By Gabriel Princewill-
The British Media will be assessed for the year 2018 for its competence, objectivity, and responsibility. The assessment is expected to cover a wide range of areas ranging from factual reporting, competence, responsibility and bias. Members of The Eye Of Media.Com met for a few hours last Thursday and Friday to discuss the plans at length and identify potential areas of examination for our writers and researchers to examine.
The assessment will be done in consultation with Ipso and The Nuj, and will also draw from external parties constituting our outstanding thinktank team. The aim of the assessment is to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the British media as reflected over the year, and make due recommendations for change and progress for the year ahead in various areas. The media is an important and indispensable vehicle for disseminating information, but must execute its operations fairly and with integrity as much as lies in its power.
Aspects of the media for which reform must be recommended will include areas of factual reporting that have been called into question through official reprimand from the Independent Press Regulator. Offending publications caught breaching the regulators codes of conduct have always offered an apology but more pertinent to the essence of this annual review is an observation and identification of the types of breaches that are recurrent across the media, and the deductions that can be made about the journalists in question and their editors.
Other areas to be examined include areas that show some areas of the media to have been lacking seriously in judgement, where it would have been expected for the publication to have exercised greater levels of prudence.
Members of the media are not infallible, but there are certain fundamental qualities and attributes that are expected to be found in every journalist and editor. Apart from factual reporting, publications should be conscious of the requirement to be fair, reasonable, and abhor all forms of bias or discrimination in their reporting. Editors have the integral duty of overseeing the work of those under their charge. We will begin releasing our findings as we go along, our aim being to contribute positively to the making and sustenance of a credible and dignified corporate media, as opposed to one whose image is tarnished by preconceptions of mistrust , unreliability, and misgivings.
It is of paramount importance that we work towards the desirable goal of eradicating all negative connotations from the British press through collective action which can serve as a much needed impetus for change. All sections of the media reserve the right for autonomy, but there are simply certain standards of professionalism expected from all professional publications. Publications are expected to demonstrate integrity in their reporting and embody the desired principles of ethics, truth, and accountability for the overall benefit of society and our troubled world today.
After a number of internal meetings discussing why the decision for many members of the press to pursue articles that glorify porn actress, Stormy Daniels, I was impressed when one of our writers caught the Daily Mail promoting Daniels in the full scale of her reprehensible job. The writer said the article was actually pointed out to them by a friend of theirs who keeps abreast with our outlet. The extent to which some writers and publications consciously or inadvertently go to perpetuate a deterioration in societal standards, never cease to shock and disappoint me.
Stormy Daniels is a professional prostitute whose exaltation by any media outlet exhibits a flagrant disregard of the need to be accountable for the values we even subconsciously establish through the medium of print. Her inclusion into the media buzz equation has contributed to close scrutiny and assessment by our team, with a view of making useful extrapolations that can further our understanding of why some of the shortcomings that happen actually occur.
The distaste many sections of the press have for President Donald Trump has been used to fuel an undignified and indefensible level of support for a woman who really deserves none of it. The Oxford Union shamefully invited Daniels to talk about porn to its members, but neither the Union nor their president has been able to provide a single sentence to our publication in defence of their actions. Several other weaknesses of the press will be evaluated, but the strong points of the press should also not be forgotten or left out.
As part of the media family of the Uk, it is imperative for us to thoroughly examine certain areas of the press that call for change and sharper alert by journalists and editors. The many positive values of the press should also be highlighted and celebrated.
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