Challenges Journalists have to faced

Curiosity is the hallmark of a good journalist. Being curious enough to look beyond what is obvious and come up with deep, thought-provoking questions until he or she gets to the bottom. Paying close attention to what the person is saying, and looking for your next question within the answer they have just given, is curiosity at work. However, being a journalist has plenty of challenges, especially the curious ones. As most of the time journalist are not allowed to uncover truth due to untold reasons. Political and channel/newspaper policy pressure, viewing the world through the eyes of whoever employs us is the most painful challenges for a curious journalist.

Let’s just get this one out of the way. Yes, our papers are controlled by political masters, control what gets published. Yes, there are controls on journalists. either directly owned such as the Bernama or owned by component parties of the government such as the Media Prima Group.

Media Freedom exists but in a different form in Malaysia. Dr. Mahathir proclaims that freedom is necessary in any areas but it should come along with its limitations. This confirms Malaysia as the govern-democratic country, where a balance is formed between rights, as freedom and responsibility are equal to an adequate democracy. It is believed that too much press freedom given would create an unhealthy society (4 Political Background, n.d). Malaysia ranks 123 on the 2019 World Press Freedom Index (Bedi, 2018). The media company or government might hire and control the journalist but they don’t own them, thus you have to be smart in fighting your battles. Even so there is always limits. If one of the journalist try and push the boundaries, they would get in trouble, the government forces might come after them or sue them.

There is no safety for journalists. If someone doesn't like what they write like political masters who won’t be happy with what they put up, it can be a life threat to the journalist and their family. The journalists will face problems in the regard of their personal security, family security, confrontations with high ups with the covered issues when the high ups are influenced by the authoritative people and confrontation to threats while investigating a real cause to any crime case for example at least 95 journalists were killed last year during the course of their work, according to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). One killing in 2018 which attracted global attention was that of prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. He was murdered last October after going to the Saudi consulate-general in Turkey. It sparked a diplomatic crisis between the two countries and a chorus of international condemnation (Reality Check Team, 2019).

Along with, in 2015 when Zunar, Malaysian political cartoonist been charged in Kuala Lumpur with nine counts of sedition for tweets posted following a controversial court of previous ruling, Najib Razak. Zunar could be sentenced to 43 years in prison if convicted (Hall, 2015). This happens because clearly people only want journalist to write good things. But there are so many bad things happening and they couldn’t do anything about it except feel helpless. Journalists might be heroes to some and scumbags to others but the truth is that most are somewhere in the middle, trying to do as good a job as they can, often in difficult circumstances.

Moreover, due to these circumstances of publishing real news and the existence of internet, it increases access to news. Alternative news sources started to become popular, a lot of news which previously would not be published started to reach the masses. Which is a good thing, because now we have a bigger picture of the world. The problem is the black and white thinking that resulted: mainstream news only publishes lies, alternative news only publishes truth. The journalist will be seen as evil government servant that only report lies and misinformation, unlike the fearless alternative journalists who only report the truth. Hence, newspapers, news networks, and cable news channels are losing viewers. The quality of these alternative news sources ranges from extremely poor to excellent. Even the most unreliable and discredited sources of information attract viewers who might otherwise get their news from a major network or newspaper.

In addition, The Internet is readily available twenty-four hours a day and its massive amount of content is being constantly updated at a rate that is impossible to match. People are now used to being updated hourly, rather than daily. As a result, journalists can no longer wait until the next day to report breaking news because by then the story has already circulated and it quickly becomes old news. This is a challenge for journalists because it means that deadlines have gotten much smaller and they are constantly under pressure to get stories out. Instead of waiting for the morning paper, journalists now will need to write their stories and post them online. Newspapers that have only distributed their stories through print are being forced to transition to online as a result of a decrease in services offered by printing companies. Such changes can be difficult to adapt to, especially those who have never used these programs before and do not know where to start.

A notoriously fast-paced field include long hours, while again, news never sleeps, high competition for jobs and a constantly-shifting media landscape that requires journalists to consistently learn about new technologies and new forms of reporting. In addition to these challenges, journalism is also not a very high-paid profession — at least not in the beginning — meaning that journalists often work long hours without much financial reward. Plus, People do not spend money for news. Be honest: how many there are who actually buy or subscribe to newspapers?

Furthermore, we have to make sure we have time to email and call sources, schedule interviews and begin working on the story before deadline. Also, responsible for the proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. So before we hit publish, we have to make sure everything is correct. And deadline can be in less than an hour, depending on the story. Attempting to publish articles and stories within a timely manner so that the story is still relevant to the present news can be difficult. It takes time to gather information and sources that want to cooperate and who the journalist knows is honest. In order to have the reliable news people want, “instant news” is something the public simply have to realize is not going to happen.

In summary, some of the major new challenges facing journalism and journalists today are having to write content across multiple formats such as print, web and blog. They are also asked to produce more content than ever before. They have to adapt to new media formats like Social Networking sites. Together with, constantly competing with other news outlets for the best stories and because of Globalization they are faced with the almost impossible task of trying to keep up with a 24/7, global news climate. On top of all this, they are regulated with more rules than ever before and may be forced to write things they do not necessarily believe in order to comply with an unrelated organizations agenda.