Journalistic professionalism in wartime

Definiion of ‘journalistic professionalism’ :
The journalistic professionalism was a belief of "public service", which was developed in the United States after the dissolution of political parties in the Press, it is part of a general trend of administrative rationalism and professional neutralism.

The following are its main characteristics:
First, objectivity. Journalists should report the news without personal bias and objectively reflect the fact that news at the same time, journalists act as the "gatekeeper" according to the "news value" neutral standards rather than personal preferences of a choice.

Second, truth. News reports must truly reflect the original appearance of objective things, we can not only cover part truth or details of truth, and it must achieve the overall real. Truth is the first principle, without it, objectivity will be out of the question, the independence will be lost.

Third, independence. The media has the function of a public institution, the purpose of journalism is to serve all the people, but not limited to service of political or economic interest groups, so the operation of the media should be completely independent and should not succumb addition to industry standards or stay in the control of any authority.

Fourth, freedom. Press freedom, including freedom of interview, freedom of publication, freedom of expression and freedom of access to information which is the "right to know." Press freedom is the cornerstone of the Western press theory, as the Western media has always boasted.

The Western society always emphasized the independence of the press and the media, stressed that news reports must be "objective", "factual" and "multiple" and emphasized that journalists must abide by "the journalistic profession", the most important news career norms.

However, in the western media reality, a large number of news reports, which contrary to the journalistic professionalism, often show up, especially in the war time.

"War is a continuation of politics." Modern information warfare have not changed this rule, but made political integration and interaction much closer at a higher level. National interests and political objectives and implementing the war completely, the news media has increasingly become a battlefield of warring parties.

Along with the rapid development of information technology, the warring parties around the news media and the struggle will be more complex and intense, the right to information has become a system of modern warfare information an important component of the right.

The truth and objectivity of news have not been enhanced because of technological advances, but have been harmed. If the special nature of the war will inevitably harm the nature of news, then the war reports in future will not be able to be called as news, war reports will lost their need for its existence.