Secrets are no fun

Journalism, as I've mentioned in previous posts, is a field that has completely expanded in every imaginable way. The number of platforms by which media share information has grown, the number of people being reached by journalists has grown, the type of information disseminated has expanded and along with all of those changes has come a growth in actual journalists.

Today, a journalism degree and an AP Style book isn't necessarily required to be a journalist. Many outlets have turned to, or at least utilize, to some extent, citizen journalists. Some of these journalists, like Mayhill Fowler, have shared information that has caused an uproar.

In Fowler's case, this uproar was both at the content she shared and the way she apprehended it. In a Los Angelos Times article, Fowler's exposure of some not so campaign friendly comments were discussed.

Fowler attended one of Obama's campaign events, recorded Obama making some kind of demeaning comments about mid-westerners, and published them in an article on Huffington Post, which Fowler was writing for as a citizen journalist.

The problem was that Fowler has been a campaign donor for Obama. The event was also supposed to be press free, though in the article Fowler says there were others there taking video, and YouTube can prove it. People were saying that since it was a no press event, Fowler should not have published the information.

The thing is, if you are a public figure running for the office of the presidency of the United States, you need to be held accountable for every word out of your mouth. I've said it before and I'll say it again; the role of the media is to hold the government accountable and be a voice that helps keep the people informed. That means that ANYTHING the government says or does, so long as it is not a viable issue of national security, can be disseminated to the people.

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Public officials, ESPECIALLY those running for the highest possible political position in America, and one of the highest in the world, do not get to pick and choose who gets to hear certain things.

We already know this happens enough, thanks to websites like WikiLeaks and journalists like Edward Snowden, who exposed the government's best kept secrets.

How is the media supposed to be a check on the government if politicians hide their true selves from the people?

In my opinion, it doesn't matter whether Obama thought there were journalists there or not; anything he says or does is fair game for the media to share. I think, in that regard, Fowler did no wrong.

I also think that it shouldn't matter if Fowler was a supporter of Obama. Clearly she was not afraid to shed a negative light on him. As long as a reporter, like Fowler is upfront in her relationship to the person their reporting on, there is no harm in being a contributing member of society in a political race.

Some people say that journalists should not act in the political spectrum for fear of losing their objectivity. This was actually an idea shared with me in one of my introductory journalism classes. The thing is, objectivity is not really the name of the game anymore. Transparency is.