The challenges faced by a journalist (1)

Constraints

One of the many challenges facing journalists are the constraints that is placed upon them in terms of what they are able to publish.

Brian Whittle believes that 'the best reporter is someone who's naturally nosy.'

Common constraints also include time, style, advertisers, audience, subjectivity and sources that journalists face on a daily basis. With these in mind, David Randall came up with the suggestion that every newspaper should consider publishing this disclaimer:

'This paper, and the hundreds of thousands of words it contains, has been produced in about 15 hours by a group of fallible human beings, working out of cramped offices while trying to find out about what happened in the world from people who are sometimes reluctant to tell us and, at other times, positively obstructive. Its content has been determined by a series of subjective judgements made by reporters and executives, tempered by what they  know to be the editor's, owner's and reader's prejudices. Some stories appear here without essential context as this would make them less dramatic or coherent and some of the language employed has been deliberately chosen for its emotional impact, rather than its accuracy. Some features are printed solely to attract certain advertisers.'
What he really means is that do not believe all what you read in newspapers.
The London Evening Post in 1754, was quoted as saying 'Those who declaim against Liberties taken by Newspapers....know not what they say; it is this Liberty, that....protects all the rest.'
However, it has been argued that, although the journalists work alongside various constraints, some of these may be considered positive. For example, the Code of Conduct set out by the National Union of Journalists and the Code of practice by the Press Complaints Commission may be interpreted as protecting and helping journalists to resist what may be viewed as unethical behaviour and also defending journalistic integrity (Harcup 2002a and 2002b).
HG Wells delivered a message to his members of the NUJ in 1922 saying how:
'We affect opinion and public and private life profoundly, and we need to cherish any scrap of independence we possess and can secure. We are not mere hirelings ; our work is creative and repsponsible work. The activities of rich adventurers in buying, and directing the policy, groups of newspapers is a grave public danger. A free-spirited, well-paid, and well-organised profession of journalism is our only protection against the danger. (Quoted in Mansfield 1945: 518).

Ethical Responsibility

A further challenge for journalists is the importance of ethical responsibility. Jake Lynch, an international TV and print reporter believes that journalists must take this seriously as it is an imperative consideration of the job:

'In this information age, journalists are not disconnected observers but actual participants in the way communities and societies understand each other and the way parties wage conflict...We live in a media-savvy world. There's no way of knowing what journalists are seeing or hearing would have happened the same way - if at all - if no press was present. This means that policies are born with a media strategy built in. There's nothing pejorative in that, it's a condition of modern life; but it closes the circle of cause and effect between journalist and source. The only way anyone can possibly calculate journalists' likely response to what they do is from their experience of previous reporting. Every time facts get reported, it adds to the collective understanding of how similar facts will likely be reported in future. That understanding then informs people's behaviour. This is the feedback loop. It means every journalist bears some unknowable share of the responsibility for what happens next.'

Lindsay Eastwood has said how 'we should have been dodging bricks, but the adrenalin gets you.'