To investigate further, let’s look at the ten elements of journalism as presented in the highly regarded book The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and The Public Should Expect published by Crown in 2001 and writtenby Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel.

In their first book the authors stated:

1. Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth.
2. Its first loyalty is to the citizens.
3. Its essence is discipline of verification.
4. Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover.
5. It must serve as an independent monitor of power.
6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise.
7. It must strive to make the significant interesting, and relevant.
8. It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional.
9. Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience.

And in their second book they have added:

10. The rights and responsibilities of citizens.

Let’s look at who Kovac and Rosenstiel are and how their book has been received.

Kovach and Rosenstiel are journalists.

Kovach has been in the field of journalism for 50 years.

He serves on the faculty at the University of Missouri School of Journalism and is highly regarded by other journalists and professors from such publications and educational institutions as the NY Times, American Journalism Review, Salon, Harvard and Columbia.

Rosenstiel is the director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Roy Peter Clark, a Senior Scholar of The Poynter Institute, makes the comment regarding the book, “The most important book on the relationship of journalism and democracy published in the last fifty years.”

But, Rasmi Simhan of the Boston Globe may better address the gist of the book with his statement “What this book does better than any single book on media history, ethics or practice is weave … why media audiences have fled and why new technology and mega-corporate ownership are putting good journalism at risk.”

In his Wiki’ biography Kovac declares “journalism is the closest thing I have to a religion because I believe deeply in the role and responsibility journalists have to the people of a self-governing community.”

Within that statement he makes two things clear.

He is a secularist and a devoted journalist, within his view of journalism.

Kovach is the founding director and chairman of The Committee of Concerned Journalists, an organization formed to “engage journalists and the public in a careful examination of what journalism was supposed to be.”

Founded in 1997 and funded by the John S. & James L. Knight Foundation, a private, American non-profit foundation dedicated to improving and promoting journalism, the CCJ detected a trend, “news was becoming entertainment and entertainment news.”

Also, reporting versus editorializing has always been a major factor in journalism.

Reporting is - “just the facts.”

And opinion writing or editorializing (the editors opinion), of course, is just that.

Often separation of the two is done by the location of the two items.

Unsigned editorials are traditionally the official opinions of the paper’s editorial board (if such exists) and are on the editorial page.

Opinion columns and other such contributions are also located on the editorial page or on the “op-ed” (opposite the editorials) page.

But, also primary to the distinction of reporting versus editorializing is the statement presented by the Press Complaints Commission (a regulatory body) in the United Kingdom “the Press, whilst free to be partisan, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.”

“Unless we can grasp and reclaim the theory of a free press,” the authors Kovach and Roisenstiel warn, “journalists risk allowing their profession to disappear.”

But, as stated in Publisher’s Weekly, “Kovac and Rosenstiel have issued a clarion call, to their colleagues, and they hope that all journalists, editors and owners of news organizations will incorporate the principles of the profession as they’ve outlined them into their everyday work. However, the authors offer no specific suggestions as to how to enact these principles in a wide-reaching or systematic manner.”

Does the American public today believe these ten tenets of journalism are being followed in 2009?

Not from what is commonly heard in general conversation.

Do we here is the Virgin Valley area believe that our local newspapers adhere to what are supposed to be self-imposed journalistic rules?

Each of us must answer that question.

As we all mull these questions at length, I also offer my resignation as a Gallery Writer for the Mesquite Local News having reached the conclusion that I have presented the reading public all that I have to offer in the present circumstance.

Thank you for your attention and comments regarding past articles.