What is Media ?
In first, media was defined by the way to deliver information.
Basically all the channel of communication, all the way to deliver massively an information are media.
ex : We can consider that in the town criers of the middle age were a media because they were paid to scream informations in public places. The goal was to deliver the informations to the highest number of persons. They did the same jobs than newspaper or TV today.
In our actual society a media can be defined as a massive way to broadcast information. In this meaning, also art (cinema, painting, music…) can be a media but in this series we will talk essentially about media in the journalistic meaning.
Work of the Journalist
The work of the journalist is to collect information and data, to sort it, to write it to be understandable for the public and to publish it in a media.
There is different kind of work related to the media field : here is some example.
The journalist : the one who goes to the field to collect information. It can be specialized in one or some fields (politic, culture, sport, local informations). He/ She can also write and share an opinion about an information he/she heard or someone give to him/her.
The copyeditor : His work is about formatting the journalist give to him. He has no important impact on the meaning of the content but in the format of what will be published. He can do infographic, writing and formatting articles, design page of the journal, editing audio and video.
The press photographer/ The cameraman : Their role are kind of similar. They have to take photos/record images to illustrate what the journalist is talking about. They can be related to a media or be free-lancer and sell their images to the media.
The chief editor : He is the chief of the media. He is the one responsible of the respect of the editorial line (the philosophy of the media, the main idea who guide it). He choose the subjects the journalists will work on, read and select the articles, can correct them, choose the photographs etc..
Informations and data
Another important point is the difference between information and data.
A data is an element, a fact which has not yet been processed, analyzed, interpreted.
An information is a data put through other ones, contextualized, compared and from which we can get conclusions. Behind an information, there is a work, done by people (journalist, scientist,….), an information give always a personal point of view and a subjective prism of reading.
Ex :
a ) Inhabitants of Constanta : 283 000. → Data
Inhabitants of Bucharest : 1.9 million. → Data
With this two data, we can create an information :
Constanta is 6 times less populated than Bucharest. → Information
The goal of this example is to put another notion in the definition of media in the journalistic. To be considered as a media, a has to format the informations and data. If the only thing a structure do is to publish data, it is not considered as journalism.