I’ve been doing a lot of learning design work for one of the university’s journalism, media and communications faculties. I’m specifically not stating the name of the university for reasons of privacy; it’s not particularly relevant to what I am going to discuss. The reason I’ve started off like this is that I’ve come to learn a little bit about what journalism is about, and the kinds of difficulties it is facing, and all the other challenges that are present in the 21st century, contextualised to the role of journalists. It’s with that in mind that I’ve approached some of the recent political news stories that have been dominating the media attention lately, some of which have involved people I know, and some of which haven’t.
Without getting into the details of the story – again, I think too much has been written about these particular incidents – I’ve been reflecting on what it means when we say something is newsworthy. For a simple term, it’s not that easily defined. And, of course, when a particular event (be it a report, an investigation, an event in Parliament etc) is difficult to prove to have taken place, well, then , one must consider to what extent that colours our definition of newsworthiness. To make matters even more complex, one must consider the vested interests of the indivdual and news organisation reporting the story: perhaps an organisation like The Guardian, which runs according to a not for profit trust, might have very different ideas about what is meant by newsworthy than, for example, a company like Buzzfeed, which is a for profit media company. And established journalists might have different views about newsworthiness than journalists looking to make a name for themselves.
Unfortunately – and perhaps this betrays the fact that I am not a journalist, and nor am I ever likely to be – one factor that often doesn’t seem to enter into these discussions is the human cost of reporting some of these stories. By human cost, I am talking about the effect on individuals placed under the furious glare of the media spotlight – for something that may or may not have happened – and the effect that has, not just upon them, but upon their families and loved ones. While you might be able to make a case that many of those people in the spotlight have made that choice willingly, the same cannot be said about the other important people in their lives. At what point does a journalist pause and consider this?