Free Essay That Discusses the Mandate of a Broadcast Journalist

A broadcast journalist generates ideas and evaluates the accuracy and values of an idea and information from the source before presenting the item for consideration by the commissioners and editors. They work in a variety of genres such as documentaries, news, and the current affairs. The research, investigate and present the information about events that affect people for the internet, television, and the radio (Lotz, 2016). They aim at presenting the information in an interesting, balanced, and accurate manner through documentaries and news bulletins. The mandates of a broadcast journalist are both commercial and non-commercial. Non-commercial mandates include public, community, DIY, and the government.

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Public:

Public broadcasting is the broadcasting financed, controlled, and made by the public for the public. The broadcast is neither state-owned nor commercial. It is free from pressure from the commercial forces political interferences. Through public broadcasting, the citizens are entertained and informed. The mandate develops from programming diversities, transparency and accountability, editorial independence and the appropriate funding.

The mandate influences work in the media profession by promoting the independent editorial broadcasters. The action helps them to fulfill their educational, social, and cultural roles. It contributes to training and capacity-building in the modern broadcasting context. The emerging issues are mostly in the contest of the ICTs. It encourages the professionals to minimize unnecessary presentation of violence in the television programs and concentrate on delivering the unbiased content to the citizens. The mandate stimulates international debates on the relevance of the public broadcasting issues and their impacts on civil, education, and cultural society. It strengthens the partnership with other professional media organizations and creates new media alliances to reinforce on the media pluralism. The move promotes the editorial independence of the media both in public and private sectors.

Community:

The community mandate work serves the geographic communities and the concerned communities. The broadcast journalist delivers contents that are relevant and popular to the local. The information is designed specifically for the audience, which in most cases, is overlooked by the mass-media broadcasters and commercial interests. The mandates are developed by the communities they serve. The community also owns influences and operates the media streams. They are nonprofit; they provide means for the communities to share experiences, and tell their own stories. The community mandates drive the civil society, NGOs, agencies, citizens, and the community to work in partnership to promote the community development. Phrases such as social gains, social benefits, and social objectives influence the social media profession.

DIY:

Broadcast journalists create video content for flipped classroom activities, tutorial videos, online lectures, and blended learning resources. DIY mandates enable the instructors to embed videos in teaching techniques. It develops by equipping professional lighting, cameras, screen capturers, computers, and video software. It influences the media profession by facilitating editing of the captured contents. It combines both physical and digital means of accessing to information and hence increasing community satisfaction.

Government:

The government mandate requires the broadcast journalist to resent controversial issues essential to the public in a way that is balanced, honest, and equitable. The fundamental elements of the mandate are; requiring the broadcast journalist to devote some airtime to discuss controversial matters of the public interest and airing contrasting views regarding the matters. The mandates develop through editorials, news segments, and the public affairs shows. It ensures that the viewers are exposed to a variety of viewpoints.

Commercial:

The commercial broadcast journalist uses advertising to finance broadcasting operations to make profits. The mandate of commercial programs is that they appeal to the general public. The programs broadcasted can be received by most of the available equipment, are availed for free to the general public, the advertising revenues finance it, and they operate as profit or a section of a profit-making enterprise.

Discuss media regulation of the particular industry.

Media regulation is the process by which a variety of specific tools are applied to the media institutions and systems to achieve established policies such as diversity, freedom, pluralism, and competition. The regulations comprise of deploying formal statutory rules set by the public authority and informal codes of conduct developed and applied by the media organizations in collaboration with the state. They are associated with the media policy that challenges the government to adopt the medial structure and behavior, and the media governance. The mechanisms are developed in both governmental and non-governmental settings that organize the media systems in a particular way. The regulations can be positive or negative, to promote a particular objective or block the undesirable contents.

Account for how the industry developed its regulations

Self-regulation is the combination of standards that set out the appropriate code of behavior for the media that supports the freedom of expression, the processes of how the behaviors will be held to account. It reserves the independence of the media protecting it from the partisan political interference. It is a more efficient system of regulation as the media understand their environment better than the government. Self-regulation feels the gap as a result of the globalization of the media environment, and when the questions of jurisdictions become more complicated. Self-regulation is less costly to the government since the industry bears the expenses and can be more flexible than government regulations. It encourages greater compliance as a result of competition. It improves the professional standards by demanding the organizations to develop their standards of behavior.

Since the creation of the Federal Communication Commission in 1934, it has transformed the media regulations. It functions as a police agency of the airwaves. It fine the broadcasters who violate public decency standards on the air. It can go to the extent of revoking broadcasters' licenses, keeping them off the air permanently. Some of the laws it has enforced to regulate the media are the 1941 National TV Ownership Rule that state that broadcasters cannot own television stations that reach at least 35 percent of the citizens. The 1970 radio and television ownership restriction prohibits broadcasters from owning a television station and a radio station in the same market. 1975 newspaper and broadcast ownership prohibition discourage the ownership of a television station and a newspaper in the same market.

Account for how the regulations apply to content, structure, and operation

Self-regulation is the professional responsibility of the journalists. It determines the journalist's code of conduct. The code of conduct varies in different organizations, but they share most of the elements which include the principle of accuracy, truthfulness, fairness, impartiality, and objectivity. The Code of Journalistic Ethics adopted by the first Pan-American Press Conference held in Washington in 1926 is the earliest code of conduct. In 1950, it was adopted as a rule by the Inter-American Press Association at a conference held in New York.

The code of conducts focuses on certain accepted principles, respect for the truth and the rights of the public truth. It enhances the rights to fair criticism and comments, objective and factual reporting, using fair methods to obtain information, respect the confidentiality of the source, and readiness to correct the mistakes. These form the fundamental elements of journalism.

Truth is the first obligation of journalism

Citizen is the first loyalty of journalism

The discipline of verification is the essence of journalism

Journalism practitioners are required to maintain independence from those they cover

Journalism serves as independent monitor of power

Journalism provides forums for compromises and public criticisms.

Journalism strives to make news relevant, significant, and interesting.

Journalism keeps the news proportional and comprehensive

Journalism practitioners should be allowed to exercise their conscience.

The restriction of the code conduct is that it is difficult to maintain. The restrictions are professional codes that have been voluntarily adopted by the journalists. It is quite difficult for the associated journalist to expel a colleague who has breached the codes knowingly. It does not bar them from working as journalists. Also, journalists have minimal powers within their organization. The decision on what story to cover, and the budget allocated to the story, the reputation is given to the senior manager. Media owners use their power to influence how news will be published and reported.

Different contents vary in the agency. For the broadcasts concerning political campaigns, the regulation includes equitable time which ensures that the broadcaster provides equal broadcast time to all the candidates for a given position. The right of rebuttal ensures that the broadcaster provides an opportunity for a candidate to respond to criticism made against them. An attack on a candidate cannot be aired, and the station fails to give the target of the attack a chance to respond. The fairness doctrine that ensures the broadcaster airing controversial programs provides time to air opposing views.

Conclusion

Media permits the free exchange of opinions and ideas in a democracy. It is a social actor in its rights on how to cover the events. This characteristic makes it effective to form self-regulations. Self-regulation places requirements upon the behavior of the media company, and the production of contents. The evolution of online media and the complexity of jurisdictional queries generated by the globalized environment places self-regulation at the heart of the evolving media landscape. The media professional, business, and actors have obligations to uphold in exchange for the freedom of the state interventions. The obligation is centered on the need to promote and protect freedom of expression. The obligations transparent and be made the subject of consistent reporting to the public. Self-regulation protects both the interested company and the freedom of expression.

References

Lotz, A. H. (2016). Understanding Media Industries. U.S.A: Published by Oxford University Press.