Following on from the New Media, Old News: Journalism and Democracy in a digital age seminar, I thought that, instead of a standard blog post to summarise the debate, I’d ask you to indulge me with a little journey of fuzzy logic.
Here’s how the internet has ruined journalism (according to those who believe such things).
1. Internet = more news.
2. More = poor.
therefore…..
3. Internet = crap journalism.
See? it’s conclusive! Everything that is wrong in journalism can be put down to the internet.
But this “logical” progression of an oft-quoted argument (that I’m frankly getting just a teeny bit pee’d off with) just doesn’t stand up to any scrutinity.
Take point 1– why does the publishing online automatically mean more content? As the Guardian’s Emily Bell pointed out during the debate last week, there’s no hole’s to fill, no space that demands that a 450 word article be written to allow the page to be published. So why produce 500 words when 50 will do? Why not post that audio clip, picture or whatever instead. Surely the fact that stories can be updated, amended and progressed is a blessing for good journalism rather than a curse. Doesn’t this pressure for more that is so reviled actually come from audience demand? People who want what we do and want more of what we do. Are we really saying we’ve got too many customers and that we can’t supply?
Point 2. What is bad about having more? Can you have too many pictures, too many links, too many stats and facts? If a journalist is producing more material on a subject surely they’ll have a deeper knowledge of it or have carried out more interviews or have unearthed more data? Won’t the writer who also blogs get greater reader input and insight? Who is it poorer for – the hard-working journo or the reader? I’d be really grateful of a real-life example of a story where having more, has led to a poorer user experience.
Point 3. Simply conflates two things that don’t belong together. There is the technology and there is what you choose to publish with it. If the journalism is poor, it will be poor in whatever medium it’s just that the web has made it easier for people to compare that quality.
Obviously there was a whole lot more to this debate and this reflects just a tiny element of it. The research team at Goldsmith’s has produced some extremely meaty findings which will be published in a book next year and which you will be able to read extracts from here.
(Unusually, the chapters published online can’t be quoted from which has meant less blogging on specific points than I would have liked to do. I would particularly recommend chapter 8 to anyone interested in looking at the role of the journalist and citizen journalism)
Some of the main points from the seminar last week were live blogged on Twitter – see my tweets here and Judith Townend’s here.
For blog post which go into the day’s debate and further links see Charlie Beckett’s good post Journalism is rubbish: New report or Judith Townend’s Disagreement among Guardian journalists to influence new book on changing
Dim Sum Digital 