, an expert on road safety or an automotive engineer would be a good source of information.

The second principle is objectivity. This means reporting the facts without favoring one side or another. However, objectivity can be difficult to define. A journalist must think about the weight of evidence, meaning that they should gather many sources. And if most sources say one thing and very few say the other, they should give more importance to the majority view. A journalist should not give equal time or weight to an opinion based on facts that are clearly not true.

Now, we will look at the principles that a journalist needs to remember when they are telling the story. Meaning, when they are actually writing their article.  We're going to talk about four more principles of journalism – originality, completeness, transparency and fairness.

The first important principle to remember when writing a story is originality.

This means creating something new. So, a journalist must not borrow the words of others and pretend that they have created them.

Imagine a hospital is being built in your town. Obviously, the facts of the story are the same, but the way the journalist writes about the story must be original and not copied from someone else. If a journalist copies a story about the hospital from someone else and then puts their name on it, we call it plagiarism.

This is something that a journalist should never do and it can cause many problems. Another important principle to remember is completeness. This means that journalists need to tell the whole story not just a part of it.

Journalists must present a story in context, which means looking at both sides of a story as well as the events in the past that lead to the situation. Going back to our example, if a journalist only writes the word of the hospital officials and not the local residents, they have not written the whole story. If the story's not complete, it can hurt both the reputation of the journalist and the people who were part of the story.

The third principle that we're talking about is transparency. This is a word that we normally use to describe something that you could see through. Like a glass window. When we use it to talk about journalism, we mean that the people have the opportunity to look at the process that the journalist goes through when they write their article.

For example, the journalist makes it clear who they spoke to. And also, who they could not speak to? Also, if the journalist has some connection to the story, they need to be transparent and tell people what that connection is. For example, if the journalist's spouse is an architect who is going to help build the hospital, he or she must state that in the article.

Lastly, when a journalist writes an article, they must think about the principle of fairness. This means that a journalist must think about the language they use in their article to make sure they accurately tell the facts without bias favoring one side or another. In the hospital example, they should use language that tells the facts about the advantages and disadvantages of building the hospital. It's important to remember that the journalist's goal should be to inform the public. Tell them what they need to know not manipulate them. Try to shape the way they think about something.

In the first part of this text we looked at principles related to gathering sources and telling the story. Now, we're going to look at the principles that are about impacting people, meaning, how people are affected by the articles that a journalist writes.

We're going to talk now about the last four principles of journalism - restraint, humanity, accountability, and empowerment.

The first one of these principles is restraint. People show restraint when they stop themselves from doing something. Journalists show restraint when they stop themselves from writing things that could be bad for people. For example, sometimes people think the wrong person has committed a crime. And in the rush to break the story his or her name and picture could be release on the Internet. Now this could have very bad consequences for somebody who has done nothing wrong. Showing restraints avoids hurting innocent people and creates a better story because when facts are verified properly, they have a better chance of being accurate and true. Journalists also show restraint when they allow their sources to be anonymous. This means that nobody knows their name. Journalists need to do this because sometimes bad things could happen to the person if their name was known. They might lose their job or possibly even get hurt.

Another principle that a journalist must think about is humanity.

This means caring about other people. Treating them with respect, treating them as humans, not just part of a story. Earlier, we said that journalists should be objective, not favoring one side or another. However, a journalist can be both objective in their writing and sympathetic to the people in a story. For example, journalists need to think about the feelings of a crime victim's friends and family even when they're rushing to write a story.

The third principle is accountability.

This means that a person takes responsibility for their actions. They are responsible for the things they do. For a journalist, there are two types of accountability. The first is personal. A journalist must be responsible for the story that they write, balancing what the public needs to know, and the rights of the people involved.

Also, if there are mistakes in the story, a journalist must admit and correct them. The second type of accountability involves making the people in power responsible for their actions. People in power may try to hide their actions from the public. The job of a journalist is to shine a light on these actions and let everybody know what the person in power has done. For example, in a situation where drinking water has been polluted, the people responsible for making sure the water is clean should explain what happened and what they're doing to stop it happening again.

The fourth principle is empowerment, which means giving power to people who do not have it. There are many people all over the world who are powerless. They have no control over how they live.

They might be living in poverty, refugees, victims of war or natural disasters. A journalist's job is to speak for the people who don't have the power to speak. This is where ordinary people can become citizen journalists by sharing what they see with the world. We'll look more at the role of citizen journalists in a later video.

Now we have covered all ten of the principles of journalism.

 

Test

Choose the best definition for each principle of journalism.

1. verification

 

entire, full, not missing anything out

 

just and reasonable behavior

 

the process of establishing the truth, accuracy, or validity of something

2. originality

 

the quality of being novel and new

 

the act of keeping something under control

 

being responsible for your actions

3. objectivity

 

a lack of bias, judgement or prejudice

 

the process of establishing the truth, accuracy, or validity of something

 

compassion and consideration for others

4. completeness

 

the quality of being novel and new

 

entire, full, not missing anything out

 

to give power to those who do not have it

5. transparency

 

a lack of bias, judgement or prejudice

 

being responsible for your actions

 

an honest way of operating that allows other people to see what you are doing

6. fairness

 

just and reasonable behavior

 

the quality of being novel and new

 

compassion and consideration for others

7. restraint

 

the process of establishing the truth, accuracy, or validity of something

 

an honest way of operating that allows other people to see what you are doing

 

the act of keeping something under control

8. humanity

 

a lack of bias, judgement or prejudice

 

compassion and consideration for others

 

entire, full, not missing anything out

9. empowerment

 

just and reasonable behavior ng

 

giving power to those who do not have it

 

an honest way of operating that allows other people to see what you are doing

10. accountability

 

giving power to those who do not have it

 

entire, full, not missing anything out

 

responsibility for your actions

 

 

Principles of Journalism

Think about the ten principles of journalism that you have learned about from the text.

 

Which two principles do you think are the most important? Why?

 

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