Apples, Grade A Meat, and Magazines

Today, I saw some of Hollywood’s hottest at the grocery store. No, Sandra Bullock was not in the dairy section when I picked up my gallon of milk. But she was at checkout. At least her picture was. I saw her face in the midst of magazines at checkout. Splashed on the magazines’ colorful covers were faces of impossibly beautiful people. Large, bold headlines in the media menagerie promised readers delicious secrets if only they turned their glossy pages. Yes, inside their pages the headlines promised readers the secrets to beauty, love, and weight loss. I stared at the woman on one cover. Beside her trim figure the headline announced that this celebrity had lost ten pounds in ten days! When the grocer called my attention, I pushed my cart forward and left the magazine behind.

My mom taught me the best way to pick out products at the grocery store. Apples should be firm, hamburger should be grade A, and magazines should be credible. Today in my Communications 239 class we discussed the term “loyal” as associated with journalism. In our assigned reading from The Elements of Journalism the authors Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel argue that, “journalism’s first loyalty is to citizens” (52). I fully agree with this statement. When magazines are loyal to citizens, they do not try to sell fabricated tall tales. Indeed, when magazines are loyal to citizens they are credible sources of news.

Newspapers were not born in the dusty study of an unnamed journalist. No, in the book The Press, the authors say that newspapers began with printers who were “small-businesspeople, not journalists.” And these printers “pretty much invented the newspaper as they went along” (18). I must admit that I wish it had been a genius’s epiphany that created journalism. It would sound much more grand. But as we studied past papers and the media evolution itself in class, I am amazed by how far media has come from being something printers made “as they went along.” Did those printers realize what they were creating? Did they realize what would come from that simple project they made as they “went along”? No, probably not. Those printers made pamphlets to lure in more customers, but what bloomed from those simple pamphlets is what is truly most impressive.

I personally shirk at the sight of the business school and hope to never have to tread in its pin-stripped suit corridors. However, business is important in journalism. Only by finding the key to good business will newspapers fulfill their rightful duty. That is, media must listen and be loyal to needs of its customers. In all points regarding journalism’s obligations, citizens are the main focus. Indeed, journalists should not mock citizens’ own intelligence by trying to sell lies. Citizens deserve more from this institute that was created as printers “went along.”

Former newscaster Nick Clooney said, "...my loyalty will be to the person who turns on the television set" (Elements 53). Always, a journalist's loyalty must be with those who pick up the paper, who watch the television, who listen to the radio, or who visit their Web site.

If media fails to consider citizens and what they need, that is, the truth, then they simply lose customers at the checkout line. Indeed, who wants to buy a bruised apple?