A debate...

[deponti]

shortindiangirl and I were having this raging debate about what journalism should be. We took the example of the two articles on birdwatching. Some background is required.

adarshraju had explained that actually, the Economic Times reporter had wanted to do only a general article on how people working in the IT sector de-stress with birdwatching; the article ought to have

Comments

Just for the devil's advocate

[mmk]

Nothing in a paper really identifies an article as truthfully/completely factually correct/researched and confirmed [1]. There's an general expectation of truth (it's in the paper, it must be true...) but IMO, that's exploited routinely.

I read papers mostly as slightly more proofed version of wikipedia - a person (or paper)'s perspective, more or less angled towards a *certain* point of view.

[1] or else ToI would immediately disappear in a puff of smoke

[asakiyume]

I think a person who writes a review ought to attend the entire performance; just pragmatically speaking, if the actors happen to do something stellar (or dreadful) in a part of the performance that the reviewer hasn't seen... well--the review won't reflect that, which would be bad.

I remember what you said about the posed shots where you all pretended to be looking at birds. That doesn't bother me so much. It's a story about bird watching, and you guys are bird watchers, and if setting up a photo shoot makes for a better photo, then I think the fact that you're not actually looking at birds at that moment isn't so bad. If the person writing the article had a caption saying "Bird watchers catching a glimpse of the elusive XX bird," then that would seem dishonest, but to have you pose didn't strike me as so bad.

[shortiyergirl]

Well, certainly for a review, I think the reporter should attend the entire concert or play to write about it credibly.

In the case of these two articles, what's misleading is that it is not obvious that the person did not go on the birding trip. To me, that seems like some form of dishonesty.

Writers of fiction can take artistic license but I think most people expect reporters to have researched and ensured the accuracy of what they are writing about and also expect them to take a balanced view.....or at least that's my expectation.

[madrasi_in_mo]

The dance and music reviews that I routinely read are by people who have attended and stay on for the entire performance/recital. It would be highly unprofessional to simply attend part of a program and then write about the entire one!

Regarding reporting news, etc, the basic expectation from a reporter is unobjective reporting of facts. However, it is almost always bound to be colored with the knowledge, perspective and approach of the reporter. For instance, an Indian reporting on, say, the traffic condition of a road in Madras will see it entirely different from the way an person from America (perhaps who has not travelled to India but has only seen a video footage) sees it and reports about it.

"Artistic licence" comes in when a writer (not reporter) takes up a topic/issue, analyzes it and writes his/her perspective.

[anonymous]

I think even research articles are written from particular perspectives..for example, feminist, political, social, etc., ..even in live journal, people bring their 'baggage' while expressing their opinions..so i would agree with ShortIndianGirl that a reporter/any writer can take artistic license with a 'factual' report..here the word 'factual' itself is debatable because what it is perceived as fact(truth) by one may not be the same for another..

i would also tend to agree with asakiyume that a posed for photo shoot comes within the ambit of this artistic license..what i would perhaps object to in present day Indian journalism (particulary TV news and ofcourse, the trend setter of this genre of 'saleable' journalism.. TOI ably reinvented by Bachi Karkaria for Bangalore) is when bits of information are taken out of context and twisted to give a different meaning altogether..prem kudva has given a very good example of this in his post of 12th april..