About: Journalism
Journalism's multivalence lies in the artful blending of collections of data, nuance and detail previously unexposed, and social critique, so that the reader is positioned in reflexivity; a place they can examine the assumptions that they've taken for granted. This final step is cradled by a hint made by the journalist of a widening social question needing to be addressed in public forums.
"Journalists describe society to itself. They convey information, ideas and opinions, a privileged role. They search,
disclose, record, question, entertain, suggest and remember. They inform citizens and animate democracy. They give practical form to freedom of expression."
(MEAA, Code of Ethics).
"Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for
opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making."
(Milton, 1644)
"In a way you might say that newspapers are the cradle of the Enlightenment rather than vice versa. It's the formation of the reading public that has a sense of belonging to a political community, has a sense of civic responsibility, that creates the kinds of ideas that can then lead to the transformation of society. So in a way it's the other way round. It's not that newspapers follow enlightened versions of society, but out of the kinds of arguments that take place within newspapers - but also inside coffee houses where newspapers are read and debated - that creates the society in which the enlightenment can take place."
(Joad Raymond, 2006)