Has Tim Lane named the elephant in the room? That Journalism, as the Fourth Estate to protect democracy, has fallen prey to “the market”!
In his piece in the Sunday Age (Melbourne, Australia) today Tim Lane says,
“An esteemed Australian writer on a sport other than football once admitted to me it can take him days, even weeks, to consolidate his view of an issue. Yet within the modern sports’ media industry, there is a constant demand for opinions on everything, with certainty, delivered yesterday.
Perhaps it’s a sign of an industry that is out-growing its core product. Or perhaps of a season that runs too long to keep the public interested. There is only so much football that qualifies as newsworthy. Beyond that, commentators are required to contrive storylines, construct judgments, and confect outrage.”
If this is the practice required from journalists by media organisations and their sporting partnerships, are those journalists in fact breaking their own Code of Ethics? Or, are they instead not journalists?
You be the judge! Is this sports’ media industry corrupting journalism, for market benefits to private business interests, advertisers and media organisations? If so, is it against the public interest?
If so, what difference does this make to levels of fairness, well being and shared prosperity in Australian society?
Questions that independent journalists may need to ask themselves?
