A post from the personal blog of Richard Sambrook, Director of BBC Global News, looks at one point in the massive State of the News Media 2007 report – the notion that:
”journalism is becoming a smaller part of people’s information mix . . . (but) Journalists have reacted relatively slowly. They are only now beginning to re-imagine their roles.”
Sambrook is at the top of a newsgathering hierarchy. From my vantage in the rank and file of a U.S. newspaper, I see much the same. The prevailing notion of journalism is to lay out the facts and let the public decide what to do about the situations we report. Scoops are how we measure success amongst ourselves.
But that’s because journalists still think in a broadcast mode. Once we’ve tossed the paper or beamed the show our job is done. It’s your turn Mr. and Ms. Public, to think and decide.
But people are overloaded with information. Much of the time they don’t even notice where they read or heard whatever it was. (Check out this BBC-sponsored poll that found Google, which employs zero journalists, as the world’s third most-trusted news source, behind the Beeb and CNN!).
The traditional view that the role of media media is to simply gather and articulate events, ignores the problem-solving potential of web-based media. Nowadays we need not merely lay out the problem. We can provide the forum for discussion, if not solution.
How? Well, I had a brainstorm that I’ll try to work though my newspaper and website as an experiment. The idea is to produce a story, place it in a web forum, and invite member of the audience to share their views through open blogs.
Choose topics wisely. Abortion or gay marriage are not prone to solution. People’s feelings on such matters arise from the gut and public discussion would quickly devolve to name-calling. But there are many issues in which people have personal stakes — the governance of schools — where arguments turn on facts, such as how much money is or isn’t being spent or wasted, and where the stakeholders would be motivated to craft persuasive arguments.
If mass media are to survive I think they will have to become forums where professional journalists frame issues, stakeholders argue the nuances and policy makers surf the results and, one would hope, make better decisions.
If we can focus public attention in this way, newsgatherers should find the advertising, sponsorships and other financial supports to meet their payrolls and expenses, and perhaps even the profit expectations of our owners.
(Thanks to unmediated.org for highlighting Sambrook’s posting.)
[...] Sambrook får i sin tur medhåll av Tom Abate, reporter på San Francisco Chronicle, som dessutom menar att media i stor utsträckning sitter fast i fel tänk — broadcasting-tänket — snarare än att ta vara på webbens interaktiva möjligheter. “Om massmedia skall överleva tror jag att de måste bli forum där professionella journalister startar trådarna.” [...]
To: Tom Abate
From: Doug Skoglund – skoglund@pdmsb.com
Date: Sunday, March 25, 2007 – 02:00 pm CDT
Subject: Reinventing journalism…
Right on, Tom, Right On:
“If mass media are to survive I think they will have to become forums where professional journalists frame issues, stakeholders argue the nuances and policy makers surf the results and, one would hope, make better decisions.”
That, in a general form, is the crux of the solution to many, many problems. In the specific form you used it is the beginning of a solution to the Newspaper problem. All that is required is a tune-up to make it saleable. Your idea of an experiment is an excellent next step.
Since I am on a similar path, I would like to offer my web site as an extension to your experiment. Let me publish your work and let’s get people to evaluate your on-line approach versus my off-line approach.
See http://nationalcomputerassociation.com
There are a few other things to discuss, of course; however, the solution for local newspapers lie in both on-line and off-line distribution of content that capitalizes on the built in local advantage.
Doug Skoglund
SandS Software, Inc.
skoglund@pdmsb.com
http://pdmsb.com
[...] When I write, I write to learn more than I write to teach. I am not preaching to the masses, I am inviting them to have a conversation with me, where I get to set the topic and have the first word. We go from there. [...]
[...] Newspapers are failling. The industry’s biggest trade publication recently called the industry “dead” just before shutting down itself. Newspaper readership is down across the board, and does not show any signs of improving. The industry’s most popular solution thus far is the brilliant idea to start charging for online editions, a notion which has been pretty much torn apart limb-from-limb by people outside the industry. Heck, even people inside the industry are balking. [...]