Featured image by Taylah Borg
As an aspiring journalist in today’s world I believe the most important core value a journalist could obtain throughout their profession, would be to prioritise protection towards those considered vulnerable within society. This value is of strong importance within the field as not only does it put a bad light on journalism story telling if harm were to be brought upon the vulnerable, but I deeply believe everyone has the right to be protected from material that could result in any kind of harm because to me anything other is a representation of unethical journalism. Furthermore it also defeats the meaning of ethical journalism which is to be the voice of the voiceless in a way that tells the factual truth presenting audience with an unbiased balanced story, Which in turn intends to raise an issue to society in hope that its explored openly offering some kind of proposed pathway to justice rather than harm to those that need protection.
When you put this journalistic value into perspective with modern day digital tools, technology can offer a wide range of resources that assist with the protection of the vulnerable. In terms of harmful exposure via electronic devices to the vulnerable, journalists can use technology to their advantage to publish stories via social media platforms that offer personal settings and precaution functions on a range of Internet sites allowing harmful consumption to be monitored and alerted towards particular viewers. Reducing their intake of harmful content in attempt to offer more protection for them in regards to their vulnerability whilst adhering to the journalistic core value of protecting them. Along with this technology can be used to provide a range of links to useful resources and well being organisational websites that are trained in fields that offer various kinds of support for the vulnerable. These vulnerabilities may resurface within a journalistic story and therefore be deemed as harmful to one and may cause harm. With journalists not able to control all social media functions such as sharing which could share their stories to the vulnerable unintentionally, these human wellbeing websites supporting the vulnerable are assets of modern technology. As journalists are assisted in their ambition to share stories whilst protecting the vulnerable, whilst the vulnerable are directed to the correct resources if they were to come into the hands of harm whilst consuming modern day journalism within the virtual world.
