Relevance of Journalism In Human Society
Posted: Wednesday, October 29, 2008
by Rahaman Onike
Journalism as a social practice assigns specific social responsibilities on the practitioners. In governmental hierarchy, it is placed as the fourth realm of estate. The press is so referred because it serves as the watchdog of the executive, legislature and the judicial arm of the government. Journalism could either be practised through either print or electronic media.
Journalism especially print media however requires special skills and the skills include ability to recapitulate some of the jargons of the profession and be able to analyse the meaning they stand for; the ability to write news stories, edit news stories, prepare the page, crop and size the pictures. The science of print journalism deals with news, story writing, editing and page planning. Similarly, electronic media have only one instrument by which they can bring about social change, and that instrument is the message. In radio and television, the message is the programme, and behind every programme is a producer.
The circumstance of the operational environment dictates the nature of journalism in practice in any given society. The major brands of journalism are guerilla journalism, yellow journalism, soft-sell journalism, photo journalism among others. Guerilla journalism is the brand that was introduced during the military era in Nigeria. Guerilla journalists operate secretly as a result of hostility in the operational environment. Yellow or gutter journalism has its focus which might be entertaining function, promotion of cultural values or celebration of talents and achievers. Photo journalism is the brand which encourages the use of photographs in presenting news and reporting societal events.
Obviously, there are certain constraints affecting the operation and performance of journalists in any society. In specific terms, the constraints include political, economic, technological and organizational problems. Being purveyors of news and information, journalists are also consumers and veritable targets of media influences. There is always attempts to control and influence the operation of the media by proprietors, government and even security agents. In terms of economic influence, journalists in desperate bid for financial enrichment or due to low wages and salary may be concealing news and information which should ordinarily be made public. Poor knowledge of internet and inadequate accessibility to relevant information technology may hinder media operation in any society. Lack of effective organizational and management structure equally have significant main effects on media operation and performance. More importantly, problem of quack affects the performance of the mass media. Quacks are persons that are not qualified or certificated in the field of journalism. For the press to achieve its goals, journalism as a practice needs to be more professionalized. For a person to be qualified as a professional journalist, he ought to have undergone training in either mass communication or journalism. Ability to write alone does not make one a professional journalist.
Again, journalists and mass media workers occupy strategic position in influencing the course of events in the society. This is due to the fact that they are custodians of, and accessories to information. Essentially, whatever the journalists decide to do with the information available to them would certainly determine the direction in which the society moves. This further establishes that the press at the best of times exists to represent the voiceless, to fight for the weak, to insist that the nation has to be served before self, and to refuse to be cowed by forces that are all willing to beat all to submission, even in light of their own glaring shortcomings.
Besides, journalists are custodians of public conscience, watchdog over the activities of government and incontrovertibly they are the moulders of public opinion as well as essential agents in facilitating the development of any society. Fundamentally, journalism has three functions which include news function, the interpretative function and the opinion function. The corollary functions of education and entertainment are performed by the press as part of their social responsibilities. Simply, these functions boil down to persuasion, information and enlightment.
In fact, the press or mass media have the responsibility to educate the citizens on national politics, geography, history, people and cultures. No doubts, journalists are relevant in the process of nation building. Although, there are legal issues that might constitute obstacles to the practice of journalism among which are law of slander and defamation. The fact that there is freedom of press does not allow the journalists to write defamatory articles about a person. Also, establishment of a newspaper or magazine requires legal permit. It should be noted that publishing a story that contains defamatory or libellious statements is as serious and dangerous as publishing a story that is not based on fact. This singular act could make a journalist or writer of such article to end up in jail.
Of equal importance is the fact that journalists are good language teachers. People acquire communicative skills by reading newspapers. By simple logic, a good journalist must have good command of language. A person without adequate mastery of grammatical rules and good vocabulary development cannot function well as a journalist. Surprisingly, we have journalists nowadays that could not write error-free articles, stories and news. In such situation, it would be difficult for him/her to perform in the field of journalism.
In conclusion, I wish to emphasize that mass media/press are to play socialization roles, motivational, entertaining, educational, advertising and informative functions. By socialization function, the press inculcate societal norms and values to make citizens behave in some particularly desirable ways to achieve the national objectives. The press educate people about the past, present and future. They also amuse the people through a host of ways to make them happy using cartoons. With this in mind, one can conveniently state that journalism and journalists are relevant in the society because of their roles in educating, informing, entertaining and enlightening the public on social, economic, political, cultural and educational related issues.
BY
ONIKE RAHAMAN
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