News for action: a critical case study of Yes! magazine
- Authors: Hosford-Israel, Carly
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: Yes! (Bainbridge Island, WA) , Magazines -- United States -- History and criticism , Journalistic ethics , Journalism -- Social aspects -- United States , Journalism -- Objectivity , Mass media -- Ownership -- United STates , Publishers and publishing -- United States
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/170822 , vital:41963
- Description: Coming out of more than a century of concern over the commercialization and monopolization of media ownership, this study highlights some areas of opportunity for alternative media in the United States. Holding an ideal of participatory democracy, driven by an educated electorate, the research considers an example of US media action, Ye s ! magazine, from the perspective of alternative media and social movement theories. As alternative media are most generally a response to the mainstream model which acts in the interests of profit rather than public participation in politics, this thesis will cover not only democratic responsibility, but also mainstream media ownership and organization when considering the current manifestation of Ye s ! magazine. Inspired by a frustration with the concentration of mainstream media ownership, and consequently journalistic homogenization, this research explores opportunities for democratic media divergence and contestation. After 18 years of publication, Ye s ! was chosen as an ideal candidate for research due to its sustainability and longevity as one such critical media organization. Through in-depth interviews with Yes! personnel, and ideological analysis of Yes! articles, the following case study research explores the complexities that construct Ye s ! magazine, a corporately independent publication from Bainbridge Island, Washington.
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- Date Issued: 2021
A literature review of the factors impacting on objectivity in news journalism
- Authors: Yat, Gai Thurbil
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Journalism -- Objectivity
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:8376 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/872 , Journalism -- Objectivity
- Description: Objectivity has been the most debatable issue in the history of journalism and there are, therefore, many different ways of looking at it. Media academics such as Gans (1979) and Tuchman (2000) refer to objectivity as an examination of contents of collected news materials. Glasser (1992) points out that objectivity is a balance of beliefs restructured by a journalist and presented against independent thinking. It is difficult to test the objectivity of journalists because it is the credibility of facts gathered by a journalist that lies at the heart of objectivity. In Glasser’s opinion, the “notion” of objectivity is flawed against the newsman’s mandate of reporting responsibly. Objectivity is therefore professional principle through which journalists write news responsibly and present it to their audience as a final product (Glasser, 1992). This study will discuss objectivity also in reference to the problems that journalists face when they cover news stories. It may be that journalists may have problems searching for stories not because they do not embrace journalistic principles of fairness, clarity and objectivity, but because of the way in which facts are presented to them by news sources (Fred and Wellman, 2003). There have been some cases whereby media audiences have wrongly been made to think that journalists are biased in their coverage. 2 For example, the 2003 Iraq invasion by US-led forces, where correspondents were made to practice embedded journalism is a good example of how circumstances could force a journalist to succumb to soldiers’ demands of keeping their war causalities away from their cameras. It is worth noting, however, that being biased for a journalist in such a war situation could be circumstantial in the sense that an American journalist covering a story in Iraqi’s capital, Baghdad, would be regarded as a spy by Iraqi’s troops. Likewise, an Iraqi journalist chasing stories in the coalition force’s camps in Iraqi’s capital would be treated as a traitor by the Iraqi people (Fred and Wellman, 2003:21). There is no doubt that in the situations described above objectivity in journalism can be affected. It is against such background that this study will investigate the factors that affect objectivity in the print media. It is vitally important to bear in mind that bias should not be confused with editorial columns that express the opinion of publishers, or editors for that matter. The question of objectivity goes back to the gatekeepers, whereby the editors as gatekeepers decide what to publish and what news stories reporters should gather. So the question of objectivity in the news can be dealt with by the editors who decide which story should be run by their respective newspapers. According to Fred and Wellman (2003:32), editors and media owners are the decision makers in the field of journalism.
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- Date Issued: 2007