In an ‘Inside the Newsroom’ post on June 19th WFOR’s news director Adrienne Roark writes that we can pretty much consider the station an advocacy journalism shop.
‘We are the station that is by, for, and about the people” she writes. “Consider us a media advocate; working to improve the lives of the people who live here. We take this commitment very seriously”
Wikipedia describes advocacy journalism as:
… a genre of journalism that intentionally and transparently adopts a non-objective viewpoint, usually for some social or political purpose. Because it is intended to be factual, it is distinguished from propaganda.
…
News reports are intended to be objective and unbiased. In contrast, advocacy journalists have an opinion about the story they are writing. For example, that political corruption should be punished, that more environmentally friendly practices should be adopted by consumers, or that a government policy will be harmful to business interests and should not be adopted.
Lately there has been a noticeable trend where the CBS4 I-Team label is showing up quite a bit in WFOR’s newscasts or I-Team newscasts as some might argue.
First, great that they are at least upfront about it. But that feels a bit wishy washy to me, no offense.
Really, can a television station owned by a publically traded, profit driven, mega media conglomerate that is laying people off without batting an eye to make their profits go up and their investors happy serve this community they are speaking of? And which side of the community will the TV station be on?
Not saying Roark doesn’t believe what she says, or that those who work at the station don’t. But Roark has bosses in New York City perched up in a skyscraper barking orders out about cost cutting, efficiency and ratings. They give her what they want the end result to be and she has to make it happen or she gets the walk to the exit and the next ND comes in who’s the latest and greatest thing since sliced bread.
At what point does the station become a cheerleader for only certain points of view? Will they take advocate based on facts regardless of what the community thinks or wants, or will they make adjustments to make it fit whatever view they think this community holds so as not to alienate their ratings, pardon, viewers which they wouldn’t want to lose? Because we know what happens when the ratings dive.
Just pondering
/thanks meebo tipster for alerting us to the story/
All electronic journalism that is worth anything has advocacy as part of the mix. She realizes that they must cover spot news, courts, crime,as well as advocacy.
Give her some credit. Advocacy requires accuracy, honesty and can actually move a community towards the resolution and identification of core issues.
We need more of it. And as a critic you might consider advocating it.
In this day and age of dwindling viewership and declining sales revenues, “advocacy journalism” is a means to draw more viewers back to the platform for issues that matter to them ( righting their wrongs, so to speak).
Being done at many shops around the country.
jump off a bridge because everyone else is doing it. People typically make opinions out of feelings not facts and we the media are not the deciders of how people should feel.
Just gather the facts and tell your viewers/customers what happened!
Advocacy journalism is not “pure” journalism.