Importance Of Journalistic Integrity In The Paper

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The Paper depicts the 24 hours of a particularly hectic day for a newspaper editor; following his whole day from the time he wakes up to the time he falls back asleep. With important deadlines and many jobs on the line, the movie explores the importance of journalistic integrity over monetary gain with one of the main issues of the film being what the cover page for the newspaper should be the next day. Journalistic Integrity is very important in newsrooms, as can be seen from The New York Times Handbook on Ethical Journalism. It emphasises that it’s goal “is to cover the news as impartially as possible” (The New York Times 6). This movie analysis covers the role of the media in society and the Powerful Effects Theory as reasons as to why journalistic It is presumed that the media and its contents “have significant and substantial effects” (Perse 3). There is also the “hypodermic needle theory” in which the media injects “values, ideas and attitudes” into its viewers (Fourie 294). Keeping this in mind, it becomes imperative that the media only publish the truth for the public and not fabricate any stories that they may present to society. As such, in the movie, the Paper, Henry fights for them to wait to publish the true story on the front page rather than publish the false story immediately. By delaying the publishing time, he is actually causing the company to lose money. He would much rather the newspaper loses money by printing late than lose the public’s loyalty by printing a false angle on an important story. He does this so that the boys’ futures may not be affected negatively, as previously mentioned. However, there is a flaw in this theory. It assumes that the audience is homogeneous and gullible (Fourie 294). Not all recipients of mass media are subject to this nature and therefore may not be affected by what the media presents without prior fact checks. For example, when a teen published a fake government statement that proclaimed the late Lee Kuan Yew as dead prematurely, many news agencies, including CNN, took it as the truth and announced it officially on their respective news sites (Kok). However, some news outlets actually checked their facts and found out that it was actually a hoax, ending the issue that sparked outcry amongst many Singaporeans. This incident accurately portrays the Powerful Effects Theory, how it works and how it is flawed. In conclusion, the Powerful Effects Theory, although flawed, still plays a role in how society relies on the media for information and the media should therefore be careful about what information they

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