This document discusses the importance of social and cultural awareness for journalists. It notes that journalists must write about minority groups carefully and without bias to accurately represent them. The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has created guidelines for journalists to use non-biased language when writing about minority groups. These guidelines aim to prevent stereotypes but are not legally binding. The document also discusses the power of language and connotation in journalism, providing examples of biased language that can negatively portray social groups.

1. Task 10

2. Social and cultural awareness
Journalists write about all different kind of stories and all different type of people that have made their stories into the news. When reporting journalists are very aware that
when writing about a social or cultural group, their audience may not have a first hand experience with these people, and the only experience they have had is with
reading about them in the news. So it is important for journalists to write about these groups carefully, using non-connotative and emotive language that will get the
reader to think less of this social or cultural group. They must write about these groups in a non-biased way, so they are represented in the correct light. In the past
and present there are newspapers that have a big interest in making some groups look bad, for example people of different religions that are not Christians, in
particular Muslims. Other groups newspapers like to compile into a bad-light are young adults and teenagers.
The NUJ or the National Unions of Journalists are trying to prevent these assumptions that readers make by creating guidelines that journalists should follow to create a fair
and un-bias story. The NUJ have created a guidance sheet, this helps journalists to use the correct words and language when speaking about a minority group. The
groups include, terrorists, race, immigrants, people with HIV, age of people, people with disabilities and people who commit suicide. A journalist will sign up to be a
part of this union, then be expected to follow these guidelines to create fair and non-bias news. But these guidelines are not legally binding and hold no significant
place in a legal court. NUJ also make it clear that the journalist must differentiate between their opinion and the facts of a story, so there is no confusion or over-lapping
between the two. But these guidelines are not legally binding and hold no significant place in a legal court, the editors code of practice on the other hand, is
regulated to laws and can be binding in the court.
When a journalist enters into the NUJ, they have the backing of the whole union to fight for certain rights, one of the main rights is that the journalist enters the conscience
clause, which is a rule where they refuse to break any of the NUJs codes of practice, so if a journalist has been told by an editor to write an article with the intention
of putting a cultural or minority group in bad light then the journalist can refuse in theory without any fear of repercussion because they have the backing and power
of this union.
The NUJ also have 12 rules that their members are trusted to stick by when writing, the rules include that the article that the journalist is putting their name on contains only
honest, straightforward and open, the article must not invade private lives of the public, must not disrupt grievances and must not add on too distress or stress, the
article must not in anyway have any advertisements in it or endorse any products, and the journalist must avoid plagiarism. The rest of the rules are mainly common
sense and should be obvious to a good human being.
For example this article taken from the daily mail is showing that the words chosen were chosen with intent and care, but not in a good way. The journalist has made sure
they include the word ‘immigration’, ‘bogus’ and ‘foreign’. This then shines a bad light on all foreign people, making out as if they are all one person, rather than
differentiating their identities. This news article makes the reader think all foreign people are bad and capable of doing this sort of thing.
Here another article taken from the daily star is making the reader think in a certain way about a social minority group. Here the journalist has made sure to use the word
‘desperate’, ‘chopping’ and ‘he wanted to become a woman’. Here you can see the journalist is trying to portray this trans-woman as crazy and stupid. It is also
disrespectful mis-gendering her, constantly referring her as a he and writing as if they are not a woman already. It also suggests that gender isn’t flexible and that
gentiles have to match gender, making the reader think this, encouraging their misunderstanding and ignorance about this social minority group.

3. Connotation
In journalism language is the most important thing, and the way journalists manipulate their use or choice of words can
be harmful and misleading. The way something is worded, even the heading of an article, can make a readers
mind up straight away about something. Words have connotations, some stronger than others, but they are still
present, a connotation is where a reader relates a word with another, which can change the whole meaning of an
article, for example some negative connotations are people being described as being on benefits, this makes the
person seem as if they are lazy, leeches on the society and contribute nothing. Another word that has negative
connotations is immigrants, like the word benefits, it relates to being a hindrance to society, scrounging tax payers
money and over-all just being unwanted. These connotations are in place and well known because the papers
have made it that way, repeatedly writing articles focusing on the negative side of these subjects. Connotations
can also be used in a positive way, for example if a newspaper labeled someone as confident, then the reader
would think this person is sure of themselves and is an all around good person, but another newspaper could take
this subject from a different angle and label the person egotistical. Another would be youthful, this word seems
angelic and innocent, but taking this from a different angle a newspaper could use the word childlike or young
which implies the person is immature and silly. Connotations are regularly used in journalism when a journalist
want to twist a story to suit them and their views or the views of a newspaper.
An example of the use of connotative language is this article from the daily star. Here the headline is using connotative
language, with the word ‘suicidal’. This is implying that this man is crazy and insane, when he could actually have a
real illness. This also encourages the ignorance of peoples views towards suicide, readers will be reassured on
their view that suicide it is a guilty act. Other words like ‘smashing’ keep repeating the feeling that this man is
violent and insane.
An example of positive connotation is this headline found on the independent news. It is more light-hearted so the
wording is lighter and not as serious. The word ‘hero’ is used to describe a man wearing a t-shirt with a word on it.
This makes the man seem like he is amazing and clever. This will encourage the the reader to believe that this man
is brilliant and that his act was an act of genius.

4. Alternative readings
When journalists write they are writing for a particular newspaper or magazine, this newspaper usually have a target
audience in mind, for example a fashion magazine will be aiming to write for young women. Even though there is a
target audience, this still doesn't mean that someone from a different background will not read this article.
Usually journalists are careful to think about all the different ways other audiences could interoperate it, they
need to be careful this is not in a negative way. Stuart Hall thinks about the audience response literary theory or
reception theory, this focuses on what kind of negotiations the audience have with a piece of writing because of
the way its written and the words that have been chosen. An readers response to an article will depend on their
background and life experiences, so the text might not be inherent to the original meaning to the reader,
depending on their background. Minority groups are the most vulnerable to this, they may have had experiences
that are not widely know and misunderstood, like victims of crime. Or another example is reports on terrorism,
the reports should be fair and balanced, being careful not to blame a whole minority group of people, bunching
the terrorists and muslims into one group, if this is reported in an unbalanced and unfair way, this can lead the
reader to compile an unfair opinion against this minority group. Newspapers often do not follow the rules of
creating a balanced and fair article, but this is mostly done on purpose to fit the target audience, writing in a way
that they enjoy to read, to reassure their views on world issues. When looking a the same stories in different
newspapers there is a big difference in the style that they are reported in.
An example of a news story that reports on a story in a way to please their audience is this headline in the daily mail.
Here the daily mail are probably twisting a headline, to the story where they don’t actually add up. Also the
mention of ‘muslim’ is completely irrelevant and also not true, as spiders cannot be muslim, or and race. Basically
this headline is trying to blame muslims for bringing ebola to the UK. Regular readers of the daily mail will be
happy to read this with someone to blame for a tragedy, especially as it is someone who is not british.

5. Credibility
Credibility
When a journalist writes a story or an article they should write it with the intention of giving out honest and accurate information which is true and can
refer to evidence to support this. If a journalist reports a story which is twisted on purpose then an audience will either believe the story, which can
be dangerous to society, giving them bias and unfair judgments on the people that are being reported on. On the other hand if a journalist continues
to publish stories that are untrue then some of the audience may start to question this, they will question the accuracy and the credibility of the
story, and then this diminishes the trust the readers have with the newspaper, so then the audience will not read this newspaper, and this is bad for
the newspaper company.
For a journalist to write a credible story there are points they must review their work against. These points being, that their writing must be objective, so it
must not be influenced by feelings or opinions it should be not leaning to one side of the story and should report in a fair, un-bias way. The story they
are writing about must be accurate, so that all the facts they report are 100% true. These facts have to be traceable back to the source of the story,
usually by collecting primary data this can ensure that facts are as accurate as possible, and then these facts/evidence must be portrayed in a way
that doesn’t have any alternative readings, or must not be written with connotative words to portray a certain mood about the story. The journalist
must write a story that is truthful, so even if they have collected reliable and accurate evidence, they still have the opportunity to display the story in
a certain light, which would usually be unnecessarily negative. So they must be honest about the article they are writing and include all information
so that it is not one sided and so it is fair. The next thing on the list that journalists should abide by is to make a story fair, so the story must not be
one sided, they must be neutral and in the middle as they are not there to project their own opinions and views on a situation, if they wanted to do
that they should write it on a blog, a newspaper article must be written to tell the readers what is happening, the facts about it and maybe the
public’s opinion. The final thing on the list is similar to the last point that the journalist must write from a balanced point of view, it must be a fair
representation, facts must not picked to suit the journalists own opinion, or just to cause controversy or an argument.
An example of this happening in a news story Farage leads final plea for votes in today's Rochester by-election with two more Tory MPs 'in talks to
defect' if Ukip win. Here in this story The Daily Mail are reporting on UKIP’s progression in politics, here they are shining them in a positive light, not
mentioning any of negative things UKIP stand for, here they tell the reader how good it is that UKIP are. In the headline the journalist mention the
word ‘win’, which gives the feeling that they will win this mini election, so the journalist is being unbalanced in their report and is enhancing this by
using conative language because this newspaper is right winged and will give a bias view.

6. Objective
When journalists are writing articles they must follow certain guidelines so they are impartial, truthful
and unprejudiced, then their writing will be credible and readers will trust it more.
If journalists write for a certain newspaper, the news paper might have an agenda. These journalists
have to abide by this agenda when writing for the newspaper. This means that the article that the
journalists write will not be a fair and balanced view on the story, but it will be heavily influenced
by the newspaper’s agenda. For example, the Sun newspaper has a very right wing influenced
agenda, so this will mean that the journalist that is writing a story will only concentrate on writing
information in this story that compliments the right wing ideas. This kind of information portrayed
is far from the truth of what the actual story could be about, but unfortunately the majority of
mainstream news-media has some sort of leaning to right or left, meaning that this news
information cannot be 100% partial. Newspapers will really enhance the stories that favor their
agenda whilst leaving out stories that do not. When comparing right and left wing, you can see the
difference not only in the types of stories they write, but also the way they present different
stories, where you can see which newspaper is trying to push the information they want out of it
and pretending the other information is not there.
An example of this happening is comparing these two newspapers, the daily mail and the Independent,
here you can see the daily mail giving their preferred wing (right wing) space for a published news
story, and comparing to the Independent, this newspaper also shows its preferred wing (left) by
also publishing a story about a party.

7. Accurate
In order for a journalists work to be credible it must have accurate information to back it up and piece a
story together, for example times and dates must be written to the most accurate degree, so for
example a piece of information that isn't accurate would be, ‘today, yesterday, a few weeks ago’ but
a more accurate recall of the time in the story would be ‘on the 4th of October, at 7:05pm on the
12th of June’. But for these facts to be accurate the information must be right and sourced correctly,
either by finding out yourself or going to a reputable source. Facts cannot be accurate if the source
they have come from is incorrect, or if the journalist has twisted the information they got
themselves.
If false or inaccurate information is published then this can cause undue harm to the people mentioned
in the article, or it could also enhance a person wrongly. If some information that is published
causes harm to a person that it effects them badly they have to right to complain against the
journalist and newspaper. The person complaining used to go to the PCC also known as the press
complaints committee but that was closed and a new body has come forth and taken the
responsibility called Independent Press Standards Organisation or known as IPSO. Telling IPSO
about what has been wrongfully said and how it has effected them in a negative way. IPSO will then
go on to investigate the complaint, looking into the press story, what the seriousness of it was, if it
was intentional and what kind of damage it has caused and if it has breached the journalist’s code
of practice. An example of a reason why someone would complain if the newspaper are wrongfully
accusing someone of a serious crime before a trail has even taken place, e.g. murder, this is
inaccurate information and this accusation would greatly effect someone's life negatively.

8. Truthful
One of the most important thing for a journalist to do is to tell the truth when reporting stories, not twisting
words, only telling one side of the story or leaving some information out, but including everything that is
relevant to the story, and making sure it is the truth and words with connotations do not trick the
audience into believing something that isn't the truth. Writing an article needs to include facts and truth,
which should run into each other as true facts, and making sure nothing has been missed out or twisted. If
a article is changed so much a journalist could be seen as writing fiction, which isn’t their job, to present
fiction as fact. This fiction can produce ethical and legal consequences for the journalist and the journalist
is liable to being sued. But unfortunately these rules of being truthful are bend and broken to the limit,
with there being so many papers there is such fierce competition for the reader to pick up and buy it, and
for the reader to pick it the newspaper must have to most attention grabbing stories, and to make these
stories more interesting journalists will bend truth and facts. The most common fact for a newspaper will
bend is figures and statistics, because they can change them where they still are technically true to suit
the paper, but at the same time misleading. Journalists will twist the truth so much that the story actually
becomes untrue and have no basis in reality.
Here is an example of a news headline that is
twisting statics and facts, and not giving a fair
view on the story, making it seem like all Swiss
people are one collection of people who eat
cats, which obviously has no basis in reality.

9. Fair and balanced
When Journalists are writing articles they should write with an open mind and with the intention to write a
piece that is fair and balanced, one that doesn’t create or encourage any prejudices or discrimination,
especially if that prejudice is racial or sexist. If a journalist is following the NUJ codes of practice then it is
their duty to make sure none of their work could be interpreted in an unfair way, even if this was
unintentional. For a piece of writing to be fair, the story must be balanced, and it will do this by having
both sides of the story being presented in it, in a fair way, so not having just a small section of one side and
the rest the majority of the journalists preferred side, because then they are projecting their own opinion
by only choosing what they want readers to think and conjure up a certain opinion by the information
given falsely as a fair and balanced report when it actually isn’t. Even though journalists are supposed to
write in this way, they don’t and they often only chose information that backs up the way they are writing
and their opinion, even if this does lead to unfair opinions being created. The journalists will use emotive
language that will encourage a view or a side of the story to what suits them the most, putting the stories
that suit the newspapers views at the front to catch the readers attention, so they will buy it because it
also confirms their views about certain subjects. For example this headline is using emotive language like
migration and suggesting that foreign people are coming and filling up the UK. When this is unfair and
unbalanced because there are different reasons why they come here, to work and to visit family, but the
newspaper suggests that they come here to scrounge tax money.