Justin Sayers and Kirsten Clark Report
on "Floyd Central student arrested after 'credible
threat' to safety."
September 13, 2016
The Courier Journal printed an article by journalists Justin Sayers and Kirsten Clark in their newspaper on Tuesday, September 13, 2016. In this printed article, the two journalists wrote about a Floyd Central student posting a selfie that contained him and a shotgun with the caption, "Ready for school tomorrow" and what effects it had on the community. They covered the story fairly well, stating the facts and informing the public about this local travesty, but these journalists failed to meet two of the most important elements of journalism.
In the article the two journalists wrote, "I would like to take this time to praise not only law enforcement and central office administration for their help and cooperation, but the teaching staff and student body." As soon as I read that one sentence I knew that this article was in need of reformation. Justin Sayers and Kirsten Clark failed to meet the element of journalism known as loyalty. They broke this element because being a journalist means that your first loyalty is to the people, not praising the law enforcement.
Most, maybe all, people would agree that the law enforcement needed praise for stopping this threat but that does not mean you can state that in your article. These two journalists failed to meet these two standards of the ten elements of journalism because this article devotes itself to a certain group, in this case the law enforcement. It makes you wonder if this source is credible and not just an article devoted to saying how well the police handled this problem. This element of journalism that they have broken is known as independence.
They included what happened and what was done to help the Floyd Central student body. The only problem in their article was when they gave praise to the law enforcement, no matter how needed it may be. They could've left those few sentences out of the article, making it free of prejudice.
After reading this article, I can determine that it focused on praising the law enforcement agencies and that the first loyalty this article needed to have is the people.
The journalists didn't write that statement — that was a quote from the school's principal. The authors of the story did not personally praise the police.
ReplyDelete