It’s time for a new look at the News

 

Soon to become mysterious artifacts

The atmosphere at IBC (the International Broadcasting Conference) and NAB (the National Association of Broadcasters) was very strange this year. It was as if the TV industry, which has been competing against the web for viewers and advertising dollars suddenly realized they were really really in trouble after close to a decade of denial. On the one hand, perhaps it’s understandable. No one, not even or perhaps especially, clueless TV executives, want to admit the party’s over. I know the feeling, I’ve seen technical magazines crumble behind me as I worked for them. (I don’t believe there is a cause and effect.)

The situation is also acute in mainstream journalism — in all media. There was a panel at IBC that discussed the issue of journalism headed by London-based Business journalist Kate Bulkley who noted that the passing of journalism is a threat to democracy. We’ve seen journalists pay a high price in Russia where they’ve been shot down in the street and in war zones where the immunity of journalists (and aid workers, and other non-combatants) has disappeared. And yet when one falls, another steps forward. Free speech, as it turns out is a fragile gift and there are some, thank god, still willing to fight for it.

In the U.S. and Europe, the situation is slightly different. Sometimes it seems as if there’s a bit too much free speech and one panelist at IBC commented that perhaps the situation isn’t so much that the jobs of journalists are disappearing but the situation is rather one of consolidation — there are too many journalists — and not enough good ones. It’s been noted that there are situations where the pod of journalists covering a conflict outnumbers the combatants and every TV news watcher has seen the monstrous army of boorish photographers, writers, and newscasters materialize around anyone unfortunate enough to be deemed newsworthy.

Even the geeky tech industry has seen mushrooming numbers of people calling themselves press. In the past, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo have accommodated hundreds of giddy game playing journalists. It’s unlikely that all the people at these huge events were getting paid for their time and work. And in fact, the huge game companies have tired of spending millions of dollars on the uncertain production of the drone class of journalist. There are fewer huge press events and the press invitations are getting harder to come by. 

Yes, journalists working in traditional occupations at newspapers or in broadcast news are competing against people willing to work for free or practically free but all people aspiring to the mantle of journalist are threatened by the variety of choices available to news consumers and here is where we get to the real danger and the real opportunity. British newscaster/media commentator Raymond Snoddy noted that the problem wasn’t really a matter of distribution,  TV or print versus internet, or high wages for Priests versus low wages for enthusiasts, it’s rather a matter of audiences being able to find exactly the kind of information they want any time they want. He called it unfettered democracy and noted that it has resulted in the moronic ranting of opinionists like Glenn Beck in the U.S. and reporters in India who break away from reporting on a political race to report that a woman has turned into a snake and has terrified a village (a story related by Vir Sanghvi of the Hindustan Times). You might not go broke giving people what they want, but you certainly aren’t doing them any favor either.

But whoa, let’s back up a bit. “Unfettered democracy?” Snoddy seems to have a point but his position is incredibly condescending. What in the world is the alternative? Just how much fettering do we need and who is going to do the fettering? Isn’t that what’s happening in Russia? The old guard journalists seem wistful for a day when there were only a few channels available to those hungry for information – three TV channels, two newspapers, and the radio. Does anyone really believe that as nice a man Walter Cronkite apparently was, that he was actually delivering “the truth,” even if he was America’s most trusted journalist during the Vietnam War?

There is a way out of this though. Unfortunately, it probably isn’t going to significantly improve the bargaining position of competent day to day journalists. The rise of new voices via new channels like Twitter and Facebook is enabling people to be better informed. Yes, there are people who are searching out and sharing the stories that support their points of view – even the crazy points of view. But our salvation (and I don’t think that is too strong a word) is that there are people who do want to be better informed and so they’ll search for different points of views and stories. And those who don’t want to be better informed? Those who settle for the information they’re fed on their news network of choice? Who cares? The stupid will always be with us.

The decimation of technical journalism and the fall of the fan boys is not an isolated incident – it’s an example of the upheaval going on in throughout journalism. There is a massive process of weeding going on and those who have no talent and no industry are fading away and they will be replaced by those who can develop a story and tell it. The New York Times is finding itself, the Huffington Post is rising, Glenn Beck is eclipsing Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly if you haven’t noticed. So, yeah, he’s a jerk but he’s made the other two jerks irrelevant.

I heard a man say on the radio: “It all works out in the end. If it hasn’t worked out yet, well then this isn’t the end. “ I wish I remembered who it was who said that, but he was right.