Hello, I am Vladimir Kolodkin. We've already defined what goes into the process of determining what makes a story newsworthy. Journalism still plays a major role in the production and distribution of reliable news, that is why every responsible news consumer should be able to differ information products made by journalists from similar products or even fakes made without following the standards of journalism. Let's look at what makes journalism trustworthy. The value and uniqueness of journalists lie in several important principles of their daily work. They are embedded in the definition of news that we recently formulated. As we see, newsworthy information is always a subject to a journalistic process of verification, and for which an independent person or outlet is directly accountable. Pay attention to these three defining attributes of journalism: verification, independence, and accountability. They are prerequisites for organizing any journalistic work. Sometimes we'll use the shorthand VIA. Let's start with verification. The journalist collecting information verifies its reliability: how much it reflects the true situation and corresponds to the changed reality. Thus, verification is the process that establishes or confirms the accuracy or truth of something. News organizations hire editors and researchers to check information and assure reports are factual and fair. Secondly, a journalist should be independent of the authorities, corporations, parties, as well as their own biases, and financial or private interests when performing their work. Let's consider journalistic independence as freedom from the control, influence, or support of interested parties, coupled with a conscious effort to set aside pre-existing beliefs and a system of checks and balances. Please take a note that opinion writers or commentators usually takes sides, but they remain journalists as long as their opinions are grounded on fact and arrived at independently. Finally, any journalist, together with the editor, are responsible or answerable for their work. That is, they do not hide their names, the address and contacts of the editorial office, and are ready to publish corrections at anytime if a mistake was discovered. Journalists stand behind their work with bylines that identify the reporter and often contain an email link. When you're searching for news on the Internet or using apps, it's a good idea to take a look at the 'About Us' section. It's there that the site, application explains its work and goals. It's being accountable. Sites, applications without a section 'About Us' are suspect. We have three attributes of real journalism: verification, independence, and accountability. All three principles must be followed to be considered journalism. If at least one principle is missing, then what you have may be interesting, informative, or provocative - it might even be true - but it's not journalism. A huge variety of information products are offered to us every day. Many of them are very similar to journalism. And many deliberately try to pass themselves off as it, carefully disguising themselves. And even if, metaphorically speaking, we find ourselves in a news hypermarket and try to grab something from the shelf labeled 'Journalism', there is no guarantee that it will not turn out to be a hoax, hidden advertising or propaganda. The responsible consumer can only arm himself with the knowledge of these three interrelated principles of journalism, and check each time - does the offered information meet these requirements? I propose to get acquainted with the most frequent neighbors of journalism on the imaginary shelf. To clarify the differences between similar things, we'll try to find out how they relate to VIA, as well as identify the primary goal, methods, practitioners, and outcome. As you see now in the example with journalism, now we see that we have verification, independence, and accountability. The first similar product. What kind of information do you gather when you are watching a TV show or playing a video game? Is any of it actionable? For the purposes of this course, here's what we mean by Entertainment: anything that offers pleasure, diversion, fun, or amusement - in the form of shows, performances, social media challenges, etc. As opposed to recreation, an activity in which you participate, this is media you consume as a passive participant. Now, VIA checking. Confirmation or verification is beside the point of this information. Entertainment's first priority is to seize and hold an audience. The producer controls the content and can therefore support any point of view. Independence is no, and accountability - yes. Entertainment producers do sign their work. They do sometimes correct errors publicly. Merchants and political candidates pay to place advertisements in newspapers and broadcasts or on websites. But in fact, they pay not for space or time, but for the attention of the target audience of the news outlet, and the media gains these attention with its reputation based on the audience's trust in the information reported. After getting this attention, the advertiser has only one goal - to sell goods or services by increasing their appeal to potential buyers by any legal means. Here the rule works: whoever pays the piper calls the tune. That is why the news media using various visual or sound marks should highlight advertising messages in order not to confuse the consumer and not to lose his trust. I will show you this example on my slide. You can see here in this article that we have the logo of the bank. Also, we see the address block of the company and also the disclaimer that this is an advertisement and this is the demands of the law. What about VIA? In this case everything is obvious - advertisers control both content and presentation. Now, independence is sacrificed at every step of this process. Although false advertising is illegal, advertisers are given broad leeway to make one-sided claims without confirming or establishing truth. Accountability? Ad writers and producers do not sign their work. But clients occasionally publish/air corrections. Publicity or public relations is the process of attracting attention in a positive way. There's no overt ‘Buy my stuff, on sale today only’ message. Instead, classic PR tools include sponsorships, staged events, product placement, press releases, carefully worded public statements, and other efforts to make goods, services, and personalities more appealing. What about VIA principle? One-sided, it doesn't aim to confirm or establish truth. No verification. The situation with independence is the same as in the advertising. Publicists and PR stuff rarely sign their work, but are sometimes required to correct errors publicly. Next and quite dangerous neighbor of journalism is propaganda. Information, ideas or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution or nation. It may be biased or misleading in order to promote an ideology or political point of view. Nazi and Soviet propaganda campaigns, often crude and dehumanizing offer the textbook examples. In the digital age, though, propaganda has grown more sophisticated and the Internet has made it easier than ever to spread it widely. As you see in the VIA principle, there is no verification, no independence, and no accountability because propaganda is always a misleading information. Next, one more very similar but non-journalism product - Raw information. Information from anonymous Telegram channel, for instance, could be the subject of journalism, but in its original form, it is what we, for the purposes of this course, call raw information. In many ways, it is unedited, unverified, and posted by persons with unknown intentions. As I said, there's no verification, no independence, and we don't know who they are. Sometimes boundaries between information products are blurred by providers who stand to benefit from use consumers losing their bearings. Confusing similarity is one way that is playing out and making it harder for news consumers to find reliable information in the digital age. The danger is that people forget drama and journalism have vastly different purposes, even when tackling the same issue or even set of historic events. We offer some simple ways to clarify the reliability of movie or TV story. If it has actors in it and the word ‘drama’ in its description, it is entertainment, not news. Watch for the disclaimers ‘based on facts’ or ‘docudrama’. Pay attention to the use of recreations of the action and scene, etc. If those techniques are used, it's hard to verify that version of the events. And if a program or film is produced by the entertainment division of a TV company, film studio or Internet channel, then it is not journalism too.
