Passage Two

When delivering a lecture on ethics in journalism, tile senior correspondent for CNN said that we’re entered into a new era, where the ethics of journalism no longer value truth in the same-way it was valued 20 years ago. There is such an appetite for immediate information that deadlines hardly exist any more. Viewers receive the information nearly as quickly as the reporters do. The problem lies in the fact that viewers get ed in by the pictures. Those first impressions of a story are lasting, even if they are misleading. Sometimes first impressions are accurate. Sometimes they’re not. The journalists are in the business of getting it right. Take the role scandal has played in the media for example. There’s been a push away from substance and towards sensationalism, a prominent example being the extensive coverage of the Simpson trial; people get drawn in by the celebrity. Such coverage contributed to the’ coarsening (粗鄙) of our culture. People forever lowered the bar by covering that scandal the way we did. The corporate element and the growth of news outlets have also contributed to the negative changes. The increase in the number of reporters, stations and networks has heightened competition, turning the focus away from news towards big business and profitability(收益率). Can you do a good journalism and still remain economically profitable You can to a point. But do you cover the civil wars in Africa or the latest developments in the Eliot Spitzer affair The truth is, Spitzer draws and holds a much larger audience, and this is big business now. But the answer lies in proportional coverage. We have to cover a little of both. The journalists need to make an argument as to how to remedy the recent problems with news coverage. It is time to redefine journalism. Conscientious journalists from all media should strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty, and they are the cornerstone of a journalist’s credibility, because without credibility, the journalists are nothing.

The Simpson trial is taken as an example to show ______.