The Journalist and Faith

Journalist should really reconsider thinking about putting their personal opinions in an article on a topic of a particular sect of faith, because the article may have information that is skewed due to the journalists personal believes that are against another religion or faith. One must remember as a journalist it is not our opinion the people wants to hear, but the the truth with factual evidence backing up one's claim.

Some may believe that our personal faith can have evidence of affecting the way a journalist reports his or her story on religion. Whatever an individual might do is some form determined by his or her religion. As a Latter-day Saint, my actions and choices are influenced by my standards and values as being LDS. I want to choose the right in all my choices that I make, and most of all I want to do what our Heavenly Father wants me to do. I think it is true that religion can affect a person's point of view when telling a story of a religion different than their own. Thus, it is important when writing a story of another religion to start with an open mind, that you are here to write this story to let the audience know the truth about the religion.

It was interesting in the presentation that a lot of Americans are taught popular knowledge through the news. If this is the case, then I think we have a responsibility to not take sides in any story, but to report all sides of a story. For example, if a journalist is assigned to write an article on a Jewish rabbi who was caught stealing, you wouldn't want to go about interviewing people who hate the Jewish faith, but maybe someone who is apart of the faith who might of known the rabbi.

I think it is true that there are more articles about religion within the text relating to someone who is apart of a particular faith than articles based primarily on a specific faith it just doesn't happened as much in the media. Society tends to relate others based off of religious affiliates nowadays.

The quote: "Journalism and religion is a tough mix. Religion depends on faith, and journalism demands proof." This is a great quote, because when journalist write about religion it is just something that one must really be careful when writing or reporting in the media. Another tip may be when writing about religion maybe it is best to write as one in that particular faith, study and learn the doctrine interviewing people of the faith, that can give a better insight of what the religion really practices and teach its members. I have found that this is true, especially when the media portrays Mormons as just polygamist which is not true of course and our church get the blame for it. For example, my mom is a school teacher in Dallas, and some of the faculty at the school came up and ask her if she was apart of the Mormon church in south Texas with all the polygamist. She had to clarify and let them know our church has nothing to do with the polygamist in south Texas.

Again as a journalist, I think it is crucial that we don't sell short a religion of what they truly believe and practice. If someone wrote in an article that the Mormon's baptize the dead, what would the people think? Probably not good things, so it is important to give all the details and information to the people. In the LDS Church, they performs baptisms for the dead so the deceased can have an opportunity to be baptized in the Lords church and to receive the Holy Ghost according to their believes. Of course that would not be in the media hopefully, but my point is to not leave out information that may hurt any faith's name in society. It just is not ethical for the journalist to make his or her claim on what religion is right or wrong.


Video's of Religion in the Media:

Journalism as a Public Forum

Are journalist really doing their job in presenting the facts to the public and not just reporting for their self interest in obtaining fame in the public forum? I think that journalist should use the media in their best interest when reporting, remembering the audience first before their own opinions that they have in their stories.

Today we have the advantage to use the highest form of technology that is changing the history of journalism as we know it. The introduction of the Internet has made news became instant, and before the Internet, breaking news might take a while before its out to the public, but not with instant broadband and camera phones it can be live streaming right as a breaking news event is happening. One can even write a story and post it on the web in seconds, so breaking news coverage has really become instant.

I am currently interning at ABC 4 News in Salt Lake City, and it's crucial in news to have the story first, and already posted on the web before the rest of the competition. It also makes the news station you work for look great because of having the news first.

Even blogs are becoming another form of journalism, but to many reporters think this is not the best way of communicating to the audience, because it is more opinionated based rather than the facts giving in reporting from journalist. It is true that blogs may hinder the facts in the aspect of the truth because one must realize that a blog is more of a personal outlet for viewers to reconcile your opinions on a matter. It just seems that everyone is considering themselves as journalist who have blogs but it's not the case when they don't have the ethics and background knowledge as a trained professional journalist who can share a story with truthfulness and accuracy with sustaining data.

I agree with the book when it mentions The editorial pages of the newspaper, the opinion columnist, the talk show, and the point-of-view magazine essay, bloggers, and anyone else have every right to be opinionated. That is their mission. But if their authors want to call themselves journalists, then it follows that they should not misrepresent the facts that they should hold to the same standards of truthfulness or allegiance to public interest as any other part of the profession. Elements of Journalism, p. 167

These forms of media have the right to be opinionated, but for journalist our job is report the facts with data not expressing a bias opinion, we just give the facts. If they want to be considered journalist then they really need to reevaluate they way they report, because a lot of those types of forms of media are just to capture audiences attentions, and to obtain ratings to increase profit. One may say he or she does not go into journalism hoping to be rich but rather to make a difference in the world by reporting the truth.


It may all come down to having a voice in society that whatever story we may produce it will help the people in a way feel they to have a voice that can decide what is ethical in a sense of making self governing decisions.


Videos of forms of media portrayed as journalism:

Truth & Journalism

The first obligation for a journalist is to seek the truth in all news stories. It is important that the reporter get all sides of the story, and not take sides or bias towards the other source. It is not the journalists objective to state his or her opinion in the story, their job is to just state the facts with human sources, quotes and data to support the story.

Getting the facts straight is very important, even if the journalist accidentally stated the facts incorrectly it can cause major harm to the journalist and the news company. Misleading the audience is most definitely a big NO, NO in journalism. That is one of the problems in the media today. It can cause a law suit against the journalist for liable, slander annotations. I have always been taught if you think providing evidence in a story will harm someones safety, you may think before writing or publishing it in the paper. It is always safe to ask your editor or news director first before publishing anything that may harm someones reputation or safety.

Another problem in the media is making sense of the facts. I have seen many news stations state facts, but in a way that have made others look bad in just the way they have stated or rearranged the wording in the story. This is not a good thing, but can increase viewers to the story, which will take us back to the ethical side of journalism. Is it better to get viewers/readers or telling accurate reliable news to the audience; stating the truth? As for journalist, we must inform the audience with the truth and not any intuitive form of bias, because then your not doing your job as a journalist.

From the book "The Elements of Journalism" it states to journalist to, "Give citizens identifiable sources and verify the information, highlighting what is important to know and filtering out what is not. Rather than expanding the time to sort through information themselves,people need sources that tell them what is true and significant." Amen, I agree with quote from the book, to state facts and get rid of the falsity within the story, because people want the truth and not made up lies.


Here are some examples of biases in journalism: