New ad campaign touts the value of professional journalism

A new advertising campaign is asking Canadians to consider the value of professional journalism.
The JournalismIs campaign, initiated by a coalition of journalists and media stakeholders, is behind a series of print, digital and video ads that will start appearing in news media across Canada Saturday.
‘‘News is the lifeblood of our democracy,’’ Mary Agnes Welch, a Winnipeg Free Press reporter and former president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, said Friday at a launch of the campaign at Ryerson University in Toronto.
‘‘As the volume of information and the range of opinion available to media consumers increase, the contribution of professional journalism has become more important than ever.’’

The ads display one of 10 principles that represent what journalism means to Canadians, for example, ‘‘relentless,’’  ‘‘telling the whole story’’ and ‘‘a watchdog over the powerful.’’
Welch says the campaign was born out of the concern journalists were not doing enough to communicate with the public about what they expect from the news media. (National Post)
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(Editor's note: the comments on the story are much more entertaining than the story itself. Here is one:)

• everybody's doormat 

  I almost burst out laughing. The ad should be directed at journalists themselves, not the general public.
  A few years ago I found a weekend paper from the the mid-80's in the attic and the decline in the quality of reporting and volume of news is pretty obvious.