The Noisy and Prolonged Death of Journalism

The war of words between the old and the new media is heating up some more. Eric Schmidt has an op-ed in Rupert Murdoch's WSJ (ironic, that) explaining to newspapers how Google wants to, and is trying to, help them. Kara Swisher's BoomTown column translates and deconstructs Schmidt's argument, hilariously. A few days back, the Washington Post's Michael Gerson became the latest journo to bemoan the death of journalism at the hands of the Internet; and investigative blogger Radley Balko quickly called B.S. on Gerson's claim that (all?) bloggers simply steal from (all?) hard-working, honest, ethical print journalists.

Comments

the real threat will be government intervention

[Shivetya]

seeing an "emergency" someone will step in with government money, more regulation, etc, and it just goes downhill from here.

Democrat Henry Waxman says that our imperial federal government will be involved in shaping the future of journalism in this country. He claims that it is "essential to U.S. democracy." John Leibowitz, the Chairman of the FTC says, "News is a public good ... We should be willing to take action if necessary to preserve the news that is vital to democracy."

See one story at http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9CAJBQ80&show_article=1

I am far less worried about big media companies and the like. I am more than inclined to fear the Federal Government getting involved. Worse, they will twist the meaning to lay claim that any press other than "printed" is not covered "exactly" by the Constitution thereby allowing them to "help" out by providing some regulation. Very similar to how they exploit the fact that Radio isn't specifically listed in the Constitution/BOR and therefor they have a right to affect them. Sad is how many cheer it on who don't like AM talk radio without understanding that giving the government a foot in the door opens all to the affect.

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[jimbolauski]

The little bit of journalistic integrity left will be destroyed if the government starts picking up the tab. Newspapers will have a vested interest in getting funding so support of one candidate or another will be rewarded with money, instead of just interviews, questions at press conferences, and leaked memos.

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[QuoteMstr]

Just like the BBC, that depraved pit of corruption and bias.

Err, wait: I misspelled FOX.

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[ArcherB]

The little bit of journalistic integrity left will be destroyed if the government starts picking up the tab. Newspapers will have a vested interest in getting funding so support of one candidate or another will be rewarded with money, instead of just interviews, questions at press conferences, and leaked memos.

As much as I hate to say it, it's that way now. NBC and it's sister stations are all owned by GE (at least until they sell to Comcast soon). This includes MSNBC. MSNBC is a very left-of-center network. While it has been shown that all media was biased toward Obama in the last election (yes, even Fox News... numbers don't lie), MSNBC went above and beyond the call of duty and by far the biggest Obama supporter of all the major media networks.

Now what does this have to do with GE? Who do you think would give more for green programs, Obama or McCain? Obviously Obama. Who stands to make a fortune off green programs? GE! GE makes the wind generators for wind farms, CFL and LED light bulbs and are well invested in other "green" areas. While it's great that GE is taking such a stance to greenify our world, it's not so great that they use their media subsidiaries to shape public opinion toward favoring one political party over the other to help their bottom line.

However, you are correct that it would get much worse if the government were paying the bills. You could expect that whichever presidential candidate or political party that promised to increased funding to the press outlets would get the more favorable treatment.

With that said, there should be some kind of oversight to prevent the corporations that own the press from using it to drive agendas with the purpose of increasing profits. For that matter, the press shouldn't be driving agendas at all!

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[NoYob]

Sad is how many cheer it on who don't like AM talk radio without understanding that giving the government a foot in the door opens all to the affect.

Isn't that always the case?

When the Bush Admin was grabbing all this power for the Executive branch, those of us that found it disturbing, were called a few things and we didn't understand the necessity of it since we're in a time of war - or some such non-sense.

Now comes the Democrats and the Obama Administration. Do the Republicans get it now? Of course not. The Democrats don't get it either, of course, and if they get their way, the inevitable Republicans that will get back power in some future election, will be able to do that same thing. So, in your AM Radio example, if the folks who want that out of the way, well, we just may see our beloved NPR bite the dust.

Power always flips back and forth - which is a good thing because we'd have a really corrupt government,otherwise - see Venezuela or Iran - if it didn't and I for one welcome the flipping back and forth because in the long run it does limit one sides damage or the others.

But the trouble is, once Government gets power, it doesn't give it up: regardless of who's in power. Just look at how the Obama Administration kept all the executive power that the Bush Admin took.

Change indeed.

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[MikeBabcock]

After Fox News won their argument in Florida establishing there was no need for them to report only the truth or facts, I see lots of room for regulation.

You feel free to believe that a free market can self-regulate, but don't put the media under that umbrella. We all know what sells, what makes money, and its not good unbiased reporting with lots of research and fact checking. Those things were only ever done on the basis of personal or imposed integrity, a sense of honour that seems to be mostly lost.

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[Jawn98685]

seeing an "emergency" someone will step in with government money, more regulation, etc, and it just goes downhill from here.

Just... [exasperated gasp] fuck. How do you Ronald Regan "all government is evil" fan-boys keep coming up with this stuff? I mean, where, exactly, is there any evidence to suggest that "the government" is going to step in and take over the role held by the free press? No, the article you cite is evidence of quite to opposite (that which you claim not to fear nearly as much), the inordinate influence of big media companies in shaping how, when, and where we get access to information. Sure, the government, having been bought and paid for by those interests, will have a role, but it is the electorate's stupidly steadfast refusal to recognize that their "representative government" has been sold to the highest bidder that is to blame, not "the government".

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[Volante3192]

Now what does this have to do with GE? Who do you think would give more for green programs, Obama or McCain? Obviously Obama. Who stands to make a fortune off green programs? GE! GE makes the wind generators for wind farms, CFL and LED light bulbs and are well invested in other "green" areas.

GE also makes jet engines, for example, which military aircraft use. I think they would have been fine with either candidate.

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[HangingChad]

seeing an "emergency" someone will step in with government money, more regulation, etc, and it just goes downhill from here.

Then how do you explain the BBC? The closest thing we have on this side of the pond is NPR. Any coincidence that the two best pure news sources anywhere both get public funding?

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[Raffaello]

CPB, PBS? How has the fact that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS, created by an act of congress and funded by federal tax dollars, in any way stopped public television stations from covering stories critical of Federal Government officials?

If anything, the CPB via PBS stations has funded some of the toughest critics - of the lead up to the Iraq war, the contested 2000 election, etc. - so much so that the right tried very hard to get the CPB and PBS entirely de-funded.

Even the US Congress is more than capable of creating a non-profit, private corporation that funds real, fact-checked, investigative journalism. If this is the only way we can continue to have such reporters, whether they are published in print or on the net, then we should certainly do so.

Such an entity - a hypothetical Corporation for Public Newsgathering - could also fund investigative bloggers. The only criterion would be original, investigative, fact-checked news content, whether published on paper or on-line.

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[Bob-taro]

Here in Sweden the general consensus seems to be that SVT ("Sveriges Television" lit. "The swedish television") is the most reliable broadcaster while private ones are considered a lot less reliable by most people except for the extreme right who insist on SVT being "communist", "leftist" and "government controlled", they even use these descriptions now even though we currently have a right-wing coalition government.

Well, that's what the government and the left want us to think here, too. And they also label their opponents "the extreme right".

SVT has a lot of advantages over privately funded television networks, such as how they can broadcast shows that only appeal to a fairly small subset of the population while the private networks prefer constantly going for the least common denominator

So wasting taxpayer money on programs that few people watch is an advantage? The phrase "least common denominator" sounds elitist. Are the people who run and watch SVT better than "common" people? Do they deserve to appropriate "common" people's funds to produce this superior programming?

I watch U.S. public television myself, and I like a lot of the programming, but I would still support eliminating it because I don't think it's a good use of public money.

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[tomhath]

Just like the BBC, that depraved pit of corruption and bias. Err, wait: I misspelled FOX.

For every one government owned media outlet that's even-handed I can name ten that are tools of the state, but that's not important.

What is important is the fact that biased news outlets such as Fox or CNN can exist in the private sector.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," - Evelyn Beatrice Hall

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[tomhath]

If anything, the CPB via PBS stations has funded some of the toughest critics...

...of the Bush administration, which is why the Republican controlled government tried to reign NPR in, and which is why the Democratic controlled Congress immediately turned NPR loose again in 2006.

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[ShieldW0lf]

So wasting taxpayer money on programs that few people watch is an advantage?

Do you feel the same way about educational resources? Do you feel the same way about scientific research? Given the choice between educational programming that that few people watch, or fart jokes that appeal to a broad audience, which is a better use of community resources? Stretched over a 10 year span, which do you think is a more valuable resource... 10 years worth of educational programming that remains relevant, or 10 years of fart jokes about former celebrities that no one pays any further attention to?

Perhaps we could make the quality programming free, and allow people to take out student loans so they can be institutionalized and watch fart jokes if they are so inclined?

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[Ash Vince]

Sounds like the BBC. The BBC is great, but I do wonder about it's future. I hope it survives.

I do too but it unlikely. Rupert Murdoch has done a behind the scenes deal with the Tories: His news empires will do everything legally possible to swing the British public to voting tory if they promise to carve up the BBC when they get into power. He hates having to compete with a huge statefunded body that brings almost the same level of bargaining power to TV program negotiations that his company commands.

Currently the BBC has a huge stock of back catalogue prgramming that he needs to but in order to pad out his satellite network channels. He would rather he could force them to sell cheap but if he refuses to buy the BBC just twiddle their thumbs until he caves in, their is no reason for them to do otherwise. Normal companies on the other hand have to try and maintain a bottom line so have to cave in or try and sue for monopolistic practices.

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[Vancorps]

Isn't this a sad state of affairs when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are considered honest media? JS even called out Obama for his speech echoing that of one Bush made for the troop surge. I've been trying to watch more of the other networks lately because I stopped for so long, I wanted to see how they'd improved. MSNBC is pretty much the same as it has ever been although they seem to support the Daily Show. Fox has pretty much been doin a nose dive since they were created. Remember when O'Reilly was watchable? Certainly not the case anymore when you have him blatantly asking people to ignore the constitution to state how they really feel public policy should be. They of course do everything in their power to discredit the Daily Show. Then there's CNN, well, they are a shadow of their former selves, the CNN story is the truly sad one as they used to be great! They seem neutral to the Daily Show but the mere fact that all three report on the Daily Show and even go so far as editing clips to make it look like JS is saying something completely different, thank you Fox News, this is what is truly very sad! The show that advertises itself as fake news is considered more legitimate than all the major outlets! Thankfully there are other sources for the rest of us, I'll try again in another year or so to see if there have been anymore changes in TV news. I don't hold out much hope though.

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[Wyatt Earp]

When CNN started defending the Administration by critiquing a Saturday Night Live skit, I knew they were less honest than Fox.

And no, I don't remember when O'Reilly was ever watchable.

Fark headlines are more honest than most of the news media out there right now.

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[Zalbik]

Fox News fought a fight against government oppression of freedom of the press. Just like freedom of speech, I would rather idiots have the right to say their idiotic things than leave it up to the government to decide what idiotic things can be said.
...

The government should not exist to keep you happy nor to keep you from being sad/mad/whatever other emotion. If you feel a news outlet is lying to you, get your news from a different source. Trusting what ANYONE without verifying is your own damn fault.

Exactly right! And this should not only be true of news journalism, this should be extended to other industries as well...

- Is your doctor is lying to you about your tumor? Go to a different doctor!
- Engineer lying about the safety of that bridge, use a different engineer!
- Is your teacher lying to your children about whether the Holocaust occurred, find a different teacher!

All of these people should be allowed to make up whatever lies they feel like, cause I'd much rather have idiots have the right to say their idiotic things than leave it up to the government to decide what idiotic things can be said. Get yourself a medical/engineering/teaching/etc degree so you can verify everything anyone ever says to you. Obviously nobody should be held to any kind of professional accountability, because freedom of speech trumps all!

P.S.
And because this is Slashdot, I feel the need to point out that the above post is sarcasm...

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[Delwin]

The core of the problem is add driven news.

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[stewbacca]

Most PBS money comes from private contributions to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Trying to claim that PBS is some sort of tax money pit is disingenuous, since very little tax money goes to PBS.

Besides, if one can't watch a single episode of Frontline and immediately recognize the journalistic and artistic superiority it consistently displays compared to ABC/NBC/CBS and most cable outlets, then I suppose we have nothing further to discuss.

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[operagost]

If anything, the CPB via PBS stations has funded some of the toughest critics - of the lead up to the Iraq war, the contested 2000 election, etc. - so much so that the right tried very hard to get the CPB and PBS entirely de-funded.

So... where's the criticism of the current administration? Or are our President and Congress suddenly flawless?

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[ArcherB]

I just threw jet engines as an example because I know GE makes them.

I'm sure GE makes a lot more than just those as well that would experience a growth under a right-wing chief executive, but I don't know enough (or care enough really to research) about GE's product line to start weighing what product would benefit more from which administration's ideology.

Mostly I wanted to point out that it's probably not so cut and dried.

Jet engines were a fine example of the fact that General Electric does a lot more than "Electric" as their name implies. Still, the bread and butter of the company are small consumer items like light bulbs to large consumer items like washing machines, dish washers, refrigerators and ovens. All of these GE divisions stand to benefit greatly if a government mandate suddenly obsoletes their entire installed base. This would mean that everyone would need to install new, more expensive, energy efficient GE appliances. California, for example is talking about banning incandescent light bulbs, if the have not already. This is a boom for companies like GE who can now sell a $5.00 light bulb to replace a $0.50 one.
   

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[slamb]

I'm not going to believe the media was biased in his favor without qualitatively different evidence what you supplied.

Here's some ideas. You might work on proving that they failed in some of the following ways and that those failures systematically favored Obama.

• the facts they presented were incorrect
• the facts they presented were irrelevant
• they omitted significant facts
• they masked editorial pieces as objective journalism
• the values described in their editorials are not shared by the majority of Americans
• the facts and values described in their editorials do not support their conclusions

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[ArcherB]

McCain picked a totally unqualified person to be an old man's heartbeat away from the Presidency. I simply can not understand how an unbiased person could continue to support him after that moment, so I'm certainly not going to say the media was biased simply because the media supported Obama over McCain.

I hate to take this off topic here, but...
I can not understand how an unbiased person can criticize the experience of the bottom of the Repub's ticket when she had more executive experience than the TOP of the Demo's ticket! Seriously?

It's understandable that you can't detect media bias that is slanted to the left. You voted for and gave money to Obama. Sorry, but that puts you on the left. When you see the media, they say things that you agree with. They are directly in front of you on the political scale. Everyone thinks they are in the middle of the road politically. You see the media where you are, therefor, you think the media is being fair. I am on the right. I try to take the blinders off when I consider media bias. I understand that Bill O'Reilly, for example is right leaning, but for every topic on his show, he has someone who disagrees with him and lets them have their say. Sometimes, that person who disagrees is from the right. Most of the time, they are from the left. In either case,the opposition is represented. You will never see that on any of the opinion shows on MSNBC and rarely see it on CNN.

If you want to call it something other than bias, fine, but that will change neither the numbers nor the facts. The site showed that the coverage was incredibly tilted favorably toward Obama and negatively against McCain. It gets even worse when you consider the coverage of Palin. Ever stop to wonder why you think so negatively of McCain and Palin? Do you ever stop to consider, even for a second, that maybe, MAYBE, the reason you have such a negative opinion is that all you have heard are negative things about both of them?

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[dkleinsc]

Jon Stewart has made that exact point repeatedly, that something is fundamentally wrong when CNN is looking to Comedy Central for integrity in broadcasting. Whenever he calls someone out for spreading BS, it's truly embarrassing to watch them defend themselves. For instance, watch his appearance on Crossfire (which led directly to the show being canceled), and his very appropriate grilling of Jim Cramer.

Here's my take on why he is so successful at doing this: He, unlike most TV personalities, didn't come up through the ranks at one of the big 3 networks. The people who did had to swallow a certain amount of BS in order to make it to where they are now, and are at least partially complicit. That means that unlike Jon, they are reluctant to call people out for spreading BS because they're doing the same thing, they know they're doing it, and don't want to invite a reprisal.

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[Penguinisto]

I mean, where, exactly, is there any evidence to suggest that "the government" is going to step in and take over the role held by the free press?

The so-called "Fairness Doctrine" stands out...

Re:the real threat will be government intervention

[hrimhari]

Wonderful rhetoric. Except...

Free pizza doesn't have any added value to the public, whereas educational broadcasting does.

Corruption and imperialism destroyed Rome.

Oil helps, but it's no excuse for success or failure. Just see all the oil-rich countries in Middle East. Wait, no need to go that far. Look south, to Venezuela. The people is starving, there's no electricity, but gas costs 10 cents a gallon.

I like education. I like health. Not because it specifically favors me, but because it makes people a little more likely to do conscientious choices than the option. I also love pizza, but I don't see free pizza helping in that equation.

Rupert Murdock...

[MickyTheIdiot]

...has been more deadly to the art of journalism than all of the technical innovations in the last 200 years put together.

Re:Rupert Murdock...

[MickyTheIdiot]

Troll?? Really?

Murdock has ushered in the era of factless journalism and pure opinion as news. Right wing slashdotters might not like that, but that's what it looks like from my POV, ergo this isn't a Troll.

Re:Rupert Murdock...

[corbettw]

You made an emotionally charged comment that was designed to illicit a response. That's a classic troll.

I understand it's not always avoidable; I do it myself from time to time. And when I get modded Troll because of it, I might be momentarily upset by it but I generally don't whine about it in a subsequent post. Because that's another classic troll technique.

Try to provide something more substantive to the conversation, and when those times occur when you just can't then don't whine about how others view your opinion.

Re:Rupert Murdock...

[LS]

People want to see random strangers hung in the streets for witchcraft.

Murdoch is not to be defended.

Re:Rupert Murdock...

[maxume]

I'm not really defending Murdoch, I'm pointing out that the problem is a little more pervasive than the guy who likes to make money from it.

Re:Rupert Murdock...

[MattSausage]

I'll bite the trollbait. The WSJ has been embarrassingly lowbrow since Murdoch took over. Constant spewing ridiculous articles about the left and/or the President. And when that doesn't fill enough space, they might as well be friggin TeenScene: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125980303001573939.html

The Wall Street Journal is an example of what happens to a proper and respected news outlet when owned by Rupert Murdoch. No one is suggesting the WSJ is factless other than yourself in your sarcasm. And strawmen such as that is EXACTLY what Fox News is known for.

Re:Rupert Murdock...

[Raffaello]

You obviously don't understand Murdock very well if you think that Government funded journalism would be his dream.

Hint: we already have government funded journalism - it's called The News Hour on your local PBS and CPB funded public television station. This is what government funded journalism looks like - fact-checked, truly balanced (not merely in name only like FOX), with no fear of taking on strong vested financial interests, and bureaucratic government interests.

Now, compare the content of the News Hour with the content of FOX News. Is the News Hour even remotely like anything Murdock's FOX would put on the air?

Governrnent funded journalism is Rupert Murdock's worst nightmare, not his fantasy, because more government funded journalism would mean more of those independently verified, pesky facts that contradict FOX's loudly trumpeted, absurdly biased bullshit.

Re:Rupert Murdock...

[Saint Stephen]

Really, that's such a naive point of view. Of course Fox has an obvious opinion, but it's also quite full of facts. Exactly like PBS news.

C-Span is an example of something that doesn't have an opinion; not Fox or CNN or CBS or ABC or PBS or MSNBC or anybody.

All the rest of them are exactly the same; Fox is just more obvious because they don't hide behind the appearance of self-grandeur the rest of them do.

Re:Rupert Murdock...

[Idiomatick]

CNN>MSNBC>Fox in terms of embarrassingly bad reporting. Not that I think CNN is any sort of shining beacon.

They ignored "The Third Wave" to their peril.

[MtViewGuy]

I think in retrospect, the mainstream media should have heeded the warning of one Alvin Toffler, who wrote in The Third Wave in 1980 that as communication technologies improves, the days of the the mass media controlling media distribution will come to an end.

With cable TV, small-dish satellite TV and the public Internet, Toffler's warning has become 2009 reality. The only survivors will be those who can quickly embrace taking full advantage of today's communication technologies, and Time, Inc.'s recent "fantasy demo" of an electronic edition of Sports Illustrated designed to take full advantage to future tablet computers (such as the much-rumored Apple tablet) is proof there are some in the mainstream media who understand they must change with the times (pun not intended :-) ).

Re:They ignored "The Third Wave" to their peril.

[Quiet_Desperation]

I think some of the cyberpunk writers had it right. Has the "information" age made people better equipped with, well, information? Are people more knowledgeable? Or are they retreating further and further into their own private virtual reality bubbles. Are they seeing the infinite shades of gray in this world, or is it all just angels and demons, black and white and us versus them?

And none of this finger pointing at one side or the other. Just aboput everyone is guilty. The moment you start identifying with a political party or an ideological label, or thinking you're better because of your choice of operating system or the car you drive or books you read you have become part of the problem.

All this tech has done is feed into the antiquated tribal mentality that might have served us well 20,000 years ago, but now it's just ripping everything apart. Watch yourselves closely for the next couple of days as news stories appear. See if you catch yourself just making huge, broadly based assumptions about certain people. Question every assumption. Be skeptical about *everything* just for a while.

It's impossible to be an independent thinker any more. If I praise Obama on one thing, I get called a socialist. If I criticize him on another thing, I'm called a right wingnut. There is no correct side here- they are all profoundly effed in the head.

It's not the death of journalism

[davidwr]

It's just the death of journalism as we know it.

Print, TV, and radio news outlets are going to have to decide if they are in the print/tv/radio news or if they are in the business of news.

If it's the former, they will die. If its the latter, they can survive if they pay attention.

Re:It's not the death of journalism

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the same mistake railway companies did. They thought AND insisted that they were in the business of trains and railroads instead of a CARRIER, or cargo transport. Now Fedex, UPS, airlines, cars, et al, have taken over the business of "transportation," something that was once a monopoly for the rail systems in the industrial era.

Disclaimer: I have worked in the newsroom for a mid-size newspaper.

Likewise, journalism is the business of gathering and disseminating news (supported by ad revenue). Old schoolers are still tied-up to the medium which they see as an investment, and who can blame them since they poured millions for new printing presses in the 80s'; full computer infrastructure changeover in the 90s', all of which should be done paying for itself off by now. And only now this is when they can sit back and relax, and let the machines and its people work itself to make profit for the owner, similar to a landlord. But nope, the internet is here and they need to change everything again. They can either whine and cry to congress, or get on with the times.

Another astoundingly stupid move by the newspapers is undercharging ad rates for online editions. They thought because internet is so "new" with so few readers, and afraid the advertisers wouldn't buy this "virtual" space which doesn't use ink (but does use electricity and CPU cycles, however....), they could "experiment" with charging $50 for 100x100px space for a month, whereas a business card size ads on newsprint would cost $150 for two weeks. Newspapers have really shot themselves in the foot with this introductory rate which has lasted for several years, whereas the smart organizations know their true online operational costs, and these late old-timers will have an uphill battle convincing advertisers that their online space rate is worth the same or greater than their print spaces.

I, for one will not miss newspapers. I will miss journalism.

Re:It's not the death of journalism

[Chris Mattern]

It's just the death of journalism as we know it.

And I feel fine!

EXTRA: towncriers out of work due to printingpress

[emptybody]

The internet does not replace the journalists aka reporters.

it is merely changing the distribution.

The town crier was replaced by the paper boy but journalism, gathering the facts, reporting on events, has lived on.

it is not the printing press that makes a journalist.

My big wish is that factual reporting would regain its place ABOVE the opinionated offerings seen on places such as FOXnews.

How about literal death of Journalism?

[roman_mir]

While the Internet may cause 'prolonged death' of traditional journalism, in various countries of the world journalists are being actually killed. In Russia alone, during the years of Putin/Medvedev about 300 journalists died under various violent circumstances.

Original blogger reporting

[michaelmalak]

1. WorldNetDaily.com does its own investigative reporting and is always trying to get press credentials to events. Sometimes they get them, and sometimes they don't since they are not "traditional media".
2. We Are Change is an entire nationwide network of aggressive news gatherers.
3. One of Alex Jones' early exploits was to crash the Bohemian Grove and report on it.
4. Many of the armchair bloggers such as myself (when I ran underreported.com from 2002-2004) simply read government websites and scientific literature and report on it. Journalism seems to have this code of ethics that says you have to get a quote from a human being before you can report on it. That's nonsense -- all this stuff is out there on thomas.loc.gov and everywhere else and the traditional media ignores it -- and when they do report on it they don't even bother to link to it.
5. So much action gets recorded on cell phone videos now. Important stuff gets bid out to the traditional media because they're willing to pay more. After they die, the popular bloggers will take it, or it'll just end up on YouTube and bloggers will link to it there.

Hello, I am a professional journalist

[Tobor the Eighth Man]

Let me begin by saying that most comments on /. dealing with traditional journalism quickly turn into a bonfire, cheering the death of traditional journalism and heralding blogs as a bright new dawn with untold promises. I think this is wrongheaded, for reasons I'll get to quickly.

I work for a pretty niche tech magazine as a writer and editor. Much of what I cover is business tech., a lot of venture news and business tech products. It might amuse people how traditionally we do things from a journalistic point of view, since we're frequently writing about the technologies and sites that are changing journalism - editors comb leads and find stories, hand them off to writers who do interviews and then pass the copy back to the editors, who fact-check and rewrite. etc. We have an online component, but we're still very definitely a print publication first.

I think blogging and new journalism has a lot to offer. The distribution method and quick turnaround is great. They can get and exchange news much quicker than I can, although in my particular niche there's not much urgent news, so being a monthly pub. isn't really a problem. But I also think new journalism has a downside, and I think Gerson is right about many of the things he says (never thought I'd say that).

First off, objectivity is not dead. No, you can never be perfectly objective. And objectivity doesn't necessarily mean never expressing an opinion. But it does mean disclosing conflicts of interests (not that traditional journalism has always done a good job of this - it hasn't) and trying to be as honest as possible with your readers. My biggest problem with blogging in general, at least as far as replacing traditional journalism, is that so much of it is done by interested parties. Sure, you can get great info about goings on directly from CEOs and the people involved, but oftentimes it's like hearing about a break-up from only one half of the couple. Business being the way it is, once you're working in an industry, you've got some kind of relationship - however tenuous - with everyone else in it.

I'm not going to name names, but especially in venture and business journalism, many apparently disinterested blogging parties have a history in business themselves, and many are currently engaged in business ventures of their own. There's plenty of people who aren't going to let this cloud their judgment or color their writing, but how can you tell? People talk about new journalism like there's no gatekeepers, but companies and organizations and PR agencies are always going to have gatekeepers. And if it's someone in an industry writing about goings-on in that same industry (which many people see as a big plus for blogging - since, they say, a participant knows more about the situation than an uninvolved third-party journalist), they're going to have a vested interest in not causing too many waves. Sure, some people get big enough or well-read enough that it doesn't matter, and admittedly plenty of lowly traditional journalists have been forbidden from doing a hit piece because they don't have the clout (or their pub. doesn't), but that added conflict of interest certainly can't help matters.

People like to heap scorn on traditional journalism, but there's a very good reason for fact-checking, and there's a very good reason for objectivity. I'm all for new journalism and I read plenty of blogs. I do think that form of journalism is, more or less, the future. But let's not be quite so hasty to discard everything that made traditional journalism what it was (even if it's tarnished, in this day and age), and let's not be quite so quick to put all our faith in blogging. I'm confident that a more concrete code of ethics will develop in blogging, and bloggers who lie and distort will get weeded out just like traditional journalists who've committed the same transgressions tend to be (eventually), but I'm not quite ready to hang up my sad little hat with the press pass or my dreaded red editor's pen just yet.

Re:Hello, I am a professional journalist

[Tobor the Eighth Man]

Oh, and another thing... most of the misdeeds people in this comment thread are attributing to journalists are really the work of columnists. A columnist can write about whatever he wants and is probably the closest thing to the stereotypical blogger in traditional journalism. Columnists aren't journalists (although many of them used to be) because they're writing opinion pieces, mostly, instead of proper journalism. Michael Gerson is a columnist. Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann are the cable equivalent of the columnist. Edward R. Murrow was also a columnist, at least in terms of the work people most remember him for. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who broke Watergate, those guys are journalists.

I think it says a lot about the state of media in this company that many people can no longer tell the difference.

Re:Hello, I am a professional journalist

[photozz]

I'll address the Objectivity thing. Ok, here's two scenarios:

Print media - Writer and editor let a story slide through with factual errors (IE: most of FOX news). 20 years ago, how would anyone know? Unless we had direct knowledge of the facts, most people would not know the difference. Newspapers at the time were the equivalent of a deaf man on a soapbox yelling at people. One way communication that the majority of people had to take as the truth, regardless of the actual facts.

Online media - Writer and editor let a story slide through with factual errors - The Internet collectively calls bullshit and the writer/editor/blog is discredited. The truth makes it out in the time it takes to type it in. We see it every-single-day. A piece of news becomes a discussion and the truth is generally revealed for all. News is reported, investigated, vetted, buried in peat moss and dug back up before being framed for all to see. This is the advantage of the on-line media and one of the reasons I think print media is scared as hell. They can and have been called out on hidden agendas and sloppy reporting.

Journalism is not dead, just your ability to be the lord high gods of information traffic. I don't mourn it.

Mot of your comments above boil down to "You can't trust bloggers, they might be sleestak, but you can trust us, cause we're not sleestaks."

If all print media disappears tomorrow, thousands of other sources will spring up in it's place. It's time to close up the buggy shop and learn to make cars.

Re:Hello, I am a professional journalist

[Hatta]

People like to heap scorn on traditional journalism, but there's a very good reason for fact-checking, and there's a very good reason for objectivity.

I think you entirely miss the point. People cheer the death of traditional journalism because they do not perceive traditional journalists as objective or as doing much fact checking at all. In most cases an article from a blog is going to be better supported with citations than a newspaper article. In fact, I can't remember the last time I saw a citation in a newspaper article. Show your work. Put in notes that say "we checked, this is true(or not), here's the reference". THAT will make it worth my while to read a newspaper again.

Already tired of these stories

[smchris]

It's like the newspapers were the last to notice that they were dying. Which _so_ highlights the underlying problem.

Re:Not the Death of Journalism ...

[paiute]

It's kinda like a turkey in the rain. It gets hit on the head by a drop of water and looks up. As it looks up water drops run down its nasal passages. It continues this strange curiosity til it drowns.

As someone who worked on farms where they raised turkeys I had never noticed large heaps of dead turkey carcasses when it rained. But perhaps this happens with wild turkeys which would make survival in the wild a short experience. So I looked it up.

Of course this anecdote is hilariously false.

Benjamin Franklin would like a word with the original poster.

Let's break it down, shall we?

[MikeRT]

I won't regurgitate most of what Radley Balko said, as his post is probably one of the most insightful I've ever read on this subject, but there are two functions that the papers do or are supposed to do, not one:

-Aggregate news
-Investigative journalism

Very few do investigative journalism anymore. Most of it is just aggregating and writing up some additional filter around press releases and such. The average crime story is no more nuanced and investigative than regurgitating what the police, prosecutor and defense attorney have to say. Most newspapers do so little investigative journalism that they are, quite frankly, as useless and vestigial to our society's continued liberties as tits on a bull.

What most newspapers are upset about is the fact that new media is more efficient at cheaply aggregating raw information and sprucing it up with some additional verbage. It's not like they're losing money because others are stealing the hard work of their investigators.

Re:hard-working, honest, ethical print journalists

[corbettw]

Don't kid yourself that there was ever a time when ethical journalists were the norm. There's a reason the most highly coveted prize in journalism is named for a notorious muckraker and yellow journalist.

Respect for pulitzer's yellow journalism eulagized

[cybereal]

Respect for Pulitzer's form of yellow journalism was a eulogy in action for journalism 100 years ago. The fact that journalism still exists is only a testament for the public's continued desire for era-appropriate mild fiction and sensationalism. The fact that we huzzah at the awarding of a prize named after the man considered the inventor of what non-news non-journalist pundits like Bill O, and Sean H thrive on is enough evidence to show that real journalism hasn't been a public concern for a very, very long time.

So don't shed a tear for journalism now. It has already been dead for very nearly a century.

Re:EXTRA: towncriers out of work due to printingpr

[MobyDisk]

Factual reporting will still exist. It will remain in paid journals, newspapers, etc. Even today, people who pay attention to such reporting are actually in the minority. To most people it is really nerdy to read the Wall Street Journal or something like that.

Most Americans aren't interested in that: they want to hear someone loudly spew oversimplifications and accusations that they can rally behind. "The [other party] is a bunch of [insult]! Next up: Best and worst dressed celebrities!"

Overreaction... as usual.

[cuby]

Journalism will never die... As the vinyl didn't died either. Why some activity far more important will?
This is stuff printed by hysterical people. There will always exist some form of journalism. The more independent ones (thank good!) will undoubtedly have more success than the mass market ones because there will be less competent bloggers of that type. Mainstream news are more like entertainment, and are suffering just like big music editors or film distributors.

Re:first post

[Anonymous Coward]

If you pick up 4 different newspapers here(The Netherlands) Then you can put several pages of paper A in paper B without even noticing a difference. They just copy the news from ANP(Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau), a press agency that gathers those stories and sells them. Even the weekend edition are being filled with more and more bullshit and less journalism or good articles. The real news nowdays can be read from news sites that primarily focus on those kind of articles(ANP) without all the bullshit you find around it in the printed papers.

News corporations, not 'journalism'

[sherriw]

News corporations and journalists are not the same thing. Where a news corporation's primary concern is to make money by selling information, a good journalist is most interested in discovering truth and making that truth available to the public. The more people the better.

The Internet has caused a major shakeup, and from the sounds of it a break down of the entities known as news corporations. Will these die at the hands of an open web? Maybe. Most likely if they continue to stubbornly refuse to change.

However the existence of the dedicated, skilled journalist will only be at risk if he or she insists on tying their fate to the new corps. Twittered and blogged amateur 'news' only goes so far. Ultimately the most reliable, accurate and compelling sources of news will bubble to the top of the public's attention. Will news reporting be as lucrative as it once was? Probably not... but maybe it will become something that the talented journalist does as a side job rather than a full time one. Maybe a new profit model will emerge- who can know what will be needed or wanted in the future. We may reach a point where companies, organizations or individuals will pay by contract for a respected journalist to investigate and report on a specific news item for them. Who knows?

The point is, I don't see the 'death of journalism' coming, but rather the death of the current news corporation model.

Re:hard-working, honest, ethical print journalists

[R2.0]

"These are not the days of Bernstein, Woodward, Hersch, etc."

To the contrary - these are EXACTLY the "days of Bernstein, Woodward, Hersch, etc." They are the ones that issued in the modern area of "investigative" journalism (inadvertently or not). The modern journalist's daydreams consist of being the one to take down a presidency and having to decide if Hoffman or Redford will play him in the movie. Given that, what else do we expect from them?