Loyalty in Journalism

“Call it loyalty, call it what you want, but I suppose I've got people up here who I'm really tight with, we've made a lot of great bonds over the last few years and I've got people in my corner I can trust.” 

– Jonathan Brown

Loyalty is the bond that holds relationships together. Loyalty requires two basic ingredients: love and respect. Where do we see loyalty in society? Loyalty holds a family together. It holds businesses together. It holds sports teams together. It holds communities and even entire countries together. As individuals, we find ourselves bound to many different loyalties, of varying strengths and importance, simultaneously.

           

              But to whom are journalists loyal to?

To the citizen.

This article, written by Tom Rosenstiel, reporter of the Boston Globe, expresses this importance, along with journalists’ changing role in today’s technological society.

“A journalist's loyalty to his or her audience, even above employer, is paramount,” Rosenstiel said.


In order for journalists to be loyal to the citizen, or audience, as Rosenstiel said, they need to be completely and irrevocably dedicated to the truth. Journalists have to tell a story for the benefit of their audience, and not for the benefit of their pay check. Journalists need to hold themselves to a much higher standard of ethics than any other profession.


Elphaba, in the smash hit musical Wicked, understood completely the importance of choosing to be loyal to the citizens and to the truth.  Unfortunately, Glinda chose to be loyal to the Wizard in order to gain fame, and additionally, a very large paycheck. Disgusted, Elphaba accuses her of "[groveling] in submission / to feed [her] own ambition." 
The Wizard of Oz, along with his secretarial side-kick Madame Morrible, represented a distorted and twisted media. They held biased views and used the press to push for their own personal propaganda, in order to spread their own fame and to discredit any competition, especially Elphaba. Though Elphie could have shared in the fame and money, she understood that Oz needed the truth. She was loyal to the citizens of Oz, and not to her potential employer, the Wizard, or even to her own lifelong dreams to work in the Emerald City for the Wizard. She expresses this perfectly in the moving song, "Defying Gravity."


"I'm through accepting limits 
'cause someone says they're so. 
Some things I cannot change
But till I try, I'll never know!" 
Elphaba, in Wicked


Like Elphaba, all journalists need to be fearless in their loyalty.