MEDIA plays a vital role in our community.
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It educates residents, it raises public awareness of issues and events and facilitates public debate.
Most importantly, I believe, the media connects people.
While the face of media is changing, the community continues to turn to local news outlets on issues that affect them.
But for news outlets to fulfil their role and report accurately it is necessary for others to provide the facts.
If only it were that easy.
Government, businesses and organisations pay so-called media units big bucks.
These media units - taxpayer-funded in the case of government – are paid to not divulge information.
It is rare journalists are permitted to speak to, well, anyone these days; they are instructed to email questions to a media unit and told to wait sometimes days for a response.
Then, instead of receiving the information they require, journalists are commonly drip-fed mealy-mouthed responses which are short on facts and high on spin.
Ten well-thought-out, well-researched questions, can receive a one-sentence reply answering nothing.
The excessively complicated administrative ‘speed humps’ appear to have worsened in the past five years – in my experience anyway.
Every journalist does their best at their job, which is at the end of the day informing the community.
They work hard to bust through the road blocks put in front of them – literally, in some instances.
And as the information age takes hold and the needs of readers change from tomorrow’s news to now, the pressures become even greater.
Where journalists were given 24 hours to dig up the full story, now it needs to be online in an instant.
This, in a time when doors are frequently shut, questions are dodged and calls are hung up and unreturned.
Journalists are bound by a code of ethics which dictate honesty, fairness, trust and respect.
If only it was returned.