mass-communication-theory

LIMITATIONS OF PROFESSIONALIZATION
video news
release
Report produced
by an outside
organization,
typically a public
relations firm,
that is distributed
free of charge to
television stations
Chapter 5 Normative Theories of Mass Communication 111
In joining the trend toward professionalization, media practitioners, like doctors
and lawyers before them, pledged to uphold standards of professional practice.
They promised to weed out irresponsible people and give recognition to those who
excel. Those who violated standards would be censured. In extreme cases, they
could be barred from professional practice. And as an alternative to direct government
regulation, media professionalization worked rather well. Certain limitations,
however, lead to recurring problems:
1. Professionals in every field, including journalism, have been reluctant to
identify and censure colleagues who violate professional standards. Todosois
often seen as admitting that embarrassing problems exist. Public trust in all media
professionals might be shaken if too many people are barred from practice. Professional
societies tend to operate as closed groups in which members are protected
against outside threats and criticism. Attacks from outsiders are routinely dismissed
as unwarranted, even when evidence against a practitioner mounts. Often action is
taken only in extreme cases, when it cannot be avoided. Even then, news media
either avoid covering the case or provide brief and superficial coverage.
This problem is amply demonstrated by New York Times reporter Judith Miller
and her reporting on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the run-up to the 2003
invasion of Iraq (Okrent, 2004). Well after her own newspaper’s disavowal of her
“flawed journalism” once Coalition forces failed to turn up the WMD her sources
had assured her were in fact there, several of Miller’s one-time colleagues admitted
that they were suspicious of much of her work on the issue, but they remained quiet
because of Miller’s close ties with the paper’s senior editors. But one Times writer,
Craig Pyes, who had teamed with Miller for a series on the terrorist group al Qaeda,
did attempt to alert the paper’s editors to his concerns, asking that his byline not appear
on one article. “I’m not willing to work further on this project with Judy
Miller,” he wrote; “I do not trust her work, her judgment, or her conduct. She is an
advocate, and her actions threaten the integrity of the enterprise, and of everyone
who works with her. She has turned in a draft of a story … that is little more than
dictation from government sources over several days, filled with unproven assertions
and factual inaccuracies” (in Kurtz, 2005). Because Miller was a Pulitzer Prize–winning
journalist with contacts high in the administration, the Times ignored this warning,
continuing to run her “well-sourced” stories on its front page. Miller was
“allowed to resign” only after she and her paper could no longer withstand the scrutiny
and criticism that followed her role, however insignificant, in the illegal outing
of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame in 2005.
2. Professional standards can be overly abstract and ambiguous. They can be
difficult to implement and enforce. Mission statements and broad codes of ethics
are notoriously vague. The Radio-Television News Directors Association’s Code of
Ethics and Professional Conduct (2000), for example, instructs its members to
“pursue truth aggressively and present the news accurately, in context, and
completely as possible.” But news directors must make choices concerning allocation
of resources. Increasingly, the news we see consists of corporate and government
public relations video news releases (VNRs). In fact, almost every American
local television news operation makes use of these outsider-provided public
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