Credibility Of New Media Journalists: Challenges And Accountability

The Challenges that New Media Journalists Encounter

The source of information determines the credibility of a journalist. In most of the times, social media journalism has a characteristic feature of citizen journalism where journalists who are not professionals undertake media roles, and that’s why their credibility is always in doubt (Hamilton, 2014). To be concise and straightforward, the new media journalists are not regarded as being a credible source of media content for some reasons. Firstly, they are not professionals in the field of journalism. These are just the normal consumers of media content who turn out to be content producers. The problem with them is that media production is too delicate to be left in the hands of amateurs (Singer, 2015). Why? That is because content production involves many activities that are only taught in media class. For instance, in news sourcing, a journalist is obliged to using the two source rule where information is gotten from two independent sources that did not learn the information from each other or the same source. News sourcing also includes accuracy, independence, and coverage of both sides of the story, among other key aspects (Oullivan, 2017). When citizen journalists post information without the required steps of verification, then it can’t be termed to be credible.

As a matter of fact, every journalist must hold it in mind that credibility is one of the major unique selling point in media and thus losing credibility is equal to losing the whole profession. Audience need to consume information from trusted sources. In most of the times, mainstream media are actively seeking to stand out and compete favorably with their rivals and therefore obliged to provide credible information. Contrary to that, in most cases, citizen journalists are driven by ordinary curiosity to catch a wider audience and therefore do not put the desired emphasis on the information they give (Vasterman, 2014). Another major factor that renders a new media journalist incredible is low or lack of investing the necessary resources in news sourcing. For instance, investigate journalism requires high financial investment to gather all facts. Conversely, social media journalists hardly find the investment of funds in their news sourcing irrelevant due to the less or no economic benefits associated with their information dissemination. As a result, therefore, they are not driven by the sense of credibility and thus sometimes give information with squinting information and dangling evidence (Sallot, 2017). It should be appreciated that media is characterized by showing and not telling. The fact that most of the new media journalists tell and not show fuels incredibility. Again, new media sources do kit have diverse sources of information and thus rely on single sources for quite some time. Since they don’t want to seem the same every day, they end up using their creativity to modify their information to suit the growing need of their audience thereby losing originality of information yet hard news re not opinionated or modifiable.

Why New Media Journalists are not Regarded as being Credible Sources of Media Content

One of the major facts that need to be put into account is that credible journalism comes with attribution of information to sources even if the facts have been verified. Most of the new media reporters do not put into consideration this virtue of credible journalistic practice and therefore end up giving information that is not credible and fit for public consumption. Sometimes the sources insist in giving information on background or on deep background but these reporters do not take time to weigh whether having the source remain anonymous is justifiable. Due to that reason, they end up hiding the identity of a source with no compelling reasons. This practice is one of the things that render them incredible. Other social media journalists have the tendency of getting rumors and assigning a hidden source where audience will not be told where the information was gotten or who said what. These amateurish practices make them unfit for credible journalism reporting. Another annoying feature of these citizen journalists is the use is sensationalization to attract audience. Sensationalization is an old hat that should be avoided at all cost. These journalists use screaming headlines to attract their audience.

The worst thing is that when the audience get into the real story they find it difficult to connect the headline with the rest of the story. They also use altered photographs to lure the attention of the audience into consuming their content, this is not only wrong but also unethical and against the journalistic code of conduct. Again, it should be appreciated hat the credibility of information largely depends on how it was collected. Amateur journalists, in this case, the new media journalists, do not emphasize on the best news of news gathering. For instance, they do not cover both sides of the story. They only focus on one side of the story that may have more reception than the other part. This type of reporting is not professional and loses credibility as it promotes bias and affiliation. It is due to all these reasons, therefore, that these new media reporters are hardly trusted to report on news accurately.

One of the facts that should be appreciated is that new media journalists are actively publishing information day and night without regarding the consequence of the information they publish. All they are aimed at is acquiring cheap publicity and see their reports do well in the community regardless of whether they are genuine or not. However, this has been the case, the good news is that the associated authority has been on the track of what has been transpiring over the social media (Altheide, 2016). While most of them have opted to remain anonymous and give information without attribution and at times giving incredible information through fake accounts, they are monitored by the authority to bear their cross in cases where their reports prove to be contrary to the journalistic code of conduct.

The Importance of Credibility in the Field of Journalism

To be simple and straightforward, these journalists are held responsible for all the information and reports they publish (Williams, 2016).  Even though some of them at times deny their utterances and the information they post, care is taken by the appropriate officials to ensure that they do not publish inappropriate information and get away with it. A good example of the same is the United State guidelines that were put forward to regulate social media journalists who were threatening the believability and success of the New York Times Newspaper. In this case, social media journalists were using the new media platforms to editorialize what was being reported by the New York Times. That posed a big threat to the reputation of the newspaper.

One of the major reasons as to why these new media journalists are held accountable for their reports is to avoid the adverse effects that would come along as result of the publishing of misleading or biased information. For instance, some new media journalists report in a biased perspective and tone where some of them endorse some political parties or candidates (Stallings, 2015). That becomes a threat to the journalistic code of conduct that stipulates that the reporter should be independent and resist influence from any party while reporting. Other new media journalists misuse these platforms to spread hate speech, something that has negative long-term effects thereby prompting accountability for all what is published on their platforms (Kim, 2016).

Accountability, in this case, begins from owning the publication to facing legal consequences in cases where the information published is considered inappropriate for public consumption due to a mass breach of ethics and journalistic codes. Overall, whether or not new media journalists hide their identity with the aim of publishing inappropriate content, they are still held accountable and have no ways of fleeing from that fact. Guidelines and the journalistic codes concerning the publication of any media content for public consumption are there are legally enforceable to any journalist who goes against them. It is due to this reason, therefore, that the new media journalist should be aware that they are not outside the law bracket and that they are monitored and held accountable for all works they publish.

The mainstream media seems to be far much responsible than the new media due to its regulation by various bodies. It is either statutory regulated, self-regulated, or exhibiting both types of regulations. However, the new media should not be viewed as a forgotten case that is operating without guidelines. Even though most of these journalists are freelance journalists who independently operate on their own, they are bound to following set rules and guidelines to guide them on their operations otherwise they will go defaming everyone and reporting whatever they come across, whether or not fit. Even though some of these journalists do not follow the guidelines and report stories the way they desire, legal actions are taken to those journalists who go beyond some limits face the law. A fact that should be appreciated is that if these journalists are left to operate the way they wish without regulation, then journalist would be one of the worst, amateurish and unhelpful fields to venture in.

References

Altheide, D., 2016. The news media, the problem frame, and the production of fear. The sociological quarterly, 6(78), pp. 77-83.

Hamilton, J., 2014. Pollution as news: media and stock market reactions to the toxics release inventory data. Journal of environmental economics and management, 6(8), pp. 56-67.

Kim, S., 2016. Talking about obesity: News framing of who is responsible for causing and fixing the problem. Journal of health communication, 6(89), pp. 34-45.

Oullivan, J., 2017. Old values, new media: Journalism role perceptions in a changing world. Journalism Practice, 5(5), pp. 78-102.

Sallot, L., 2017. Investigating relationships between journalists and public relations practitioners: Working together to set, frame and build the public agenda. Public Relations Review, 7(9), pp. 88-94.

Singer, J., 2015. ‘Normalizing’a new media form to fit old norms and practices. Journalism, 8(9), pp. 64-73.

Stallings, R., 2015. Media discourse and the social construction of risk. Social problems, 6(9), pp. 45-54.

Vasterman, P., 2014. Media-hype: Self-reinforcing news waves, journalistic standards and the construction of social problems. European Journal of Communication, 9(56), pp. 76-79.

Williams, B., 2016. Monica and Bill all the time and everywhere: The collapse of gatekeeping and agenda setting in the new media environment. American Behavioral Scientist, 7(8), pp. 56-78.