What is journalism?

In face of our upcoming project and of our guest lecturer next week, I had the urge to understand better what we mean when we talk about "journalism" ("traditional" journalism) . I am not a regular news consumer because I am bothered and really distracted by the overload of fragmented information it delivers, so I am very confused of what would constitute an acceptable journalistic piece.

What struck me in this class is that we seem to have an quite narrow idea of what journalism is.  What I mean by narrow is that picture of the romanticized, righteous, politically relevant --male-- journalist, the man who flies to the scene, the worldly,  educated writer and story teller, capturing calamities, catastrophes, international political insurgencies and the like. The writing is critical, the content politically relevant and useful to democratic society, but remains impersonal to retain a form of ethical objectivity, and truthfulness.  It seems to me that this view of journalism is very much "morally" grounded,  and, what is more, in the case of international journalism, grounded in colonialist morals.

I wonder if there are other ways of apprehending the journalist act.  Although the reporting of political events, of suffering,  etc, is the most obvious  example of something ethically (even morally) relevant and important, I wonder if there are not other ways in which journalistic work can serve the same ideals and aspirations, a less "canonical" form of journalism.

I am starting to look around for what can be considered as a legitimate  journalistic piece, and I landed on this link:  Pew Research Journalism principles:http://www.journalism.org/resources/principles-of-journalism/. I recommend taking a quick look.

-- Caroline


Link to the principles of  journalism:
http://www.journalism.org/resources/principles-of-journalism/