“Do you think, you know better?” In the United States, there are numerous mass media, where each and every second, news are being published. For a change, have we ever thought, what we are listening, or reading, is 100% true, or fake!!! It’s not, we can’t blame it all on one media, but there are several other media source that are likely to be dubious. As I was going through several article in Austin American Statesman, I found one commentary article, “What is and isn’t journalism.” After reading this article, it made me realize that journalism cannot be trustworthy. Journalism is the investigation and reporting of events, issues, and trends to broad audience. Although there is much variation within journalism, the ideal is to inform the citizenry. Besides, covering organizations and institutions such as government and business, journalism also covers cultural aspects of the society such as arts and entertainment. As we know, freedom of the press in the United States is protected by the first Amendment of U.S constitution; it is the freedom of the press that prohibits the government from interfering with the printing and the distribution of their information or opinions. I think, the press and media are taking advantage of their freedom, misusing and violating them. Government is not taking any action or charging against these kinds of media and press behaviors.
In that article, the writer, Pitts, has really made some strong arguments about journalism misusing for their own advantage. Pitts used “Citizen journalism,” to prove point out that journalism has lost it’s meaning and at this point telling something else to the public. He explains how “citizen journalism,” lost its identity in a certain time period and now it’s hard for writer, as a journalist, to believe in “citizen journalism.” He questions his readers, “Would you trust your health to a citizen doctor just because he produced a syringe?” which does makes sense that, we have to be careful on what we belief and trust on.
For further resources, there’s a journalism named “Yellow journalism,” where little or no legitimate well-researched news is produced, and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal mongering, or sensationalizing. By extension, "Yellow Journalism" is used today as a pejorative to decry any journalism that treats news in an unprofessional or unethical fashion. Yellow Press newspapers covers daily multi-column front-page headlines covering a variety of topics, such as sports and scandal, using bold and unabashed self-promotion.
As a reader, not only me, but also everybody wants factual news, and Citizenship Journalism and Yellow Journalism are the deception in media that often fools the common eye. Journalism is all about trying to get the story and get it right. As a writer, Pitts says, “you cannot be a journalist, if credibility matters less to you than ideology.”
