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Journalists (still) Needed “What is really threatened by the decline of newspapers and the related rise of online media is reporting—on-the-ground reporting by trained journalists who know the subject, have developed sources on all sides, strive for objectivity and are working with editors who check their facts, steer them in the right direction and are a further check against unwarranted assumptions, sloppy thinking and reporting, and conscious or unconscious bias.”
(Thanks to alert WORDster Arnold Ismach)
Editorial comment: True enough. Fishin’ ain’t catchin’, and webbery ain’t sense-making.
On Feb 20, 2009, at 7:12 AM, Bud wrote:
ReplyDeleteI don’t know, Ted, it must be me just becoming more cynical in light of the “new world order” of so-called journalism. I think some of these folks like Mr. Kamiya have a very idealized view of journalism, not just today but for perhaps the past twenty-five years. Since CNN and USA Today, “journalism” has devolved into speculation and snappy prose. At its worst, it’s Nancy Grace. At its best, it’s Brian Williams trying to cram thirty “stories” into an eighteen or nineteen minute television program. Newspapers? Literally shells of their former selves. Ten years, most, and the majority are gone (into cyberspace). Time marches … on?
Bud
I'm with you, Bud. But I also agree with this perspective of a difference between the sense-making role of (traditional) journalism, and the noise that passes for news--whether on the 24/7 TV "news" bazaars or online on Twitter et al (which I've just succumbed to...). If fishin' ain't catchin', and noise ain't news, then I agree with Kamiya in his regret over the loss of true journalism--on many levels!
ReplyDeleteThe kind of journalist Kamiya describes is an endangered species, and not just because the expanding Web sprawl has encroached into its habitat. Poison in the form of the so-called "new journalism," which reduces every news item and issue to a human-interest story complete with plot, characters, and theme, sacrificing bare facts in the process, has contaminated the waters and deformed the species. Consumers fishing for news toss back what they rightly perceive as crap . . . er, carp, and turn instead to the farm-raised variety they think is safer to swallow.
ReplyDeleteI was a member of JAWS for a short while, mostly to get a feel for where things are at for women journalists in this country...
ReplyDeleteAnd I got myself embroiled in a very hot debate about old fashioned (purist?) hard news, facts-only please, reporting (which I contend is the only reporting genre worthy of the title journalism) versus 'human interest' narrative storytelling - with its implied commentary - etc...
Needless to say - my views were boohed out of the ether...
Its not that I dont think there is a place for narrative storytelling in our society and in non-fiction literature... just dont call it journalism...
And I still find it impossible to accept that people who spend their time and are paid to follow around 'celebrities' and 'report' on their doings call themselves, and are described as, journalists...
Did anyone say it had to be an either/or proposition? For readers to understand what's at stake, sometimes we need a story that draws people to become engaged in an issue that otherwise seems alien. Blaming "new journalism" for the demise of newspapers is outrageous. Sloppy, biased, superficial, sentimental reporting isn't new and it isn't journalism, no matter what you call it.
ReplyDeleteTed, you picked a perfect quote about the decline
ReplyDeleteof quality journalism. There's another area, though, that gets little or no attention. That's the threat to geographical communities that the loss of quality reporting and the loss of readers
has brought. If people don't know what's happening in their own town, civic participation will plunge. The splintering of audiences to small groups worldwide bodes badly for democracy. --Arnold Ismach
I totally agree with this. Everytime I hear of a blogger getting press credentials "just because" I cringe. We need ethics, knowledge, etc. still on the battlelines!
ReplyDeleteNats
I know what you mean -- but there is excellent journalism on the web
ReplyDelete(NYTimes, Smithsonian, etc. etc.), so perhaps you should have said
"blogging ain't journalism" instead, just to be clear.
I wouldn't pick, except that a lot of people read you (and expect
journalistic excellence!). And the fact is, whether we like it or
not, we will be almost entirely web-based in the very near future.
But just because the printed medium is sadly vanishing (due to a
now-broken business model) doesn't mean there's no quality research
and writing out there. In fact, the push will be on to raise the bar.
Remember how sketchy Wikipedia was in the beginning, and how
exponentially better it is now?
Journalists will always be needed.
Cheers~
A.