What is Journalism for?

Hello World!

This blog is specifically for a class I'm taking, formally titled Comms 329 Principles of Journalism. We have been asked to write and present a blog each week with our thoughts on journalism and the issues covered for the week. In all honesty, I'm not quite sure I can properly convey my thoughts but here goes nothing!

For this week, we were asked to read the first chapter in both The Mind of a Journalist by Jim Willis and The Elements of Journalism by Bill Kovach & Tom Rosenstiel. I have a feeling these two books are going to be a fascinating read. Both books provided interesting insights into the world of journalism and the opinions surrounding it.

Kovach and Rosenstiel mainly focused on what journalism is. The generally accepted duty of a journalist is to provide the public with information in order to remain free and self-governing. I found it interesting that with such a simple duty, there was so much controversy over how that duty should be performed and by whom. My opinion? As long as the information is getting out there, why does it matter who is sharing? I think citizen journalism is great! In The Elements, the role of the journalist is described to be changing to more of a supervisory role. The journalists verify the information submitted by the public and dig deeper to uncover other possible angles to the story. As a whole, it makes sense, seeing as it is very difficult these days to completely shut out one man's voice through the internet.