Best Practices of Journalism in Asia

171 pp., illustrations. lower corner is curled. While journalism adheres to an assumed universal ethical code and methodology, its goals and functions are essentially framed by local factors, and to an extent, existential imperatives. Discussions on what constitutes best practices of journalism in the Asian context are ideologically polarised. For instance, governments in new industrialised countries and socialist bloc see the media more as a state apparatus and a prime mover of national development. Which conflicts with civil societies conception of professional journalism as a public trust, a representative of the fourth estate the common people that keeps a close check on those in power. Best practices is thus perceived and understood according to divergent expectations of what functions the media ought to serve in different societies. This book eschews direct references to the Pulitzer-type criteria as the exclusive benchmarks of journalistic excellence. Instead it canvasses the scattered literature on best media practices for a cultural context and gathers the opinions of working journalists in Asia to grasp at these elusive benchmarks. The eclectic achievements of Asian journalists featured in this book shows the varied and at times notional forms of best practices in the region. This book concludes that best practices in journalism are essentially culturally defined and best understood from within the realities that influence the socially transformative work by the Asian journalists who have built their professional career and won awards for their enterprising coverage of human development issues. 0.0.…