- alexgovan1
- Mar 26, 2022
- 2 min read
Updated: May 3, 2022
Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States once said:
“The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Although this was said over two centuries ago, the relevance of the statement still remains. We’ve had mass worldwide scandals from Watergate in the 1970’s to the Panama papers in the 2010’s and more recently in Australia, the publishing of the Afghan Files. Without journalists some of the most significant scandals, stories of white collar and government corruption and serious crimes would never have been revealed to the public. Journalism therefore operates as the fourth estate in society. It is the watchdog for corruption, injustice and truth around the world. Without it, people everywhere would be in significant danger of exploitation and potentially living under the power of authoritarian rulers.
Beginning in Ancient Greece, democracy and journalism developed both hand in hand. Just as it does today, the love/hate relationship between politicians and journalism was ever present. Politicians could profit from the media (newspapers at the time) as it could help them win re-election or maintain their current power. On another note the newspapers could hold power to account and politician’s responsible for any problems they may cause to society. During this time however, news was not so easily retrieved as printing had only just begun making it difficult for people to receive up to date information (Lamble, 2016).
With the abundance of technologies in the world today, news has become extremely easy to access for the billions of people around the world. Many would agree it has become too easy and is simply an overload of information. This makes the 21st century one of the most important periods for journalists to perform their role in society. It is journalists who sort through this information, separating the truth from the lies and the important from the unimportant and deliver it to the public in a news article, program or documentary (Lamble, 2016).
Reference:
Lamble, S. (2016). News as it happens: An introduction to journalism (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.
