Journalism Ethics and Practice

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The Ontarion and AI

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The Role of a Newspaper

One could be forgiven for being cynical about the state of news media today. It feels like the good newspapers we remember have all gone out of business, and all we see are for-profit corporations chasing clicks instead of leads.

We take inspiration from one true calling: what the news can be. When news media is at its best, it exposes wrongdoings, holds power to account, and challenges us to think about our assumptions. It informs us of what’s happening, both in our communities and far away. The news connects us to each other and builds community. As author Arthur Miller once said, “a good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.”

Journalists take this conversation and make a profession out of it. We hold ourselves distinct from more casual, but still valid, expressions of civic discourse; like social media, magazines, or podcasts by using a set of values, ethics, and best practices that seek to strip away bias and assumptions and drill down to the verifiable facts. 

This mission can sometimes make us unpopular, particularly when readers feel passionate about a topic. But by reporting on and verifying facts, we can provide a fairly reliable narrative of our reality, one which our readers are free to use to draw their own conclusions and opinions. Because we deal in fact, we can be trusted and relied upon as readers create meaning and their worldview based on what we write.