Journalism has the ability to cause people to have a strong sense of emotion, this emotion has the ability to influence human behavior and an individuals' morals. In order to be a successful and meaningful journalist, it is necessary to write about topics that people want to know more about, they should read the story and crave more information. Whether they support your opinion or they completely disagree, the story should be influential.
As 76% of Americans have already heard, the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper have stirred nationwide controversy over the right to free speech and the freedom of the press. Critics of Hebdo believe that there needs to be more "religious tolerance and respect" towards people in the press. Whereas supports felt like the publishing of the image of Muhammad was fair because the paper had a reputation of "poking fun of" other religions and other ethnicity's before the image was published.
As journalists continue to play with different religions and continue to write about different cultures, will stories that inform readers with a sense of humor need to become the social norm? will news stories become more satirical and attentive or will they disappear completely if government puts an end to satirical writing methods?
This leads to the question of libel. Jonathan Peters of the Columbia Journalism Review suggests that "You haven’t really lived as a journalist until you’ve been threatened with a libel lawsuit." Based on this statement, it appears that journalists publish to create controversy or to draw attention to something. Laws regarding libel have been implemented to prevent false/misreported statements from being published and from demeaning the characters' reputation. Even though these laws are in place, they are hard to follow and hard to decipher. "The absence of a clear analytical framework [...] made difficult the resolution of libel disputes, " explained Jean Toal the Chief Justice of South Carolina to Jonathan Peters. It is easy to accuse somebody of libel but it is hard to decide if a journalist is truly guilty.
Without misinterpretation, libel, in theory, would not exist. This does not account for PURPOSEFUL libel. Purposeful libel is manipulation, but is this 'lighter' form of libel necessary to have an interesting and informative story? Can this libel even be 'lighter'? Is it less of libel if you take something small and inconsistent and make it meaningful?
Libel and discriminatory satire have caused America to stop and reconsider what is being published and what is being read by consumers. It hasn't changed the top publishers and it hasn't stopped journalists from publishing freely as granted constitutionally.
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