Make no bones about it, everyone has an agenda.
Sometimes we are conscious of this, mostly we are not.
In our modern times, just about everything that makes the news has been stage managed to get there – everything. Even what can appear to be ‘slip ups’ are often stage managed, sometimes to test public opinion, sometimes because someone has set someone else up for a fall.
The trick for journalists – MSM (mainstream media) or CJ (citizen) – is to:
a) recognise there is an agenda,
b) attempt to work out what that agenda might be, and
c) distance yourself from that agenda.
This does not mean you do not or cannot have an opinion – it’s just that you must be aware of the range of influences on that opinion, including your own belief systems (conscious and unconscious) and the belief systems/agendas of friends, colleagues and professional contacts.
And it doesn’t mean that you can’t interview someone who has an agenda (news wouldn’t exist if that was the case).
It’s just a matter of keeping your eyes and ears open and ensuring that everything you write can be verified and is attributed to someone or something (such as a report). See Fact or Opinion?
If someone contacts you with ‘information’ they think you might be interested in – thank them, listen to them and take a giant step back.
Ask yourself – what is their agenda? What’s in it for them? Are they using me to peddle a particular opinion?
Again, it’s important to remember that having an agenda is not necessarily positive or negative.
In reporting for No Fibs, you have an agenda – to write a great story.
In the case of the CSG issue, the community has an agenda – to ban or minimise CSG mining. So too, politicians have an agenda – to please everyone (voters, upon whom they are dependent for their jobs and who oftentimes are friends and family; big business, to whom they may be indebted for campaign funding, as well as with whom they might enjoy close personal association).
And of course there are the CSG miners, who have invested massive amounts of time and money and resources to achieve a particular outcome – mining CSG.
All this you must consider and balance in your reporting – with respect for all stakeholders and with a commitment accuracy and fair play.
Here’s a key question to help you work with agendas: Is this true?
Well said!
Are inferential comprehension skills still taught in schools?
Excellent! Now how do we control Editors and media owners with their ultimate agenda? Do we need statute law with clear boundaries and criminal and civil penalties?
Re your statement about miners’ agendas above, I think it’s worth clarifying that mining companies have an agenda to mine fossil fuels for profit which appears to mostly go to execs and shareholders. But miners – people who work for these companies – I think have an agenda to make a living and/or have plenty of spending money. Mining may just appear expedient for them. In fact the miners might do much better long-term working in construction in a properly-funded renewable energy economy. But mining companies perhaps find this a much harder turn-around. It’s funny how “miners” used to refer to more-or-less salt-of-the-earth folk heroes, early union-formers, oppressed workers and strikers, down in the pits doing filthy work for slave wages. There were great songs about them and about disasters they suffered and died in.