Is new media is killing journalism?

Just back from London where I participated in UNESCO's World Press Freedom Day Debate: "New Media is Killing Journalism" with the BBC World Service and Radio 4's Robin Lustig, Kim Fletcher (ex editor-in-chief of the Sunday Independent) and the Iranian journalist Nazenin Ansari. To get an overview of my argument, see my piece in Guardian Unlimited. The event, held at London's venerable Frontline Club, was sold-out. You can check out the whole debate on the Frontline or UNESCO's UK website.

A word of warning, though. I lost. My argument that new media is indeed killing journalism wasn't popular. I teamed up with Kim Fletcher and we were crushed by the Lustig and Ansari team. We got less than 20% of the wise Frontline club audience vote who decided that new media is not, in fact, killing journalism. Lustig, in particular, performed with his trademark brilliance. That this radio icon, who epitomizes the best of old media, should be arguing in favor of the democratized Internet, might be seen as slightly ironic. But then again, my own role as the amateur defender of professional journalism is also a bit paradoxical.

Comments

[Dinu2008D]

Thanks again.

....................

Dinu

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[tehnikalijus]

Oh, fudge!

As the time goes by, you are getting closer and closer to the correct viewpoint, but it is hard to watch you take every wrong turn available. I just finished reading your guardian bit
“No, such vulgar causality is a misrepresentation of what is really going on. It's the sort of sensationalised rush to judgment one sometimes reads in low-quality, popular newspapers. The truth is that today's internet - with its radical challenge to the traditional authority of elitist journalism - is as much a consequence of these socio-cultural changes than a cause of them.”

I was about to yell “he can see the light!” but then, you missed the point by a mile with

“Today's Web 2.0 media is just technology. We bring it to life. When we go online, we are staring into a ubiquitous mirror. New media is us, our collective narcissism, our aggregated hubris. So rather than accusing digital technology of killing journalism, we are the criminals here. It's our use of democratising internet technology - our cult of the amateur, our cult of authenticity, our cult of ourselves - which is undermining the authority of professional public reporters.”

How did you manage to get so close to the goal line, and not score? How can you miss from such close range is beyond me!

Blogging, citizen journalist, even awful whakypedia is the reaction to the control of the information by big corporations. Now, the issue is that big corporations are there for the money, not for the truth. I have spent some time with BBC journalists and I know that, when “payday” is close, BBC is not independent, but kisses the government a$$, because biting the hand that feeds you close to the feeding time is not that smart. Obviously, “independent” media will kiss ass that pays more. For explanation, see Fox. So, while big corporations are filtering the information based on who pays more, bloggers do not have that problem, unless Microsoft decides to send you laptop so that you would write about Microsoft’s ugly baby Vista and it’s even uglier sibling Office 2007 in good light. If you accepted that gift, you were doing exactly the same thing as big corporations and your readership would shrink. This is what happened http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=microsoft+laptop+bloggers&meta= so, when they lost their readership and some closed their blogs, it was what is happening now in the big arena full of grand old ladies of the newspaper trade.

So, if those old ladies do not want to get buried, even though I think it is a high time to get rid of most of them, they need to change the way of living. We can compare media ass kissing to smoking. It is hard to stop, once you get hooked on it, and it will kill you. So if those old ladies stop kissing the ass of gentleman callers, they might live longer, lose few pounds and their breath will not stink as much to repel most of their readership. Of course, they will need to change their business model as well, but that is another topic.

Shame that you missed from such safe position. Well, in about a year you will get here.

[Erika]

"Journalists" were crooked even in Thomas Jefferson's day.

Journalist tend to interview and get opinions of "Experts", and establishment types.
Since it is clear that we cannot trust the establishment/government;a point made clearer in recent years by the blatant malfesience of the Bush administration, (just like the same point was made in the Vietnam Era and Korean war era)it remains to discount the cult of the "expert".
That is a subject which could take up an entire book, but might be obvious to anyone with a smattering of knowledge of logical fallacies and how they are employed to deliberately confuse and mislead.

As a "scientist" (physics, math and life sciences)i can tell you that you can find an "expert"* to support whatever view you are endorsing if you pay them enough...whether it is the laughable claim that global warming is being caused by carbon gases or luntz's creation of public political opinion through consensus manipulation...the fact is you can BUY experts outright, they are a dime a dozen.

You can also LIE through your teeth with Statistics it is done all the time by big pharma, government, research institutions..et al.

You can fool many people but you can't fool a mathematician.

That said, I don't necessarily believe what someone says on the internet either, although i give it a bit more credence than the paid "experts". If i see it in mainstream media i can be sure that someone has paid large amounts of money to get their view represented in what i am seeing.

Wiki btw is a hghly manipulated form of collectivist knowledge...nobody that i know trusts it as a source of informatuion.

My motto is : Believe nothing, question everything, especially authority because they usually lie.

(* "expert" usually entails having some kind of PhD in a subject whether it is some fake subject degree like human resources, marketing or a real subject degree like english literature , mathematics..it usually means the person knows large amounts of information about a very small area of knowledge and it does not necessarily entail having a high IQ. Having been in graduate school i know people with PhDs that are about as intelligent as a box of bricks.)

[Mike]

"Is New Media is [sic] killing journalism?" ... well it does seem to be killing editorial functions. After that, are we just left with saying "New Media haz cheezburger?"

@tehnikalijus: I think that while Vista is indeed a mess, Office 2007 is pretty damn good.

[KLATUU o embuçado]

A burger of Brave New World, Neuromancer and Blade Runner. Just keep your useless intelectual effort... a man only can be himself, though there is nothing you can do... the world as we know is ending, thank God!

Cheers!