The public is as equally accountable as journalists (Newswriting)

Roy Peter Clark, senior scholar and writer for Poynter Online, holds the public partially responsible for bias against journalists. Clark provides several main points in which he gives the public benefit of the doubt, but he also explains how and why the public is accountable.

"But I hold journalists less responsible -- and the public more responsible -- for misperceptions of news media performance," Clark said. "In short, the last two decades have seen unprecedented attacks upon the legitimacy of the news media."

I agree with Clark, and I'm not doing it strictly because I consider myself a journalist, but because I never thought to hold the public just as accountable as journalists.

It's the journalist's duty to remain unbiased and to give the most objective story as possible. I truly believe a journalist wouldn't be in the field if he or she didn't think so as well. True, there are the "bad apples" that smear journalism's credibility, but that is seen in every profession as well.

The public remains solely dependent on media for news, and journalists will go to the most extreme measures in bringing the news to them. There have been record number of journalists killed from being in war-torn areas, and yet all journalists ever hear are the criticisms from the public. Where is the good that comes from journalism? Where the people who appreciate the lives and professions being risked to inform the public?

Clark argues that without "public support and a growing audience," journalists will become unable to accomplish the responsibility to report. Journalists are lacking credibility, and it continues to decline. There has to be trust between both the public and journalists to achieve the most informational news as possible. Where is the support and credibilty going to be in 30 years if this doesn't happen? I see journalists who don't care about the truth, and the public in having finally killed news.