Journalism provides something unique to a culture

Journalism provides something unique to a culture: independent, reliable, accurate, and comprehensive information that citizens require to be free. A journalism that is asked to provide something other than that subverts democratic culture. - The Elements of Journalism by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel

For a story to be well-received by an audience it has to meet the above criteria. It cannot be something someone has paid you to promote; it must be independent. It cannot be something that includes false quotes or statistics or information that is outdated; it must be reliable -- a journalist must be out there covering the news when it happens to provide reliable accounts of events. It cannot be something that includes names and quotes that were never said to make the narrative seem better and crisper; it must include verbatim quotes, not guesses, making it accurate.

This is important: it must be comprehensive. A number of small outlets that operate without offices or a large staff often make articles that are 100 words or 200 words or 300 words thinking they are providing news for the Twitter generation: short and sweet. But there is a problem, with such short accounts of news, there is clearly, one feature that is lacking: the article or account is not comprehensive. How do you figure if something is comprehensive? A person who is reading the article should be able to get a full grasp of what is being talked about without having to check other sources or websites or newspapers to find further information on the subject.

An example: say there was a shooting in Paterson, NJ on Monday and there was another shooting on Wednesday -- both of these incidents were reported during the aforementioned days. And there was a shooting on Friday.

Monday: the shooting from Monday is covered.
Wednesday: the shooting from Wednesday is covered, and a bit of information is provided about the shooting that took place on Monday.
Friday: the article begins with shooting that took place on Friday, includes that one that happened on Monday and the one that happened on Wednesday.


This is comprehensive! Good reporters write it in such a manner to inform their readers that they live in a very violent town where there is three shooting in the same week. "Journalism provides...information that citizens require to be free," writes Bill Kovach. By providing that final comprehensive account of the three shootings that unfolded provides the citizen information enough to give him ample time to exercise his liberty to get the hell out of that town.