The original 1931 version paints a funny (but probably more accurate than we would like to believe) picture of “the press” in the early days. The original book was written in 1900 and was made into a broadway play and then numerous movie versions, including the most famous His Girl Friday.

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It would seem that providing ‘solutions’ would be a basic of journalism, but that has raised the issue in the past of ‘objectivity.’ It raises the danger of the reporter taking on an advocacy role and that is wrong, but it is also providing advice and there’s nothing wrong with that.

It brings in mind a funny conversation I heard a manager at one of stations have with a carpenter. The carpenter had been called in because the sliding wood green screen wouldn’t slide properly.

After an hour of working on the wheels and bearings, the manager came in and the carpenter said, “it’s broke.”

“No shit,” said the manager. “Anybody can tell me it’s broke. I brought you in to fix it.”

The make-up of the board says something about the acceptance of solutions journalism as a important element of the new world of journalism.

Source: Meet the Solutions Journalism Advisory Council | by Solutions Journalism | Nov, 2022 | The Whole Story

This may be one of the best journalism research and analysis sites in the world.  As you can tell by the URL address, it is based in the United Kingdom. However, its span of coverage is worldwide, somewhat like the UK’s BBC.  That is good, of course… up to a point.

American journalists may want to see more research focused on their market demands.  For that, the Pew Research report is excellent.  Add to that, there are several universities and colleges as well as other news organizations and ‘think tanks’ examining the American media profile.

This particular link focuses on this year’s digital report.

polarisation… news avoidance…reader revenue models… how young people engage… the role of email news and how people access news about climate change.

 

Source: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism | Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism

Americans are in a funk. It’s an old-fashioned word but it is probably as accurate a description as any of the mood of the people.  The approval rating for just about every institution is down. The only difference is one of degree — small, large or HUGE.

The approval rating for President Joe Biden showed the most significant drop, but many in the news media have reported this.  What is more surprising is that the approval rating for the Supreme Court is down significantly.  That wouldn’t be surprising in light of its recent political decisions, but what is surprising is that this poll was taken BEFORE those decisions were announced.  So it is probably much worse.

It is still better than my fellow journalists toiling at newspapers and in television operations. It is not much consolation… Actually, it is NO consolation that the news media approval rating is higher than the Congressional approval rating.  That, however, is like saying ‘I’m not as ugly as you are.”

More to the point: What can be done about it.  The too-often used “transparency” response isn’t enough.  It may have some value, but as long as it is trotted out as the major response, it will be of no value.

More to the point, all the institutions need to reach out and connect to the American people — the news media in particular.  That won’t be easy. As the survey shows, the trust is pervasive. Each segment of society will require a different response and that requires a better understanding of their needs, wants and desires.

In the end though, it comes down to one simple idea:  Caring!

Source: Confidence in U.S. Institutions Down; Average at New Low

Source: Freedom Forum – Fostering First Amendment Freedoms

Source: RTDNA

She’s been arrested ten times and bailed out at great expense each time. She still faces all those false charges which carry the possibility of life imprisonment.  And yet she continues to fight on, in the name of truth, the name of trust, the name of journalism.

She and her Russian “counterpart” have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in what the committee franklky said was a message of support mean for journalists around the world. Here is a more in-depth analysis of that award.

Source: RTDNA

First-hand reports from journalists that give hands-on lessons for journalists in covering various issues and responding to different situations.

Source: On Poynt – Poynter

Source: There is no liberal media bias in which news stories political journalists choose to cover | Science Advances

From A Skeptic’s Guide to Believing the News – by Thomas Griffith

Who wants the truth and nothing but the truth?  A steady diet of truth would sear the stomach lining; falsity is essential to our wellbeing and permeates our lives.

 

Businessmen tell the hard truths about their doings only to the extent required by law.  Governments lie.  Politicians dissemble.  Trial lawyers, when they can’t challenge the facts, plant doubts.  Whole industries live on pretense, by flattering your self-importance in exchange for your money, by rearranging reality.

 

The stewardess’s smile, the salesman’s heartiness, the test kitchen’s unnatural neatness, the headwaiter’s solicitude, the athlete – after the mayhem stops – giving locker-room interviews full of modesty and benevolence, the doctor’s tempered reassurances, the separate stratagems of aging actresses.  The false fronts of buildings, and the false fronts of self: girdles, hair coloring, suntans.

 

There is also the falsity that is kindness; comfort given to buck up others, wounding truths unspoken; feelings concealed, spared or feigned.  The useful falsity of office mateyness, exchanges without genuine feeling; the borrowed sentiments of greeting cards.

 

There is the falsity that is self-indulgence, since most people want no clear-cut verdicts on themselves and devise social strategies to avoid them.  When reality is too unbearable, they drink to avoid it, travel to escape it, fantasize to deny it.

 

Friendship is often a mutually agreed upon assurance, sometimes against the evidence, of the meaning and importance of each other’s lives.  Whole industries exist to provide solace, appearances, illusions.  One must be able to eat the steak without thinking of the abattoir.  Even in small matters people resist reality: they take pictures to remember how something was, but first tidy up the room, and neaten their clothes.

 

They want newspapers to print the truth, but as concerns themselves, only that part of the truth that puts them in a favorable light. Into all this comes the journalist, demanding on behalf of others to know the truth and to disseminate it.

 

Source: Humanities – National Endowment for the Humanities – Google Books