What is responsible journalism?

The BBC defines the characteristics of responsible journalism as

• not avoiding important issues and stories because they are difficult or complex
• producing regular and frequent coverage of these matters and provides programming to inform the public so that they can make their own judgements
• dealing with what is significant and important in society in the most serious minded sense of the words - not just what is topical or titillating.
• earning its authority and respect through its fairness, objectivity and sound investigative procedures and judgements.
  (Power and Responsibility: Broadcasters Striking a Balance, BSA 1994, p20)

This is pretty highminded stuff. Commercial news providers might aspire to some of these definitions but as news becomes the most expensive part of a broadcasting business other competing definitions have evolved.

News editors with an eye to the bottom line, increasingly emphasise the ability of news stories to hold a viewer's interest in the morning rush or at the end of a hard days work. Stories must engage and entertain as much as inform the viewer / reader. Images and well told human stories conveying emotion are ways connecting with audiences. Ratings have become one of the currencies for success. they are used to measure audience satisfaction with the broadcasting news. Paul Holmes is famous for calling the huge ratings for 'Holmes', his current affairs show, 'democracy in action'. It certainly was never elitist. Such people might ask
What is the point of a news service if only a few elite people use it to inform their decision making?

"What is good news?" continues to be a lively debate. See discussion of news as a research field and New Zealand research