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The newsroom
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True or false? To be a good journalist, you need to publish a groundbreaking news story every day.
This is insane! The entire city council goes on a Bali vacation, at the taxpayers' expense! Mmm... Maybe you shouldn't believe everything people post. What do you mean?
This is actually a proper news site, with a newsroom and stuff! Hm. Do you even know what goes on in a newsroom? ... eeeh, not really. Do you? ...
no. You don't? Then let's have a look! This is a newsroom, where they produce and publish news, in a printed newspaper, and on a news website. And here comes a journalist!
She has just interviewed a local politician, about a new, large building about to be built. Working as a reporter means finding stuff out: interviewing people, reading documents, and checking if anything looks strange or new, that's worth telling others about. Then the reporter writes a news article, or produces a TV item about what has happened. A photographer has taken pictures and video, illustrating the news story. Over here sits another journalist.
He's reading the news feeds - that the newspaper subscribes to - from news agencies. Through the news agencies the newspaper gathers more news than the paper's own reporters can possibly write on their own, and can include news from other places. These journalists haven't got a single news story or article published for several weeks. But that's not strange: they are working on a more extensive news story, where they have dug up a lot of new information, about a corporation and some politicians. This is called investigative journalism.
When they are ready, they will reveal something so new and so upsetting, that one politician will resign, and one executive will be fired from his corporation. Here's the editor in chief. She has called an editorial meeting. There is a lot to discuss. Which news - of all that came from the news agencies - are we going to publish?
Which of the ideas - from our own reporters - shall we keep working on, and hunt for more information about? There has been a brutal murder. Are we going to publish the name and a photo of the victim? ... of the suspected killer? Is this information an important bit of news, or is it just scandal?
The television news has exposed a politician who seems to have been cheating on his taxes. Shall we follow this, and write about it too? We don't want to miss an important story, but are we really sure that it's true? And if we write about it, will we be able to get hold of the politician and listen to his version of what's happened? Because, when we investigate someone, we have to give that person a voice, and present their best arguments too.
Another important thing, not to be forgotten: yesterday we wrote that a member of parliament was convicted of assault, but that was wrong. He is - at this stage - only accused of assault, so today we must publish a correction. Decisions like these are made every day in a newsroom. In some cases the law defines what has to be done. But most of the time it's up to the editors to make these important, ethical decisions.
By being meticulous, consistent, and professional in its decision-making, a news organisation builds its reputation, and credibility. Different news organisations have different styles: some are very careful to always get things right, while others give priority to telling a compelling story that excites their readers and viewers, even if their facts are sometimes wrong, or biased. So go ahead, Selma, follow and read that link! But do check out where the news story is published, and consider whether you have good reason to trust that source.