CODES AND
CONVENTIONS:
Accuracy- As a
professional journalist it is vitally important to not only get the objective,
verifiable facts correctly, such as
name, places dates of birth, quotes , but accurately report the opinions
expressed by those who they report. Accuracy is more important than speed; if
you can provide a detailed, factual story the audience will be far more
pleased, even if it takes longer to gather the information necessary to create
your piece. They will much prefer to read a story with straight facts rather
than information that may or may not be true. For example when the London riots
occurred in 2011, reporters had to make sure to get the amount of people
killed, injured, arrested and property damaged facts accurately. This was vitally important as the general
public needed to know all the dangers that was going at the time, if the
reports did not get their facts right than the public could have been in danger
by not knowing exactly the amount of issues that was going which could had
affected them in many more ways.
Balance- A
factual radio programme needs balance in order to keep both side of the topic
fair to the discussion, there are always two sides to a story so therefore the
information told to the viewers should be kept correct, fair and equal. It is
essential to keep a balance on views and make sure to research/investigate in
order to find more information for both side of the story. Ensuring that both
sides of a debate are shown in factual radio programme is crucial as it
prevents a certain opinion being glorified to the audience, making them believe
what they are told without knowing all the facts from both sides. For instance, if a show is not
balanced and does not show all relevant facts of each side of an argument, many
of the viewers will not have the need to continue watching the show as they
will view that the judgment from the production team came into the research
process pressuring the team to become biased and unfair. A key fact that a
factual programme should remember is to always try to remain as neutral and
fair as possible as the show is not based on the production opinion on a topic,
it is about displaying both sides of a story to a listeners, with precise,
accurate information and enabling the audience to make their own
judgement. Towards the end of a
programme is when the conclusion comes and this usually results in the argument
becoming biased towards a certain point. Documentary radio shows are the sort
of programmes which are more likely to have balance as the show will consists
various opinions from people, which could be the general public input on the
subject as well as an expert’s. This will create balance as listeners are shown
stability of the subject by providing opinions from different individual with
completely different lifestyles.
Impartiality-
Impartiality means to view both sides and opinions equally, to not take sides
or make your own personal judgement. It does not mean that things will always
be fair and it does not prevent reporting fair judgements that have a lot of
evidence backing them up. It is necessary to be impartial when you are a
journalist because you cannot constantly produce bias pieces where you have
neglected relevant information and merely included your personal view. This
will not be of interest to the audience and for this reason very rarely do
journalists include their own view in a piece and if they do it is usually as
the conclusion when all sides have been thoroughly examined. This will not be
of interest to the audience and for this reason very rarely do journalists
include their own view in a piece and if they do it is usually as the
conclusion when all sides have been thoroughly examined. Impartiality is
similar to balance in the sense that it is weighing up an argument fairly and
including the necessary information to make it a fair piece.
Objectivity-
Objectivity is to see the whole truth, using evidence and facts and to be fair
about it. This means that the reporter or presenter has to show fair views from
both sides of an argument so they don’t appear to be biased; this also allows
them to have different ideas and explore different opinions. Objectivity is
also an ability to analyse and accept facts and then make a sensible decision
from the discoveries you have made through the research. To achieve objectivity
firstly you have to be able to stall your judgement whilst looking at all of
the facts. Some of the facts you may find may not be enjoyable or make you feel
good, but to achieve objectivity all the facts need to be accepted and
analysed. After you have been through both sets of facts and analysed them
correctly, you have to portray them both equally without being biased in any
way, shape or form. It is important to get your point across as quickly and as
accurately as possible.
Subjectivity-
Subjectivity is the complete contrast of Objectivity. Subjectivity is judgement
based on personal feelings and opinions rather than external facts. In radio
programmes subjectivity is rare as most points are presented with the backing
of facts and statistics and Vox pop from the general public, rather than
personal opinions as they are often more successful in proving or disproving a
point. Subjectivity is usually avoided during Radio programmes as this can
prevent the facts being used and may result in the programme being slightly
biased towards your views, however some presenters may use it to help
manipulate an audience into seconding their opinion. It is acceptable to state
your opinion on a discussion but it’s vital you mention it is your opinion and
that your opinion is not necessarily the opinion of anyone else, this will
prevent the viewers from thinking you will be biased towards your beliefs.
Opinion- When a producer
of a radio programme wants to use opinions to help show the listeners what
members of the public think it is important they choose a wide variety of
people from different walks of life to ensure that the answers and opinions
they get will be as widespread and as different as possible. It is important to
keep a balance whilst showing opinions. This is vital when it comes to keeping
an argument fair because if you show too many opinions stating they agree with
an argument it will make the show seem biased towards that, which is something
you try to prevent if you wish to keep a discussion fair. Because if you show
too many opinions stating they agree with an argument it will make the show
seem biased towards that, which is something you try to prevent if you wish to
keep a discussion fair. Presenters should not mention their opinion as it can
make viewers believe they’re being biased. For example; a radio programme
called “women’s Hour” had a discussion on the music video of ‘blurred lines’.
There has been a lot controversial issues about this video and the producer of
the radio show makes sure to have an opinion from the general public on what
they about the video, whenever it is too provocative and offensive to women or
do they not see anything wrong with it, alongside the publics options there is
also the opinion of an expert who is a music journalist stating her views on
the video also. This creates balance and fairness to the programme as listeners
are able to hear two different side of views on the topic.
Bias- During a
factual programme it is important that the producer looks at different
opinions, views and facts and focuses equally on both concepts. It’s often easy for someone to become biased
especially if they feel there is no room for another argument to pose, however
presenters have to be careful not to make biased statements or judgements as it
can offend some viewers. It is vital that radio programmes stick only to
correct information and do not make statements that support one side of the argument
and not the other. For example; the radio program ‘the surgery’ often discusses
personal issues such as bullying, self-harming and depression. Giving advice to
their listeners about problems in certain areas of their lives, mostly commonly
consisting of teenager’s problems. The programmes allows listeners to call in
for any advice they want to share with the rest of the people tuned in to
listen. The producer of this programme made sure to keep the subject not biased
by involving the audience which helps maintain balance within the show as the
listeners are able to hear other people’s point of views on the subject.
Representation-Representation
is how something is portrayed or stereotyped within the media. It is unwise to
stereotype as many people believe everything the media reports so if you
stereotype someone the public may actually believe that they are like how you
have described them. For example footballers are often heavily criticised
within the media and perceived as being ungrateful and unintelligent, this is
blatantly an unfair reflection as all footballers are different and should not
all be categorised in the same way. People who interview the footballers also
add to this idea of footballers lacking intelligence by asking painfully
obvious questions such as “How did it feel to score the winner today?” this
will lead audiences to believe that footballers are stupid and this is why they
are being asked such obvious questions.
Another example could be, you can often find the media stereotyping
teenagers, claiming that ‘hoodies’ or teenagers that wear hooded tops are a ban
on society, this is stereotyping teenagers and can be quite offensive and lead
to problems for teenagers who wear hooded tops. Radio programmes should not
stereotype as it is unfair and often wrong.
Access- To begin
making a radio programme you need to firstly obtain permission. If permission
is not obtained lawsuits can be filed and your programme won’t be complete. You
also need to make sure you have access to the correct resources that will
supply you with vital information. An example of a feud involving access phone
hacking with celebrities private pictures being access to everyone to see on
social media. The hackers were not authorised with access to publish the any of
the naked pictures of these celebrities but chose to regardless, invading these
celebrities privacy.
Privacy- Privacy
has always been a major issue in factual TV programing as everyone is entitled
to be free from the public attention, unfortunately the media has also the
right to a freedom of expression and often argue that they have the right to
produce anything they believe is in the public’s best interest. Privacy is
becoming increasingly difficult for high profile people to obtain as peoples
obsessions with celebrities and the celebrity lifestyle continues to grow. In
recent times there have been some shocking cases of celebrities struggling
under the pressure of constantly being observed; in particular Rap artist Kanye
West who had a very public meltdown which led to harassing one photographer in
the past who he stated was invading his privacy, by having his camera right in
front his face. The wishes of celebrities for privacy are currently falling on
death ears as journalists hungrily hunt down a story. Of course, huge
celebrities have to accept that they are going to spend a lot of time in the
public eye and it is not the fault of journalists that the public are so
interested in how celebrities live their lives, but there has to be a limit of
how far you can go. For example, the News Of The World were part of a phone
hacking scandal where they gained illegal access into a missing girl’s
voicemail, listening to her messages and collecting information they would
later turn into a report. They continuously came up with new stories for their
newspapers and reporters and no one knew or could understand where they were
getting such precise information from. Family members were suggesting someone was
corrupt and were selling the press information. The News Of The World then went
as far as deleting messages from her voicemail that were blocking new messages
from coming through, leading the police to believe she was still alive and
putting a false sense of hope in the family. Eventually, after intense
investigations the employees at the News of The World was caught out and the
suspects were eventually arrested.
Contract with
listener- Contract with Viewer is an unwritten rule between yourself and
your audience. This rule is basically a promise that the show you have
described will be the show that they watch.
