Final answer:
Journalism is the activity or profession of gathering, writing, and communicating the news. It involves researching and reporting on areas of public interest, ranging from politics to social events, and requires maintaining accuracy and credibility amidst diverse media formats and potential misinformation.
Step-by-step explanation:
The concept of journalism is most accurately defined as the activity or profession of gathering, writing, and communicating the news. Journalists play a critical role by investigating public interest areas, researching, and conducting interviews to report stories that provide a complete and balanced account. In today's digital world, the media encompasses different formats including television, print, radio, and the Internet, all contributing collectively to the mass media. While traditional journalism focuses on reporting facts, there are various forms of writing in journalism such as partisan, yellow, objective and interpretive journalism.
The ever-expanding media platforms have made it beneficial as well as challenging for journalists to maintain credibility and accuracy amidst the rampant misinformation and sensationalism. Regardless, the core objective of journalism remains to serve the public by informing them and enabling an educated and democratic society.