Chapter 2: Comfort or Curse?
Perceptions about Journalists.
Underwood: Journalists are little more than process workers manipulating information for commercial purposes.
Must hit the ‘right button’, ‘heat up’ audiences, while keeping with the ‘comfort zone’.
Role vs. Actual Job.
Fictional: the independent fearless writer armed with truth
Modern: mere cogs in the mass production of public consent.
Someone who resists all attempt at control (Underwood, 1993: 170)
McManus not independent professionals but employees, therefore not as free.
McManus and Kock propose that in the past 10 years market-driven journalism had fundamentally changed the role of journalists in making news.
Role of media as political watch dog in western communities.
Journalists as Entertainers.
Newspapers have mostly always existed for profit. (Gratten, 1998)
Newspapers sell audiences to advertisers.
Market vs. Journalism Theory.
Both models share a central and abiding concern for the audience size.
Conclusion.
Journalists are an influential selection of individuals, whether or not people think their opinion is influence by media journalists still have the responsibility to stay as neutral and objective as possible. This may seem good in theory but idyllic and impossible in practice. Non the less the responsibility remains largely with the journalist to present the news as ethically as possible without the influence of surrounding editorial staff and outside factors such as commercialisation.
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