Let’s do lists. What’s good and bad about old style journalism?
“Journalists are white collar pros with blue collar myths. They romanticize anyone who can resolve the contradiction.”
Jay Rosen said this on Twitter this morning (our time). Rosen, of course, is the New York University academic who founded the civic journalism movement and who has written much of what’s worth reading about media futures. You can read his Pressthink blog here. It’s a primer in what’s going on, and could go on, in new media.
On Twitter Rosen was talking about this article by James Burnett in the Boston Globe. It is mostly an interview with another journalist, Mike Barnicle. For Australian readers the interview isn’t of that much interest, other than as an artefact full of romanticism and nostalgia about the craft.
Take if from me, you’ll hear this kind of thing wherever journos over the age of forty get together. I am over the age of forty. I can talk like this too.
And I would argue its not all bullshit. In fact , what better time than New Year’s Day to launch a project? I want to use this blog to compile three lists:
1. The things about old-style journalism that were good, but that we are likely to lose and should mourn.
My seed entries:
Foreign correspondents dedicated to providing a view of remote locations tailored to Australian audiences.
Sub-editors with a passion for the language and more general knowledge than Wikipedia.
2. The things about old-style journalism that were bad, and whose passing we should celebrate.
My suggestions:
The arrogance that comes with privileged access to the means of publication.
Lack of accountablity
The bullshit “faux objective” voice, that often hides something that is not objective at all. (more on this here.)
3. The things about old style journalism that remain valuable and useful, and that we should strive to evolve and carry forward.
My suggestions: Disinterested journalism, meaning reportage driven by the evidence, rather than personal, commercial or partisan agendas
The art of finding things out – often underestimated, but the central trade skill and “dirty work” of the experienced and good reporter. Meaning that eventually someone is going to have to pay people to do it.
Submissions and arguments welcome.
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Margaret – I started thinking about business journalism as I read this (for reasons that aren’t particularly clear). That started out as a speciality, I guess, to which the tabloids and commercial TV news paid only token acknowledgement, until the 1980s when the Hawke-Keating reforms meant we all became economic experts overnight and the range of economic data to which the media paid attention exploded. The problem of course was that the main business journalism was then being provided by some of our largest companies which all had agendas of their own, at a time when more and more people were shareholders and had a direct interest in quality unbiased reporting and analysis. Truly independent business journalism can only be provided by the ABC – which despite the best efforts of Max Walsh came late to the whole business journalism revolution and has only really got its act together in the last ten years – and independent media like Crikey.
Anyway that’s all apropos of not a lot – but it would be interesting to hear the views of old media hands on business journalism before the ’80s. Australian business at least seems to have functioned much more like a club back then.
Bernard, Perhaps this means one of the good things emerging is that the “experts” who are not journos can themselves publish. Mumble and Possum would have to be examples so far as public opinion polls are concerned (which also became much more important at about the same time as business journalism). But of course those who have a direct partisan/commercial or personal interest can also publish.
Interesting that this discussion should begin around business journalism. Its great failing, in my view, is that so much of it is opinion feeding on opinion. Often – not just in business journalism – it seems the media’s view of events is more important than the events themselves. Case in point: the financial meltdown. By mid-2007, share price/earnings ratios were around twice their historical levels, house prices were around seven times average earnings (more than twice historical averages) and personal debt was at all-time highs. What was being reported? The boom-time optimism of the markets. If anyone had stopped to look at the facts and not the opinions, they would have seen the calamity coming. They may have even helped prevent or ameliorate it.
Interesting. Not wishing to diminish the greatness of Max, but Bernard should have a good look at Max’s history and interests before setting his benchmarks. Carroll and Fitzgerald were the foundations in Australia and both were at Fairfax. Rae Commission, the persistent reporting work that helped lead to the removal of tariff protection (which really was the source of the closed business club’s power). And Margaret also misses the point: back in the olden days there was no disclosure regime. And not many PRs. Nowadays the spin is so prolific that even the big names at Crikey’s business site are for sale: (I refer to the recent BHP-paid-for business spectator “report” for BHP that was sent to shareholders.)
J Press completely misses the point: everyone knew the markets were overheated, but hardly anyone – in the world – spotted the chemical mix in the derivative/hedge/institutional finance market. You all ignore the fact that Enron was exposed by a WSJ reporter, doing his job of untangling complex accounting. McRann at The Age cracked the Alcoa scam in Victoria. The Fin nailed Gerard and Rivkin et al. Like it or not, this reporting is only ever done by large media organisations with the money and credibility to carry it to effect. The point is that few take much notice of commentary. It’s the reporting of new, useful/interesting facts that change opinions and stir action. Opinion is a ubiquitous commodity and a cheap one at that.
One virtue of old-style journalism was its gut-level understanding of the difference between fact and opinion.
New-style journalists, whether writing for newspapers or broadcasting on ABC radio and TV, are often attacked for biased reporting, when they are just ignorant — they think their (usually left-wing) opinions /are/ facts.
I’m (just) old enough to have done my first reporting on a manual typewriter – I’ll hit my 20 year anniversary this July.
The main thing that stands out for me now is that at the time we were convinced that the golden age had come two decades before us.
What was great then were the resources. What was bad then was how we failed to make the most of them.
Looking back, the newspaper I spent my first five years on (large, British, regional) was brilliantly resourced – we had a large number of reporters, most of whom had years of experience, most of them on that newspaper, meaning they had brilliant contacts. We had an intelligent, large team of subs, most of whom had previously done their time on the paper as reporters. And we had several well staffed district offices.
As a result, we had time and space to get great stories, and backstops who would catch our mistakes.
But so much of it was wasted. Too many of the staff had been there for too long and were lazy and complacent. The paper had a virtual monopoly so there wasn’t enough commercial or editorial competition. What could have been a great paper was instead just a good one.
If I’d been a publisher, I’d have cut the fat. I suspect that reflects many other papers around the world. But the problem now of course is that all the fat has been cut away, and the publishers are still cutting.
But the new journalism also offers plenty for hacks. The biggest barrier to doing your own thing used to be the high cost of printing and distribution and that’s gone. Look at things like this blog. This is the first time you can access your own, instant audience.
And that’s where journalists are still relevant. We’ve been trained to have something to say, and to know how to say it. That gives old school hacks an instant point of difference to citizen journalists. I’m optimistic.
As a scientist, once academic now in the commercial world my take home message to any journalist writing science is “do your homework first”.
Most of what I read relating to any level of science is sadly lacking in facts and poorly understood.
There are a few stand out science journalists, but in the main, the critical analysis isn’t there.
“Cure for cancer in three years” screams the (actual) headline. Absolute crap. WHICH cancer? HOW? The journalist should have known better than to accept the media puffery – chiefly designed to get a company floated.
Old style indeed. Bring it on, and whilst you do, expunge “boffin” from the lexicon.
Bill
Media journalism is bright future in whole world.It is need more stylist pattern to perform.
My additions to your list:
1. The things about old-style journalism that were good, but that we are likely to lose and should mourn.
- Dedicated news rooms which were an energetic hive of news gathering and news sharing
- Worn shoe leather. The art of going out and seeking information is already being lost to mainstream media and is unlikely to feature strongly in newer media.
- The ability to conduct detailed, complex, exhausting and time consuming investigations. There is no business model that supports this type of activity. We need more organisations like the Danish Scoop which provides a support structure for independent journalists doing work in eastern Europe.
2. The things about old-style journalism that were bad, and whose passing we should celebrate.
- Deathknocks, paparazzi style journalism and prurient celebrity gossip. Though perhaps it is naïve of me to suppose it has passed given the types of stories that routinely are the “most viewed” in newspapers’ online sites.
- The inverted pyramid style for hard news. This style was introduced due to the demands of space in print publications so that editors could remove the least important material from the bottom of the article. This is not required in the online world which allows for more imaginative use of narrative forms.
- Agenda-setting. Media control not what people think but what people think about. The long tail of the new media allows for a wider expression and range of news and opinion.
3. The things about old style journalism that remain valuable and useful, and that we should strive to evolve and carry forward.
- A wide range of news and opinions ‘under one roof’ eg more newspaper style blogs.
- Good interviewing technique. There is a continuing need to ask tough questions. New media may also see a wider range of sources quoted in news stories. Maybe.
- An understanding of media law and a basic grasp about the laws of contempt, defamation and copyright. Many exponents of new media blithely ignore these laws thinking they are under the radar.
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