A big part of being a trustworthy news source is being loyal to the readers, watchers, and listeners.First and foremost we have to, as our book explained, 'Commit to the Citizen First'. This means that as a journalist I need to report news in a way that is completely truthful and doesn't hurt any person's rights to privacy. It isn't right to tell a news story that breaks a law or code of ethics in order to make money.
One example of this is Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch unlawfully hacked into a girl's phone to get information. Not only did he work the information he received to give it the twist he wanted, but he even harmed families effected in 9/11 in the process.
He is the perfect example of what not to do when it comes to loyalty to the citizens. We talked a lot in class about how in order to be loyal we need to have a code of ethics. Many major newspapers do and they are available for the public to look at. The New York Times is one such paper. I really think it awesome that they created a code for their entire company to live by. That way the company can be unified in purpose and stick to the same ideas in whatever they do. The more we talked about having a code ethics, the more I realized that I should create one for myself. Not only for my job as a reporter and a journalist but also in my life.
A new study shows that people get most of their news from their televisions but there are still certain topics that people go to their newspapers for. It just goes to show that no matter what field of journalism a person is in, and whether or not the print newspaper dies, it is still important for a journalist to be loyal to the citizen, the consumer, the reader and not harm their rights in the process of giving them the news. Even if it was just one person reading or watching or listening to the news program, it is enough to be loyal to that person and the person that the news involves.
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