By Jonathan Ballew

With Sean Hannity all over the news cycle for playing fast and loose with media ethics, I want to talk about media literacy — more specifically, its decline in America. When my grandparents heard I was going to be published for the first time they asked me, “What publication gave you a byline?” They may not have any background in journalism, but as consumers of news for over 80 years, they know more about journalism than a lot of my J-School classmates.  I’m not sure that most millennials even know what a byline is. The scary truth is that most average consumers of media cannot tell good journalism from what I like to call sham journalism. This lack of media literacy is dangerous, because we have the general public running around thinking people like Sean Hannity are journalists, when in reality, he admittedly denied the moniker.

Part of the problem is that we have pseudo-journalists masquerading as purveyors of truth. I won’t dive into the fake news issues we are facing because I don’t want to beat a dead horse (and fake news deserves its own individual post), so instead, I would like to address these new sub-forms of journalism, that I believe are dangerous. Hannity said himself that he is “an advocacy journalist or an opinion journalist.”

The word opinion and journalist should rarely stand together, and most respected newspapers make a clear distinction between their reporters and their editorial board. I have yet to find a reputable J- school that offers a degree in “opinion journalism.” If I were to have the opportunity to ask Hannity one question, I would ask him to define the term.

The journalists that I most respect do everything in their power to remove their own bias from their reporting. Obviously, no individual can ever fully separate their personal bias from their work, but the

nobility in journalism comes with the trying. The Hannity types not only don’t try to remove their bias, they hide it and slip it into their reporting like snakes, as was evidenced with Hannity’s “reporting” on Michael Cohen.

While advocacy journalists may mean well (excluding Sean Hannity), in my opinion they have done harm to the profession. I applaud and understand their efforts, and they are miles ahead of those who are intentionally peddling fake news. But calling yourself a journalist when one has a set agenda is a dangerous precedent.

My first journalism gig was an internship with The Chicago Justice Project (CJP). I hadn’t even taken introduction to journalism yet and I barely knew the difference between a byline and a headline. I wrote about stories that focused on police accountability in Chicago and covered police board meetings and events at City Hall. I learned a lot along the way and am grateful for the opportunity CJP gave me (I had an excellent boss who fights for an incredible cause). However, I quickly found that what was expected of me was to write stories that would look unfavorable to the Chicago Police Department and the city of Chicago.

I don’t think I’m taking a big leap when I say that the Chicago Police Department is pretty messed up — the Department of Justice definitely agrees with me — and I stand by the reporting I did with CJP. However, journalism should be about reporting the facts and allowing the public to draw their own conclusions. I know there are many advocacy journalists who stick to the facts, but there are many who report situations from one side of the aisle. Overall, when you are crusading for a cause you cannot be a journalist in the truest fashion. Am I saying there is no place for advocacy journalists? Absolutely not. But I do think that we need a new name for the profession (I’ll let you know when I coin one). Media literacy is at an all-time low in America and we have to find a way to right the ship. Calling social activists “advocacy journalists” only serves to muddy the water.

DePaul is guilty of adding confusion to the fracas surrounding real and pseudo-journalism. Just go check out DePaul Newsline. The page looks like a news site, with bylines of “reporters” for every story. But look closer and you will find that the site is run by public relations officials, and every story paints DePaul in a positive light. They even have a tab called “Newsroom.” Even DePaul’s top public relations official at DePaul has a fancy title that serves to distract people from the connotations surrounding the term public relations. Instead of a standard title for a public relations official, they have created the fancy (and innocuous) title of “Executive Director, News and Integrated Content.” Several times I have had students tell me they loved an article we did for The DePaulia. When I ask them which one, I then realize they are talking about an “article” they saw on Newsline. They can’t tell the difference!

The title of journalist needs to be taken seriously, as we do with doctors, lawyers and any other profession where integrity is vital. This post would be pointless unless I offered up a solution, and mine is simple. I believe, as I do with most complicated issues, that it starts with education from a young age. It is absurd that journalism classes are rarely offered in high school and with more and more high school papers being shut down, unfortunately the future is bleak. The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) is a glimmer of hope, and they have started a campaign asking college journalists and working professionals to volunteer their time and speak at elementary, middle and high schools about what it means to be a journalist and how to consume news. Perhaps if we can inspire the youth of tomorrow we can save our beloved profession from the Sean Hannity’s of the world. The program is called #Press4Education and I encourage you all to sign up!