JOURNALISM AND ETHICS (part two)

A close look at ones daily paper will give people a rough idea of how the newspapers tend, sometimes, to work around a story. This is not to say that newspapers plan a day’s paper with hidden agendas that the public is blissfully unaware of but that which affects them. One can also not discount the fact that at times, the journalist may have written an article with an honest intention but the article was treated at the desk or changed by the editor to suit the flavor of the broadsheet or tabloid. But it is necessary that people are aware.
One example appeared on the Aug 19, 2011 edition of the Times of India
'Mumbai cops junk stolen cars on Juhu beach'

The very article begins with a tone that should only be reserved for articles written in the editorial. The very beginning set the scene where the police is denoted as the bad guy. So much for letting the public decides. Throughout the article, people have been quoted stating their opinions on the matter while the police is barely given a say towards the end.
The article makes liberal use of labels for the police and the tone of the article points to how the police have been disappointing. A few examples are phrases like ‘custodians of beaches’, ‘law-enforcers’ and ‘custodian of law’ and words like the police ‘encroached’ upon the land has been used. Almost as if the police did so forcibly.

Most times the issue with newspapers is most people trust papers to print news that is the absolute truth of what happened. And sometimes, the reporters or editors betray this very trust by printing news that is either vague in nature, meaning there is a lack of any substantial evidence to back the story or it is made up at times with fictitious experts to give the sense that the fact is backed by people experts in that field. Not many in the public have the time or curiosity to question the authority of such experts. The above is merely an example of what one calls a fallacy, it doesn’t harm anyone but as people usually quote, ‘Every little drop, maketh the ocean.’