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  • Essay / Essay on Objectivity in Journalism - 1119

    “News tells us what is important... News represents events in a specific way” (Thwaites et al., 2002: 102). “Although the format and conventions followed by journalists are designed to make information as factual and fair as possible, we know that language can never be completely neutral” (O'Shaughnessy and Stadler, 2008: 87). Some call it information dissemination; some call it exploring the truth. But then again, news itself is a very subjective term. Often in our lives, media is one of the most sophisticated and useful means available to all of us today in the modern world of the technological age. On the contrary, on top of that, people always wonder, what is objectivity in journalism? In simple terms, purpose can be defined as attention to objects external to the mind (Macquarie Dictionary, n.d.). Truth-seeking, neutrality, fairness, impartiality are all adjectives that people associate with the words "objectivity." The origin of objectivity can be defined as the development of journalism as a commercial industry. From the early 17th century until the mid-19th century, the Fourth Estates continued to receive complaints about the inaccuracy, misinformation, and sensationalism of news reports. However, the general public has not understood that there are many restrictions on newspaper production, as the newspaper has already become one of the tools of political advocacy and partisanship. What adds to the interest in the concept of journalism are issues of democracy and economics as well as social sciences and technology. It might be added that we may not detect the ideological powers inherent in certain aspects of the media texts we encounter. In the middle of the term, journalists themselves are humans, which means that the way they describe certain stories may not be exactly unbiased. As a human being, we all have different ideologies and there are also different discourses when it comes to the dissemination of information. In a nutshell, there is always a debate between objectivity and bias in the field of journalism. In this reality society, it is sometimes very difficult to balance the intermediate value of a particular issue. Last but not least, we should look at the issue from many different angles instead of limiting ourselves to a very narrow view of the issue. Therefore, it is quite obvious to say that reality always involves the naturalization of certain ideological beliefs. In an effort to be objective, there is still something called truth and being a professional journalist; it is your duty or your job to convey the transparency of the facts.