Judging Journalism

By Kendall Burchard

            

              Data journalist Brian Boyer discussed the importance of journalism furthering democracy with students from the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication on April 14, 2014.

            “What struck me about journalism was that it was about looking at democracy in ways that could help people, and help our democracy better,” said Boyer. University of Oklahoma students will be looking to make their state democracy better as elections approach in the fall, with various state and national offices up for grabs. For university students, the hot issue in each race revolves around higher education funding. Over the past few months, the media has actively covered the education funding controversies in the state, from OU President David L. Boren’s February 2016 article detailing budget cuts in the state to Governor Mary Fallin’s proposed tax cuts that would in turn cut education funding. Although university students often pursue media coverage of news events to accompany studies, the public as a whole still struggles to see the role journalism plays within society. 

            In September 2013, Gallup released a poll indicating that general trust for the mass media had increased from 2012. According to Gallup, Americans have consistently expressed distrust of the mass media since 2007, with only 44% of people expressing “a great deal or fair amount of trust and confidence” in the media. Gallup blames a perceived liberal bias within the media for the previous decline of trust in media, while Jay Rossen of PressThink cites a general distrust of institutions as a whole and stories simply becoming “’too big to tell’”. With the growing complexity of the world, journalists are no longer able to tell the “story” of a particular event or idea to the satisfaction of their complicated, multi-faceted audience, according to Rossen.    

            John Schmeltzer, the Engleman/Livermore Professor in Community Journalism at Gaylord College, claims journalism still to be a major connecting factor within society.

“Journalism provides a means to go and knit society together. Without journalism, you don’t have democracy,” said Schmeltzer, “Journalism’s role is to go and help the people, or to provide a voice to the voiceless.”

“The essentials of journalism are still really important, storytelling, protecting the voiceless, etcetera. Those are going to be essentials forever. It’s getting to the idea of how do we go and get that message out that’s still going to be a struggle,” said Schmeltzer.  

            Boyer will continue to work for NPR’s visual team, developing programs, covering stories and developing new ways to share and categorize information for easy access. To find out more about Brian Boyer, follow him on Twitter @brianboyer, or visit his website, hackerjournalist.net.

 Boyer discusses his goals in generating traffic to specific news stories that make society better. VIDEO: Kendall Burchard runs :24