Week 8: Truth and Objectivity - Post-modern casualties or victims of PR piracy?

This week's seminar presentation focused on an issue which confronts all journalists - whether or not to report truthfully and objectively. Emma Bradbury, Jenna Hancock and Amy Saunders explained to their fellow journalism classmates that media objectivity means to be free of bias. Jenna highlighted that there are three stages that need to be followed in order to report objectively: reactive (initial observations and information), analytic (starting to look at other areas of investigation) and reflective (societal trends and approaches).

She used the Daily Telegraph's reporting of the Black Saturday bushfires as an example, where 108 people were initially reported to have lost their lives. A few days later this number jumped to the final number of 173, with a mention of 24 fires still being out of control. Finally, the story of former chief commissioner, Christine Nixon, emerged (who had left her post to go and have a pub meal, being uncontactable for three hours in the process).

Emma pointed out that before the 20th century, unbiased reporting was not the norm, and the style of objective reporting has only really come to be the main method of writing due to a post-modern society which lives in such a fast-paced environment. Furthermore, Amy rightfully argued that PR has a huge effect on the way in which the news is reported in relation to agenda-setting, the partial truth and bias.

This brings me back to a statement which I have personally examined when watching, listening or reading the news, and which was reinforced through this presentation, which is that the audience is presented the truth, but it is A truth. As Tapsell and Varley (2001) put it, "truth is central to the process and practice of journalism...But what is truth? And how important is it?" I believe that we aren't casualties of postmodernism, but rather we are victims of sensationalist reporting which has become synonymous with the journalism and PR industry.

It is clear that the audience is rarely told untruths by the media, just different versions of the truth, which serve a purpose in selling newspapers, gathering television ratings or promoting a response. A clear example of this, which was pointed out by Amy in the presentation, was the images of birds and other wild life stuck and covered in polluted water as a result of the BP oil spill.