Churnalism
Monday, February 2, 2009 at 9:58 am UTC by David Crotty permalink
As a quick follow-up to this posting, a colleague sent along a review of a new book called Flat Earth News by Nick Davies, which rightly points out that the “death of journalism” isn’t a murder, it’s a murder-suicide. Yes, readers are abandoning print newspapers and magazines, preferring to get their information online (with an assumption that such things are free). At the same time, this abandonment is being driven by a decline in quality of the old media, as the owners seek to cut costs and increase profits. From the review:
“The most basic function of journalism, in Davies’s view, is to check facts. Journalists don’t just pass on what they’re told without making an effort to check it first. At least, in theory they don’t. In practice, contemporary journalism has been corrupted by an endemic failure to verify facts and stories in a manner so fundamental that it almost defies belief. The consequences of that are pervasive and systemic…Journalists report much less than they used to, and much less than they should, as the papers have switched over to a reliance on columnists and opinion…Stories need to be cheap, meaning ‘quick to cover’, ‘safe to publish’; they need to ‘select safe facts’ preferably from official sources; they need to ‘avoid the electric fence’, sources of guaranteed trouble such as the libel laws and the Israel lobby; to be based on ‘safe ideas’ and contradict no loved prevailing wisdoms; to avoid complicated or context-rich problems; and always to ‘give both sides of the story’ (‘balance means never having to say you’re sorry – because you haven’t said anything’). And conversely, there are active pressures to pursue stories that tell people what they want to hear, to give them lots of celebrity and TV-based coverage, and to subscribe to every moral panic.”
I do strongly believe that people are still willing to pay for quality, but as this review points out, that’s not what’s being offered by most of our media outlets. The book looks interesting, definitely worth a read.
Posted in Science Publishing, Web 2.0 | 4 Comments »
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Monday, February 2, 2009 at 10:31 am UTC
One thing that somewhat annoys me in the UK is that people are abandoning print newspapers for print newspapers. This will kill the former.
What I mean is that there are about three separate “freesheets” that quickly regurgitate the early editions of the “real” papers (ie staffed with proper journalists, etc) and hand them out free at stations, etc, so nobody buys the “real” paper but takes the freesheet.
Apart from me, I cough up my 90 p a day for the Times. And one or two other people.
But do most people not realise that by ignoring the real paper for the ripoff, they are killing the real thing? (They also leave the freesheet in their train when they have finished with it, creating seas of unwanted newsprint. People who have paid for a paper seem to feel they “own” it and take it away with them at the end of their journey. But that’s another story.)
Monday, February 2, 2009 at 12:04 pm UTC
Which brings to mind linkbloggers, and news aggregator sites. There’s a delicate balance there in how much content should be used–you don’t want to drive all of your source material out of business, as if you do, there won’t be anything left to link to. Sounds like your freesheets are stepping over that line, short term thinking at its worst.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 7:17 pm UTC
The latest meme is the idea of non-profit newspapers as discussed in the New Yorker. The St. Petersburg Times is an example, perhaps.
Some small, young but strongly focussed newspapers that are not-for-profit are also starting to make some noise. They certainly check facts.
Could these be the beginnings of a new rise in objective, information-driven news reporting? They will if the big guys continue to lose focus on what their mission truly is.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 7:37 pm UTC
[...] approaches to journalism February 3, 2009 — Richard by mikebaird Churnalism: [Via Bench Marks] As a quick follow-up to this posting, a colleague sent along a review of a new [...]