News writing is a stressful activity because a journalist must always be balanced, fair, honest, and transparent. The coverage of political events is even taxing because they generate a lot of criticism from the public and political leaders. In this case, a journalist should observe ethical codes of conduct to ensure that the news attract minimum criticism.
One of the ethical considerations is that the journalist should keep off from distortion of facts since providing inaccurate information would discredit the performance of the journalist, as well the news agency. In some occasions, a journalist tends to overemphasize certain aspects. This is also unacceptable because a journalist should give objective analysis (McLean, 2011).
In some instances, journalists are even tempted to give wrong headings of the topic. The content of the story might be different from what the heading suggests. This happens mainly because the journalist might want to attract the attention of the public. As a respected journalist, an individual must always use a legally accepted method of obtaining critical information and opinion. Before reporting anything, the journalist ought to countercheck the accuracy of the fact.
In some instances, a journalist ends up reporting a matter that has been reported elsewhere without checking the facts. This is wrong because he or she might end up repeating the same mistake committed elsewhere. During campaigns, a lot of information is available in the public meaning that a journalist might end up quoting misguiding information.
In journalism, fairness and provision of balanced information is critical to the success of any journalist. In an election, fair coverage of facts ensures tranquility and peaceful coexistence of various units in society.
It should be understood that providing a balanced or objective story is usually impossible, but journalists are encouraged to be fair in their coverage. In my coverage, my main worry was whether the story would be accepted socially. In society, people are reluctant to accept the stories that seem to discredit their preferred candidates.
When reporting on such issues, a journalist should always come up with socially accepted way of presenting the story. I had to collect the views of societal members to establish whether the story would be accepted. However, their views could not deter me from reporting the incident. What I did was only to present the story in an acceptable way, but not to change the whole story to comply with the expectations of society (Croteau,Hoynes & Milan, 2012).
Internet sites, such as Drudge and Daily Kos, are usually biased because they only give the views of those writing reporting meaning that the sites do not reflect the reality of the manner in the ground. A Politician might want to force people to believe he o she is doing well politically yet the reality is that the politician is losing the ground.
In other circumstances, a political party might be ranked high by popular opinion polls yet the party does not enjoy the purported support. The political site will simply report the views of an individual, but not the reality. This is the main difference between journalistic writing and other forms of writing.
Reporting of political issues shapes the public opinion in a number of ways. In society, many individuals are undecided on whom to vote for in any election. Since journalists express facts, people are tempted to believe what they say. This implies that people are convinced with facts.
References
Croteau,D.,Hoynes,W.,& Milan, S. (2012). Media/Society: Industries, Images, and Audiences (4th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
McLean, S. (2011). Writing for success (1st ed.). Irvington, NY: Flat World Knowledge, Inc.