subscribe: Posts | Comments

‘It was a dark and stormy night’

3 comments

Posted by Chris on Sep 3, 2010 in Dailies, Research | 3 comments

For my second lecture to the absolutely delightful, if a little smelly, University of Pretoria journalism students, we’ll be dealing with the topic: “‘It was a dark and stormy night (click here for Weather.com)’: How online journalism has changed what journalism means.”

There’s only one official reading for this class, and it’s the text of the Hugh Cudlipp lecture, given this year by the editor of The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger. It’s entitled “Does journalism exist.”

Here are three salient bits.

<snip>
“[J]ournalists are, as a rule, better at thinking about journalism – including the most fundamental question of all, hinted at in my title tonight – of whether there is such a thing as journalism.
“If you think about journalism, not business models, you can become rather excited about the future. If you only think about business models you can scare yourself into total paralysis.”
<snip>
“There’s been one change so big and obvious in the last decade that we may not have noticed it: the new media have disappeared. They are just media now: the means through which our world must be experienced. No one under 25 can remember a world without them. Everything shows up on screens, from the big ones we sit in front of all day at work to the small ones on the phones with which we spend our leisure hours – when they’re not sending us emails.
“These screens give us very much more than written words, and they change the ways we understand the world – from text to multimedia; from linear to hypermedia; from passively absorbing material to learning how to navigate actively – and we change them right back.”
<snip>
“[J]ournalists have never before been able to tell stories so effectively, bouncing off each other, linking to each other (as the most generous and open-minded do), linking out, citing sources, allowing response – harnessing the best qualities of text, print, data, sound and visual media. If ever there was a route to building audience, trust and relevance, it is by embracing all the capabilities of this new world, not walling yourself away from them.
“Two further points about this fluid, constantly-iterative world of linked reporting and response: first, many readers like this ability to follow conversations, compare multiple sources and links. Secondly, the result is journalistically better – a collaborative-as-well-as-competitive approach which is usually likely to get to the truth of things, faster.”
<snip>
Read the lecture on The Guardian. We’ll also be touching on the hoary, old and largely irrelevant question about whether blogs, tweets and so on constitute journalism. Here’s some further reading about that (Newspapers vs. Bloggers: The New News Process), but really, the central point is this:
“Newspapers aren’t worth saving. Journalists are.”

Oh, and guest lecturer is Mail & Guardian Managing Editor Verashni Pillay, follow her on Twitter @verashni and read some of her columns here.

3 Responses to “‘It was a dark and stormy night’”

  1. Anton Marshall says:
    September 30, 2010 at 10:08 am

    Does journalism exist? I’d also ask: Does “journalism” recognise its own footprints in the sand? From that old chestnut about “facts” and “objectivity” and such-like drivel, to the notion that agenda-based reportage has sadly given way to the “business” of agenda, I fear that the “new media” we all had such high hopes for back in the 90s has been suppressed by the “ownership of means” as someone in your extract or link seemed to say.

    The news journalist would still have it that his job is pure in intent – style, facts, facts, facts (*bullshit*). The “soft news” (Entertainment, lifestyle, etc) journalist may suggest that they simply reflect a certain opinion or general concensus (or their own, whatever). For me those two ideas are fundamentally different and largely incompatible for a consumer – and as such do not really exist in such ivory towers. Those self-perceptions are both mostly made up… and meaningless.

    What the web has done, especially in the arena of “Entertainment” journalism, is bring an unashamed, proudly heretical voice to “journalism” pure. It celebrates its individuality, snobbery, “poor research and reference” and outright boorishness. These are things that no traditional news powerhouse would have entertained 20 years ago. It is now the standard voice of Entertainment pages across the web. And Kudos.

    Because at some point, it’s the “blog-level” or small-time web writer that will call the bullshit on bullshit. And though they’ll still be talking about Kim Kardashian, they’ll be saying she’s an idiot media-shore – only more emphatically.

    Ok rant over. Back to work, saying nice things about this here Brandon Flowers CD.

  2. Chris says:
    October 6, 2010 at 9:03 am

    Nah, you’re just making up that false dichotomy. No news journo worth his or her salt would say that.

  3. Anton Marshall says:
    October 14, 2010 at 3:22 pm

    bah!

Leave a Reply