So are journalists powerless?
Brian Cathcart writing in this weeks New Statesman beleives that there are.
Far from being the glamorous job where you can change the world, it is:
"most journalists are conscious of how little difference they make rather than how much"
He looks at two particular areas of the world,Dardfur and Zimbabwe.The Indy has particually championed the cause of the former yet
"Would it make a dufference if the Daily Mail and not the Independent was leading the way?"
The Mail has been championing the cause of Zimbabwe in recent days and it has made no difference.
According to Cathcart,the job of journalists is to deliver the news and interprete and comment where necessary.Cahnging things is the job of politicans and voters.
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2 comments:
No, journalists rarely change things, but as a journalist you can help facilitate an informed discourse, expose hypocracy or injustice, higlight new inititatives or new ways of doing things, translate new ideas, concepts, research into terms that make it possible for those not in the know to follow new developments.
You're mainly a mediator, translator and sometimes a facilitator who helps foster debates that can bring about change.
There are plety of examples of how both journalists, and in recent times bloggers, have made a difference by forcing resignations or policy shifts in Western democracies, but bringing about change in countries run by totalitarian regimes is not so easy - though clearly there must be a reason why those regimes always work so hard to supress free speech: if free speaking journalists had no bite, why then go to all the trouble?
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