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A Shameful Display of Journalism (News Media Critique)

A Shameful Display of Journalism

 On September 16th local news site WHAS11 published an article titled "Man injured in Jennings County hit-and-run; police searching for vehicle" that utterly fails to adhere to some of the most basic principles that constitute quality journalism. The article certainly is not an outlier among countless other similar stories, but it represents a long trend of local news organizations giving up potential shots at being recognized as esteemed institutions in exchange for lackluster and meaningless reporting that, nonetheless, gathers ad revenue. There are many yardsticks and elements of journalism that this article does not even attempt to meet. This article would certainly be a dent in the reputation of any organization really striving to be seen as a good news source.

To start off, this article is not newsworthy. To be deemed newsworthy, an article must be about an event that will have a "lasting effect on a lot of people". One hit-and-run will certainly have a lasting impact on a few people. It will have a large and lasting impact on the victim, his or her family and acquaintances and the perpetrator and his or her family and acquaintances. This small group of people certainly would not be considered "a lot of people". The article and countless others with a near identical premise published on WHAS11's website and other local news sites are not newsworthy.

The article "Man injured in Jennings County hit-and-run; police searching for vehicle" does not just fall short on meeting one yardstick of journalism. The yardstick of context is also clearly not met. The article repeatedly repeats what reporters heard from police. The police seem to be the only source contacted for information about the crime. There are no eyewitness accounts (Granted, there may be none as the event occured before five in the morning) or evident attempts to dig deeper than what anyone could easily figure from asking a singular source. The only evident evidence of a source other than the Jennings County Police Department being contacted is the fact that the article says the man hit in the hit-and-run was admitted to University Hospital, "where he is listed in critical condition".

The journalists behind this shameful misrepresentation of true reporting could do nothing about the fact that the article is not newsworthy. There really isn't a story in what they were reporting on, so the authors, only named "WHAS11 Staff" in the article, simply should not have researched or published the article. The article's complete lack of context (sources), on the other hand, could have been improved. The reporter(s) working on the story could have asked people that live near by if they heard or saw anything. The reporters could have asked the hospital more specifically how the man was injured. They could have not published the story until more details could be acquired, such as who the driver that hit the man was and a more detailed status of the victim. WHAS11 needs to better uphold the standards of good journalism for the benefit not just of their news organization, but for that of the community.

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