Browsing by Author "Ambaw, Tekabe"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    The State of Journalistic Frauds in Major Newspapers Located in Addis Ababa
    (Addis Ababa University, 2011-05) Ambaw, Tekabe; Simon, Gebremedhin (PhD)
    In the age of information society, having ethical journalists in all media houses is indispensible for the people to exercise the right to know the truth. As one can easily guess, truth or information gives people power. This power intern can transform the society in to a new level of development. This power can also enable society to entertain democracy. Ethical journalists are the one who facilitates this power to be used by the people. When journalists become unable to accomplish this role, the society will label journalists and the profession as a whole ‘untrustworthy and dishonesty’. In order journalists to play their role effectively, journalists ought to fulfill six elements of the profession; that are truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness, and public accountability. This study therefore tries to see whether Ethiopian journalists strive to preserve these standards or not. It also aims at finding or understanding the states of plagiarism, fabrication, unbalance, unbalance and omission in major newspaper companies located in Addis Ababa. Likewise, it will look at the major factors that hinder journalists from achieving all these standards in their media houses. And finally the paper will give practical solutions for the factors that deter journalists to be truthful and honesty. The study is conducted in ten major newspapers namely; Addis Admass, Addis Zemen, Awramba Times, Berissa, Capital, Daily Monitor, Ethiochanal, Ethiopian Herald, Fortune, and Reporter. The total number of Population (journalists) working in these newspaper extends one hundred twenty two. The researcher had first distributed a total of 122 questionnaires, but, the returned questionnaires are forty four in numbers. Therefore the study bases on the available of response of those 44 journalists. As a result of this, the sampling technique that this thesis employed is availability or convenience non random sampling method. The study also used snow ball non random sampling method to get supplementary data through interview from the top level editors. Moreover, to attain the research objective easily and reach at valid findings, the study tries to use the researcher’s own observation. Based on the above technique that the researcher used, the study revealed plagiarism, unfairness, unbalanced reporting, and omission exists in major newspaper located in Addis Ababa. The results show that the majority of respondents have observed plagiarism, unfairness, deliberate omission and unbalanced storytelling in their newspapers. However, the number of respondents who have experienced fabrication is less than the respondents who have never experienced fabrication. In this particular research topic the researcher able to find many factors for the journalistic frauds discussed in the literature review. Among these factors, the one which is considered as the ‘major factor’ for all fraud types is lack of knowledge about the profession. The second factor, which identified as the common factor for all journalistic frauds is carelessness. Based on the finding, therefore, the researcher recommends the media stakeholders to work more on the educational quality, and producing free, confident and skilled journalists.