Nausheen Khan
Media,the cornerstone of democracy,the guardian of truth,fairness and objectivity and the upholder of unity and integrity has a two fold responsibility in the sphere of ethical journalism adhering to professional standards of news reporting.
The media’s responsibility is directly and ethically within the parameters of neutrality and unbiasedness.
Neutrality refers to the presentation of news and facts with a focus on ensuring not to take a stand on an issue and present a whole picture with multifacetedness to the public.Neutrality is a way of ensuring that facts are kept separate from personal beliefs and opinions,bias is not allowed to percolate in the presentation of information,manipulation is avoided and objective,accurate,timely,balanced and fair information is circulated.
Bias,a way of furthering a particular viewpoint over the whole story,deliberately shining light on certain aspects of a story rather than presenting a complete picture,can take several forms such as:
Bias by omission
Bias by placement
Bias by story selection
Biasedness is a serious threat to journalism and the very antithesis of neutrality encompassing responsible journalism.journalists and reporters have an ethical responsibility to ensure that neutral,reliable,accurate and unbiased information in its entirety with no place for unfairness is allowed to percolate in a news story.This will help stabilize the caliginous image of journalism devoid of eleemosynary in the contemporary context of neurological journalistic fulcrum.
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