Why do you think journalists should provide a public forum - a marketplace of ideas?

Journalism needs to provide a public forum now more than ever before, but it must be just that: a marketplace of ideas, not a boxing ring.  In the age of 24/7 news and an abundance of talk shows, the public seems to be shouting and arguing more, and analyzing and compromising less.  The country of America was built on a real public forum, with many able to voice their ideas in the newspapers of the time and discuss the changes they felt needed to be made.  These ideas would be distributed across the colonies and others were able to learn and build on them, eventually leading to the foundation of a government that would become a new world super power.

This spirit of compromise is what the public needs again.  It wasn't easy for many back then, and it won't be easy now, but it is necessary.  Most major broadcast news organizations have a clear bias, and in 2006, 40% of all cable television were talk shows - shows pandering to those who simply wanted their opinion repeated to them by their news.  The unfortunate thing is that these sell and do well.  Sometimes it seems the public forum has simply digressed into the public searching for either entertainment or their opinions validated by an authority source.

However, without a true public forum, the public will become ignorant and complacent if they take their example from the pundits who deliver this type of "news".  If journalists refuse to distribute unbiased and uncensored facts, the public will, instead of learning to entertain and consider different opinions and values, only learn to argue.

Yesterday, I discovered who Ann Coulter was: a political and controversial pundit for Fox News who has written several books essentially blaming liberals for everything wrong with America.  I was shocked and appalled.  I have never heard more idiotic statements come out of a news personnel's mouth, which is really saying something.  It is people like her who completely shut down the public forum created by journalism and make it a battle between two sides.  Unfortunately, her books are bestsellers.

As I was giving up on the idea of an intelligent public forum in major news corporations, I came across an article by a woman who describes how she goes through the letters and emails sent to the Boston Globe by citizens who are genuinely concerned with serious issues and wish them to be discussed.  And I realized, although, perhaps, so many biased and idiotic people get attention, there are so many intelligent, regular citizens who truly rely on good journalists to accurately inform them of the truth.  As an aspiring journalist, I have decided that I will always produce work that creates the opportunity for intelligent and lively discussion that will enact change if need be. Because that is the true reason why journalists should provide a public forum.  Just like in the early days of our country, words are powerful.  However, the public must be able to compromise and discuss them in a rational way, and only then can change happen.

In their watchdog role, journalists are to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." Please post a visual and link to an investigative piece that has influenced your life. Then, in 200-250 words, explain why it has influenced your life OR explain the data and the methods which the journalist built the news on.

An investigative piece of journalism that influenced me was a successful story written by a Cambodian citizen by the name of Sam Bunnath who was able to uncover some serious corruption in the education system of Cambodia's Battambang province.  The local education officials had been requiring those who wanted to be teachers to pay around $300-450 for a permanent government education position.  Many times, these people would sell all of their belongings to pay this fee, and then wouldn't even be offered a teaching position.  Bunnath interviewed dozens of sources and gained access to documents that proved the corruption, then wrote a full, unedited story investigating the bribery.  Normally, the  local paper would have been reluctant to print such a story, but through a program sponsored by the US, they had recently been encouraged to find the courage to print these stories.  The story got attention from the local people as well as the Prime Minister who ordered a full-fledged investigation and punishment of the government officials.

This story particularly affected me because I have done extensive research on the government of Cambodia and the economic turmoil they have faced after several devastating civil wars.  I've also concluded that many of the economic hardships the people face (as well as the devastating poverty) has been caused by a lack of opportunity for quality education.  The fact that a small piece of investigative journalism could have such a huge impact on something so important gave me renewed hope in the power of the word.

  Sam Bunnath

Journalists should NOT be neutral. If this is the case, how do they accurately cover the news? How does this influence your perspective on news?

Complete objectivity and neutrality is impossible for any human being to accomplish.  Each person has experienced different joys, adversities and emotions throughout their entire life that form their worldview, which ultimately dictates the lens through which that person sees the world and processes the information they gain.  Journalists are just the same.  They can no more tell a story without forming some sort of an opinion on it than anyone else.  The difference between journalists and everyone else, however, is the journalists' responsibilities to the public and the people they write for.  Even a journalist with strong opinions can tell the news accurately if they remember that they are not only writing for themselves, but for so many others as well - many of which have very different world views.  In order to accurately and unbiasedly report the news, a good reporter must respect differing opinions and realize that his opinion is not only dependent on so many factors outside his control, but that it isn't always necessarily right.  Humility is also an extremely important characteristic for a journalist who wants to accurately report the news because being humble reminds the reporter that he really, ultimately, doesn't know.  There is no way, sometimes, to know which side is right, if there is a "right side" at all, and keeping an open mind is the best way to discover that.

However, the most important  characteristic for a journalist to have is independence.  A journalist must maintain an independence from those they cover and truly know who they are and what their values are before they even begin to report.  They must not bind themselves to a party so tightly that when that party strays from what their values originally were, they allow themselves to be strayed along as well.  

Because I know that journalists are not neutral, I make sure to consider everything I read with a bit of skepticism.  I must first decide whether or not I think the journalist at least tried to be fair and accurate, and based on that conclusion, I then consider the facts they present.  Through this method, I have discovered that there is a fair amount of quality journalism and that I can accurately be informed by someone who has a very different opinion than mine, and in that way, I can also broaden my own

mind.