Get The Ink Out:

This week my friend Jeff re-tweeted on Twitter the following message: “People wondering about Wikileaks & mainstream media: MM prints what people really want to read They sell eyeballs not justice [sic].”

I really respect Jeff. He’s been a pretty level-headed guy as long as I’ve known him. But in this instance I had to disagree.

Thoughts of the “biased” media only out to make a buck have been around forever. Or so it feels. On some levels, this is true, but on others not so much.

Let’s tackle that first bit, about being biased. Journalism, like any human concept, has a range of possibilities.

Yes, we do our best to give each side a fair shake. It is our due diligence to put in calls to as many people involved in a story as possible. Sometimes we get a “no comment” or never hear back from a source, which we include in the article.

But then you have certain news organizations (I won’t name names) that make it a point to focus on one side. People tend to favor those outlets because they match their own biases and viewpoints, or what they perceive to be the truth.

Some grizzled veterans like to tell of days when people read news articles and made up their minds on which side they agreed with on their own. Today it feels like more people just want the news media to tell them what to believe. This often leaves me wondering what happened to personal accountability, but that’s a thought for a different column.

This brings up another good point: What is “mainstream media”? I always took it to include anything with a message, including TV, movies, books, music, etc., not just news.

So maybe the Tweet meant “news media.” But if we are including books, TV and movies, then I would agree that it is all about getting eyeballs.

And to an extent, yes, the news media is searching for consumers as well.

After all, most of what we do is financed by advertising; however, we do feel it’s our duty to make sure we tell the public what it needs to hear, even if it doesn’t want to listen.

Sure we have some tricks to attract attention — bigger headline fonts, giant photos, certain words (like “12-inch carving knife, which we used in the April 2 issue of the Coastline Pilot, the Daily Pilot’s sister paper in Laguna Beach) — but I don’t see it being the same as, say, manipulating a woman’s image in a movie poster.

As a final point, I find it interesting that we have justice being thrown around. I’m not sure what the original writer meant by selling justice, but I think most journalists do their best to make sure things are just in the community.

I’m not aware of any real Clark Kents or Peter Parkers, but in our own way we see that the community is made a better place through our actions, whether that be making sure people know to lock their doors because of a rash of burglaries or about the next fundraiser coming up to help Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

JAMIE ROWE is a copy editor for the Daily Pilot. She may be reached at (714) 966-4634 or [email protected]. “I wish Easter happened more often,” Squee says. “I really like eating ham.”