Over the past two days, I’ve heard echoes of familiar refrains - refrains that have to end, because they represent incorrect perceptions about the nature of news in a new media environment.
*The first refrain* is one that says technology is “destroying quality journalism” (someone else’s exact words). The theory behind this is that newspapers, specifically, are spending too much time focusing on technology and they are somehow ignoring good journalism.
This is quite simply false. Technology - the internet, for instance - isn’t “destroying” good journalism. If anything, technology is enabling _better_ journalism - a more transparent, robust, verifiable journalism. The problem is that some people in the journalism profession have frozen their definition of what is “good” journalism, and it usually begins and ends with newspaper reporting.
But the _world_ of information isn’t just available via printed materials anymore. Huge quantities of information are available in databases and on web sites from across the globe. Traditional rules and tools of journalism _wither_ before the mountains of information that are created by new technologies. If we don’t attempt to master some of the complexities of those technologies, we will end up doing _worse_ journalism, and look like fools in the process.
Secondly, the readers _expect_ more from “good” journalism in a 24/7 information-rich environment. And they aren’t afraid to be critical of any news organization when that organization isn’t savvy enough to navigate this environment. For instance, when I read that Apple Computers lost a recent court case about bloggers and anonymous sources, I want to be able to access a PDF of the court’s written decision (as in this “CNET News story”:http://news.com.com/2100-1047_3-6077547.html). Woe unto the news site that doesn’t provide it, or a link to it, because they can be sure the next time I’m looking for more depth to a story, I’ll go elsewhere.
*The second refrain* is also quite familiar. It is the refrain from hiring editors who often employ journalists fresh out of college (and pay them minimally for the favor). “We don’t really _need_ journalists with all these technical skills,” they say. “We just need people who can do ‘the basics.’” The other stuff - the stuff that deals with where the world is _today_ - is nice, they add, but not essential.
This is a terrible attitude for several reasons, and one I hope no academic or media adviser embraces.
First, it presents a false dichotomy - that one must be either technically savvy or a good basic skills reporter. Are there really no journalists who are _both_ technically savvy _and_ sound basic reporters? How about “Declan McCullagh”:http://www.politechbot.com/info/declan-mccullagh.html or “Dan Gillmor”:http://sf.backfence.com/bayarea/template.cfm?tid=51&mycomm=BA ?
The second - more pernicious - aspect of this attitude is the assumption that the journalism academy is _only_ training journalists for their first job. That somehow, if we can just get them in the door, they’ll be able to learn all this other stuff on the job.
Fat chance. Tim Porter notes that “newspapers spend .7 percent of their payroll on training”:http://www.timporter.com/firstdraft/archives/000554.html - a paltry sum compared to the rest of the business world. And exactly what percent of that miniscule percentage is going to go to training journalists in new technologies, new methods of newsgathering, and new ways of interacting with an increasingly dissatisfied public?
No, leaving advanced training up to the industry isn’t going to do the job. As media advisers and academics, we should be charged to train students to be good journalists _over the long haul._ Not just for their first job, but for the second, and the third, and the fourth.
To fail to prepare students for a changing media landscape - “just learn reporting, and the rest will take care of itself” - is to do a grave disservice to those students … and the editors who will hire them.
Make no mistake, academics and media advisers have a duty to the students, who are - after all - paying the tuition, to equip them for the future - not for the past.
And that future is *not* just in the printed news product. As “Porter says”:http://www.timporter.com/firstdraft/archives/000560.html :
bq. “The hatchet-wielding in newsrooms last year and the dismantling of Knight Ridder should send a shudder of urgency through Glaser and all others who care about the future of journalism. The print business model cannot sustain journalism as we know it, so we must find new ways to pay for it.”
The flip side of that equation, however, is the editors who are so short-sighted that they don’t see the value in the new media training of journalism graduates. When the industry shift keeps steamrolling them and some young idealist begins a competing news outlet _entirely online _ and the audience begins to disappear, will those editors be holding out for reporters who can “just do the basics”?
Academics and media advisers have a responsibility to the communities being so poorly served by luddite editors, and to the future journalists who will take over when the dinosaurs retire. It’s not enough just to teach students to write an inverted pyramid lead or crank out a 20-inch story on deadline. The _readers_ deserve more, and I get the feeling they’ll be demanding it before long.
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