Especially in local and regional reporting, accountability journalists can find themselves personally impacted by stories. These reporters in particular need to know how to navigate those situations, and should follow newsroom ethics guidelines.
This is especially true in situations where the journalist must negotiate access. If they get too close to a subject, that can skew their reporting.
The fact-filled nature of accountability journalism can result in a story that’s dry and emotionless. The best accountability stories are told through a variety of carefully selected platforms, styles and interactivity.
Journalistic objectivity is often admired, but there are circumstances where interpretation is required. Let's say a journalist found out that powerful chemicals companies colluded on the sales price of a compound. How would we know to react?
Clarity and transparency, and authority with humility are hallmarks of effective accountability reporting. Guidelines/best practices for for all forms of accountability reporting should be specifically designed to meet those standards. Clearly “showing your work” to readers and other acts of transparency are essential for building trust — and, over time, readership — in your content. Mistakes and missteps occur when best practices fail.
Here is the accountable part for journalists. For us to trust the reporter, they should align perspective and practice with such considerations.
Accountability journalism encompasses all journalistic efforts that strive to hold powerful people accountable for what they say, what they do, and what they should be doing.
This is less often characterized as a genre and more a code of ethics, and as such is a developing term. In the end, the question being asked is how journalists practice accountability in their methods just as much as how they themselves are accountable for their work.
Some argue that a more appropriate standard should be fairness and accuracy (as enshrined in the names of groups like Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting). Under this standard, taking sides on an issue would be permitted as long as the side taken was accurate and the other side was given a fair chance to respond. Many professionals believe that true objectivity in journalism is not possible and reporters must seek balance in their stories (giving all sides their respective points of view), which fosters fairness.
With fairness, we are recognizing conflicts, even if we take a side. With accuracy, we are representing those perspectives in ways agreeable to the source.
Some scholars and journalists criticize the understanding of objectivity as neutrality or nonpartisanship, arguing that it does a disservice to the public because it fails to attempt to find truth.[6] They also argue that such objectivity is nearly impossible to apply in practice—newspapers inevitably take a point of view in deciding what stories to cover, which to feature on the front page, and what sources they quote.[6] The media critics Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky have advanced a propaganda model hypothesis proposing that such a notion of objectivity results in heavily favoring government viewpoints and large corporations.[6] Mainstream commentators accept that news value drives selection of stories, but there is some debate as to whether catering to an audience's level of interest in a story makes the selection process non-objective.[6]
Note that even with subjective reporting, some of those virtues or practices of objective journalism still stand. For example, an editorial might come across as neutral or detached in its presentation, even if the language is clearly subjective.
truthfulness, neutrality, and detachment.[6]
Truthfulness is always required, even when being subjective. Neutrality rests in your angle and purpose for the piece. Detachment is a matter of tone, and its importance shifts with the reporting context.
Most newspapers and TV stations depend upon news agencies for their material, and each of the four major global agencies (Agence France-Presse (formerly the Havas agency), Associated Press, Reuters, and Agencia EFE) began with and continue to operate on a basic philosophy of providing a single objective news feed to all subscribers. That is, they do not provide separate feeds for conservative or liberal newspapers. Journalist Jonathan Fenby has explained the notion:
As you take sources from other reporting, you'll want to consider how you represent them, and how that collection represents you.
Journalistic objectivity is a considerable notion within the discussion of journalistic professionalism. Journalistic objectivity may refer to fairness, disinterestedness, factuality, and nonpartisanship, but most often encompasses all of these qualities. First evolving as a practice in the 18th century, a number of critiques and alternatives to the notion have emerged since, fuelling ongoing and dynamic discourse surrounding the ideal of objectivity in journalism.
Not every article requires complete objectivity or neutrality, but then we readers really start caring about issues of transparency and informed perspective.
In journalism, attribution is the identification of the source of reported information.
Rather like references and citations in academia, attributions are vital considerations.
News organizations may impose safeguards, such as requiring that information from an anonymous source be corroborated by a second source before it can be printed.
This is an important consideration as well. As well as possible, we want to confirm that anonymous sources aren't fiction.
The identity of anonymous sources is sometimes revealed to senior editors or a news organization's lawyers, who would be considered bound by the same confidentiality as the journalist.
In context to a class assignment, if the professor is something like a senior editor then you should be clear about source identities in your notes. Also consider that anonymous sources will often be taken less seriously than other options.
Off-the-record material is often valuable and reporters may be eager to use it, so sources wishing to ensure the confidentiality of certain information are generally advised to discuss the "terms of use" before disclosing the information, if possible.
In context to a class assignment, you most need to worry about this as it concerns publishing anything online. You'll want to be quite clear with your human sources about how you'll use their information.
As a rule of thumb, but especially when reporting on controversy, reporters are expected to use multiple sources.
Note that multiple sources suggests multiple perspectives. For example, an article about a politician's speech might have multiple reactions from the crowd, not just one. Yet in addition, the article might have recent polling data to contextualize the event.
Reporters often, but not always, give greater leeway to sources with little experience. For example, sometimes a person will say they don't want to talk, and then proceed to talk; if that person is not a public figure, reporters are less likely to use that information.
This of course reminds us that evidence has a hierarchy. A direct eyewitness, or a knowledgeable expert, often has more to tell us than some random person.
Examples of sources include but are not limited to official records, publications or broadcasts, officials in government or business, organizations or corporations, witnesses of crime, accidents or other events, and people involved with or affected by a news event or issue.
A good way to think about how to seek out sources is to consider what entities have connections to the news. For example, are there stakeholders or influencers?
In journalism, a source is a person, publication, or other record or document that gives timely information.
As with academia, primary and secondary sources are vital and abundant in journalism. In this field, however, the rigor of source collection is defined by the journalist's attempts to reach a complete perspective on an event or phenomena where controls seldom exist.