Abstract
Like many grand ideas of modernity, the notion of public interest is assumed rather than defined. In journalism, it determines what journalism should be, rather than what journalism is. When news stories are scrutinized, the meaning of information unpacked and facts and views examined, scholars analyse journalism practice in the light of the tools used to produce the story as empirical evidence of journalistic intervention in reality and its duty to serve the public interest. This chapter approaches journalism and its public interest claim as a signifier of professional ideology. The validity and applicability of the notion of public interest is explored using a case study of reporting on immigration, a social and political issue that has attracted significant media attention over the last couple of decades. The chapter examines ethical challenges in reporting immigration, questioning the limits of normative ethics and journalism’s potential to serve the universal idea of public good.
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Notes
- 1.
Pilger, “The Stalinist Trial of Julian Assange – Press Freedom in the Dock.”
- 2.
Shafer, “When It Comes to Trump, Media Shouldn’t Keep Its Distance.”
- 3.
Iggers, Good News, Bad News: Journalism Ethics and the Public Interest.
- 4.
Dragomir, “Authoritarian Societies and Journalism.”
- 5.
Deuze, “What Is Journalism? Professional Identity and Ideology of Journalists Reconsidered,” 862.
- 6.
Josephi, “De-coupling Journalism and Democracy: Or How Much Democracy Does Journalism Need?”
- 7.
Benson, Shaping Immigration News.
- 8.
Bednarek and Caple, The Discourse of News Values: How News Organizations Create Newsworthiness.
- 9.
Horsti, “De-ethnicized Victims: Mediatized Advocacy for Asylum Seekers.”
- 10.
See, for example, Moore 2015, Triandafyllidou and Gropas 2016, Triandafyllidou 2019.
- 11.
International Organisation for Migration, “World Migration Report 2020.”
- 12.
Ibid.
- 13.
Ibid.
- 14.
Caviedes, “An Emerging ‘European’ News Portrayal of Immigration?”.
- 15.
Van Klingeren, Boomgaarden, Vliegenthart and De Vreese, “Real World Is Not Enough: The Media as an Additional Source of Negative Attitudes Toward Immigration, Comparing Denmark and the Netherlands.”
- 16.
Suro, “Promoting Misconceptions: News Media Coverage of Immigration.”
- 17.
Esses, Medianu and Lawson, “Uncertainty, Threat, and the Role of the Media in Promoting the Dehumanization of Immigrants and Refugees.”
- 18.
Rupar, Getting the Facts Right: Reporting Ethnicity and Religion.
- 19.
Johnson-Cartee, News Narratives and News Framing: Constructing Political Reality.
- 20.
Ibid.
- 21.
Downs, “The Issue-Attention Cycle and the Political Economy of Improving Our Environment.”
- 22.
Rupar, Getting the Facts Right: Reporting Ethnicity and Religion.
- 23.
Schettino, “One Year, Four Months and 21 Days. Journey from Death to Italy.” Quoted in Rupar, Getting the Facts Right.
- 24.
Ibid.
- 25.
Ibid.
- 26.
Rupar, Getting the Facts Right: Reporting Ethnicity and Religion, 24.
- 27.
Ibid.
- 28.
Il Giornale, “Only in Rome, One in Three Rape Cases Is Their Fault.” Quoted in Rupar, Getting the Facts Right.
- 29.
Ibid.
- 30.
Pantti and Ojala, “Caught Between Sympathy and Suspicion: Journalistic Perceptions and Practices of Telling Asylum Seekers’ Personal Stories.”
- 31.
Scammell and Semetko, The Media, Journalism and Democracy.
- 32.
Political Communication Report 2006.
- 33.
Hallin, “The Passing of the ‘High Modernism’ of American Journalism.”
- 34.
Political Communication Report 2006.
- 35.
Ibid.
- 36.
Ibid.
- 37.
Rupar, “Reflections on Journalism and Objectivity: An Episode, Ideal or Obstacle?”
- 38.
Westerståhl, “Objective News Reporting: General Premises.”
- 39.
Schudson, “The Objectivity Norm in American Journalism.”
- 40.
Ibid., 161.
- 41.
International Federation of Journalists’ Statement of Principles on the Conduct of Journalists.
- 42.
Hall, Critcher, Jefferson, Clarke and Roberts. The Social Production of News.
- 43.
Tuchman, “Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen’s Notions of Objectivity,” 91.
- 44.
Weigold, “Communicating Science: A Review of the Literature.”
- 45.
Sorauf, “The Public Interest Reconsidered.”
- 46.
Ibid., 619–623.
- 47.
International Federation of Journalists’ Statement of Principles on the Conduct of Journalists.
- 48.
Schudson, “Notes on Scandal and the Watergate Legacy,” 11.
- 49.
Trilling, “Five Myths About the Refugee Crisis.”
- 50.
Ibid.
- 51.
Glasser and Ettema, “Investigative Journalism and the Moral Order.”
- 52.
Geertz, Local Knowledge.
- 53.
Glasser and Ettema, 2.
- 54.
Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, 8.
- 55.
Schudson, The New Journalism, 43–44.
- 56.
Standaert, Hanitzsch, and Dedonder, “In Their Own Words: A Normative–Empirical Approach to Journalistic Roles Around the World.”
- 57.
Ibid., 4–5.
- 58.
Iggers, Good News, Bad News:Journalism Ethicsand thePublic Interest.
- 59.
Warner, “Publics and Counter-Publics.”
- 60.
Munshi, Kurian, Fraser and Rupar, “‘Shadow Publics’ in the News Coverage of Socio-political Issues.”
- 61.
Ibid., 9.
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Rupar, V. (2021). Revisiting the Public Interest: Journalism and the Global Immigration Crisis. In: Ward, S.J.A. (eds) Handbook of Global Media Ethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32103-5_35
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