Socially useless. Now there’s a phrase destined for great things!
It emerged this morning in a description of the banking system from Lord Turner and faces an illustrious future as a soundbite, being one of those expressions which so accurately and straightforwardly expresses a concept.
Like ‘fit for purpose’ before it, ‘socially useless’ has a precision which suggests it might have escaped from the dictionary of military terms to move into common usage.
But could it travel to consider other areas of society – like journalism perhaps? How would that stack up against a socially useless measure?
What is useful to society about what we do everyday?
There will be some easier to spot than others – into ‘useful’ goes investigations into corruption, reporting from local institutions, medical advances and global issues for instance.
Out into the ‘useless’ pile goes status updates on z-listers cellulite, footballers’ sexual preferences and stories about what people wear on the school run.
It’s looking good so far as a test to avoid being the new bankers.
Dim Sum Digital 
Lord Turner’s banker baiting always amuses me. I heard an interview with him with Robert Peston and he seems to make a lot of sense and you’re right that much of his assessment of the banking industry could be applied to journalism too.
Whilst we have laws and regulations, there is often a problem with whether those who enforce them can keep up with the pace of the industry. In addition, these rules can often mean that some journalists only judge the ethics of their stories by whether they break the law or not.
Also, if ever there is an industry that can be accused of short-termism I think it’s journalism – it is, after all, our trade to look at the here and now!
However, when we start talking about ethical or, I guess, “socially useful” journalism, I start feeling a little awkward. What do we mean by socially useful? How worthy should we/do we need to be? I would be a hypocrite if I said I didn’t find some of the “socially useless” stories highly entertaining.
When it comes to this sort of thing, I feel our industry is full of difficult balancing acts. Yes, we need to be socially useful, but we also need to be a compelling read as well. We need to entertain, but we also need to inform on serious matters of great import. We need to make money, but we need to have a public service element to what we produce.
I’m not saying all of these are mutually exclusive, but it is rare to find a story that encompasses all of these elements.
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There is no doubt that the function newspapers are keen to be associated with — watchdogs of democracy — is incredibly useful to society. I think the harder question here would be: are newspapers doing a good job of fulfilling that function in the face of competition from blogs, social networks and whatnot?
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I’m going to stand up for some of the types of stories in the useless pile. Yes, when taken in their own right they’re clearly of no social value, and can even be deemed of being socially destructive, as with of Z listers’ cellulite. But these stories are useful in that they reflect the obsessions of society – and provoke a healthy debate about them.
And as I think Joanna was saying, in a newspaper setting, they also provide an audience for stories of more obvious social importance – valuable in itself, as well as for attracting eyeballs to adverts.
I can’t find any justication for stories about footballers’ sexual preferences though.
Some more socially useful things local papers do:
Acknowledging family milestones, good works, personal achievments etc. Sites such as gonetoosoon have started to corner the online market in the first of these, but I think local papers still play an important part in doing the rest. They may not shift copies, but we cut back on doing this at our peril, even if it moves more to providing the platform for the community to do so themselves.
Providing a forum for issues of the day to be discussed, whether through letters pages or story comments.
Perhaps an obvious one, but simply being the first draft of history, however parochial. I wonder how local historians of the future would research a period in which news had been reported not by a local paper, but by a network of blogs, many of which no longer exist.
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Newspapers claim a lot of rights on the basis that the reporting they do is “socially useful” and then use those rights to do a lot of work that *isn’t* socially useful – intrusive celeb reporting, for example, is made possible by the lack of privacy legislation, while privacy legislation is resisted on the grounds that it would impinge on investigative reporting, which isn’t done enough.
In other words, I think papers have abused their reputation for being socially useful while often neglecting socially-useful work. And I think they now have to deal with the fact that blogs can do gossip and lifestyle stuff much, much better, while newspapers have lost a good deal of their expertise in news reporting, allowing “serious” bloggers to overtake them on many subjects.
At the moment, the papers still have strong brands, but the product they put out often comes second. Maybe the socially useful test would be a good fix.
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Journalists don’t wreck the economy. Not directly anyway.
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The problem is that fewer people want to read the socially useful stuff these days AND advertisers don’t want to advertise along side it. Would be nice if newspapers didn’t have to worry about making an income in an increasingly difficult marketplace… but they do. So lowest common denominator wins… the cellulite and z-listers sell copies. Sad eh?
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Thank you all for such thought-provoking comments. I’ll reply to a couple of points.
@Sarah you make a good point about trust – maybe the trusted individual is more important, and effective, than that of an institution.
@jeremy I can’t accept that argument. While there’ll always be a demand for tittle tattle titles, surely stories such as the banking crisis and the MPs expenses show a demand for topics with more meat when publications treat readers like grown-ups?
@Jo I haven’t, and never would, suggest that local stuff, however parachial, should go into the “useless” pile. In fact most local publications do a lot more useful than useless – although I fear a trend the other way without people like us speaking up for them. Be local, be proud!
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Oh, I didn’t mean to say you were suggesting local stuff was useless! It was a comment in two halves, and I didn’t make that clear 🙂
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