Media Reforms

by Lauren Staley

           Is the media an integral part of our free way of living, or is the media becoming irrelevant to our way of life?  Once a means of finding intelligent and reliable information, the media has deteriorated into a mere source of entertainment in many areas.  Constant updates are given about the lives of celebrities, but updates about bills being passed through Congress do not even constitute front-page news in today’s society.  The media, often called a fourth branch of government, has been given a large role in our democracy.  However, the media is no longer using its position to inform the public of significant information, instead it seeks profits without the concern of integrity.  The media has a duty to our nation to fulfill its role as the fourth branch of government, and we must make our expectations known.  Because of the media’s important responsibility in our society, the standards of the media must be reinforced.

            The U.S. media is commonly referred to as the Fourth Estate, that is, a fourth branch of government.  Citizens of our country have been taught since elementary school that there are three branches of government, the legislative branch, the executive branch, and the judicial branch.  These branches create, enforce, and interpret the laws of our nation, and each branch wields a power over the other branches, creating a system we know as checks and balances.  This system keeps any one branch from becoming too powerful.  It is in this system that the concept of the media being a fourth branch of government becomes prevalent:  the media serves as a check over the main three branches in its duty to inform the public of the activities of the government.1  This, in turn, keeps the government from becoming too powerful over its citizens.  Thus, the media serves as a “watchdog of all three branches, and they keep the public informed of the government’s activities – both good and bad.”[1]  One may contend that without the media, the majority of citizens would not know the happenings of the government.  Thus, the media’s role in reporting the actions of the government to keep the citizens informed is its most important function in our democracy.

The Code of Ethics as listed for the Society of Professional Journalists is separated into four main ethical standards:  Journalists are required to seek the truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently, and be accountable.  The Journalistic Code of Ethics states:

Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information. Ethical journalists treat sources, subjects and colleagues as human beings deserving of respect.  Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public's right to know.  Journalists are accountable to their readers, listeners, viewers and each other.[2]

These four ethical concepts seem to encapsulate what our society expects from a media source.  The public does have a right to know information, but a problem arises when the media abandons its position as an information source and, instead, becomes a means of entertainment for our society.                                                                                                                                     

             Protecting the first amendment rights of the media is of grave importance to our nation.  One could argue that the rights of the media may be more important than the rights of privacy and defamation because our nation needs the media to keep the public informed.  Still, if the media is to be reliable as the fourth branch of government, then the media must police itself to ensure that information is factual and pertinent.  According to a comprehensive study, The State of News Media 2004, “Roughly half of journalists at national media outlets (51%) and about as many from local media (46%) believe that journalism is going in the wrong direction.”[3]  It is the responsibility of the media to provide accurate, timely, and fair information to the public.  Sound and credible journalism should be the core of what the media provides to the public.  It is useless to assume that the public will be able to discern whether information is accurate or reliable.  Thus, it is also the responsibility of the media to provide the public with information regarding the factual accuracy of their reports.  Factual information must be separated from speculative information.  It seems that the media is reporting more information about the details of the private lives of celebrities than information about such topics as the decisions being made in government or the corporate problems of our nation.  As Peter Johnson, a journalist for USA Today has written, "context and thoughtfulness -- the kind of gatekeeping long considered the cornerstone of journalism, both in print and broadcast -- is fading."[4] Critical and meaningful news must always be guarded to avoid its deteriorating into unfounded speculation simply because it is popular in the public eye.  How can we ensure that the media is monitoring itself?  Perhaps a volunteer committee could be created to check that the media is, in fact, policing itself to produce pertinent and factual information.  This is a question that should be further inspected, as there are many possibilities and factors that should be evaluated by those with more expertise on this topic.  

It would be fair to say that many media sources use scrupulous methods to ensure the quality and accuracy of their reports. The concept of an editorial board is designed to vet information in order to design its accuracy.  Luckily, many journalistic forums have an editorial staff whose responsibility it is to make sure the information is intelligent and informative to the public.  There are mediums, however, in which there is no group to edit or police the content of the information being made available to the public.  The best example of these mediums is the internet.  The growing use of the internet has made it a medium without restrictions.  An article in the Journal of Information, Law, and Technology mentioned, “Anybody with a personal computer, a modem, and an internet hookup can gain access to the internet.”[5]  Likewise, anyone with internet access can create a webpage that is entirely available to every internet user around the world. 

The accessibility and efficiency of the internet have made it a revolution in communications.  Unfortunately, defamation standards are virtually nonexistent in this forum because there is nobody to monitor the content being transmitted.  Any person with internet access has the capability to put any kind of information on the internet, no matter how far-fetched or inaccurate.  This holds true in regards to invading the privacy of others.  Any person with internet access could put private information about another person online without the knowledge or permission of that person.  How many unauthorized sex tapes have we heard are available on the web?  How many websites have you stumbled across that insult or disparage a person of whom you have never heard?  One reason that it is so difficult to enforce defamation standards on the internet is that users with above average knowledge of the internet can transmit information through “anonymous remailers which strip all identifying marks off the original communication.”5  One could argue that the lack of credible information being transmitted throughout the internet has become a gateway for the lessening of credibility in the rest of the media.  In this technologically advanced society, the media is obligated to apply the concepts of the Code of Ethics to every journalistic forum. 

Our nation’s media has been given an important role in democracy.  The media is necessary to provide information that is important to our public, especially information regarding the activities of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government.  The media is the main check that the people in a democracy have over their government.  However, unless our media realizes the importance of its position in society, it may very well become a generally unreliable source of information to the public.  The media must adhere to the code of ethics in every forum, for in this lies the fate of our nation’s democracy.  When the journalistic principles in the Code of Ethics are followed, the power of the media is justifiable and critical to our free way of living.  When these principles are not followed, we risk the media becoming irrelevant and devoid of credibility.