Readings+-+Kovach+and+Rosenstiel


 * Summary of Chapter 2, Kovach and Rosenstiel:**
 * Truth: The first and most confusing principle**

The chapter starts out discussing the controversies of President Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara during the Vietnam war and the lies that were told to the American Public. The author comments on how the journalists reported what McNamara said in the press conferences but didn't report what he really knew about the state of the war. The major concept of this chapter is deciphering between truth and lies; "Journalism's first obligation is to the truth." //Journalistic Truth// It is important and is necessary to remember the truth is what society bases it's fact on, the police arrest people based on fact. Journalism is after "a practical or functional form of truth," we wouldn't expect historians, teachers, etc. to not tell the truth, so we cannot set our expectations any lower for bad journalists. However we cannot just build journalism from accuracy because it doesn't get us far enough. Fuller states that Coherence must be the ultimate test of journalistic truth. "A debate between opponents arguing with false figures or purely on prejudice fails to inform. It only inflames. It takes the society nowhere" Journalists must get the facts and then interpret them conveying a "fair and reliable account for further investigation"

This article was my favorite article out of them all because I liked how they talked about people wanting to tell the truth and talk about what they wanted to talk about. Personal news to people can be totally taken the wrong way people can be thinking that they know one thing and they are totally wrong but they and they still put it up because they think they know the truth. If I were on a front page news article and it was a lie I would be very upset and I wouldn't be afraid to tell them that is a lie, I feel like everything we read in a magazine is a lie about someone. In journalism they tell the truth, they want people to know the truth, I think that people just want one place they can go and get the hardcore straight answers, but it doesn't exist people want to hear what they want to hear and what they want to hear may not be what the journalist wants to write about. I think that the world will never know what the truth is going to be in media. Everyone wants to read the eye catching stuff not the stuff that is true, everyone always has a little twist on things. -Shelby Hayden
 * Discussion**


 * The article to me was very interesting. In my view, it mainly talked about most journalists having the option of telling the truth or basically summing the truth up into a lie. I thought the quote the article added by Winston Churchill went along perfect, "A lie can be spread half way around the world, before the truth has enough time to out it's pants on". That in our society is very true with any kind of news. Personal drama or even a front page story in the newspaper can be twisted into a lie until someone has the nerve to pull through the lie of the story with the truth. Truth is a big deal in journalism and that is why certain newspapers and magazines are chosen beyond any others considering they are more reliable then per say the national enquirer where in that magazine it states that a woman had eight alien babies. It's all based on the journalist and what was written for the public to be fed, and what you as an individual decide to believe.**
 * -Devyn Kinard**

The title of this chapter is very accurate; truth is the first and most confusing principle. While reading this chapter, I found myself nodding in agreement with many of the topics covered. The authors made a very good point when they said that truth forms a sense of security. The less people know about a topic, the more they will worry and be frantic until they know all the details surrounding a certain event. We witness it every day, especially during huge crises like a hurricane approaching or the flu breaking out. People are instantly glued to the TV screen or computer monitor just trying to squeeze out every ounce of information that they can. But even then, I think it can be hard to distinguish what is 100% true. The readings said truth is complicated at times. And that is correct. For example, certain news stations can have a certain bias for a political party, and convey news more towards their political beliefs. It might not necessarily be wrong, but the news might be swayed to the left or right side a bit. Journalists just need to be able to bring the story to the public in a fair and reliable way and let the people form their own opinions about the truth from there. -Andrea Blanco

When we pick up a newspaper, surf the web, or flip through channels on the television, the first thought is "I'm not interested in this subject; I'm going to find something that interests me." Once we see the headline, i.e. "BRAD PITT ELOPES WITH JOSH HARNETT" or "ALIENS BUILD CAMP ON JUPITER", it's our first reading pick of the day. We like to believe that these kind of articles have a possibility for being true because we find it entertaining, new, and unusual. We want it "spreadworthy": we want to talk about it and spread it along to others who haven't heard about it. But do we really know that it's true? Passing it along to our friends who haven't heard can make the "facts" even more false, or just simply annoying, overrated, and confusing. I like the example that Kovach and Rosenstiel provided about the journalist/press critic who talked about the Giants game scores; the fact that the Giants lost is a small piece of truth but the reason behind why the Giants lost can be told in many different ways (40). The way I think of this kind of scenario is the game we all used to play in elementary school called "Telephone". You whisper a phrase into your neighbor's ear and they pass it on until the last person receives the phrase. How game usually ends: a completely different phrase comes out and we have no idea where it came from. I believe that we focus on the title of a news story rather than facts we might find; we're more interested in what we like to read or see on the news. Instead, we need to know the significance of the facts the story gives us rather than a juicy, eye-grabbing title because those titles usually do not have the right facts or very little research, such as the //Enquirer//. This article gave me little advice about reading unique or unusual kinds of news: although the article may seem interesting, I can still enjoy it, but I need to at least ask myself, "What here can I believe?" (49). -Molly Moser

I found this article to be rather interesting. I liked how the authors brought up the philosophical aspect of truth. When I read that part I wondered if truth does actually exist or do we make our own truth? In the paragraph below that they used the example of the New York Giants football game and how others perceived it. The fact was the New York Giants lost, but why they lost had many different truths. Fans would have had hundreds of different views that they believed true on why the Giants lost. The other part I found fascinating was the two tests of truth: correspondence and coherence. Both of these involve getting the facts correct and making sense of those facts. The end of the article was by far my favorite. It really summed up what the whole article was about. One part in particular I liked was even though we have more and more information it is actually more difficult to tell what is true. The quote by Winston Churchill, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its on pants”(48) sums up basically what this article is about. Also, the article points out that journalist need to get the facts straight and develop a reputable place where people can receive information, rather than leaving it up to the people to sort through all the information they receive. -Kelly Goff

Out of everything that we have read, I found this excerpt most eye catching. I felt that it was much more relevant to us today with all of the examples that were used such as the Giant's football game and Hurricane Katrina for example. Throughout this chapter, it was reiterated time and time again about the complications and the complexity of journalists searching out the truth. It stated on page 36 that Journalism's first obligation is to the truth, but directly under it, it states that "people are befuddled about what "the truth" means." In it's context 'people' seem to be the ones who are not journalists, but when taking that sentence apart, we [journalists] are people as well, so we are befuddled as well. I believe it all comes down to what news needs to be shared and who we are sharing it with. -Chelsey Schauer

This article pointed out that not only should a journalist make sure his/her facts are accurate, they must make sure that the provider of the facts is telling the truth. Investigation is more important than reporting and it is through investigation that the real "truth" will surface. This article also showed that sometimes truth is sacrificed for more exciting or interesting stories.

I found this article interesting because I think truth and accuracy in journalism are especially important today. I think that mst people use the internet as their main source of news today, and this can be a problem because anyone can write about whatever they want. There are so many ridiculous rumors that began on the web, like that Barrack Obama is muslim and not born in America, or that Sarah Palin was banning some books from libraries and bookstores in Alaska. People actually believe these and refuse to look at them objectively. What I noticed in the reading that I never really thought about before was that the inaccuracy in stories is not always made up by the writer himself for more sensationalistic purposes. Sometimes the sources they get their facts from are rumors or speculations. That is why it is crucial for journalists to check the information they receive for credibility. And people need to keep in mind that many news stories have a spin or angle on them, and it's important to filter out the opinion and get the facts. This article reminded me of the famous quote by Edward Murrow, "To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful." Alisha Wexler I liked this article because it was so...well true. The title was definitely fitting. The truth really is the first and most confusing priciple. Over all i liked what it was about. It said how people try to find the best version of the truth. The example that stood out to me was the cat example. They said that because there was a cat in the first story they felt they had to but a cat in all the stories to make them more believable. The crazy thing was the truth was that there wasnt a cat after the first story. It said that even though it wasnt true it made the story better and the person that didnt put the cat in the story got in trouble even though he knew it wasnt true. The other thing i thought was very true was how we have so many outlets of information that instead of making it easier for us to have information it has made it harder. We are constantly having to vhoose where to get it from and where its the truth. A lie can be spread quicker because it unlike truth does not have to investigate and find facts and evidence. Definitely something to think about when choosing the news we rely on. -Maya Merlis

In Kovach’s Elements of Journalism he describes the truth of journalism as subjective. What the journalist writes about depends on things like who he interviewed or where he was looking for information. Every person has their own view of the situation, which is their own personal truth. I agree with Kovach on this point. He also explains on page 44 how a story can develop over time and become more truthful. He gives the example of a journalist who wrote, in the New York Daily News, about a Haitian man who was arrested for disorderly conduct. At first the journalist only had enough information to give the minimum of facts, which can draw a lot of assumptions. As time passed the journalist was able to interview the man that had been arrested and to dig deeper into the story and find out more information about the past of the police thus giving the readers more truth. This isn’t to say that his first article about the incident wasn’t truthful; it was the truth that he knew. Kovach states in the last paragraph of page 44 “The truth here, in other words, was a complicated and sometimes contradictory phenomenon, but seen as a process over time, journalism can get at it.” This sums up perfectly what truth means to journalism, at least in my opinion. Kovach also explains that the public also has an influence over the version of truth that the journalists cover. Kovach says “In the first hours of an event, when being accurate is most difficult, accuracy is perhaps most important. It is during this time that public attitudes are formed, sometimes stubbornly, by the context within which the information is presented. Is it a threat to me? Is it good for me? Is it something I should be concerned about? The answer to these questions determines how carefully I follow a new event, how much verification of the facts I will look” (45). So if the public doesn’t like how you presented the “truth,” they won’t follow you on the updates of the event but instead choose another journalist or another story. Readers must also beware now because not all journalists are honest on their quest for truth. At the end of this chapter, Kovach explains that since there are far more outlets for news nowadays, there is more of a possibility of “false” news. Readers must search more for the truth which makes it harder to find the truth since we have “a finite amount of time people can devote to consuming news” (47). It’s not only up to the journalist to find and present the truth, it’s up to the citizens to consume the news that is truthful so that false news will eventually fall out of circulation, or least become fewer and harder to come by. -Sarah Phillips


 * The Truth About the Truth**

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Obviously, truth is the theme of the article. What I find interesting is that honesty, truth and accuracy are stressed for journalists. If this is expected in journalists, why not in every person as well? "We use the words every day-truth and lies, accurate-and we think they convey something meaningful." It's inevitable that society stresses the importance of the truth in journalism, due to the fact that without the truth in journalism, there would be no truth at all. Journalists are the informants of the world who provide everyday information about society to the rest of the world. What I feel is that not only does this inherent truth need to be instilled in journalists, but every other person as well. Imagine, if a doctor wasn't honest and misdiagnosed all of his patients. There are often stories about business men being dishonest and embezzling money. No human being is perfect, however honesty is a quality that is always stressed, but rarely practiced. Starting with journalists, every other person should take note and strive for accuracy, honesty, and the truth as well. ===== -Christina Romeo

I found the article to be very interesting as well, and agree that it is apparent it is discussing truth. Christina made a good point, if it is expected in journalists, shouldn't it be expected in every person? I believe that every person on the planet is in there own way a journalist, and should always take into consideration the laws of journalism. Obviously journalism is not everyone's profession, but everyone asks questions, everyone spreads news, whether it be rumors or factual information, but I feel everyone of us, for the common courtesy of each other should all be expected to tell the truth. Now I know that is not going to happen, but wouldn't it be nice? It would be so pleasent to check our RSS feeds and have them filled with complete factual truth, and not biased material. It would be so nice to talk to your family and friends and not have to worry about there opinions steering the truth f there story in a certain directon, and it would be nice if we personally could not let our opinions get expressed in the news we share. I think that is our goal, as J Students, to learn the way to tell the whole truth of a story, and still manage to be entertaining, without gossiping, spreading rumors, or bending the truth. -Jeremy Sawri

I found this article extremely intriguing. To know whether there is a difference between telling the truth and not telling the truth splits journalists apart from the rest of reporters out there was a bit of an eye opener for me. Anyone can write an article about something being factual or completely fictional. If I were to find something that I worked very hard on being called fictional, it would devastate me as a journalist. Journalists have this expectancy to provide information that is none other than the truth. Anyone can put information out in the open and make it believable, but journalists do this differently because we want our readers to know the truth about what we have taken the time to research and write about. It may be hard for us to find articles or readings out there that are completely honest, but at least the reader can know where to go to find work that does not lie completely. Truth is so very important, especially when your work gets published. It would be better to be honest in the end, that way you know your honest is reaching out to other people. -Kylie Sesto

I find this article to be very accurate. Journalists are encouraged to tell the truth, however that doesn't always happen. It can often be difficult trying to find out what is true and what isn't when it comes to the news. I feel if journalists and news channels were more honest and straight forward more people would be interested in listening to it because they wouldn't see it as lies. As viewers of the news it is the journalists purpose to get the accurate news out there so that us viewers can better understand it.Honesty in any career is something that should be practiced so that clients, viewers, associates, etc. can better percieve what information is feed to them. -Celeste Graham