textualdeviance (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
textualdeviance) wrote2006-12-01 12:30 pm
textualdeviance) wrote2006-12-01 12:30 pm
Entry tags:
Interesting
The news is dead. Long live the news.
M just sent me this.
Something I decided a while back, and which was cemented during my internship, is that news--and the consumer need for it--does not change just because the medium changes. Having worked extensively in three of the four main forms of media (radio, print and online) I can safely say that very little changes about content from medium to medium. Only the method and timing of delivery changes. Airtime becomes column inches becomes bandwidth. Budgeting for space/time for ads v. content is still necessary. Giving audiences what they want AND what they need is always a balancing act.
And one of the big things that does not change is the basic principle of journalism: gather the facts from reliable sources and assemble them into a concise, educational and interesting package.
There is a vast segment of media (of all forms) that completely ignores that principle. Obviously, some of this is intentional--some content is designed solely for entertainment and therefore doesn't need real journalists. But when it comes to reporting the news, too many media organizations have grown lax, and aren't employing these standards.
This is why I don't think I'll be lacking for a job, even if newspapers do truly die, and even if citizen journalism becomes more common. For one, people who are good with language will always have a leg up over people who can't string a sentence together. People who are fluent in multiple forms of delivering information will also be more useful than people who are married to print or broadcast or whatever. But what really gives me a leg up is that I am a journalist.
The hideous publisher/host of the SPFH's site has kicked off a message board for its users. Someone there asked about citizen journalism and how much of it we allow for. I explained that our paper, while it takes opinion pieces and news tips from all over the community, does not allow laypeople to write news stories. If a reader gives us a good story, we put a reporter on it. We don't let anyone who hasn't been through the first two classes in our program to be on staff. This policy is part of what has consistently made our paper one of the top student papers in its class. Now that we finally have an editorial staff whose members aren't as interested in getting drunk, our standards are even better. We often scoop the local daily, or do far better coverage of a story than they do. Our program is recognized as one of the top in the region--even better than UW's program, which is just a subset of their communications department. We're not going to risk that by letting amateurs write for us.
This new obsession with blogging amuses me. Many papers, in a sad attempt to seem hip and down with the cyber generation, have started making their editors do blogs. Oy.
What they don't understand:
1. 99% of blogs are punditry. The most common form of "journalism" they do is analysis or aggregation of facts and stories gathered by someone else. On rare occasion, they will discover these facts for themselves, or assemble facts into a real story, but mostly, it's just someone on a soapbox or someone reprinting links of interest (And I include all of my LJs in this, of course. This entry itself is an analysis/punditry piece.)
2. This means that most blogs are better thought of as opinion columns or manual RSS feeds--not journalism.
This doesn't mean they don't have a place in media. Clearly, they do. Analysis can be very illuminating, even when done with bias. Often, a dry news story about something won't explain the real story behind the news. And many people enjoy getting all their news on a given subject in one or two places that cater to their tastes. I read HuffPo, for instance.
But it's impossible to get to the analysis stage of news until the reporting and editing stages are at least partially complete:
First, someone (the editor) has to decide whether something that has happened is newsworthy, and if so, when and how to cover the story.
Then, someone (the reporter) has to go out there and find out what happened, to whom it happened and whom it will affect, and talk to everyone concerned. Exactly how this fact gathering and interviewing takes place will, of course, vary from story to story. Sometimes it means jumping in the car and talking to witnesses to a tragedy. Sometimes it means digging through stacks of data or paperwork. In every case, it involves making decisions about whose information and commentary is important, relevant and trustworthy.
Then the reporter, often in conjunction with the editor on the story, has to assemble all that raw data into an understandable, concise yet complete form.
Then the editors decide where the story goes, clean up any missing pieces or language problems, and deliver it to the audience.
All of that is journalism. And virtually none of it can be done by amateurs. Perhaps the most important part of the process is decision making. Figuring out what the focus of the story is, what facts are important, who/what needs to be included and, most importantly, what information and which sources can be trusted is something that takes either training or experience to do. Most laypeople cannot do this. Hell, even many trained or experienced journalists can't do it right, judging by much of the shit that passes for journalism out there right now.
While participation in the news process is not an ivory tower thing that should be limited to only those people with a degree, ultimately, the final production of a news story belongs in the hands of people who know what they're doing.
This is not to say that amateurs cannot have a knack for journalism. To sound egotistical for just a moment, I truly feel that I was a journalist well before I had formal training in it. I feel I have a natural ability to sort gold from bullshit and to know what's newsworthy. Even though my early attempts at putting stories together were clumsy and unrefined, I still had a good idea of what the heck I was doing. And undoubtedly, that applies to a lot of amateur reporters running blogs or underground papers or whatever.
But it doesn't mean that any idiot with a camera or a keyboard can call him- or herself a journalist or can expect to be on par with what professionals do.
And this is what will save the news profession. Because even though everyone now has Web space in which to sound off about whatever he or she finds important, the cream will rise--and is already doing so. If you, the reader, want to know what happened, where do you go? Do you get your news from ContactMusic? Or do you get it from NYTimes.com? Do you let what your neighbor tells you about politics be your final source for that subject, or do you read up on it elsewhere? Even if you get the first inkling of news from an amateur source, do you stop there? My guess is no. Ultimately, you're going to head for a professional news source to find out the rest of the story. Truly informed and intelligent news consumers don't even stop with the news. They look at what sources the story contains and go to them, too.
And what that means is that I can trust I'll have a job. Even if I'm not actually doing work for something printed on a dead tree or conveyed via FCC-regulated airwaves, what I do as a journalist is necessary and is sorely needed on the Web. At some point, all that noise has to be filtered out, and it's my job to do that.
How currently existing media companies will survive as instant information transmission happens is that they will go back to the roots of their profession. They will realize that the fluff--the shit any idiot can produce--is ultimately meaningless, and what makes the difference is the quality of what they produce. They will fire the idiot reporters and editors who have lax standards for fact-checking and bullshit filtering. They'll get rid of the idea that "balance" requires interviewing everyone with an opinion on a given subject, instead of just those people who actually know what the fuck they're talking about. They'll cut down the punditry--since anyone can do that--and add in the fact gathering.
And in doing so, they will continue to produce a product that amateurs cannot. And thus will continue to get readers and therefore advertisers.
Will newspapers die? Perhaps. But journalism will not--not if we don't let it. And that's what really matters.
M just sent me this.
Something I decided a while back, and which was cemented during my internship, is that news--and the consumer need for it--does not change just because the medium changes. Having worked extensively in three of the four main forms of media (radio, print and online) I can safely say that very little changes about content from medium to medium. Only the method and timing of delivery changes. Airtime becomes column inches becomes bandwidth. Budgeting for space/time for ads v. content is still necessary. Giving audiences what they want AND what they need is always a balancing act.
And one of the big things that does not change is the basic principle of journalism: gather the facts from reliable sources and assemble them into a concise, educational and interesting package.
There is a vast segment of media (of all forms) that completely ignores that principle. Obviously, some of this is intentional--some content is designed solely for entertainment and therefore doesn't need real journalists. But when it comes to reporting the news, too many media organizations have grown lax, and aren't employing these standards.
This is why I don't think I'll be lacking for a job, even if newspapers do truly die, and even if citizen journalism becomes more common. For one, people who are good with language will always have a leg up over people who can't string a sentence together. People who are fluent in multiple forms of delivering information will also be more useful than people who are married to print or broadcast or whatever. But what really gives me a leg up is that I am a journalist.
The hideous publisher/host of the SPFH's site has kicked off a message board for its users. Someone there asked about citizen journalism and how much of it we allow for. I explained that our paper, while it takes opinion pieces and news tips from all over the community, does not allow laypeople to write news stories. If a reader gives us a good story, we put a reporter on it. We don't let anyone who hasn't been through the first two classes in our program to be on staff. This policy is part of what has consistently made our paper one of the top student papers in its class. Now that we finally have an editorial staff whose members aren't as interested in getting drunk, our standards are even better. We often scoop the local daily, or do far better coverage of a story than they do. Our program is recognized as one of the top in the region--even better than UW's program, which is just a subset of their communications department. We're not going to risk that by letting amateurs write for us.
This new obsession with blogging amuses me. Many papers, in a sad attempt to seem hip and down with the cyber generation, have started making their editors do blogs. Oy.
What they don't understand:
1. 99% of blogs are punditry. The most common form of "journalism" they do is analysis or aggregation of facts and stories gathered by someone else. On rare occasion, they will discover these facts for themselves, or assemble facts into a real story, but mostly, it's just someone on a soapbox or someone reprinting links of interest (And I include all of my LJs in this, of course. This entry itself is an analysis/punditry piece.)
2. This means that most blogs are better thought of as opinion columns or manual RSS feeds--not journalism.
This doesn't mean they don't have a place in media. Clearly, they do. Analysis can be very illuminating, even when done with bias. Often, a dry news story about something won't explain the real story behind the news. And many people enjoy getting all their news on a given subject in one or two places that cater to their tastes. I read HuffPo, for instance.
But it's impossible to get to the analysis stage of news until the reporting and editing stages are at least partially complete:
First, someone (the editor) has to decide whether something that has happened is newsworthy, and if so, when and how to cover the story.
Then, someone (the reporter) has to go out there and find out what happened, to whom it happened and whom it will affect, and talk to everyone concerned. Exactly how this fact gathering and interviewing takes place will, of course, vary from story to story. Sometimes it means jumping in the car and talking to witnesses to a tragedy. Sometimes it means digging through stacks of data or paperwork. In every case, it involves making decisions about whose information and commentary is important, relevant and trustworthy.
Then the reporter, often in conjunction with the editor on the story, has to assemble all that raw data into an understandable, concise yet complete form.
Then the editors decide where the story goes, clean up any missing pieces or language problems, and deliver it to the audience.
All of that is journalism. And virtually none of it can be done by amateurs. Perhaps the most important part of the process is decision making. Figuring out what the focus of the story is, what facts are important, who/what needs to be included and, most importantly, what information and which sources can be trusted is something that takes either training or experience to do. Most laypeople cannot do this. Hell, even many trained or experienced journalists can't do it right, judging by much of the shit that passes for journalism out there right now.
While participation in the news process is not an ivory tower thing that should be limited to only those people with a degree, ultimately, the final production of a news story belongs in the hands of people who know what they're doing.
This is not to say that amateurs cannot have a knack for journalism. To sound egotistical for just a moment, I truly feel that I was a journalist well before I had formal training in it. I feel I have a natural ability to sort gold from bullshit and to know what's newsworthy. Even though my early attempts at putting stories together were clumsy and unrefined, I still had a good idea of what the heck I was doing. And undoubtedly, that applies to a lot of amateur reporters running blogs or underground papers or whatever.
But it doesn't mean that any idiot with a camera or a keyboard can call him- or herself a journalist or can expect to be on par with what professionals do.
And this is what will save the news profession. Because even though everyone now has Web space in which to sound off about whatever he or she finds important, the cream will rise--and is already doing so. If you, the reader, want to know what happened, where do you go? Do you get your news from ContactMusic? Or do you get it from NYTimes.com? Do you let what your neighbor tells you about politics be your final source for that subject, or do you read up on it elsewhere? Even if you get the first inkling of news from an amateur source, do you stop there? My guess is no. Ultimately, you're going to head for a professional news source to find out the rest of the story. Truly informed and intelligent news consumers don't even stop with the news. They look at what sources the story contains and go to them, too.
And what that means is that I can trust I'll have a job. Even if I'm not actually doing work for something printed on a dead tree or conveyed via FCC-regulated airwaves, what I do as a journalist is necessary and is sorely needed on the Web. At some point, all that noise has to be filtered out, and it's my job to do that.
How currently existing media companies will survive as instant information transmission happens is that they will go back to the roots of their profession. They will realize that the fluff--the shit any idiot can produce--is ultimately meaningless, and what makes the difference is the quality of what they produce. They will fire the idiot reporters and editors who have lax standards for fact-checking and bullshit filtering. They'll get rid of the idea that "balance" requires interviewing everyone with an opinion on a given subject, instead of just those people who actually know what the fuck they're talking about. They'll cut down the punditry--since anyone can do that--and add in the fact gathering.
And in doing so, they will continue to produce a product that amateurs cannot. And thus will continue to get readers and therefore advertisers.
Will newspapers die? Perhaps. But journalism will not--not if we don't let it. And that's what really matters.
no subject
no subject
Pursuant to your entry about socializing--if you didn't see my earlier posts about it, we're planning a party at our place for Dec. 17. I'll be sending out an Evite for it soon.
no subject
journalism
Re: journalism
The best journalism, I've found, comes from independent but professional media--places owned by family companies or small chains, instead of something owned by Gannett or Murdoch. The smaller the company, the less likely they are to be motivated by profit, and thus spinning their stories to fit what advertisers and owners want.
But by the same token, very small independent media is riddled with bias because of the lack of gatekeepers. It's impossible to really keep track of what a handful of rogues do when they have no one to answer to. And really good journalists have jobs--they don't work for free for a propaganda rag.
The best journalism is transparent. It tells you where it gets its info from. "according to a DOJ memo" or "said Don Birch, CFO of the company." Anonymous sources--anything that says "sources say" or "according to those close to..." should be used sparingly, and only in situations where it's obvious that a cloaked internal informant is vital. Anything printed in a news story should come from a source that, given enough time and effort, the reader could go back to and look at or talk to herself.
no subject