Being a practicing journalist in the dawn of the age of blogs is probably like being a buggy-whip maker was when cars became popular. It was either the end of your career as a leather worker or a whole new opportunity to get better at it.
How is the Internet changing journalism? Look at the story of Nawaz Sharif, the deposed Pakistani prime minister who returned from exile today under the threat of being arrested on his arrival (he was). In one hour, 82 posts were put on the Internet describing his arrest and other details; and those could be found with a simple Google search.
If you work at a “real-time” news organization you can update stories as news happens, but there are limits, which the more democratically (or perhaps anarchically) inclined will point out.
The thing is, the audience has changed. It’s younger and knows how to find information itself and won’t tolerate the condescending “we know what’s important for you to know” attitude of news organizations.
The elders at the news organizations have awakened to this fact, and are going to hire those journalists who can help them deliver this new, high-demand product.
New media — learn it and get hired. And don’t worry about the principles of journalism being lost; the people who demand instant news also demand the truth, and they’ll be monitoring you.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Rebecca // Sep 14, 2007 at 2:52 am
Good post and some good links though I couldn’t tell from what you wrote whether you did any of the readings..
As I’m sure you know, lots of people are worried about principles of journalism being lost, though whether that’s the fault of the internet or the fault of cable TV or other factors is also a matter of debate!
2 greg // Sep 14, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Point taken on the readings. Scout’s honor I did them, though. Of course I wasn’t a Scout, so how about old navy guy’s honor?
I think cable TV is more to blame than the Internet for the loss of journalism standards. The inane banter between the CNN presenters after every story, telling us by their laughter the story was cute and funny, or by their stern faces it was sad and serious — and sometimes, as a bonus, Christi Lu Stout will tell us it was “a truly shocking story” — is enough to make the viewer scream “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” and throw the TV out the nearest window.
BBC isn’t a lot better. In my job, I have them both on at my desk 10 hours a day. It’s amazing, but they run the same packages all day, with identical story placement, even to the point of using the same file footage at the same time. You will see Petreaus swearing the White House didn’t tell him what to say to Congress, and tough-guy Democrats like Biden looking disbelievingly at him over the tops of their reading glasses, all day long.
The only difference is that on BBC, you won’t be assaulted with some smarmy comment by the co-anchors, because BBC doesn’t use the Regis and Kathy Lee (or whatever died-blonde replacement Regis is using these days) formula.
But my favorite part, for which I wait in keen anticipation every hour, is the segway into the weather. The news anchors and the weather models so obviously like each other — and perhaps, with some of them it’s more than that? — that they waste at least a minute telling stupid jokes about how the previous story is somehow similar to the weather conditions we’re about to hear.
The friendship, the sexual tension, the deep feelings they all share about the news and the weather. It’s revolting - I mean riveting.
3 Rebecca // Sep 16, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Haha. I agree with you about cable tv!
By the way, just want to make sure you were aware of this week’s assignment and whether you had any questions or problems?
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