The Net's Effect on Journalism

An Associated Press article about the impact of the internet on journalism has a few interesting findings. A few years ago, it was expected that the internet would democratize news coverage. While print media is being rapidly reborn online, web-based news appears to be constraining the number of conversations instead of expanding them. "The news agenda actually seems to be narrowing, with many Web sites primarily packaging news that is produced elsewhere, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism's annual State of the News Media report. Two stories - the war in Iraq and the 2008 presidential election campaign - represented more than a quarter of the stories in newspapers, on television and online last year, the project found. Take away Iraq, Iran and Pakistan, and news from all of the other countries in the world combined filled up less than 6 percent of the American news hole, the project said."

Comments

Not the Net's fault...

[TripMaster Monkey]

Two stories - the war in Iraq and the 2008 presidential election campaign - represented more than a quarter of the stories in newspapers, on television and online last year, the project found.

You know, it might be possible that these topics dominate the news so because they are the most important issues we currently face. Making the claim that the Net is "narrowing" the news agenda based upon this is disingenuous.

Re:Not the Net's fault...

[Zelos]

I spent a couple of weeks on a business trip in the US in January - the saturation coverage of the presidential primaries was over the top IMHO. It's not like it's even an election, it's a pre-election. I noticed that there was virtually no mention of (for example) the massive violence going on in Kenya at the time over their elections.

Re:Not the Net's fault...

[Project2501a]

> You know, it might be possible that these topics dominate
> the news so because they are the most important issues we
> currently face.

It might also be that there's a huge propaganda effort going on. Remember what Noam Chomksy said about the Propaganda model in his 1998 "Manufacturing Concent":

Presenting an analysis its authors call the "propaganda model", the book argues that since mass media news outlets are now run by large corporations, they are under the same competitive pressures as other corporations. According to the book, the pressure to create a stable, profitable business invariably distorts the kinds of news items reported, as well as the manner and emphasis in which they are reported. This occurs not as a result of conscious design but simply as a consequence of market selection: those businesses who happen to favor profits over news quality survive, while those that present a more accurate picture of the world tend to become marginalized.

Why Democratize?

[abscissa]

Why should we "democratize" news coverage? If you had a health problem, would you want even the most uninformed voting on your diagnosis, or would you rather see a top specialist working with advanced knowledge and experience?

I am so fucking sick of this belief on digg etc. that "the people" are finally taking back the web.

Re:Why Democratize?

[mikelu]

Democratize is the wrong word - what they mean is news coverage akin to the Greek jury model: the number of news sources becomes so large that bribing or intimidating enough of them to have an effect becomes staggeringly difficult.

Re:Why Democratize?

[jbn-o]

Then how do you explain the huge failure (failure from the public's perspective not the business perspective) of the mainstream media coverage on the invasion and occupation of Iraq (failures which persist to this day) and the continued narrowing of debate on health care, both of which are incredibly important issues of the day? The failure to adequately report on the war is all too evident (particularly today as the mainstream media ignores an important weekend war panel where soldiers were speaking out); Jeff Greenfield's "analysis" is an example of the failure to convey what Americans want in health care. The McNeil-Lehrer News Hour tried a similar scam years ago with Dr. Steffi Woolhandler when she spoke about single-payer universal health care (if you have access to Lexis-Nexis you can probably get a complete transcript of the charade). There aren't that many news sources, the media ownership is shrinking and they're all multinational corporations with largely compatible ends. Not that you accused anyone of saying so, but one apparently doesn't need any smoke-filled room conspiracy to get them to behave in such a way that they all profoundly misreport. Chomsky's analysis of this (quoted elsewhere in this /. discussion) seems far more accurate to me.

Re:Exactly

[IBBoard]

No, it's right, the American 'news' is a big hole that anything from outside disappears in to without a trace!

I was actually surprised at how little external news the US seems to get. I stayed in Colorado a couple of Christmases ago and the only way to get any form of news about the outside world was the BBC World Service. Yes, it's a big nation with a lot of its own news, but here in the UK we get news about the Middle East, Europe, politics, America, the Tsunami, Australia becoming America's lap dog (although nothing about us doing the same first), etc, so we know there's an outside world and that stuff happens in it.

Investigative Journalism Takes Time and Money

[curmudgeon99]

I am probably one of the few slashdot readers who has worked as a foreign correspondent for a newspaper. I worked for Nevski Novosti in St. Petersburg Russia for a year. Doing good journalism takes time to develop sources and money to support said process. In the quarterly-profit world of corporate media, there is no time for delayed gratification. Therefore, we get endless stories about Britney and other celeb trash news.

In fact

[WindBourne]

I see more about off beat information from the net than I do from the main stream media. Shoots, Sibel Edmunds has offered to spill all that she knows about corruption in the gov. IFF they will do a live show. Upon doing that show, she will be arrested. In fact, probably during the show. The main stream news media will not touch it. The net is begging for it. In fact, some of the best stuff coming up is from the net and being picked up by the british press.

All in all, I believe that the net is doing the work that mainstream is no longer doing. Of course, the vast majority of Americans are sick of worthless news.

What about journalism before the net?

[LS]

Let's not forget how most people got their news before the popularization of the internet. The average person had read a newspaper or two, had a subscription to a magazine or two, and watched mainstream news on a few television channels. The average person had little access to foreign media unless they put effort to find it. These mediums were all broadcast style, with virtually no feedback to the source. They were virtually all controlled by large corporations.

I submit that the condition of dialog in US and maybe the world would be MUCH worse than it is now if the internet didn't exist, and the advent of its popularization is grossly underrated in the effect it has had on society. We have a population that regularly and instantly interacts with foreign nationals, hears and expresses opinions opposing the standard line fed by mainstream media outlets, accesses articles and information in quantities and variation vastly beyond the past, and has the capability to organize efforts around issues that would have never been exposed by the powers that be. We might cowering under a state of martial law at this point if the critical mass of voices weren't heard opposing the current administration's policies.

While there is still a place for journalistic principles and rigorous training in the discipline, the majority of "journalism" that people were exposed to before the internet hardly made an attempt to meet that standard. Anyone can and should be a journalist, even if it simply means having a cell-phone camera at the right place and right time.

LS