By Anna Valmero
As the first scribes of history, journalists provide an important role in shaping society’s discourse and dialogue. Achieving the right balance of openness to different voices as a means to promote diversity in voices and the ethics in knowing how to secure the values attached to freedom of speech is essential.
In this edition of the 2016 Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum, an international team of young journalists looked at the forum theme on Media. Freedom. Values. Looking Beyond Boundaries and how journalism is evolving, especially in a digitally connected world.
Financial pressures continue to hurt the profession in terms of shrinking newsrooms and layoffs in different parts of the world. Global think tanks have even predicted that the profession may become extinct in just two decades. Interestingly, new media outlets are rising up to fill in the gaps in terms of under-served audience, underrepresented regions and uncovered topics.
As traditional media models break down to integrate digital and social elements in news, there is more space to experiment. And this is where news reporting calls for the core values and ethics of what makes good journalism.
In an era where dialogues are shaped by is entertaining, sexy and novel, there is a call for more journalists to ask the deeper questions to make people think and look for questions that will shape discourse into one that can impact society.
Journalism is not an easy profession but it is this very challenge that journalists should strive to build understanding instead of feeding on fears and transforming the agenda setting function of the practice as another way to grab readers’ attention with sensational news.
It is not enough to ask questions and follow what is popular at the moment. Asking the right questions and ensuring a diverse, representative and objective presentation of facts in a properly framed context is a good way to go forward. And learning from mistakes, from the past and the present will eventually shape the future of journalism that looks at the big picture and at the same time, presents the details in proper focus.
