Principles of Journalism 3: Impacting People

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From the course by University of Pennsylvania

English for Journalism

1039 ratings

University of Pennsylvania

English for Journalism

1039 ratings

Welcome to English for Journalism, a course created by the University of Pennsylvania, and funded by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Office of English Language Programs. To enroll in this course for free, click on “Enroll now” and then select "Full Course. No certificate." This course is designed for non-native English speakers who are interested in developing the skills needed for a career in modern journalism. In this course, you will explore print and digital media through authentic readings and video lectures, while expanding your vocabulary and increasing your ability to read, research, and develop local and global news stories. Unit 1 will provide an introduction to the history and principles of journalism. In unit 2, you will learn how to research, pitch, and interview. The next unit in the course will focus on the language needed to write newspaper and magazine articles, while unit 4 will cover the basics of broadcasting the news. In the final unit of the course, you will analyze the growth, impact, and challenges of digital news, while completing a reflection assignment that allows you to think about and discuss the recent changes to the field of journalism. Unless otherwise noted, all course materials are available for re-use, repurposing and free distribution under a Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution license. Supplemental reading materials were provided by Newsela, which publishes daily news articles at a level that's just right for each English language learner.

From the lesson

Unit 1: Introduction and Principles of Journalism

In this unit, you will first learn about how the course works. Then we will explore the history of journalism, as well as important principles, or ideas, that make good journalism possible.

Principles of Journalism 1: Gathering Sources6:49

Principles of Journalism 2: Telling the Story5:31

Language Focus – Word Families6:26

Principles of Journalism 3: Impacting People6:11

Language Focus – Phrases for Agreeing and Disagreeing6:00

Meet the Instructors

John Cotton
Manager of Instructional Staff Development
English Language Programs
Eve Litt
Language Specialist
English Language Programs

Welcome to unit one, The Principles of Journalism, Making an Impact.

In this video, we will continue to look at the principles of journalism.

In other videos, we looked at principles related to gathering sources and

telling the story.

In this video, we're going to look at the principles that are about impacting

people, meaning, how people are affected by the articles that a journalist writes.

We're going to talk now about the last four principles of journalism, restraint,

humanity, accountability, and empowerment.

The first one of these principles is restraint.

People show restraint when they stop themselves from doing something.

Journalists show restraint when they stop themselves from writing things

that could be bad for people.

For example, sometimes people think the wrong person has committed a crime.

And in the rush to break the story his or her name and

picture could be release on the Internet.

Now this could have very bad consequences for somebody who has done nothing wrong.

Showing restraints avoids hurting innocent people

and creates a better story because when facts are verified properly,

they have a better chance of being accurate and true.

Journalists also show restraint when they allow their sources to be anonymous.

This means that nobody knows their name.

Journalists need to do this because sometimes bad things could happen

to the person if their name was known.

They might lose their job or possibly even get hurt.

Another principle that a journalist must think about is humanity.

This means caring about other people.

Treating them with respect, treating them as humans, not just part of a story.

In an earlier video, we said that journalists should be objective,

not favoring one side or another.

However, a journalist can be both objective in their writing and

sympathetic to the people in a story.

For example, journalists need to think about the feelings of a crime

victim's friends and family even when they're rushing to write a story

A third principle is accountability.

This means that a person takes responsibility for their actions.

They are responsible for the things they do.

For a journalist, there are two types of accountability.

The first is personal.

A journalist must be responsible for the story that they write,

balancing what the public needs to know, and the rights of the people involved.

Also, if there are mistakes in the story, a journalist must admit and correct them.

The second type of accountability involves making the people in power

responsible for their actions.

People in power may try to hide their actions from the public.

The job of a journalist is to shine a light on these actions and

let everybody know what the person in power has done.

For example, in a situation where drinking water has been polluted,

the people responsible for making sure the water is clean should explain

what happened and what they're doing to stop it happening again.

The fourth principle is empowerment,

which means giving power to people who do not have it.

There are many people all over the world who are powerless.

They have no control over how they live.

They might be living in poverty, refugees, victims of war or natural disasters.

A journalist's job is to speak for the people who don't have the power to speak.

This is where ordinary people can become citizen journalists

by sharing what they see with the world.

We'll look more at the role of citizen journalists in a later video.

So, to summarize, in this video,

we looked at the principles of restraint, humanity,

accountability, and empowerment which are important for

journalists to follow so that they can make an impact on people.

So now we have covered all ten of the principles of journalism.

Be sure to consider these principles as we explore journalism throughout the course.

Next, check your journalism vocabulary with the following game.

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