Journalism VS Infotainment

I was inspired to write a blog after reading a blog of a fellow classmate. The blog and comments addressed how someone recently twittered about Musician Gordon Lightfoot passing away and a news station picked up on the post and the news went viral. Poor Gordon Lightfoot was on the way to a dentist appointment when he heard the news of his own passing. What this brings up is issues regarding journalism and the ethics/standards that they are supposed to uphold. Journalists and public news broadcasters are our main source of information and the place that most people go to look for the truth on public issues. Journalists have a certain code of ethics and are supposed to set themselves firmly apart from gossip magazines that will report on anything they hear as factual in order to have a good story. News stations and real journalists(no I do not think that writing about Paris Hiltons new boyfriend counts as real journalism) are known for having more integrity and for taking the time to research their stories more thoroughly to make sure that the information they are giving the public is real.

There is a tendency now for news stations to include a great deal of “infotainment” which is entertainment stories about Hollywood celebrities disguised as news and as noteworthy. There has been a decline in journalistic integrity due to extreme competition within news stations and journalists are definitely feeling the pressure. In order to maintain a democratic public sphere people need to be able to trust that the news they are receiving from credible news stations is accurate and well researched. As the Gordon Lightfoot incident illustrates journalism is suffering and journalists may be becoming careless and not checking their facts before running their stories as thoroughly as they had been in the past. Although the public is becoming more and more interested in entertainment news there’s no reason that real hard news and journalism should suffer because of it.
This is not to say by any means that journalists are all lazy and only want to report on celebrity gossip as I am an avid watcher of the news and a large majority of it is still real hard news stories. I am just concerned with the ever-growing percentage of the stories that are tacked on to the news and the increasing number of nightly entertainment shows focused on celebrity gossip only.

This incident also brings to light just how fast the spread of knowledge is the news started by word of mouth, then spread via email, to social networking sites and blogs and finally to a news station. There has never before been such technologically advanced tools at our fingertips that can so quickly spread information from one person and within hours to all of the world.