Journalism In The UK: Conflict Between Serving The Public Interest And Public Demand, Essay.

"Journalism in the UK has always been a conflict between serving the interests of the public (ie, acting in the public interest) and giving the public what they are interested in." Discuss, using a contemporary example.

What is Public Interest Journalism?

The public interest journalism could be considered as one of the antithesis for the darker side of media which includes the different fake new, censorship and voyeurism. Here, the outcomes are related to report about exposure to corruption, launching certain royal commissions and removing any type of improper politicians from office and jail. This journalism is not defined universally and the common understanding among the practitioners of media and academics is that it generally refers to those who are involved in pursuing information which the public has a complete right to know. There are implications of the undisclosed information that affect the public about government, companies and other interests which would remain hidden. The public interest reporting is about equating the watchdog with investigation in reporting areas. This includes the different types of stories that help in serving the public interest and then providing a better platform which is for informing about electorate. There are profit oriented stories which have filled tabloids and magazines for a long time and one serves a clickbait for attracting eyeballs and other advertisers in a digital space. The authors remind us of the distinction which is mainly in between “the public interest” and “the public’s interest” for everything to be capturing the attention of the readers, listeners and the viewers (Dicey, 2017). The sex and sexuality, health and family life continue to be the sphere which is viewed to be private except when it is about the public money.

There are different trends which affect the journalism as per the privacy that is commoditized. The celebrities are selling selective parts of the private life mainly through the complaisant media but protecting other parts through the courts. The events that take place on the blogs and the social networks sites like Facebook are seen as the information which is set in public domain, and the journalists then make use of such site as information sources as well. In U.K., the courts are seen to move towards a major and strict interpretation of privacy when there are photographs involved. There are certain restrictions on the resources and time scarcity which is mainly due to the increased speed of the new cycle. As per the investigation about journalism which falls in the public interest, it is noticed that Downie & Schudson who are the editor in chief in Washington Post and professor at Columbia University respectively, conducted an analysis for the American journalism (Dunn, Coiera, Mandl, & Bourgeois, 2016). They found a staffed newsroom to production of “accountability” which aims to control the powerful and the justified decisions. The expression of hope is replaced with combination of the different commercial activities, the initiatives that are from university and philanthropy. The media researchers encounter the difficulty with the process that includes the concepts related to public service. There are demonstrations about how the researchers are able to work on the results which are for scientific journals, which makes of incomprehensible terminology and then reaching to different colleagues.

Trends Affecting Journalism in the UK

The public interest is generally equated as a watchdog for the investigative reports which could be for the factual stories that makes user of the public interest, to provide a better platform for the debate and then informing the electorate about it. There is a need to understand journalism which includes the right to privacy, legal considerations and the potential that is for the harm of other people like the national security risks (Russ-Mohl, 2010). Though with the liberal democratic lens of understand, there are roles of news media for the diversified and the plural voices which highlights on enriching the public discourse. This also provides with the range of different perspectives which are relevant to the context ideas. Some of the major reasons are highlighted about why UK does not have a free and independent press which is as per the public interest. One of them is that the billionaires in UK own the press and they set the agenda of what stories have to be published. Hence, this makes the UK journalists very concentrated with the ownership structure. For example, it was seen that Harold Evans who was a former editor to Sunday Times, make it clear about the content of paper. He rebuked for the points which were printing in the paper related to political terms (Carson, 2017). The second problem is that the corporate advertisement revenue generally censors the content where the media and the journalists generally rely on the big companies. The privately educated white men generally dominate the media where there are different studies that highlight on the dominance of private school along with UK journalism. This creates the upper middle worldview where 25% of the people earns more than 30000 euros a year. The women in UK are seen to be underrepresented. Here, the research done by Professor Lis Howell, in 2014 & 2015, highlights about the number of male experts who are interviewed for the flagship news programmed which are outnumbering the female experts.

There are political uses of neutral sources which are by the journalists and also a debate range is published with UK media to find the ways where the corporate media could be compromised easily. In the U.K., the court seems to be working towards a complete strict interpretation of privacy where the photographs are involved. There are restrictions on the resources, and the time scarcity is mainly due to the increased speed of the news cycle (Jones, 2016). The phone hacking scandal in UK has put journalism in the dock where there are problems related to moral failures and human consequences which respond to the events at News of World. Here, there are brave defense of investigative journalism with ability to uncover the wrongdoing and forcing for good. The British journalism needs to respond for the News of World, where the investigative journalism has been directed toward the public interest with the ability to uncover the wrongdoing. According to the Panorama appalling abuse of patients at Winterbourne View in Bristol where the program led to arresting and immediate stop to abuse with over-doing the national debate for the standards and oversights related to care homes. BBC highlighted about the techniques with editorial managers to work on stringent controls where the intentions are precise with difficult investigative journalism. In Panorama case, there were rare mistakes like the program about Primark and the inclusions with film sequence which could not be substantiated which led to a closed review of procedures. The ability of BBC Trust to scrutinize the BBC investigations to publish the findings related to the good or bad. The ultimate conclusions are important with ability to work on not only blunt but other unnecessary constraints. The ability of BBC Trust to properly scrutinize the investigations meant that the values and the tradecraft is mainly held constant and open to accounts. BBC is paid for by the public. There are newspapers with stronger investigative teams and notable journalists who work on the outstanding records to hold the institutions with showing a mark of reluctance to explore about the phone hacking story till the events are made inevitable.

Challenges for Free and Independent Press in UK

The death and funeral of Princess Diana in 1997, where the example showed about how the media had a massive role for articulating and then choreographic the emotion of people and the actions. There have been problems related to taste and decency at such moments when someone’s privacy is being intruded (Russ-Mohl, 2010). The point is about being stressed where the public is interested in and is not for the dismissal as there are grounds for mounting defense of intrusion. The public interest works on social importance with sense of people finding a better experience for people’s life with adjudication to qualify “in the public interest”.

With the BBC in demand, there are consideration about portrayal of violence, sexual conduct and taste or decency. The redressing for people is about handling portrayal of violence and sexual conduct and matters of taste and decency. The Commission has tasks for 1996, with producing codes of practice related to standards and fairness, where the consideration is on the adjudicating on complaints as well. There is a need to monitor and research on fairness standards in broadcasting. The public interest is about large proportions of public with suitable defense for media intrusions of privacy. Hence, the public holds a similar view with larger majority wanting the media to cover the issues which might affect them and reflect the perceiving roles of media.

References

Carson A., 2017. “Explainer: what is public interest journalism?” Available at:<https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-public-interest-journalism-78996> Accessed on 17^th Nov, 2018

Dicey, A.V., 2017. Lectures on the relation between law and public opinion in England during the nineteenth century. Routledge.

Dunn, A.G., Coiera, E., Mandl, K.D. and Bourgeois, F.T., 2016. Conflict of interest disclosure in biomedical research: a review of current practices, biases, and the role of public registries in improving transparency. Research integrity and peer review, 1(1), p.1.

Jones, 2016. “Five reasons why we don’t have a free and independent press in the UK and what we can do about it”. Available at:< Five reasons why we don’t have a free and independent press in the UK and what we can do about it>. Accessed on 17th Nov, 2018.

Russ-Mohl, 2010. “What is the “Public Interest”?” Available at:<https://en.ejo.ch/ethics-quality/what-is-the-public-interest> Accessed on 17^th November, 2018.

Bingham, A. and Conboy, M., 2015. Tabloid century: the popular press in Britain, 1896 to the present. Peter Lang.

Dicey, A.V., 2017. Lectures on the relation between law and public opinion in England during the nineteenth century. Routledge.

Dunn, A.G., Coiera, E., Mandl, K.D. and Bourgeois, F.T., 2016. Conflict of interest disclosure in biomedical research: a review of current practices, biases, and the role of public registries in improving transparency. Research integrity and peer review, 1(1), p.1.

Jackson, Daniel, and Kevin Moloney, 2016. "Inside churnalism: PR, journalism and power relationships in flux." Journalism Studies17, no. 6 2016: 763-780.

Macnamara, J., 2016. The continuing convergence of journalism and PR: New insights for ethical practice from a three-country study of senior practitioners. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 93(1), pp.118-141.

Napoli, P.M., 2015. Social media and the public interest: Governance of news platforms in the realm of individual and algorithmic gatekeepers. Telecommunications Policy, 39(9), pp.751-760.