Lois Lane Friday: Lois Lane, Journalistic Integrity and the Current State of Journalism

In this day and age where you have Donald Trump, a hostile wannabe dictator elected President of the United States, who uses his power to not only bully the press but anyone else who he dislikes. It's very important that reporters and journalists not be afraid to report the news. That's one of the reasons why I like Lois Lane, although she maybe fictional, she has always been written as a tough as nails honest reporter who is not afraid to go after the criminals, no matter who they are. Journalistic integrity is important to her and she knows the power of her words and the responsibility that comes with it.

I think so many reporters and journalists have forgotten their responsibility. I also believe they have forgotten how to really investigate stories or simply don't want to lose their high profile cushy glamorous jobs (especially TV newscasters) to effectively report the news. When you have the Editor-in-Chief of the Wall Street Journal, stating that the newspaper will no longer call out Trump's lies but instead use something along the lines of euphemisms, it makes you wonder how is that providing accurate reporting. It maybe fictional but I can't imagine famed reporter and Editor-in-Chief Perry White saying that The Daily Planet will no longer call Lex Luthor's lies "lies". Seriously, this is ridicules, yes it is up to the reader to make their own conclusion but it's the job of the reporter to provide as much information as possible for the reader.

Reporters have always held an important place in our society of informing the public of the truth. But lately, in a rush to be the first to "report" the news or just simply regurgitating it, many journalists are forgoing fact checking let alone providing actual well researched stories resulting in the readers and viewers being shortchanged by inadequate reporting.

Which brings me to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, it may not have been the best movie but one thing I thought was done well was Lois Lane investigating. She was the only character in that entire movie who used her brain to follow the clues to piece together Lex Luthor's plan, unlike the "heroes" Batman and Superman who were too busy being manipulated by Luthor to really do anything to stop him. No matter what obstacles she faced in being shut out of the investigation she continued to follow through on her leads. Lois never gave up in searching for the truth. Now while I found the journalism portion for Lois to be good it was a different story for Perry White and Clark Kent. Perry told Clark to drop his article about Batman. This version of Batman was extremely unstable and dangerous and used brutal tactics and reporting on a reckless vigilante seems like it would be a good article. But for some reason, the writing for this movie had Perry not understand the importance of what Clark was doing by trying to uncover clues about Batman but what was even more disappointing was Clark gave up without really fighting for the story.

And in a time where journalism is being attacked or the media is cowering down, I believe a lot of reporters are now going to have to truly fight for the truth in their stories especially if a newspaper or station has become complacent in how they report the news. It goes without saying that Lois Lane and The Daily Planet represent journalistic integrity. And it would be nice if some of their real life counterparts stood for that as well.