Professionalism is for Everyone

It used to be that everyone could just assume that professionalism was something that could just be assumed, but with journalism professionalism is something that needs to be taught.

Although we have been taught as journalism students what professionalism consists of we still may feel unprepared for the world after school. Something new journalists can do in order to prepare for professionalism in the world is read the book Professionalism is for Everyone. This book provides five important ways to becoming a professional. It reinforces things such as ethics, values, and personal standards of performances.

The five different ways of becoming a professional includes: character, attitude, excellence, competency, and conduct. Each one of these ways has a lists of do's and don't's beginning at each chapter.

There are many clients that have purchased this book already, and they found many positive results already. These clients are from many different types of professional backgrounds. If they say that is has been a reliable source for them, then why wouldn't it work for you? Therefore, don't waste anymore time purchase your own copy of Professionalism is for Everyone.

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Give us the Goodies!

J-schools have a unique way of shoving it down students' throats that digital media is the way to go when it comes to the future of journalism. For most of us poor college students, buying new iPads, Kindles, and smartphones aren't always within our budget.

Here's where J-Schools can come into play.

I believe firmly that journalism programs need to put their money where their mouth is. If they want us to "believe" in digital media, then provide us with the goods. We, as students, want to know how to digitize our news. We just need a little jumpstart.

The statistics how digital use don't lie. In the State of the Media report, 84 percent of the surveyed population said they use a mobile device of some sort. In the same report, the number of tablet use is doubling by the month.

Other schools are using mobile digital media. Southern Cal's program is learning how to report news with an iPad. Abilene Christian down south was one of the first college newspapers to release their app back last April. The Iowa State Daily hopes to launch an Android and an iPad version of their paper towards mid-April.

Let us play with some new toys so we can gain an advantage. Isn't that what college professors are giving students anyway?

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A New Face to Journalism

The queen of outrageous fashion choices and bizarre performances has taken on a new identity: magazine journalist. Singer Lady Gaga announced that she will begin writing as a fashion journalist for V Magazine next month.

"Each issue, Mother Monster will put pen to the page, bringing us an editorial window into her fashion multiverse," the magazine stated.

Those who read her column will get an inside look not only at the unique character of Lady Gaga, but at her unique fashion taste and choices as well.

V Magazine promoted the column through creation of the contest entitled Drawn This Way, a play off of Lady Gaga's most recent album entitled Born This Way.

In this contest, readers and fans are encouraged to create an illustration of Lady Gaga and submit them to the magazine. The winning illustration will be featured as Lady Gaga's headshot when her column is featured in the magazine.

I think this is a good move for the magazine. As a fashion magazine, who better to have as a columnist than one of the most interesting people in the fashion industry? Lady Gaga's large, faithful fan club also known as her "monsters" will surely help her column draw plenty of attention.

Even people who may not be a fan of Lady Gaga's music will be interested in the article because of her fashion statements. Whether they like the statements or not, most people will agree that they are statements that are different and interesting.

For more information on Lady Gaga's newest career, visit this link.

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Israeli Prime Minister Fights Local Media

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a long, rocky relationship with the Israeli media.

On Tuesday, March 29th, Netanyahu filed $300,000 libel suits against an Israeli TV station and a newspaper over reports of his excessive lifestyle.

Although these reports are on incidents that allegedly occured during Netanyahu's time in Parliament and unrelated to his term as prime minister, Netanyahu claims that they were false and reported to ridicule and humiliate him.

"[The reports] were disparaging," says an aide from Netanyahu's camp. "[They were] very hurtful and created a negative portrayal of him, depicting him as a felon."

The libel suit claims that Israel's Channel 10 falsely reported that Netanyahu failed to report financial contributions from foreign donors.

The suit against newspaper Maariv claims the newspaper reported that Netanyahu and his wife paid $17,000 for a meal abroad, as part of a pattern of extravagant behavior. Israel's State Comptroller has stated that these allegations will be investigated.

Other Channel 10 reports accused Netanyahu of allowing wealthy foreign benefactors to pay for private flights, expensive meals and luxury hotel rooms for him and his family. Other news outlets have published similar allegations. The libel suit does not address these allegations.

These reports and similar ones by other local newspapers, have seriously damaged Netanyahu's reputation. Netanyahu has responded with hostility, claiming that Channel 10 and other media outlets have begun a campaign to besmirch his name.

Aluf Benn, editor-at-large for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz Daily, believes this is largely unnecessary. "Netanyahu is portraying himself as a victim of political persecution on the part of the left-wing media," says Benn.

"[But] it's doubtful that Netanyahu will now be perceived as having ... seriously violated the rules of ethics, or that this episode will hang over the rest of his term of office."

Many Israeli journalists have long been frustrated with Netanyahu's suspicion of traditional news outlets. Rarely holding news conferences or granting interviews, Netanyahu has recently embraced YouTube, Twitter and Facebook to bypass local journalists and speak directly to the people.

As Netanyahu joins President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron in YouTube's World View project, answering questions directly through the popular video-sharing website, some journalists believe this is a way of evading questions that Netanyahu views as annoying or biased.

"He doesn't want to deal with uncomfortable questions and he doesn't like to be interrupted," said Nahum Barnea, a political columnist at the Yedoit Ahronot Daily. "There is no dialogue anymore. It's become a monologue, with no back and forth."

Netanyahu has also restricted access to foreign journalists as well. He took only four questions at his annual meeting with foreign correspondents in January and subjected many of the journalists there to invasive strip searches by security guards.

"He's constantly trying to find ways to bypass us," said Danny Zaken, chairman of Israel's press association. "We believe that every public servant should make himself available to journalists and their questions."

Despite these claims, Netanyahu's office maintains that this is not the case.

"We understand the importance of new media in the modern world - it allows the prime minister to speak to the people without filters," said spokesman Mark Regev. "But I don't think it has to come at the expense of the traditional media."

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Top 10 Twitter Users

Who is your favorite celebrity? Or how about musican? Are you following them on Twitter? The answer is most likely yes.

1. The most popular Twitter user at the moment is Lady Gaga, @ladygaga, with 9,127,120 followers.

2. The runner up for first place is teen singing sensation Justin Bieber, @justinbieber, with 8,492,294 followers.

3. Third place is pop star Britney Spears, @britneyspears, with 7,283,609 followers.

4. Fourth place twitter is President Barack Obama, @BarackObama, with 7,215,354 followers.

5. Fifth place is held by reality television star Kim Kardashian, @KimKardashian, with 6,962,871 followers.

6. What about former twitter champ Ashton Kutcher, @aplusk? He now has fallen to sixth place with 6,507,333 followers.

7. Top 40 singer Katy Perry, @katyperry, is in seventh place with 6,469,984 followers.

8. Television host Ellen DeGeneres, @TheEllenShow, with 6,301,221.

9. Country music superstar Taylor Swift, @taylorswift13, is in ninth place with 5,795,999 followers.

10. Tenth place is held none other than Oprah Winfrey, @Oprah, with 5,467,114 followers.

All of these famous people have the blue official Twitter symbol by their names verifying that is is the actual star. A notable mention is Charlie Sheen, @charliesheen, in 34th place with 3,331,387 followers. Remember that he started his Twitter account just a few weeks back. The number of followers that he has now is incredible.

If you want to search your favorite star follow the link to see the Top 100. Remember: that the numbers might be slightly off due to new followers every minute.

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Ethics of Journalism

The ethics of journalism is one of the most well-defined branches of media ethics, primarily because it is frequently taught in schools of journalism.

Historically and currently, this subset of media ethics is widely known to journalists as their professional "code of ethics" or the "canons of journalism."

This famous Code of Ethics includes four obligations for journalists:

- Seek thruth and report it: journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information.

- Minimize harm: Ethical journalists treat sources, subjects and colleagues as human beings deserving of respect.

- Act independently: journalists should be free of any obligation to any interest other than the public's right to know.

- Be accountable: journalists are accountable to their readers, listeners, viewers and each other.

Many journalism scandals can be find through out U.S history. Journalism scandals are high-profile incidents or acts, whether intentional or accidental, that run contrary to the generally accepted ethics and standards of journalism, or otherwise violate the "ideal" mission of journalism: to report news events and issues accurately and fairly.

The case of Jason Blair, former journalist at the New York Times, is an exemple of journalism scandal due to plagiarism. Jason Blair was just 27 when he resigned in shame in 2003.

"I lied and I lied-and then I lied some more," he explained. "I lied about where I had been, I lied about where I had found information. I lied about how I wrote the story."

For more information about law and ethics, you can read those several landmark libel cases that described either the obligations, either the rights of the press: New York Times v. Sullivan; AP v. Walker and Curtis Publishing v. Butts ; Gertz v. Welch.

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Mistakes in Journalism

Everyone makes mistakes. Even journalists.

These mistakes can come in a variety of places: spelling errors, grammar mistakes, false quotes, or even false information.

One huge example of this that comes to mind is when NPR mistakenly reported that Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was dead after receiving a shot to the head.

As is talked about in this article, there are many ways in which mistakes such as these can actually be avoided.

1.Be sure of your source. This is essential. If you just choose a random person off the street, your information may be less reliable than say picking multiple people off the street or using a source you know is trustworthy. Also with this, make sure that your source would have access to the information they are claiming is true.

2. Make sure they have evidence. Otherwise, it could all just be speculation or rumor. Having concrete evidence increases the reliability of a source and the information you are receiving.

3. Don't assume. As we were always taught, it makes "an ass out of u and me". Just because something appears a certain way doesn't mean that is always the case, as like what happened with Giffords.

4. Don't hop the bandwagon. Don't simply report something that someone else has reported, even if it is big news, unless you have actual confirmation from trusted and informed sources. Doing this could have prevented the rapid spread of the false news that Giffords had died.

For more tips be sure to check out the article mentioned above or feel free to comment if you have any questions.

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