IDEALISM

RESTORING JOURNALISTIC IDEALISM

DEVELOPING INTERNAL IDEALS TO SHARE EXTERNALLY
THE NECESSITY OF JOURNALISTIC DISCIPLINES
BUILDING YOUR ARMOR
TOOLS NOT RULES
TOOL: THE VALUE OF JOURNALISTS
WHAT WE DO
OUR PURPOSE
OUR ROLE IN SOCIETY
THE ROLE OF THE TRUSTED GATEKEEPER
TOOL: A PERSONAL VISION AND MISSION
TOOL: VERIFY AND SOURCE
TOOL: THE 5 BEWARES
BEWARE OF SUBSTITUTING FAIRNESS AND BALANCE FOR TRUTH
BEWARE OF ASSERTION VS. VERIFICATION
BEWARE OF STORY TYPES
BEWARE OF TECHNOLOGY TAKING OVER YOUR JOURNALISM
BEWARE OF STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE
TOOL: NEWS CRITERIA
TOOL: ETHICS—THE GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR THE JOURNALIST
THE IMPORTANCE AN OPEN NEWSROOM
A GUIDE FOR MAKING ETHICAL DECISIONS
THE FULCRUM OF JOURNALISTIC INDEPENDENCE
TOOL: STORY CHALLENGES
BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE AUTHORITY YOU HOLD
USING THE TOOLS IN YOUR TOOLBOX

DEVELOPING INTERNAL IDEALS TO SHARE EXTERNALLY

Do you possess any journalistic idealism? You might ask, what exactly is journalistic idealism? If you feel a huge journalistic void inside right now and don’t think you have any journalistic ideals at this stage in your life, that’s okay. I’ve been there myself. For the first third of my career, no one taught me anything about journalism idealism. I made decisions based on how my parents raised me. And thankfully, my parents raised me well and gave me a good base to work from. I think that good base prepared me well for ethical decision making. What was the good base I worked from? In hindsight, I figured out to make a good ethical decision you had to possess these three traits—good morals, common decency, and common sense. As you go through life, you meet a lot of people who have those traits and plenty that don’t. So, thanks to my parents, I turned out to be a pretty good human being. That alone has gotten me far in life. When I started working as a journalist these three traits of good morals, common decency, and common sense made me into a good journalist. For the first twenty-two years of my career, I was a news photographer. I found myself working internally with every kind of personality type you can imagine. And then in the field, I found myself encountering every kind of personality type you can imagine. These three traits served me well in all my people-to-people encounters. And more importantly, these three traits served me well in my everyday news judgment. But like I said, not everyone possesses these traits. Whether you’re a toddler or an adult, I feel it’s these three traits that make you a good human being. If you don’t possess these traits, people tend to steer clear of you. To this day, I am grateful my parents modeled these traits and insisted I behave accordingly.

It’s the same with journalistic ideals. Unless someone makes it a point to teach you and help you understand journalistic ideals, you wind up meandering through a journalism career without a good wisdom base. You wind up not being able to do your best because you don’t have the wisdom base for what you are doing. You want to be a good journalist, even a great journalist? Learn journalistic ideals. Journalistic ideals aren’t rocket science. And they’ve been around for a long, long time.