Journalism serves a vital function
Isaac Avilucea, reporter for the North Adams Transcript, in North Adams, Mass., wrote a feature story last week about Cheyanne Alcombright, a local school soccer player. Alcombright told Avilucea that she transferred to a different Massachusetts school; even though it had “somewhat inferior athletics and academics.” Her old school, Mount Greylock, was “like the movie mean girls.”
Avilucea was fired Friday after the Transcript’s Editor-in-Chief fielded calls from principals and angry parents. Avilucea’s story had portrayed the town in an unflattering manner. This story drew our attention.
We are concerned that some do not understand the role professional journalists play in our society. The misconception is that a journalists’s job is to flatter the community they serve, from its government to its sports teams. The role of a newspaper is to inform community members about what is going on around them.
Reporters and newspapers are incredibly vital. Readers are often busy and do not always have the time or the ability to attend newsworthy events or find information. Therefore, it’s a reporter’s job to research, record, condense, and recount events and information so that it can be read.
When a newspaper publishes reports, its readers then have a way to find out what they missed. The goal is to provide the reader with that information in an expedient and easy-to-read fashion. The intent is that the public will read the news and be informed.
What is considered a newsworthy event might not a be pleasant, and what is pleasant might not be news. But it is a necessary function to keep the public informed regardless of whether those happenings are good or bad. It’s an editor’s job to determine the newsworthiness of an event and assign a reporter to cover it.
The reporter has an obligation to the reader to report a story in an unbiased, fair, and balanced fashion while still making it interesting. The editor has an obligation to make sure that the reporter is accurate. While we make mistakes, we acknowledge them when they are brought to our attention, internally, and especially by our readers.
Editorials, such as this article and the pieces appearing on pages marked “opinion,” serve an important function as well. They provide an outlet for a newspaper’s editors, columnists, and readers (YES, EVEN YOU, —ESPECIALLY YOU) a place to have their opinions read by others. This allows people to take a public stance on issues of public importance, voice their concerns, and when necessary, advocate a specific course of action.
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