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The contemporary journalist role isn't what it uses to be!

What is the role of a journalist or reporter? To report the story honestly, and get all the viewpoints you can to support what the community or the world is going through.

ETHICS:

Getting a story with integrity-asking the questions, and reporting them as they flowed out of the interviewee mouth, and not voicing only one side. Didn't we learn in math that there are many sides to an angle? Yes we did! Not just going after the side that matches what a news reporter is thinking but going after many angles to get the right views of the story. Getting the whole truth, and writing them to form a great story.

Tom Brokaw: He is a journalist brought up on Midwestern values, and he brought them across for the viewers to understand the reporting going on. He brought intelligence and compassion in his reports. He spoke for the people and not at the people. He has been a focus of good journalism for what he believes, and can talk to heads of state to the common man just like a good friend. He is quite an anchorman that we trust coming into our living room each night.

BULLIED:

Some journalist comes across as being bully like. They report what maybe the station wants them to but not what way it should be reported. What I mean is, perhaps a station or a newspaper has some politic say in what is going on with a legal crisis with a clinic in town. They find out that there are problems with the surgeons that are performing surgery that they are drunk, and they are covering up the issue because someone at the company has a stake at losing the clinic if the public knew so they don't do the story or report only what the victims of the clinic had done to them. When you gather the facts you do your research, check the facts, your people of what they said, and make sure that you get enough to back what you found out.

Getting the scoop sometimes can hurt the repetition of a company if not all facts are told.

Standing by the 5th by keeping your sources is a right of journalist. They are keeping their sources, and they are quite able to do this. They are keeping the sources private but they are using the information to get us the facts. They are getting the facts to help people understand what is going on.

Tim Russert: Very knowledgeable journalist, novelist, and family man. He interviewed numbers of people about their integrity as politicians. What their thoughts were and getting the information to the people. We lost a great journalist when he died not too long ago. He was very passionate about his job, and even died while doing his job.

Doing the right thing sometimes maybe something that man has to quit his job because the ethics just aren't there. Feeling strongly about an issue like covering a story on one side, and not finding out what others think isn't getting the all the facts. Giving the viewers or readers an opportunity to see it only one way isn't the right way! Standing up for what is right makes us a force that our forefathers made us, we were given freedom for our opinions.

We as a reader expect when we read something that it is factual because a reporter took the time to study the issues. We should be able to see all the views, and be educated by what is told.

Getting yellow in our journalism is something that professionals shouldn't take lightly whether they are station managers, publishers, editors, writers, or reporters. They need to stay away from the National Inquirer approach, and give us all the facts.

Learn more about this author, Karen Zortman-Loos.
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