The past 50 years have seen a dramatic increase in the amount of news that people are exposed to. This raises a certain question about humans’ reliance on published news. In this essay, I will first explain why communities have become unsure about news and then examine the features of a reliable journalist.
To begin with, it is an irrefutable fact that most people have become pessimistic about the news. Although published news is the main source of information on incidents all over the world, seeing some paradoxical reports from other sources has declined individuals’ trust in news considerably. This has been facilitated by progressing technology and access to diverse platforms like Instagram or YouTube. To give an example of this, news channels in Iran have experienced a 30% decline in their viewership from 2020 to 2022, illustrating the loss of a third of their audiences. Furthermore, because of some political reasons, some news is reported incompletely, resulting in the misguidance of the audiences, globally. These factors, therefore, have played a significant role in making people reluctant to watch the news.
Nonetheless, if journalists wish to be trustworthy in the public’s eyes, they should meet some measures. First of all, they should be honest with their audiences to gain their credibility. In other words, they must avoid manipulating news and publishing untrue reports which abolish their authenticity among societies. According to the psychologist Sigmund Freud, honesty is the prerequisite for success in jobs dealing with the public. Secondly and even more importantly, attempting to provide adequate proof for their announcements increases their authenticity because releasing news without convincing evidence has a tendency to seem wrong. As a result, I believe that implementing these measures ensures gaining more popularity for journalists.
By way of conclusion, I once again reaffirm my position that even though there may be some logical or illogical reasons for publishing inaccurate news, journalists should concentrate on conveying accurate news rather than deceiving the public with false ones.