The Immorality of "Moral Journalism"

Academia and extreme left-wing politics create a collusion:

‘Moral journalists’: The emergence of new intermediaries of news in an age of digital media


Carmit Wiesslitz, Ben-Gurion University, Israel and Tamar Ashuri, Ben-Gurion University and Sapir College, Israel

Abstract

The article examines how online journalism fosters new models of journalism that challenge journalistic values associated with modern era journalism. It focuses on the shift from ‘objective’ journalism to an ethical journalistic practice that aims to publicize a reality of suffering that is marginalized or even denied. We argue that the digital platforms facilitate the emergence of a new journalistic model – the model of the ‘moral journalist’. Unlike the ‘objective’ journalist who (supposedly) remains outside of events and reports only ‘facts’, and unlike the ‘advocate’ journalist who aims to bring about change by reporting on events in which they take part, the ‘moral journalist’ witnesses events that involve the suffering of others with the aim of changing the witnessed reality. The claims will be grounded in an analysis of one case study: the online journalistic activities of the members of ‘Machsom Watch’ – an all female organization whose members act to monitor the human rights of Palestinians at checkpoints set up by the Israeli army and post their reports on their website.

What's the problem, you ask?  Is the subject not a legitimate theme for research?

For sure.  No problem there.

But a "one-case study"?  Of that I've never heard.

Moreover, attaching the label "moral journalism" to a blatantly ideological left-wing advocacy group with extreme political aims that discriminates against the right-wing is pure academic immorality.

Who supervised the project?


UPDATE

Thanks to ChallahHuAkbar for this:

From the article:

Arguably, the women of Machsom Watch are not engaged in a journalist activity and by implication do not ascribe themselves as ‘journalists’; they are peace activists who are not employed by media institutions, nor do they obtain formal journalist training. Yet, we perceive them here as journalists, because in our conceptualization of this social role – a conception which is manifested in recent writings on civil journalism (e.g. Allen, 2009; Allen and Thorsen, 2009; Atton, 2003; Platon and Deuze, 2003; Wall, 2005) – the journalist in the postmodern digital era can be defined as the individual who gathers information with the aim of distributing it to the public. What counts as journalistic activity, therefore, is a function of the content of that activity, and not of the journalist’s training or the media organization in which the journalist operates.

Now do you understand?

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