As the furor of elections have come and gone I have been reminded once again of the importance of the written word and the responsibility of reporters.
If a person chooses to exercise his/her democratic right and vote (and the question is really, why wouldn’t you? But we’ll get back to that…) then they listen to the news, try to catch the debates and read the profiles printed on the various candidates. Democracy and reporting go hand in hand. If it is so vitally important that the reporter not cave to his/her biases or the biases of the publication and “report” only half the story, why is this the common practice? Because the full truth often just doesn’t sell.
A perfect example of this is Ignatieff’s statement on Israel and Lebanon. He spoke to both sides of the argument but depending on which news source you listened to, you would have to believed he’s either a Nazi or a bleeding heart. Why can’t we portray the middle ground? Another example is the constant portrayal of women politicians as inept, as seen in the reporting on our current Minister of the Environment Rona Ambrose. We hear more about how she looks on camera than her policies, more on what she’s not doing because of her ignorance due to inexperience than what she is doing. Would the reporting still be the same if this minister was male? Now, citizens with sense are able to absorb the different news casts and see the biases for what they are but that inevitably leads to distrust of the media. You begin to learn that you can no longer believe what you are being told by the press. The adage of “don’t believe all you hear” has turned into “don’t believe anything you hear.” This is a sad state of affairs.
Politicians and publishers alike scratch their heads when they think about the diving numbers in voter turn out and I put this question to the press: If we hadn’t lost the trust of our readers through twisting the truth, would people be more apt to trust the reports on politicians and vote? I leave the answer to your conscience.
What we do is vitally important to our country. Like doctors being sent out into the world, journalists should swear an oath to portray the truth, to not give in to sensationalism, to give the trust back to the people.
And so I beseech you fellow journalists to really think about what you write, understand the outcome of your words. Give context to the quote. Describe the entire situation without biased adjectives. Remember that our job is to report the facts and let the readers determine what they believe. Maybe if we can earn the trust of our readers once again, we can learn to trust our governments a bit more, too.
