CMN 3105: Reading #2 Sept 21 2013
CMN 3105: Reading #2
Sept 21 2013
Authentic Journalism? A Critical Discussion about Existential Authenticity in Journalism Ethics: Kristoffer Holt Existential journalism can be seen as rejection of the demands of conformism and conformist of personal convictions that many journalists face. Ethically, existential journalism calls on journalists to live authentic lives as private individuals as well as in their profession. This means to resist external pressure and to choose to follow a path that can be defended by the individual journalist’s inner conscience. Intro: Mass media are a defining feature of modern society. Existentialism is a philosophical reaction towards the conditions of life in modern society. Existentialist thinkers such as Soren Kierkegaard, Fredrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger all expressed disapproval or ambivalence about the effects of mass media. There is a dimension of media criticism in existential thought that reacts against mediated sensationalism, shallowness, and idle talk. Existentialism reveals anxieties about the consequences of leveling, alienation and anonymity resulting from an increasingly artificial, superficial and media saturate milieu. John C. Merrill has made a sincere effort to describe what an existential approach to journalism ethics would imply First urged media workers to reject “herd mentality” and to embrace freedom and responsibility. According to Merrill, media people often work in environments that encroach on the journalistic freedom to determine what is right and what is good to do in a given situation and what kind of self or journalistic unit to become. The core of existential journalism is found in the imperative for journalists to live authentic lives as private individuals as well as in their profession Merrill place existential journalism firmly among the libertarians.
The communitarian perspective represented among other, by Clifford G Christians suggests a focus on the politics of the common good rather that the libertarian stress on individual freedom.
Look closer into authenticity as a concept and its possible usefulness as ethical guide for contemporary journalists. Two works representing two different viewpoints will be analyzed: Theodore Adorno’s: The Jargon of Authenticity and Charles Taylor’s: The Ethics of Authenticity. Personal commitment and responsibility for one’s actions is a central theme in existentialism. Authenticity is today more and more regarded as a social construction a matter of appearance that is consistently in need of negotiation between the individual who have claims to authenticity and the surrounding world. In contemporary liquid media work, striving for authenticity has more to do with distinguishing ones work from others, of accentuating as trademark than ethical commitment of true individuals. Journalism itself is challenged by numerous variants of information sharing online, demands more than ever an ethically motivated personal commitment to the task of serving the public with good and trustworthy information from reliable sources. Authenticity in Existential Philosophy: Authenticity is a nebulous word with a wide range of meanings. In existentialism, authenticity is often presented as an antidote to the sense of meaninglessness and the lurking danger of fatalism that is often so painfully present in the experience of a society bereft of divine sanction and dissatisfied with the false comforts of modern life. Soren Kerkegaard, Fredrich Nietzche , Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers and Jean Paul Satre all have elaborate on the concept of authenticity as a central ingredient in their philosophies. They have all dealt with the authenticity of the self and the ideal of staying of becoming true to the originality of ones own being in spite of societal or cultural obstacles.
For Soren Kierkgaard, authenticity is an aim for the single individual, an ideal of becoming true to oneself by facing reality in al its joy and horror.
The press and the public were symptoms of what Kierkegaard referred to as leveling, the process whereby individual significance is lost in the emerging mass culture of modern society. He characterized his age as one of shallow curiosity and detached reflection where meaningful differences had lost their significance and where there was no great revelation and no deep secret, but superficiality all the more. John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville mainly saw the problem of the public sphere and the press in the 19th century as a danger of a tyranny of the irrational and uneducated masses. In this respect, the public constituted a false sense of unity among its members. Not until the single individual has acquired himself an ethical stance in face of the whole world can there be anything like genuinely uniting because such a union of the individually weak become just about as uncomely and corrupt as child marriages. The press offered escaped from personal experiences into someone else’s experiences, turning most people into passive onlookers of life. For similar reasons, Kierkegaard was critical of the traditional and routinized Christianity of the State Church, where he calls the essentially Christian. In this way Kierkegaard saw both the media and the church as intervening agencies, blocking peoples way to true experiences, authenticity and God. Frecrich Nietzsche presented an atheist version of Kierkegaards religious construal of authenticity. For Nietzsche, the authentic man, the ubermensch is someone who elevates himself in an attempt to decide for oneself about good and evil without regard for the virtues. Such men strive instinctly for a citadel (fortress) and privacy where he is free from the crowd , the many, the majority. Nietzsche’s emphasis on the subjects active role in the formation of an understanding of the world is in this way meant to counter the effects of nihilism. Nihilism: the rejection of all religious principles often in the belief that life is meaningless. Extreme skepticism maintaining that nothing in the world has real exsistence. Along similar lines, Martin Heidegger descrives existence “Dasein” as endowed with a potentiality for authenticity that needs to be actively realized by each person because initially “Dasein” has lost itself in inauthenticity
This lostness is partly because of the individual has not yet taken it upon himself to define himself but rather drifts along and is defined by circumstances; this is what Heidegger refers to as being in the world, in its everydayness and its averageness” This state of being can come to an end only if “Dasein” specifically brings itself back to itself from its lostness in the ‘they’, if the individual starts making active choices about who to become. Authenticity requires active, conscious, existential modification of the “they” This responsibility for choosing comes with a certain amount of pain, anguish and a sense of abandonment. For Heidegger and Sartre, who were atheists, the sense of being thrown into existence and abandoned is related to the belief that no deity can be held accountable for throwing humanity into existence. Since God does not exist, the individual alone must bear the full consequences of that assertion which create anguish because it demands of him that he takes responsibility for his choices. Christian existentialism (mainly represented by Kierkegaard and Jaspers, existence preceded essence because of God, the creator, conceived of man before creating him. Therefore, there is something universally human, a human nature that is common to all men. In atheist existentialism, the existence of the human reality comes first , then man himself wills himself to be: Man first exists he materializes in the world, encounters himself and only afterwards defines himself. Have in common is their belief that existence preceded essence; or if you prefer that subjectivity must be our point of departure. Imposes a huge responsibility on the individual, because every choice one makes for oneself, one also makes for all of mankind as a sort of categorical imperative. The heart of authenticity is the injunction for the unique individual to take ethical responsibility for how one decides to live life. Authenticity in existential Journalism: Existential journalism for Merrill is an orientation of being true to one’s self that is mainly manifested in an attitude of freedom, commitment, rebellion and responsibility. It can be seen as an expression of dissatisfaction with the demands of conformism and compromise with personal conviction that many journalists face. Merrill is highly critical of contemporary journalism. Existentialism for Merrill is a philosophy of revolt against mass men, against all those who have lost their authentic selfhood in modern technological and group oriented society.
More often than not, the students who graduate from journalism schools and who are seeking employment are gladly sacrificing individual authenticity to adapt nicely to the highly regimented, depersonalized corporate structure. The result of this is journalistic content that reflects crude commercial media logic rather than ethical consideration of committed and responsible journalists. For journalists, the key to authenticity lies in not letting oneself be controlled or restricted by institutional “red tape”. According to Merrill, individual freedom and courage to act is more valuable than collective adherence to journalistic codes of conduct. Satre’s notion of individual action as categorical imperative is invoked as an example of one such factor. Nietzsche and Heidegger both refer to an inner voice of conscience. For Christian existentialists, the golden rule, agape and concern for others will make sure that individual freedom is not exercised at the expense of others. Becoming authentic means becoming of a Nietzschean uberjournalist: finding the courage to be a person who acts ethically but on grounds that lie beyond conventional moral codes. Adorno and Taylor: two critics of Authenticity: A Quasireligious Jargon: Modern rationality and reason undermines the worth of our highest values because it makes suspect the ethical ideals we employ to orient ourselves through the world making their pursuance increasingly irrational and without appeal. However, for Adorno, the starting point is a critical look at the language used to describe authenticity. One of Adorno’s main concerns is the tendency to slide back into a religious way of thinking, of using metaphysical language that derives from a theological worldview. Because the content of the religious worldview is no longer present in a disenchanted world, the language it borrows becomes useless. What the jargon amounts to is a pretend religiosity, which according to Adorno is dangerous: Dead cells of religiosity in the midst of the secular, however become poisonous.
In conclusion, what Adorno argues is that while authenticity is promoted by existentialists as a cure for the lack of meaning and motivation for ethical behavior in modern society it is really a waste product of the modern that it attacks and therefore counterproductive in terms of bringing about any change. This is according to Adorno, is where culture become ideology, because wile it tries to offer consolation and hope it really conceals the material conditions on which everything human is constructed. Ethics of Authenticity in the culture of Narcissism: Charles Taylor points out that that ideal of authenticity is one of the most significant in modern Western culture. Popularized, simplified and narcissistic way of interpreting this originally moral ideal has led to negative consequence in our culture such as causing many people to lose sigh of concerns that transcend them and the non moral desire to simply to what one wants without interference. Taylor identifies three “malaises” of modern society that are related to this slide in the culture of authenticity: individualism, instrumental reason and loss of freedom. Loss of a sense of a higher purpose, something worth dying for its flipside involves narcissism an abnormal and regrettable self absorption which flattens and narrows peoples lives and reduces their interest in others and in society. When society is no longer seen as divinely sanctioned, people around us lose the significance accrued to their place in the chain of being. Together, individualism and instrumental reason affect political life. A society that is structured around instrumental reason imposed a great loss of freedom on the individual. The citizen is left alone in the face of the vast bureaucratic state and feels correctly powerless. Causes antagonism of the self absorbed individual who prefers t stay at home and enjoy the satisfactions of private life rather than actively participating in the vigorous political culture. The ethics of authenticity in this sense rests on respect for subjective choices about who to become and how to achieve it. It is a position that assume a priori that anything we choice is all right. The result of this is that the whole point of being authentic that is different from “the herd” is lost. Authentic Journalism: First, one of the main points made in Adorno’s work is that the idea of an authentic self derives from a theological perspective, where an is made in the image of God and therefore originally genuinely unique and valuable. Authenticity is Adorno writes, an unsuccessful attempt ( by Heidegger and followers) to secularize this though.
As a moral idea, authenticity suffers from the weakness of what Taylor refers to as soft relativism and moral subjectivism. What both Taylor and Adorno show is that the subjectivist idea of an authentic original self that can stand and develop alone, irrespective (or in spite) of surrounding social and material contexts, is an exaggeration of the personal freedom that human beings can ever hope for. The description of how conformity spreads as a result of young aspiring journalists’ willingness to sacrifice their authenticity in exchange for an employment is indicative of what Adorno and the existentialists agree upon as a situation in which the pursuance of higher ideals appears irrational. Taylor’ articulation of the lack of moral criteria for judging, in this case, food from bad journalism, makes it problematic to deem the choices of any individual journalist authentic or inauthentic. The existential stress on the individual’s freedom to choose requires tolerance of different choices, which in turns makes if impossible to define some choices as higher than others. Last, although it certainly might serve as an ethical eye opener to some, holding authenticity up as an ideal that is supposed to guide journalists ethically might actually in many cases be counter productive in the sense that there is a risk that it will rather encourage a more narcissistic and cynical focus on the individual career achievements than stimulating scrutiny of journalists inner conscience.
CMN 3105: Reading #2
Sept 21 2013
Journalistic Opinion as Free Speech or promoting racial unrest? Yale Belanger The case of Ric Dolphin and the Calgary Herald’s Editorial Presentation of Native Culture Undergirding this article is the unfortunate reality that readers of Canadian newspapers tend to believe what they read rather than taking the time to investigate alternate theories. This is a reasonable response considering that consumers are relying upon the expertise and integrity of journalists to properly guide them through the sea of facts and figures to seemingly sensible and easily absorbed conclusions. Reflects not the opinions and perceptions of the readership or the owners but rather those of the dominant classes from which the editors and administrators are recruited. Hall’s examination is concerned with social class and in turn the analysis is economically driven which could hinder further investigation regarding how the print media tends to portray specific culture groups that historically have not been an integrated part of the middle class. Native people in Canada represent one such culture that has limited influence upon news production and the corresponding perpetuation of Native imagery that may not be wholly accurate. The use of imagery, or more precisely stereotypes to aid in our understanding of disparate peoples is a historical trend that transcends media and impacts how society views diverse cultures. In turn these stereotypes aid the dominant culture in how it chooses to situate those cultures in contemporary society. What all of these academic studies have in common is their depiction of nonNative culture clinging to historical notions of the Indian as savage, childlike, noble, warlike and unable to modernize. Recent studies in Canada demonstrate that Native people believe there has been a consistently nehative, biased, stereotypical and sensationalistic portrayal of Native culture in the past. Yale Belanger concluded that the Lethbridge Herald level of representation of Native issues during a period in which Native issues Canadawide were prominent with the national news media was at best minimal. Canada’s Print Media and the Oped writer’s role:
CMN 3105: Reading #2
Sept 21 2013
Unlike other media forms, such as television and radio, to maintain readership the newspaper industry relies upon a variety of techniques that have changed little since the emergence of print journalism some four centuries ago. In this case uniformity was challenged by enhancing content through diversification of opinion with the pages of the country’s major newspapers. Reliance upon this approach also led to an increasing dependence and influence debate at all costs in the hope of maintaining circulation numbers. In his opinion, journalism was more akin to a trade, a trade that currently has no universal code of conduct, although most organizations establish guidelines of acceptable behaviour and in which there are no specific requirements to become gainfully employed. Everyone in journalism would benefit if media institutions put aside their differences long enough to agree on new industrywide standards of behaviour. Further muddying the waters was the need of newspaper editors to fully represent multiple cultures; falling within the print media’s purview is the responsibility to report on issues that impact Canadian Native people and their communities. Beyond simply printing stories with Native content, there is also a need to present a balanced portrayal of the role Native people historically played in Canada and the contemporary realities they face. A number of recent studies elaborate upon this recent trend and conclude that the media habitually portray Native culture as combative and at odds with Canadian society. Frum’s suggestions offer alternatives writers and editors would benefit from enacting in their attempts to present more accurate histories and provide better statistical and economic analyses. All of which would be guided by a common code of ethics. However, it is not the general news reporter that is the focus of this article. Rather, the concern rests with the role the columnist or more accurately the oped writer plays.
CMN 3105: Reading #2
Sept 21 2013
The majority of mainstream newspapers generally subscribe to the same criteria when considering and op ed piece for publication: it should be designed to generate discussion , be controversial without being outrageous, be controversial and provide insight without rambling all the while maintaining clarity, logical analysis and accuracy. Oped writers pay attention to the two basics of journalistic writing: accuracy and good writing mechanics. In sum, becoming an oped writer or columnist is learned by doing. This further suggests that even though editors play a key role in getting opinion pieces published, the responsibility for accuracy and content falls upon the writers of said pieces. Journalist as Statistician June 11 2002, the Calgary Herald published an oped piece by senior writer Ric Dolphin in which the author presented Canadian Native people as little more than welfare recipients with modest hopes for social improvement. In all Dolphin presenting personal opinion that was racist in scope and not supportable upon investigating of more relation statistical data. Of concern is how the writer portrayed Native culture and the corresponding influence he has upon readership that includes policy makers, legislators social workers and politicians in general those very people responsible for the creation and implementation of Indian policy in Canada. In pursuing analysis of where Dolphin erred both mechanically and ethically, one must put into contect the life of a journalist and how this may impact his or her chosen craft. Expediency often outweighs the need for accuracy, which leads to the old age adage “ don’t let the fact get in the way of the story” a forgivable sin print journalists commit daily. Treaty Indians Receive Free Education: This means that community governments with limited education funding are now required to establish internally the criteria students must meet in order to obtain funding. First nations and registered Indians represent only a portion of all Aboriginal people in Canada, hence not all Indians receive free education. Even the proportion of those who are subsidized is quite low.
CMN 3105: Reading #2
Sept 21 2013
Unemployment in the Native population Hovers: “between 6080% as the article states” On reserves, the unemployment rate is about 29%, nearly three times the Canadian rate. Treaty Indians do not pay taxes: “Registered Indians do not pay federal of provincial sales tax on their personal or real property that is on a reserve.” The phrase on a reserve is very important for a number of reasons: 1. Private land ownership by an Indian on a reserve is literally impossible (although it does occur) because the property is Crown land set aside for the use and benefit of Indians and not easily purchased and sold. 2. Any purchase of the goods and services made on reserve are tax free. 3. Native people in Canada must pay the federal Goods and Service Tax(GST) 4. Both employment and business income is exempt from income tax if the income is situated on a reserve. Hence why a treaty Indian working off reserve must pay taxes. Treaty Indians can hunt and fish whenever they want: Dolphin ignored the Supreme Court of Canada’s further erosion of the meaning of treaty rights when it decided that Native people had the right to pursue their usual vocations of hunting, trapping and fishing… subject to such regulations that may from time to time be made by the government of the country. Native inmates account for 50% of the prison population: Dolphin may be forgiven for his overzealous approach but this overview provides insight as to how statistical data can be employed to inform the public about Native issues. Although journalists may be recognized as experts in their field, they are not experts in the field of statistical analysis, and the use of statistics in a decisive expose such as Dolphin’s should be viewed critically because data can be made to reflect literally any opinion. Journalist as Revisionist Historian:
CMN 3105: Reading #2
Sept 21 2013
The role of the journalist is to present stories imbued with factual information for mass consumption it is unrealistic, therefore to expect journalists writing about historical issues to be as well versed as a historian per se. As such, to most Canadians, Native people will forever remain Indians involved in the fur trade who eventually settled on reserved, disappeared briefly into history books and were politically resurrected in the 1960s. Considering that he occupies a position of power within the print media and as such has the ability to shape public perception regarding the social placement of Native people in Canada, the need for journalists such as Dolphin to present fact based historical representations as opposed to personal opinion is imperative. A lifestyle dependence soon developed resulting from Indian leaders accepting governmental aid which in turn led to the conversion of reserves from traditional territories to nests of hopelessness. Dolphin concludes that this historical reality hinders the contributions Native people are able to make. Therefore lacking any significant contribution, historical or otherwise, Native people have become a burden upon Canadian society. How a society chooses to describe another culture group directly reflects upon how we social situate that group. Labeling and legislative entrenchment of such markers further ingrains colonialism within Canada’s national fabric: legislatively, politically and socially. Through the use of his term Indian, Dolphin appears to see Native people as colonized in Canada and not worthy of selfidentification. Journalism is not being featured in this article for reprisal because it took a significant paradigm shift before the academy began presenting Native history in a more equitable manner in the 1970s . These journalists in turn have the power to influence societal opinions and by association the increasingly tenuous position Native people hold in Canadian society.
09/21/2013
Sept 21 2013
Authentic Journalism? A Critical Discussion about Existential Authenticity in Journalism Ethics: Kristoffer Holt Existential journalism can be seen as rejection of the demands of conformism and conformist of personal convictions that many journalists face. Ethically, existential journalism calls on journalists to live authentic lives as private individuals as well as in their profession. This means to resist external pressure and to choose to follow a path that can be defended by the individual journalist’s inner conscience. Intro: Mass media are a defining feature of modern society. Existentialism is a philosophical reaction towards the conditions of life in modern society. Existentialist thinkers such as Soren Kierkegaard, Fredrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger all expressed disapproval or ambivalence about the effects of mass media. There is a dimension of media criticism in existential thought that reacts against mediated sensationalism, shallowness, and idle talk. Existentialism reveals anxieties about the consequences of leveling, alienation and anonymity resulting from an increasingly artificial, superficial and media saturate milieu. John C. Merrill has made a sincere effort to describe what an existential approach to journalism ethics would imply First urged media workers to reject “herd mentality” and to embrace freedom and responsibility. According to Merrill, media people often work in environments that encroach on the journalistic freedom to determine what is right and what is good to do in a given situation and what kind of self or journalistic unit to become. The core of existential journalism is found in the imperative for journalists to live authentic lives as private individuals as well as in their profession Merrill place existential journalism firmly among the libertarians.
The communitarian perspective represented among other, by Clifford G Christians suggests a focus on the politics of the common good rather that the libertarian stress on individual freedom.
Look closer into authenticity as a concept and its possible usefulness as ethical guide for contemporary journalists. Two works representing two different viewpoints will be analyzed: Theodore Adorno’s: The Jargon of Authenticity and Charles Taylor’s: The Ethics of Authenticity. Personal commitment and responsibility for one’s actions is a central theme in existentialism. Authenticity is today more and more regarded as a social construction a matter of appearance that is consistently in need of negotiation between the individual who have claims to authenticity and the surrounding world. In contemporary liquid media work, striving for authenticity has more to do with distinguishing ones work from others, of accentuating as trademark than ethical commitment of true individuals. Journalism itself is challenged by numerous variants of information sharing online, demands more than ever an ethically motivated personal commitment to the task of serving the public with good and trustworthy information from reliable sources. Authenticity in Existential Philosophy: Authenticity is a nebulous word with a wide range of meanings. In existentialism, authenticity is often presented as an antidote to the sense of meaninglessness and the lurking danger of fatalism that is often so painfully present in the experience of a society bereft of divine sanction and dissatisfied with the false comforts of modern life. Soren Kerkegaard, Fredrich Nietzche , Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers and Jean Paul Satre all have elaborate on the concept of authenticity as a central ingredient in their philosophies. They have all dealt with the authenticity of the self and the ideal of staying of becoming true to the originality of ones own being in spite of societal or cultural obstacles.
For Soren Kierkgaard, authenticity is an aim for the single individual, an ideal of becoming true to oneself by facing reality in al its joy and horror.
The press and the public were symptoms of what Kierkegaard referred to as leveling, the process whereby individual significance is lost in the emerging mass culture of modern society. He characterized his age as one of shallow curiosity and detached reflection where meaningful differences had lost their significance and where there was no great revelation and no deep secret, but superficiality all the more. John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville mainly saw the problem of the public sphere and the press in the 19th century as a danger of a tyranny of the irrational and uneducated masses. In this respect, the public constituted a false sense of unity among its members. Not until the single individual has acquired himself an ethical stance in face of the whole world can there be anything like genuinely uniting because such a union of the individually weak become just about as uncomely and corrupt as child marriages. The press offered escaped from personal experiences into someone else’s experiences, turning most people into passive onlookers of life. For similar reasons, Kierkegaard was critical of the traditional and routinized Christianity of the State Church, where he calls the essentially Christian. In this way Kierkegaard saw both the media and the church as intervening agencies, blocking peoples way to true experiences, authenticity and God. Frecrich Nietzsche presented an atheist version of Kierkegaards religious construal of authenticity. For Nietzsche, the authentic man, the ubermensch is someone who elevates himself in an attempt to decide for oneself about good and evil without regard for the virtues. Such men strive instinctly for a citadel (fortress) and privacy where he is free from the crowd , the many, the majority. Nietzsche’s emphasis on the subjects active role in the formation of an understanding of the world is in this way meant to counter the effects of nihilism. Nihilism: the rejection of all religious principles often in the belief that life is meaningless. Extreme skepticism maintaining that nothing in the world has real exsistence. Along similar lines, Martin Heidegger descrives existence “Dasein” as endowed with a potentiality for authenticity that needs to be actively realized by each person because initially “Dasein” has lost itself in inauthenticity
This lostness is partly because of the individual has not yet taken it upon himself to define himself but rather drifts along and is defined by circumstances; this is what Heidegger refers to as being in the world, in its everydayness and its averageness” This state of being can come to an end only if “Dasein” specifically brings itself back to itself from its lostness in the ‘they’, if the individual starts making active choices about who to become. Authenticity requires active, conscious, existential modification of the “they” This responsibility for choosing comes with a certain amount of pain, anguish and a sense of abandonment. For Heidegger and Sartre, who were atheists, the sense of being thrown into existence and abandoned is related to the belief that no deity can be held accountable for throwing humanity into existence. Since God does not exist, the individual alone must bear the full consequences of that assertion which create anguish because it demands of him that he takes responsibility for his choices. Christian existentialism (mainly represented by Kierkegaard and Jaspers, existence preceded essence because of God, the creator, conceived of man before creating him. Therefore, there is something universally human, a human nature that is common to all men. In atheist existentialism, the existence of the human reality comes first , then man himself wills himself to be: Man first exists he materializes in the world, encounters himself and only afterwards defines himself. Have in common is their belief that existence preceded essence; or if you prefer that subjectivity must be our point of departure. Imposes a huge responsibility on the individual, because every choice one makes for oneself, one also makes for all of mankind as a sort of categorical imperative. The heart of authenticity is the injunction for the unique individual to take ethical responsibility for how one decides to live life. Authenticity in existential Journalism: Existential journalism for Merrill is an orientation of being true to one’s self that is mainly manifested in an attitude of freedom, commitment, rebellion and responsibility. It can be seen as an expression of dissatisfaction with the demands of conformism and compromise with personal conviction that many journalists face. Merrill is highly critical of contemporary journalism. Existentialism for Merrill is a philosophy of revolt against mass men, against all those who have lost their authentic selfhood in modern technological and group oriented society.
More often than not, the students who graduate from journalism schools and who are seeking employment are gladly sacrificing individual authenticity to adapt nicely to the highly regimented, depersonalized corporate structure. The result of this is journalistic content that reflects crude commercial media logic rather than ethical consideration of committed and responsible journalists. For journalists, the key to authenticity lies in not letting oneself be controlled or restricted by institutional “red tape”. According to Merrill, individual freedom and courage to act is more valuable than collective adherence to journalistic codes of conduct. Satre’s notion of individual action as categorical imperative is invoked as an example of one such factor. Nietzsche and Heidegger both refer to an inner voice of conscience. For Christian existentialists, the golden rule, agape and concern for others will make sure that individual freedom is not exercised at the expense of others. Becoming authentic means becoming of a Nietzschean uberjournalist: finding the courage to be a person who acts ethically but on grounds that lie beyond conventional moral codes. Adorno and Taylor: two critics of Authenticity: A Quasireligious Jargon: Modern rationality and reason undermines the worth of our highest values because it makes suspect the ethical ideals we employ to orient ourselves through the world making their pursuance increasingly irrational and without appeal. However, for Adorno, the starting point is a critical look at the language used to describe authenticity. One of Adorno’s main concerns is the tendency to slide back into a religious way of thinking, of using metaphysical language that derives from a theological worldview. Because the content of the religious worldview is no longer present in a disenchanted world, the language it borrows becomes useless. What the jargon amounts to is a pretend religiosity, which according to Adorno is dangerous: Dead cells of religiosity in the midst of the secular, however become poisonous.
In conclusion, what Adorno argues is that while authenticity is promoted by existentialists as a cure for the lack of meaning and motivation for ethical behavior in modern society it is really a waste product of the modern that it attacks and therefore counterproductive in terms of bringing about any change. This is according to Adorno, is where culture become ideology, because wile it tries to offer consolation and hope it really conceals the material conditions on which everything human is constructed. Ethics of Authenticity in the culture of Narcissism: Charles Taylor points out that that ideal of authenticity is one of the most significant in modern Western culture. Popularized, simplified and narcissistic way of interpreting this originally moral ideal has led to negative consequence in our culture such as causing many people to lose sigh of concerns that transcend them and the non moral desire to simply to what one wants without interference. Taylor identifies three “malaises” of modern society that are related to this slide in the culture of authenticity: individualism, instrumental reason and loss of freedom. Loss of a sense of a higher purpose, something worth dying for its flipside involves narcissism an abnormal and regrettable self absorption which flattens and narrows peoples lives and reduces their interest in others and in society. When society is no longer seen as divinely sanctioned, people around us lose the significance accrued to their place in the chain of being. Together, individualism and instrumental reason affect political life. A society that is structured around instrumental reason imposed a great loss of freedom on the individual. The citizen is left alone in the face of the vast bureaucratic state and feels correctly powerless. Causes antagonism of the self absorbed individual who prefers t stay at home and enjoy the satisfactions of private life rather than actively participating in the vigorous political culture. The ethics of authenticity in this sense rests on respect for subjective choices about who to become and how to achieve it. It is a position that assume a priori that anything we choice is all right. The result of this is that the whole point of being authentic that is different from “the herd” is lost. Authentic Journalism: First, one of the main points made in Adorno’s work is that the idea of an authentic self derives from a theological perspective, where an is made in the image of God and therefore originally genuinely unique and valuable. Authenticity is Adorno writes, an unsuccessful attempt ( by Heidegger and followers) to secularize this though.
As a moral idea, authenticity suffers from the weakness of what Taylor refers to as soft relativism and moral subjectivism. What both Taylor and Adorno show is that the subjectivist idea of an authentic original self that can stand and develop alone, irrespective (or in spite) of surrounding social and material contexts, is an exaggeration of the personal freedom that human beings can ever hope for. The description of how conformity spreads as a result of young aspiring journalists’ willingness to sacrifice their authenticity in exchange for an employment is indicative of what Adorno and the existentialists agree upon as a situation in which the pursuance of higher ideals appears irrational. Taylor’ articulation of the lack of moral criteria for judging, in this case, food from bad journalism, makes it problematic to deem the choices of any individual journalist authentic or inauthentic. The existential stress on the individual’s freedom to choose requires tolerance of different choices, which in turns makes if impossible to define some choices as higher than others. Last, although it certainly might serve as an ethical eye opener to some, holding authenticity up as an ideal that is supposed to guide journalists ethically might actually in many cases be counter productive in the sense that there is a risk that it will rather encourage a more narcissistic and cynical focus on the individual career achievements than stimulating scrutiny of journalists inner conscience.
CMN 3105: Reading #2
Sept 21 2013
Journalistic Opinion as Free Speech or promoting racial unrest? Yale Belanger The case of Ric Dolphin and the Calgary Herald’s Editorial Presentation of Native Culture Undergirding this article is the unfortunate reality that readers of Canadian newspapers tend to believe what they read rather than taking the time to investigate alternate theories. This is a reasonable response considering that consumers are relying upon the expertise and integrity of journalists to properly guide them through the sea of facts and figures to seemingly sensible and easily absorbed conclusions. Reflects not the opinions and perceptions of the readership or the owners but rather those of the dominant classes from which the editors and administrators are recruited. Hall’s examination is concerned with social class and in turn the analysis is economically driven which could hinder further investigation regarding how the print media tends to portray specific culture groups that historically have not been an integrated part of the middle class. Native people in Canada represent one such culture that has limited influence upon news production and the corresponding perpetuation of Native imagery that may not be wholly accurate. The use of imagery, or more precisely stereotypes to aid in our understanding of disparate peoples is a historical trend that transcends media and impacts how society views diverse cultures. In turn these stereotypes aid the dominant culture in how it chooses to situate those cultures in contemporary society. What all of these academic studies have in common is their depiction of nonNative culture clinging to historical notions of the Indian as savage, childlike, noble, warlike and unable to modernize. Recent studies in Canada demonstrate that Native people believe there has been a consistently nehative, biased, stereotypical and sensationalistic portrayal of Native culture in the past. Yale Belanger concluded that the Lethbridge Herald level of representation of Native issues during a period in which Native issues Canadawide were prominent with the national news media was at best minimal. Canada’s Print Media and the Oped writer’s role:
CMN 3105: Reading #2
Sept 21 2013
Unlike other media forms, such as television and radio, to maintain readership the newspaper industry relies upon a variety of techniques that have changed little since the emergence of print journalism some four centuries ago. In this case uniformity was challenged by enhancing content through diversification of opinion with the pages of the country’s major newspapers. Reliance upon this approach also led to an increasing dependence and influence debate at all costs in the hope of maintaining circulation numbers. In his opinion, journalism was more akin to a trade, a trade that currently has no universal code of conduct, although most organizations establish guidelines of acceptable behaviour and in which there are no specific requirements to become gainfully employed. Everyone in journalism would benefit if media institutions put aside their differences long enough to agree on new industrywide standards of behaviour. Further muddying the waters was the need of newspaper editors to fully represent multiple cultures; falling within the print media’s purview is the responsibility to report on issues that impact Canadian Native people and their communities. Beyond simply printing stories with Native content, there is also a need to present a balanced portrayal of the role Native people historically played in Canada and the contemporary realities they face. A number of recent studies elaborate upon this recent trend and conclude that the media habitually portray Native culture as combative and at odds with Canadian society. Frum’s suggestions offer alternatives writers and editors would benefit from enacting in their attempts to present more accurate histories and provide better statistical and economic analyses. All of which would be guided by a common code of ethics. However, it is not the general news reporter that is the focus of this article. Rather, the concern rests with the role the columnist or more accurately the oped writer plays.
CMN 3105: Reading #2
Sept 21 2013
The majority of mainstream newspapers generally subscribe to the same criteria when considering and op ed piece for publication: it should be designed to generate discussion , be controversial without being outrageous, be controversial and provide insight without rambling all the while maintaining clarity, logical analysis and accuracy. Oped writers pay attention to the two basics of journalistic writing: accuracy and good writing mechanics. In sum, becoming an oped writer or columnist is learned by doing. This further suggests that even though editors play a key role in getting opinion pieces published, the responsibility for accuracy and content falls upon the writers of said pieces. Journalist as Statistician June 11 2002, the Calgary Herald published an oped piece by senior writer Ric Dolphin in which the author presented Canadian Native people as little more than welfare recipients with modest hopes for social improvement. In all Dolphin presenting personal opinion that was racist in scope and not supportable upon investigating of more relation statistical data. Of concern is how the writer portrayed Native culture and the corresponding influence he has upon readership that includes policy makers, legislators social workers and politicians in general those very people responsible for the creation and implementation of Indian policy in Canada. In pursuing analysis of where Dolphin erred both mechanically and ethically, one must put into contect the life of a journalist and how this may impact his or her chosen craft. Expediency often outweighs the need for accuracy, which leads to the old age adage “ don’t let the fact get in the way of the story” a forgivable sin print journalists commit daily. Treaty Indians Receive Free Education: This means that community governments with limited education funding are now required to establish internally the criteria students must meet in order to obtain funding. First nations and registered Indians represent only a portion of all Aboriginal people in Canada, hence not all Indians receive free education. Even the proportion of those who are subsidized is quite low.
CMN 3105: Reading #2
Sept 21 2013
Unemployment in the Native population Hovers: “between 6080% as the article states” On reserves, the unemployment rate is about 29%, nearly three times the Canadian rate. Treaty Indians do not pay taxes: “Registered Indians do not pay federal of provincial sales tax on their personal or real property that is on a reserve.” The phrase on a reserve is very important for a number of reasons: 1. Private land ownership by an Indian on a reserve is literally impossible (although it does occur) because the property is Crown land set aside for the use and benefit of Indians and not easily purchased and sold. 2. Any purchase of the goods and services made on reserve are tax free. 3. Native people in Canada must pay the federal Goods and Service Tax(GST) 4. Both employment and business income is exempt from income tax if the income is situated on a reserve. Hence why a treaty Indian working off reserve must pay taxes. Treaty Indians can hunt and fish whenever they want: Dolphin ignored the Supreme Court of Canada’s further erosion of the meaning of treaty rights when it decided that Native people had the right to pursue their usual vocations of hunting, trapping and fishing… subject to such regulations that may from time to time be made by the government of the country. Native inmates account for 50% of the prison population: Dolphin may be forgiven for his overzealous approach but this overview provides insight as to how statistical data can be employed to inform the public about Native issues. Although journalists may be recognized as experts in their field, they are not experts in the field of statistical analysis, and the use of statistics in a decisive expose such as Dolphin’s should be viewed critically because data can be made to reflect literally any opinion. Journalist as Revisionist Historian:
CMN 3105: Reading #2
Sept 21 2013
The role of the journalist is to present stories imbued with factual information for mass consumption it is unrealistic, therefore to expect journalists writing about historical issues to be as well versed as a historian per se. As such, to most Canadians, Native people will forever remain Indians involved in the fur trade who eventually settled on reserved, disappeared briefly into history books and were politically resurrected in the 1960s. Considering that he occupies a position of power within the print media and as such has the ability to shape public perception regarding the social placement of Native people in Canada, the need for journalists such as Dolphin to present fact based historical representations as opposed to personal opinion is imperative. A lifestyle dependence soon developed resulting from Indian leaders accepting governmental aid which in turn led to the conversion of reserves from traditional territories to nests of hopelessness. Dolphin concludes that this historical reality hinders the contributions Native people are able to make. Therefore lacking any significant contribution, historical or otherwise, Native people have become a burden upon Canadian society. How a society chooses to describe another culture group directly reflects upon how we social situate that group. Labeling and legislative entrenchment of such markers further ingrains colonialism within Canada’s national fabric: legislatively, politically and socially. Through the use of his term Indian, Dolphin appears to see Native people as colonized in Canada and not worthy of selfidentification. Journalism is not being featured in this article for reprisal because it took a significant paradigm shift before the academy began presenting Native history in a more equitable manner in the 1970s . These journalists in turn have the power to influence societal opinions and by association the increasingly tenuous position Native people hold in Canadian society.
09/21/2013
