The data and dangers in journalism

This week I decided to take a deeper dive into the podcast side of journalism. I listened to a few different podcasts from it's all journalism and journalism podcast that has literally everything. The episode that really intrigued me was episode 502. They had a guest speaker named Amos gelb. He owns Dc Witness and Baltimore witness. Both reporting websites that shed light to unheard stories. He describes the work they do as the reporters gathering the data. He says on the pod “A lot of people report about crime but nobody is gathering the data,”. They are gathering the data on these stories so people are not forgotten and things don't go unpunished. 

 

The main story he talks about is the death of a young back reporter who was killed on the job. Her story goes as follows ““stepped off a bus and walked into a shootout and someone used her as a human shield and she died,” a crime that happened while the rest of the region was shocked by the torture and murder of a wealthy white family in Northwest D.C.” She would have been forgotten and left out of news headlines without the work of Amos and his team. This is just one of the many over shadowed and forgotten stories that aren't usually heard or cared about. Why? Why do we not care about these reporters clearly risking it all to bring us info and keep us informed. It's a dangerous job that requires great will power and bravery. If we don't recognize these sacrifices and stories what kind of justice are we doing to these poor reporters?

Further into the interview he describes how difficult it is to attempt to try to tell all of the stories and bring justice. Gelb says “as a journalist, of deciding whose death was worth reporting and whose was not. “We decided every homicide would receive the same coverage (at Witness ) … In creating our methodology, we decided to track every homicide, starting with the homicide, and track every one from act to judicial resolution, tracking, gathering every piece of public data and putting trained reporters in every hearing of every case, to both verify and amplify the data because we all know, in the end, it has to come out in court.” By tracking the data they don't let anything slip through. Everyone's story is told with the utmost details and importance. This topic is so important so we can give back to these reporters who have done so much for us. All of the records and historical accounts of life atrocities and everything else wouldn't be here without someone's bravery to bring us some way shape or form of journalism so the story isn't forgotten.