Do Journalists Truly Serve the Citizens?

Due to the vast number of journalists in the world, who all have different viewpoints, motivations, and goals, this is a difficult question to answer. I would say that the majority of journalists do indeed serve the citizens who see or read their work, but they are overshadowed by larger news outlets who may not do as well a job. Nowadays, the public is quite wary of cable news outlets, due to the percieved ideological agendas of these networks. Though it is unfair to say these outlets are representative of "journalists," they have the most prominent voice in many communities. And unfortunately, many of these newscasts practice what the Elements of Journalism book refers to as a "journalism of affirmation." Instead of serving the citizens and offering fair, factual news stories from which to form opinions, they take advantage of the audience's already-held convictions, so the audience can feel validated in their beliefs.

Overtly ideological headlines such as this leave little room for
the audience to interpret the facts on their own.

As we can see in this New York Times/CBS News poll, nearly 80 percent of Fox News viewers who are likely to vote say they will vote Republican. It is no secret that Fox tends to skew right in their ideology. Now, obviously Fox gained a lot of those voters because of its conservative message, but by continuing to serve stories spun to appeal to a far-right base, they are doing a disservice to their audience. The priority of news outlets should be reporting, with the task of interpreting those reports and forming ideologies from them remaining with the audience. If a news organization is so overt in its message that it's nearly impossible to form a dissenting opinion from the facts they present, then they are not serving the citizens, they're serving their business interests.