DECLARATION OF THE DUTIES AND RIGHTS OF A JOURNALIST

“The central purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with accurate and reliable information they need to function in a free society”.

Duties of a Journalist

The right to information, together with freedom of expression and criticism, is one of the fundamental liberties of every human being.
The rights and duties of journalists devolve from the public’s right to have access to fact and opinion.
Journalists’ responsibility to the public must come before any they bear towards a third party, notably employers and public authorities.
Journalists should, of their own accord, adopt the rules necessary to accomplish their mission to inform. Such is the object of the below.
In order to carry out their journalistic duties in an independent manner, and in accordance with required quality standards, journalists must be able to count on general conditions adequate to the exercise of their profession.
Such is the object of the «Declaration of Rights» that follows.
Journalists see their duty in following the basic principles of this declaration.
While recognizing the laws of their country, journalists only accept the judgment of their professional colleagues, the Press Council or legitimate organizations of professional ethics.
They reject any interference by the state or other official bodies.
Fair reporting requires at least a short, published summary of a Press Council decision in relation to one’s own media.
1. To seek out the truth, in the interests of the public’s right to know, whatever the consequences to him or herself.
2. To defend freedom of information, freedom of commentary and criticism, and the independence and dignity of the journalistic profession.
3. Not to publish information, documents, images or sound recordings of which the origin is unknown to the journalist. Not to suppress information or any essential elements of a story. Not to misrepresent any text, document, image or sound recording, or people’s expressed opinions. If information is unconfirmed to clearly say so. To indicate when photographic and/or sound material has been combined to make a montage.
4. Not to use dishonest methods to obtain information, recordings, images or documents. Not to manipulate them, or have them manipulated by a third party with a view to falsification. To prohibit plagiarism in not passing off the work or ideas of others as one’s own.
5. To rectify any published information that is revealed to be factually incorrect.
6. To respect professional secrecy and not reveal the source of any information obtained in confidence.
7. To respect peoples’ privacy in so far as the public interest does not demand otherwise. To disregard anonymous or unfounded accusations.
8. In respecting human dignity, the journalist must avoid any allusion by text, image or sound to a person’s ethnic or national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation as well as to any illness or physical or mental handicap that could be discriminatory in character. The reporting of war, acts of terrorism, accidents and catastrophes by means of text, image and sound should respect the victims’ suffering and the feelings of their loved ones.
Declaration of Duties of a Journalist
The journalist who gathers, selects, edits, interprets and comments on information is ruled by general principles of fairness in his or her honest treatment of sources (the people with whom he or she is talking) and the public.
The journalist’s duties are:
9. Not to accept any advantage nor any promise that could limit his or her professional independence or expression of opinion.
10. To avoid as journalists any form of commercial advertising; and never to accept conditions laid down by advertisers directly or indirectly.
11. To take journalistic directives only from designated editorial superiors; and to respect those directives only when they are not contrary to this declaration.
a. Free access to all sources of information and the right to investigate without impediment anything that is in the public interest. Public or private confidentiality can only be invoked against the journalist in exceptional circumstances and with the provision of clearly-defined reasons.
b. The right not to act in any way nor express any opinion that is contrary to professional rules or personal conscience. As a result, journalists should not suffer any prejudice.
c. The right to refuse any directive or interference that is contrary to the general policy of the organisation with which he or she is collaborating. This policy must be communicated in writing before the journalist’s employment. It cannot be modified or revoked unilaterally under pain of breach of contract.
d. The right to transparency as to the ownership of the company for which the journalist works. The right of a member of an editorial team to be informed in time, and to be heard before, any decision that affects the future of the company.
In particular, members of the editorial staff must be informed and heard before final decisions determining the composition or organisation of the editorial department.
e. The right to adequate and continuous professional training.
f. The right to benefit from work conditions guaranteed by a collective agreement, including the right to be active in professional organisations without suffering discrimination.
Full respect by journalists of the duties articulated above requires that they enjoy, at the minimum, the following rights:
g. The right to benefit from an individual employment contract guaranteeing material and moral security. In particular, an appropriate remuneration – corresponding to the journalist’s function, responsibilities and social role – should ensure his or her economic independence.
Purposes of Journalism
1. Informed Citizenary: The primary purpose of journalism is to ensure a well informed citizenary for our social and political structure. American Sociologist Herbert J. Gans in his book ‘Democracy and the News’ says journalism itself "can do little to reduce the political imbalance between citizens and the economic, political and other organizations."
Journalism’s theory of democracy still relies on a belief that an informed citizenry will be an engaged citizenry, that an engaged citizenry will be more participatory and more informed, and that the result will be a more democratic society.
The central purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with accurate and reliable information they need to function in a free society.
This encompasses myriad roles--helping define community, creating common language and common knowledge, identifying a community's goals, heros and villains, and pushing people beyond complacency. This purpose also involves other requirements, such as being entertaining, serving as watchdog and offering voice to the voiceless.
2. Informed Media: Another purpose of journalism is to provide knowledge about all aspect of media. It tells about new developments in technology and hones writing skills that produce real publications (newspapers and television shows, radio programmes) for real audience.
3. Focus on writing/reading on people’s issues: Journalism emphasizes on writing and reading literature on people’s issues
4. Promotion of multi-perspectival approach: Journalism promotes values and ideology of the profession with a purpose to project a multi-perspectival approach. Journalism informs citizens about the country's political diversity, the politically relevant activities and ideas of their fellow citizens, and what issues are concerning these citizens (which our elected representatives also need to know) then journalists need to be multi-perspectival: to encompass all the important viewpoints from people with different values, interests, incomes.
Multi-perspectivism means reporting all ideas that could resolve issues and help problems, even if the ideas come from ideologically small groups.
5. Sociological context: Journalism need to be more sociological -- more about understanding and interpreting what underlies experience. But current journalism’s attempts at explanation are rarely interpretive or analytical in these ways.
6. Online journalism: It is feisty and combative, but its style and round-the-clock news cycle raise questions about how cyber-journalism can offer reporting compatible with journalism's highest standards. Mainstream news organizations are struggling to apply old-fashioned news standards to the Web, but are discovering it is not easy to translate the virtues of accuracy, balance, and clarity to a medium where the advantages of speed and timeliness prevail.
Web technology has strengthened the traditional watchdog functions of journalism by giving reporters efficient ways to probe more deeply for information. The capacity to search documents, compile background and historical context, and identify authoritative sources has expanded the reporter's toolbox. It also has introduced a fundamentally different culture built on interactivity, fewer rules, and fewer limits.
Functions of journalism:
Inform
Educate
Interpret
Mold opinion
Enable decision making
Agent of change
Entertain
What needs to be done while functioning/Writing:
Reader Interest
Accuracy
Objectivity
Credibility
Readability
Significance
Clarity
Personality
Functioning/writings cause the reader to:
Stop
Be interested
Think
Learn
Understand
Enjoy
Remember
Discuss
Change
Points to be noted:
Know your reader. Agenda must be only based on reader interest.
What makes you stop? The Headline.
Immersion, Structure, Tone, Voice/Opinion, Character/Personality, Balance
Be unafraid of outrageous statements, but back them up with facts.
A magazine is a group of people interested in and knowledgeable about a subject, talking to a larger group of interested people. The best magazines in the world: readers feel that they are written for only one person — themselves.
Make the reader think.
Preferably use real examples.
Use timelines where applicable. Content should be designed for browsers rather than readers.
How to function/Write:
-Think a lot for the lead.
-Conclusion should be a tie-back, it should link back to the focus, giving a feeling of completion.
Stages:
Information gathering
planning, writing
checking
Objectives are determined by the limitations of space, the section/sub-section, and the reader profile. What is your objective?
Focus.
First thought on basic design elements.
Begin research. Discard research material when short of space.
Organise the text material and make a structure.
Identify the unusual, informative and entertaining in the text and put it into the appropriate form (boxes, main text, intro/close etc.
Finalise the elements.
Writing: Attribution (source, preferably creditable), identification, background.
Identification: elements, scenes, facts. Identify and bring out importance.
Background: a fact should be obvious to all, it should have meaning and importance for the generic reader.
Selecting and eliminating facts.
Obligations of Journalism
1. Journalism's first obligation is to the truth
Democracy depends on citizens having reliable, accurate facts put in a meaningful context. Journalism does not pursue truth in an absolute or philosophical sense, but it can--and must--pursue it in a practical sense. This "journalistic truth" is a process that begins with the professional discipline of assembling and verifying facts. Then journalists try to convey a fair and reliable account of their meaning, valid for now, subject to further investigation. Journalists should be as transparent as possible about sources and methods so audiences can make their own assessment of the information.
2. Its first loyalty is to citizens.
While news organizations answer to many constituencies, including advertisers and shareholders, the journalists in those organizations must maintain allegiance to citizens and the larger public interest above any other if they are to provide the news without fear or favor. This commitment to citizens first is the basis of a news organization's credibility, the implied covenant that tells the audience the coverage is not slanted for friends or advertisers. Commitment to citizens also means journalism should present a representative picture of all constituent groups in society.
3. Obligation of verification.
Journalists rely on a professional discipline for verifying information. When the concept of objectivity originally evolved, it did not imply that journalists are free of bias. It called, rather, for a consistent method of testing information--a transparent approach to evidence--precisely so that personal and cultural biases would not undermine the accuracy of their work. Journalism has developed various techniques for determining facts, for instance, it has done less to develop a system for testing the reliability of journalistic interpretation.
4. Independence and Neutrality
Independence is an underlying requirement of journalism, a cornerstone of its reliability. Independence of spirit and mind, rather than neutrality, is the principle journalists must keep in focus. While editorialists and commentators are not neutral, the source of their credibility is still their accuracy, intellectual fairness and ability to inform--not their devotion to a certain group or outcome. In our independence, however, we must avoid any tendency to stray into arrogance, elitism or isolation.
5. Independent monitor of power
Journalism has an unusual capacity to serve as watchdog over those whose power and position most affects citizens. Journalists have an obligation to protect this watchdog freedom by not demeaning it in frivolous use or exploiting it for commercial gain.
6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise
The news media are the common carriers of public discussion, and this responsibility forms a basis for our special privileges. It also should strive to fairly represent the varied viewpoints and interests in society, and to place them in context rather than highlight only the conflicting fringes of debate. (Talk by Shafqat Munir)
www.osehobofure.blogspot.com.ng