1、媒體：政治第四不動產
The term Fourth Estate refers to the press, both in its explicit capacity of advocacy and in its implicit ability to frame political issues. The term goes back at least to Thomas Carlyle in the first half of the 19th century.
Novelist Jeffrey Archer in his work The Fourth Estate made this observation: “In May 1789,Louis XVI summoned to Versailles a full meeting of the ‘Estate General’. The First Estate consisted of three hundred clergy. The Second Estate, three hundred nobles. The Third Estate, six hundred commoners. Some years later, after the French Revolution, Edmund Burke, looking up at the Press Gallery of the House of Commons, said, ‘Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all.’”
2、媒體五大類型及其倫理
Advocacy journalists—a term of some debate even within the field of journalism—by definition tend to reject “objectivity”, while at the same time maintaining many other common standards and ethics.
Creative nonfiction and literary journalism use the power of language and literary devices more akin to fiction to bring insight and depth into often book-length treatment of the subjects about which they write. Such devices as dialogue, metaphor, digression and other such techniques offer the reader insights not usually found in standard news reportage. However, authors in this branch of journalism still maintain ethical criteria such as factual and historical accuracy as found in standard news reporting. Yet, with brilliant prose, they venture outside the boundaries of standard news reporting in offering richly detailed accounts.
New journalism and Gonzo journalism also reject some of the fundamental ethical traditions and will set aside the technical standards of journalistic prose in order to express themselves and reach a particular audience or market segment.
Tabloid journalists are often accused of sacrificing accuracy and the personal privacy of their subjects in order to boost sales. Supermarket tabloids are often focused on entertainment rather than news. A few have “news” stories that are so outrageous that they are widely read for entertainment purposes, not for information. Some tabloids do purport to maintain common journalistic standards, but may fall far short in practice. Others make no such claims.
Some publications deliberately engage in satire, but give the publication the design elements of a newspaper, for example, The Onion, and it is not unheard of for other publications to offer the occasional, humorous articles appearing on April Fool’s Day.
3、權力機構對媒體的四大間接影響
The powerful can also work on the media indirectly by:
1.Complaints delivered en masse to their own constituencies （e.g., stockholders, employees） about media bias.
2.Generation of mass advertising that does the same.
3.Funding watchdog groups or think tanks engineered to expose and attack deviations in media coverage that endanger vital elite interests.
4.Funding political campaigns that elect politicians who will be more willing to curb any such media deviations.
4、新聞的價值
News values determine how much prominence a news story is given by a media outlet, and the attention it is given by the audience. News journalism has a broadly agreed set of values, often referred to as “newsworthiness”.
News values are not universal and can vary widely between different cultures. In Western practice, decisions on the selection and prioritization of news are made by editors on the basis of their experience and intuition, although analysis shows that several factors are consistently applied across a range of news organizations.
5、如何定義新聞價值
The practical constraints of the newsgathering process, the collective norms of the newsroom and manipulation by external pressure groups all affect the news value given to an event by the journalist and the way it is reported. The news value given to the story by the audience, its impact or interest, is determined by the degree of change it contains and the relevance of that change to the physical and social security of the individual or group. Major change, coupled with high relevance, gives the story a correspondingly high news value; little or slow change, together with low relevance, indicate low news value.
Some commentators argue that as many stories are apparently manufactured, Galtung and Ruge’s list of news values should be open to question. The dominance of celebrity and social news, the blurring of the boundary between news and reality and other popular culture, and the advent of citizen journalism may suggest that the nature of news and news values are evolving and that traditional models of the news process are now only partially relevant.
6、大眾傳媒的信息來源
In an industrialized economy where consumers demand information on numerous worldwide events unfolding simultaneously, this task can only be filled by major business and government sectors that have the necessary material resources. This includes mainly The Pentagon and other governmental bodies. A symbiotic relationship arises between the media and parts of government which is sustained by economic necessity and reciprocity of interest.
On the one hand, government and news-promoters strive to make it easier for news organizations to buy their services; they provide them with facilities in which to give journalists advance copies of speeches and forthcoming reports schedule of press conferences.
On the other hand, the media become reluctant to run articles that will harm corporate interests that provide them with the resources that the media depend upon.
This theoretical relationship also gives rise to a “moral division of labor”, in which “officials have and give the facts”, and “reporters merely get them”. Journalists are then supposed to adopt an uncritical attitude that makes it possible for them to accept corporate values without experiencing cognitive dissonance.
7、影響新聞報道的因素
A variety of external and internal pressures influence journalists’ decisions on which stories are covered, how issues are interpreted and the emphasis given to them. These pressures can sometimes lead to bias or unethical reporting. Achieving relevance, giving audiences the news they want and finding interest, is an increasingly important goal for media outlets seeking to maintain market share in a rapidly evolving market. This has made news organizations more open to audience input and feedback, and forced them to adopt and apply news values which will attract and keep audiences. The growth of interactive media and citizen journalism is fast altering the traditional distinction between news producer and passive audience and may in future lead to a deep-ploughing redefinition of what “news” means and the role of the news industry.
8、新聞來源
Examples of news sources include: official records, publications or broadcasts, officials in government or business, organizations or corporations, witnesses of crime, accidents or other events, and people involved with or affected by a news event or issue.
There are a multitude of factors that tend to condition the acceptance of sources as bona fide by investigative journalists. Reporters are expected to develop and cultivate sources. This applies especially if they regularly cover a specific topic, known as a “beat”. However, beat reporters must be cautious of becoming too close to their sources. Reporters often, but not always, give greater leeway to sources with little experience. For example, sometimes a person will say they don’t want to talk, and then proceed to talk. If that person is not a public figure, reporters are less likely to use that information.
Journalists are also encouraged to be skeptical without being cynical （“If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”）. As a rule of thumb, but especially when reporting on controversy, reporters are expected to use multiple sources. Outside journalism, sources are sometimes known as a “news source”.
9、匿名新聞來源
The identity of anonymous sources is sometimes revealed to senior editors or a news organization’s lawyers, who would be considered bound by the same confidentiality. （Lawyers are generally protected from subpoena in these cases by attorney/client privilege.） Legal staff may need to give counsel about whether it is advisable to publish certain information, or about court proceedings that may attempt to learn confidential information. Senior editors are in the loop to prevent reporters from fabricating non-existent, anonymous sources, and to provide a second opinion about how to use the information obtained, how or how not to identify sources, and whether other options should be pursued.
10、新聞麵對的外部壓力
Many of these observed conditions for news can be explained as products of the way the news operation works, e.g. budgetary or staffing constraints, or the suitability of the story for a particular production format; others are the way news judgments are shaped by the cultural background of the journalist, the collective norms of the organization and management policy directives.
Journalists may also be influenced by external pressures from the government or establishment, manipulation by spin doctors, and, recently, a need to retain audience share in an increasingly fragmented and competitive market. Even the way audiences, journalists and pressure groups use language can determine how stories are written and interpreted, and the value they carry for both audience and news producer.
However, models of news evaluation based on these factors alone are incomplete; they explain how the news process works, not why it works. For instance, several factors leave questions unanswered:
1.Why is bad news stronger than good news?
2.Why is the unexpected newsworthy?
3.Why should scale influence an event’s newsworthiness?
4.Why is there a fascination for elite groups and people the audience may never meet?
5.Why is human interest important in news?
11、言論自由和道德監督
The first amendment to the constitution guarantees the right of free speech and of the press. Unfortunately, some individuals have used this right to protect themselves from litigation when they produce material that is pornographic, hateful or when they use ethically questionable methods when reporting a story. The government has attempted to intervene through passing laws and imposing regulations. The problem with placing restrictions on free speech is that the question of who will decide what is appropriate and what is not, will inevitably be raised.
There are two positions when debating this issue: （1）protect free speech even though some people abuse it or （2）freedom of speech does not outweigh the need for ethical principles. Two of the ethical dilemmas facing the media today are the conflicts of freedom of the press versus individual rights, and the right of the press to refuse to reveal their sources.
The media has often claimed that the public has a right to know, but they do not limit that right to know to a certain area of public concern. Reporters have written stories on the sexual lives of movie stars claiming public interest, but simply because the public is curious does not mean they have a right to know. Certainly, most people would not want their entire life story being printed as public knowledge and subject to ridicule.