Codes and Conventions

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.