The new rules of news
guardian.co.uk
guardian.co.uk
That's a very good idea. As a former reporter myself, I have to say that this is what many conscientious reporters wish they could report, if only the editors would get over the idea of pretending to be omniscient. And as a reader of journalism, I think I would like this invitation to be engaged in each story, raising questions about implicit unanswered questions and answering questions that were explicitly identified as unanswered.
"7. We would replace PR-speak and certain Orwellian words and expressions with more neutral, precise language. If someone we interview misused language, we would paraphrase instead of using direct quotations."
This encourages the possibility of the reporter introducing their own biases. Would someone who is against abortion consider "pro choice" as a misuse of language and replace it with "pro abortion"? Would someone who supports legalized abortion replace "pro life" with "anti abortion rights".
I think it would be far better to keep the speaker's quotation as is, and explain separately (in a side bar for instance) why the words used may be misleading.
Pro-lifers are anti-abortion rights, but they don't want people associating them with anti-rights because it's considered anti-American, they'll be seen as un-American as terrorists. When a country has free speech enshrouded in its national constitution, anti-rights is unpatriotic, but pro-life is seen as patriotic.
These games are already played, I see no problem with journalists playing them right back against the people trying to subvert media coverage for their own means.
It would then be convenient for someone to manufacture two opposing puppet causes and run the public through a tight course of fake debate and spectacle, while real issues are left ignored. You can already see how front-page news have very little effect on people's lives; death of a celebrity, or a lucky pet being found at last, etc.
News is dead because news is a commercial product, made, packaged and sold by the owners of the medium. And with its death, government will loose its biggest proponent. For the longest time, the papers and broadcast mediums "of record" have been manufacturing "national unity" and marching people behind the state; it's thanks to broadcast and print news that most nations of this world have created their sense of identity. Once this is gone, people will seek their ideological own and fellow like-minded people across geopolitical boundaries, and the taxing state will have to justify its continued funding a little harder.
Whether they know it or no, reporters already introduce their own biases into the text. Of all the utterances of the interviewee, they choose which parts to quote and which to ignore. De Saussure said that not even a photograph is objective for it represents reality from the preferred angle and from the point of view of the photographer.