Role of Journalists at Western Producer - Essay Example

MEDIA ASSIGNMENT Part I(a Work Performance Data How satisfactory has been the employee’s contribution (Extremely Dissatisfied Somewhat Dissatisfied=2; Satisfied=3; Very Satisfied = 4 ; Extremely Satisfied = 5) Attribute 1 2 3 4 5 Timeliness of arrival and departure from work? Attendance? Timeliness of breaks and lunch? Appearance? General performance as compared to other employees? Overall technical knowledge? Communication skills? Consistency in task performance? Work speed? Quality of work? Overall professional traits? Work attitudes and skills overall (b) Self Evaluation Questionnaire How would you rate yourself on the Following? S.No. Attributes Score Max Marks Project Time Management 1. Rate your ability to manage projects according to schedules. Do you effectively estimate the effort, resources, and time required to complete project tasks? 10 2. How skilled are you in the use of a schedule to determine the tasks that compose a critical path? Are you able to identify associated resource requirements and devise project control methods for each task? 10 Project Integration Management 3. Rate your project planning skills. Can you create a coherent, consistent project plan that takes into account all aspects of a project? 10 4. Rate your ability to execute the activities described in a project plan. 10 Project Scope Management 5. Rate your ability to use tools such as work breakdown structures to subdivide a project into components and tasks, and to define all project tasks. 10 6. Rate your ability to monitor project progress against a project plan. How readily are you able to recognize problems? 10 Judgement, Integrity, Initiative, and Perseverance 7. Rate your perseverance. Are you able to patiently stay with a plan of action or position until the desired objective is attained? 10 8. Rate your sensitivity to the organizational environment. Can you tolerate ambiguity, adapt to shifting priorities, change your management style and respond with new approaches to deal with changing conditions? 10 Project Cost Management 9. Rate your skills at assessing the quantity and cost of each resource needed in completing project activities. Are you able to develop an estimate of the cost of each task required for a project? 10 Project Quality Management 10. How familiar are you with quality assurance practices? Rate your ability to ensure that a project will satisfy quality standards. 10 Leadership 10 11. Rate your ability to motivate others. Are you able to increase productivity by promoting teamwork, commitment, recognizing contributions and suggesting advancements? Communications 12. Rate your ability to establish an open dialogue with others. 10 Project Risk Management 13. Rate your ability to manage project risk by eliminating and/or mitigating risks and by developing and/or assessing contingency plans. 10 Action Management 14. Are you good at delegating? Rate your ability to co-ordinate projects by assigning work to appropriate people, monitoring their activities, and ensuring timely completion. 10 Project Procurement Management 15. Rate your project procurement skills. Are you familiar with procurement processes? Are you able to liaise with procurement authorities and prepare procurement support documentation, such as specifications, statements of work, information requests, evaluation criteria, and vendor lists? 10 TOTAL Part II Working conditions of an Editor Media Work Places Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP 2004) has cited media workplaces as being: places wherein jobs are an expression of creativity and hence, need recognition for sustaining motivation; places which are hierarchical in nature and that decisions may be driven by the political views of the owners or the commercial pressures from the advertisers; places wherein professional standards exist which affirm the role of journalists and other to provide truthful and unbiased information; places wherein certain rights of media professionals must be respected and include: Duties Alberta Human Resources and Employment cites that in addition to the publishing and broadcast industry, editors have project management responsibilities apart from the freelance work on journals and newsletters. Editors often work long and irregular hours and depending on the industry, the work might be done alone or in midst of people. ‘While newspaper editors work in loud and hectic surroundings, book and freelance editors may work at home because editing manuscripts requires privacy and quiet’. Personal Characteristics As per Alberta Human Resources and Employment, for such a dynamic profile of the job, editors may exhibit the following characteristics: curiosity and ambition excellent writing and research skills the ability to criticize effectively organization and time management skills decision-making and leadership skills the ability to work well under time pressure. Also, the editors are required to plan, coordinate work with other, analyze information, solve problems and negotiate with writers and others. The job is multidisciplinary in nature with persons from a variety of backgrounds qualifying as editors. Citing the case of newspapers, there are written statements to define ethical standards. Constraints The job of journalists is to gather information, to validate it, and also to sort facts out of a mass of information, not only voluminous but often unintelligible. This process of selection and synthesis implies choices which will alter reality. People often blame the media for over-simplification and lack of nuances. But efforts at simplification are part of the job. Almost by definition, to inform is also to deform. The second aspect is about gathering of news. News describes information that is new. The concept has a deep meaning because it implies that what is not new, or different, or significant is not news. By definition, news is a breach of continuity and a breach of normality as may be describable by events such as crises, fights and changes that are not part of normal daily life. Further, newspapers cannot take the role of advertisement enforcement agencies since practical and legal constraints limit a newspaper’s ability to pre-screen advertisements. However, with newspapers have responsibility on projecting the truths to the society are constrained in screening such advertisements. Also, for newspaper industry, distinction between production and distribution of copyright material is not meaningful since reporting and editorial staff ‘create’ the actual news, advertising people sell and reprint advertising, production employees physically print the news and distribution employees actually deliver the newspapers to the customers. Therefore, for newspaper copyright is a corporate entity. Code of Ethics Codes of ethics exist for professional journalists and newspapers in ensuring that the public is well informed. Cited below is the code of editorial ethics developed for Western Producer as a case example. I. General Principles: Role of journalists at Western Producer is to ‘ensure the greatest benefit to readers, editorial policies and procedures will be designed to support this goal.’ II. Accuracy: Publication of accurate and timely news reports along with informative articles. III. Fairness: Opportunity for representation of all major view points with efforts for a neutral, factual fashion enabling readers to think independently. IV. Attribution: Sources of information are disclosed to readers and the authorship of articles is prominently identified. Authenticity of efforts is also maintained. V. Conflict Of Interest: Actual or apparent conflicts of interests considering articles or columns shall be disclosed and that no profit motive shall be attributed for by the journalists such as gifts, free lunches, etc. VI. News Sources: Confidentiality of sources shall be respected within the limits set by Canadian Law VII. Opinion: ‘The Western Producer will provide a forum for all legitimate expressions of Western Canadian rural opinion on current agricultural issues, within the constraints of available space and Canadian law.’ VIII. Advertising Relations: Existence or non-existence of individual advertising orders will not influence editorial decisions on content and that advertising and editorial operations shall be independent. IX. Professional Development: ‘Western Producer journalists will be encouraged to maintain high personal professional standards, seeking to improve their performance and knowledge by such methods as reading professional publications, participating in associations, attending seminars and making use of other opportunities for professional self-development.’ X. Freedom of the Press: ‘The Western Producer supports the principle of a free press as one of the foundations of democracy and individual liberty.’ Reference CEP. (2004) For Democratic Canadian Media at www.cep.ca/policies/mediapolicy_e.pdf accessed on december 12, 2005. Read More