I have been thinking about whether Kevin Sites' journey to war zones is what made him a journalist. (Meaning if that was all Kevin Sites ever did, would he be considered a journalist?)There is no doubt that what he did was brave. The images from the video we watched in class were very real and graphic.
But does traveling to war zones make you a better journalist than someone else? Or a journalist to begin with? Who's to say that reporting on celebrities at the Oscars has a lesser value than reporting in war zones? Yes, that seems like it would have an obvious answer. But people have different values. They place more importance on different things.
Kevin Sites was brave in his journey to make known what is happening in war zones. But does bravery make you a journalist?
6 comments:
"Who's to say that reporting on celebrities at the Oscars has a lesser value than reporting in war zones? Yes, that seems like it would have an obvious answer. But people have different values. They place more importance on different things."
That doesn't mean they're correct in doing so, though. As a side note, you mention that the above example seems to "have an obvious answer." Yet I'd suggest the answer today, looking at real life, is not so obvious when one considers society's obsession with celebrity as opposed to the lack of interest in hard news involving serious research and serious reporting on serious subjects.
Ashimitation raises an interesting philosophical question: what values do we use in deciding what news is?
News traditionally has been the current that affects great numbers of people. Surely war coverage qualifies on that score.
But covering celebrities at the Oscars..does that affect great numbers or merely appeal to great numbers?
I would have to say it would almost be easier to report about a war just because of all of the action going on around you. There are countless stories you could write about being in a war zone while there are only so many things you can write about during a celebrity event. I would have to say you have to have a better story during a celebrity event to make it stick out from the bunch.
I would say the war journalist is performing a bigger service to the general public however. I think there is a bigger need for multiple reports from war zones rather than 40 different reports about what Jessica Simpson is wearing.
I think this post raises an interesting question and one that I've never really sat and pondered before. I've never looked at people reporting at the Oscars as actual reporters and sometimes I view people who voluntarily put themselves in harms way, like Kevin Sites, as idiots.
I'm not saying what Sites did wasn't brave, because it was, but I certainly wouldn't have even strength to go and do what he did...I don't think many of us would. But I don't believe that makes him a better journalist then the rest.
If all Kevin Sites had done was go to war zones, then no that in it of itself does not make him a journalist. It may have been brave, but unless he was over there to obtain information and then give it out to the masses, it could hardly be considered journalism.
In technicalities his reporting on the war zone is no different than reporting on celebrities. The news may not be as hard hitting, but it matters to different groups of people.
So long as the information is objective and meant to get out there for people to read and get new thoughts it is news.
Bravery does not make a journalist, if that were the case than the people he was reporting on at the war zone themselves to were journalists.
In general if he had only traveled to the war zones, and not on the basis of reporting objective news, then no he would not be considered a journalist.
In response to journalistu's question of affecting great numbers and appealing to great numbers..
I have often grappled with my decision to go into public relations for bands as a "changing the world" career. Many people have told me though, that music changes people's lives just as much as hearing about war.
So in general, who are we to say what affects people more?
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