Journalism Ideology

In our text, The Mind of a Journalist by Jim Willis, the chapter about journalists as an ideologue brought up an interesting section. It brings up the title, “When Passion Enters in.” In this section it talks about Anderson Cooper’s coverage of the devastation brought by Hurricane Katrina. Speaking about not only the hurricane itself, but the devastation it brought to the people and the Gulf area. The text mentions that, “he was at the center of the storm, both literally and figuratively, often showing his emotions about how he felt about the victims of suffering, often showing anger toward government officials whom he believed were moving too slowly in responding to the disaster,” (Willis 74). In this case, he became a spokesperson for those suffering from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina against the lack of help the government gave.
This was something Anderson Cooper felt passionately about. He did not act quite the way he usually did because he had emotional ties to this topic. He even lashed out and demanded answers from Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu after questions after work was not done. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsuRCXiYGO4. He sounded emotional in his voice, but demanded better answers to the solution to the situation. Especially in times of tragedy, it may be difficult for a journalist to not become emotionally tied to a story. In the book, Willis mentioned how tough it was to write about the Oklahoma City bombings. I have mentioned in previous blogs that there is a need to stay objective on topics, but perhaps having a passion for what you write about may make someone a better journalist.
It may be easy as a journalist to get caught up in the same things over and over again. Perhaps there needs to be a change in how journalism is taught and how journalists think. It is mentioned that, “In decades of journalism studies, scholars refer to the journalists’ professionalization process as a distinctly ideological development, as the emerging ideology served to continuously refine and reproduce a consensus about who was a ‘real’ journalist, and what (parts of) news media at any time would be considered examples of ‘real’ journalism. These evaluations shift subtly over time; yet always serve to maintain the dominant sense of what is (and should be) journalism. Schlesinger (1978) for example writes about ‘newsmen’s occupational ideology’, Golding and Elliott (1979) speak broadly of ‘journalism’s occupational ideology’, while a decade later Soloski (1990) talks about an ‘ideology of professionalism’, and Zelizer (2004a) mentions ‘journalists’ professional ideology’; yet most of these authors do not make explicit what this ideology consists of, other than claiming it contains ‘self-contradictory oppositional values’ (Reese, 1990). Schudson describes the occupational ideology of journalism as ‘cultural knowledge that constitutes ‘news judgment’, rooted deeply in the communicators’ consciousness,” (http://www.promusica.se/Library/Electronic%20texts/Deuze2005.pdf).
Perhaps the constant debate over who is a journalist really needs to change. People just need to get out and write. Sure there needs to be some structure and I would imagine professional training does add benefit to the work of someone, but going through this topic, I feel that journalism is losing them ability to have passion. I think that having a passion for any job you do or what you write about is important. That will bring out the best work. It does however need to be controlled and not taken overboard such as it appears Anderson Cooper did in the affected southern states. If journalists can learn to write with a controlled passion, it will create a much better journalism profession.