1. 10 roles of the modern media
What readers expect the press to do with the freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment.
By Gary Lindsay, adapted from material presented in Introduction to Journalism, a Nextext coursebook.

2. News Reporting
We expect the press to report the news, timely objective reports on events that readers want or need to know. The media decides what is news, and this is known as the gatekeeper role.
10 Roles of the Press

3. Entertainment
To entertain us. In addition to providing news about entertainment, the media also gives us interesting, fun things to do to fill our time. Television has evolved to serve this role almost exclusively, but magazines also exist primarily to serve this role.
10 Roles of the Press

4. Matter of Record
To create written permanent record of important events. This includes important news events that may become history, but it also includes routine events: births, deaths, arrests, divorces, legal proceedings, etc.
10 Roles of the Press

5. School, or community, spirit
Build loyalty to a community, state, university or school.
10 Roles of the Press

6. Community Image
Promote a positive image. Bad news makes a community look bad; good news may make it look better. Leaders and some members of the public may want media publications to not simply report news, but to slant it favorably, and to influence the reader’s opinions through flattering coverage and opinion. Sometimes the press may get public pressure to suppress the news (blaming the messenger).[Note: some may expect a school publication to play this role, but few would expect a major newspaper to do so.]
10 Roles of the Press

7. Educational skills
Build the skills of those who work in the media, to teach the people who work for the publication how to do their jobs better. You would expect this to be a high priority for school and university publications, but is it also a role private publications play?
10 Roles of the Press

8. Reader culture
Reflect, validate or criticize popular culture. This is often controversial for student publications and an area where student journalists and their administrators often clash. Student publications need to decide to what extent they will relate to the culture of your readers, and whether they will present a cleaned up version to make your school look good. For example, what if someone uses profanity in an interview? Does the reporter clean up the language?
10 Roles of the Press

9. Leadership
Provide leadership by putting needed topics on our agenda through both reporting and editorial content. How you lead your community by way of the publication can cause you to gain or lose readers.
10 Roles of the Press

10. Public forum
Provide a place for the public to offer its own opinions. Through letters to the editor, guest editorials, and guest opinion articles, readers have a do you have a chance to show their opinion to the public. This is essential in a democracy because the test of whether an idea is good or bad is determined in the marketplace of ideas.
10 Roles of the Press

11. Interpretation
Serve as a sentry – to interpret trends in culture and to warn society of danger. This role of the press is to make sense of the world, to help readers understand it.
10 Roles of the Press