Week 2

1. Most important media function: Obviously its role to inform the public, if done with absolute honesty it is invaluable to democracy. To inform the public is not simply to spout an endless torrent of trivial events, or to gloss over major political news in a perfunctory manner. To really serve the public, the media must serve as a forum, a place of open discussion that can rise above racism, emotionalism and narrow minded provincial attitudes. That means, the media need to facilitate a higher and deeper level of dialogue on matters of importance.
Of course, entertainment and reporting of daily events is necessary to support a news organisation commercially, so that it can sell copy and serve such higher functions.

2. What degree of conern should be placed on readership and profit? As stated above, the engine for supporting better journalism is viability. If a news organisation cannot 'stay afloat', then it will be even more useless than a tabloid that can. Second, readership indicates the audience that is reached, so for every extra reader that gets good analysis and correct reports, the purpose of informing the populace is even better served. By the same token, no journalist should be so ideologically inflexible that they marginalise their circulation as an author, or that of their employer. All newsagencies and publishers should strive to be accommodating for a large audience, but reserve resources for high quality reporting. Manny would argue this can only be achieved by simultaneously competing strongly for the revenue that makes this possible, this would be hard to deny. However, the profit making imperative should never cloud judgement, or specifically dictate editorial policy, so for instance a paper may be forced, for financial reasons, to focus more on popular, celebrity based material, some may see it as a decline in standards, and this is unavoidable. But a newspaper cannot have individual stories either controlled or vetoed by advertisers. So it can be necessary to sacrifice some high quality material to gain more readers, but a news organisation cannot survive with any respect if it allows benefactors to dictate terms.
3. It is entirely inappropriate for executive management or ownership interests to direct editorial policy on any sensitive matter, especially politics. It places an unfair burden upon journalists, stymies their independence and at the extreme can force them to choose between honest, ethical practice and continuing employment. There are several former employees of Murdoch owned news companies that were left in no doubt that if they continued to present facts and opinions with which management took issue, they would lose their jobs. It is well known that Rupert Murdoch is accused of writing 'memos' that direct in great detail how specific matters, especially political or international, are to be covered by his publications.
When a high ranking executive of Australia's News Limited delivered this year's Andrew Ollie lecture, he denied the accusations. These questions are at the heart of what passes for 'fair and balanced' journalism, as Fox calls it. If management or ownership dominates editorial policy to the point that it decrees by fiat how individual topics are to be covered, it can jeopardise accurate and objective journalism, providing a disservice to the community and fundamentally threatens democracy. If people get hired, paid and promoted for simply towing the line of some ideological agenda, how can there be any confidence that the opinions they express are really their own, especially when there is a corresponding aversion to, and even demotion or punishment of, anyone who dares to posit another point of view? By coercive threats, rewards and unequal treatment depending upon how slavishly an employers perspective is adhered to, a once respected news organisation can become a propaganda factory, in the service not of the community, but of special interest groups, big business and political parties. Everyone knows who they work for, and has some idea of what is felt to be acceptable to their employer, and most would not seek to go out of their way to offend and alienate their boss, but this does not need to undermine ethical practice, as long as there is a range of thought on different topics, that overlaps with public opinion, and does not seek to drive or manipulate it according to a predetermined bias that is not openly acknowledged. Finally, as above, it is an employer's perogative to steer their publication, including editorial policy, in a way that is popular, profitable and acceptable to all major stakeholders, but excluding legal reasons, this should not extend to constant, deliberate interference with the freedom of journalists to do their job properly.
4. Investigative journalism matters and it sells newspapers. It is not difficult to realise that barring the dogged efforts of the media, many gross examples of injustice, malpractice, incompetence and corruption would never come to light. It seems simple, but is meaningful. There are some consumer protection bodies, police, bodies of inquiry and internal investigations that take place throughout society, but their findings are often overlooked or insufficient. Think of how many massive stories have either been exposed by the media, the children overboard lies, which claimed children had been thrown from the Tampa into the water, were exploded by one simple phone call by a journalist to the captain of an attending Australian Navy ship, who said that he saw the entire events and the claims were baseless. Another good example is Four Corners exposing the dishonesty of the Exclusive Brethren who claim to take no organised part in national politics, yet have been seen to coordinate interstate and international fundraising, advertising and smear campaigns under assumed names and registered at dummy properties to mask their involvement. The case of Jayant Patel, the so called Dr. Death of Bundaberg base hospital, was only investigated after the media raised it to a level of nationwide prominence.
There is an endless list of recent and past investigations by journalists that truly altered history, the most famous among them is probably the case of Woodward and Bernstein, whose work played the primary role in exposing Richard Nixon's part in the Watergate coverup. The reason investigative journalism matters, and why it has never become redundant, is because civil servants and internal inquiries often do not have the desire or resources to truly unravel complex mistakes or wrongdoing, least of all among their own colleagues. Journalists, on the other hand, make fact finding their business, they are paid to pursue documents, witnesses and evidence, and most importantly, they have the power to arouse public interest.
No body can be trusted to police itself, and if not for the media, who else could discharge the duty effectively? Often investigative journalism is simply about criminal activities, and this is lgitimate, certainly it is popular. The best is the sort that can so thoroughly explain tragedies, crimes or bungles that it stimulates change, in society as a whole. Of course, personal crusades against corruption or on behalf of public safety have played their part, but the media rightly epitomise and act upon the innate human desire to receive, not simply a lifeless account of events as they seem, but also a reconstruction from clues and instincts, the facts at a deeper level.
5. To report the crimes of a major advertiser is the luxury of powerful companies, who can be assured of willing replacements if one advertising client cancels, while small newspapers are often at the mercy of such simple dilemmas. It would be very easy, for a student of journalism, with no real responsibilities to simply say that they would go ahead and publish the conviction anyway, but people have responsibilities to their colleagues, not just their readers. However, difficult as it would be in real life, it is an old military maxim that no one should ever accede to an ultimatum. The story itself is insignificant, it is apparently unrelated to the business of the advertiser, and one can always count on competitors to assiduously report one's own shortcomings. Is that really a legitimate position to take, when an advertiser feels it is their right to interfere with such a simple [and factual] story. No, it is better that the demand is ignored, and the conviction reported, the newspaper can take its chances. If this precedent were to stand, how could one later refuse a request to not publish a story that the ACCC had convicted the advertiser of price fixing? That would appear an even more earnest request as that story really could ruin their business, and a tradition once established becomes harder to break. Unfortunately it is a steep descent that can begin with small requests; it is not within the purview of an advertiser to threaten to withdraw funding if facts are honestly and accurately reported. They may do whatever they wish with an advertising budget, but it is unethical to 1. make it contingent upon which stories are run and 2 to tell the newspaper in an obvious attempt to threaten or coerce in order to prevent legitimate honest practice.