Journalists have a Responsibility to Conscience!

        In the book of my journalism class, The Elements of Journalism, I read about the responsibility of journalists. 

Journalists have an obligation to exercise their personal conscience. 

        For journalists to be able to exercise their conscience, managers and owners have to create an open newsroom, an environment that is essential to fulfilling the principles of journalism. However, exercising conscience is not easy. Allowing individuals to voice their consciences in the newsroom makes running the newspaper more difficult. It makes the news more accurate. Journalism is a moral act and know that all of their background and values direct what reporters will do and not do in producing a newspaper. 

        Since the audiences are looking for information, but they are also looking for validation, for authority, for honesty, and for a sense that the journalists have their interests at heart, journalists need to be more impartial, neutral, and objective and also be more credible and reliable. Linda Foley, the president of the Newspaper Guild, told us,  "it's credibility, more than objectivity, that's important for us in our industry.... there has to be a culture in newsrooms that allows a journalists to have a free and open discussion."