What is happening to journalism?

And what is happening to the media's sense of mission?

When doing statistical analysis to find out what is popular on our websites, the results are often disturbing. The 'tabloid' news beats hard news hands down, every time; good 'documentary type'/hardcore news simply cannot compete with infotainment styled gossip/scandal. Standards have changed (some would say dropped) because of the pressure of profits, but also the broadening, the flattening of content into a 24/7 stream of infotainment from myriad sources.

The question is, who now decides what is news? Are we still providing a public service, or are we simply pandering to a public hungry to hear about Britney, Paris and a snake-bitten golfer?

Entertain and Teach

When I was a teacher in South Korea an old fogey once said: "I am NOT an entertainer." This guy was a highly qualified educator, and there had been complaints that his textbook approach was 'too boring'. I understood his point, but I also felt that he was fundamentally misguided in his approach. If you can't hold people's interest, no matter how important the thing is you're communicating, well you've lost already.

But there is certainly a crisis going on, and we all know that the internet is distracting a lot of eyeballs (and revenue) away from traditional media, and newspapers in particular.

Here's the rub: original reporting is what distinguishes newspapers and good news from second hand, second rate media. Original reporting is hard work, it requires effort, and passion. It is knocking on doors, pushing, chest beating work. It is also, often, highly local. It is uncovering, unearthing, a skelton in a neighbours garden. It is up close and personal, and we discover important insights about what is really happening in our community - how things are being run, what decision makers are really doing (compared to what they are saying) and so on. Now, with advertising revenues for newspapers contracting, there is less money for newspapers to spend on reporters, less money dedicated to the task of doing valuable hard nosed reporting. Which means that essentially the likes of Google and Yahoo (Yahoo is the biggest online News site in the world, followed by MSNBC) who are critically dependent on newspapers for their content are also, in a sense, the most critical saboteurs of the revenue stream of newspapers.

Less is More, More or Less

More and more revenue is being diverted away from newspapers, even though newspapers remain the key conduit, the fountainhead, for news. Radio, TV, and online content all tap in to news printed every day.

As a result of the dearth of content providers, and the public's participation in providing content (citizen journalism), quality, consistency and reliability is an ongoing issue. Once again original reporting distinguishes. There are plenty of sites that simply regurgitate or recycle [this blog suffers the same tendency]. Thus newspapers are finding their ownership of the news quickly usurped, and then disseminated at a fantastic speed. As such competition is levelling the playing field, bringing Media Providers face to face with this vital question: 'Should we give the public what it wants or what it ought to want, or ought to know?' The question can be rephrased: Who decides what is news? The editor, or the public? Is it an either or?

What is certain is that newspapers have in the past and must continue to provide a public service. It can be a difficult situation where a company is essentially providing a public service, but must answer to shareholders in terms of the fundamentals of private enterprise (bottom line revenues). Selling news is still a business after all, isn't it? Or have things shifted to the extent that with the internet and other technologies, we all have the capacity to know everything. Do we really need a single resource? The answer is we do, but possibly less than we did before. How much less is the question.

It is easy for news providers to make the mistake of covering big international stories (as seen on CNN, Sky and BBC and mirrored elsewhere). Once again, what distinguishes a newspaper or indeed any media is its attention, its sensitivity, the quality of its local context. To the extent that it can address and reflect and provide vital insights into a local context, to this extent the Media (or medium) becomes, and can become, indispensable.

Online

Online news is a challenge simply because the online viewer (I dislike the term user) is engaged in an entirely different approach/mindset to a person holding a newspaper. This is simply because, armed with a mouse, a viewer is super-connected to limitless digitised networks. It is very easy to match thinking with information on the web. It is easier by far to draw information towards you, rather than to page through something tangible, but static.

Think for example of someone looking for a job, or a house, or a car online, as opposed to someone having to wave through endless mismatches set out in document form. The one is simply a far more efficienct option.

The way online viewers consume news is highly accelarated, highly efficient, and highly spontaneous. The methodology is sometimes called infosnacking, or infochunking. The word conjures up a new ethos immediately, not based on necessarily wanting formulaic news, but a more personalised, more interesting mix that is in parts informative, entertaining and interesting, but most of all convenient. It's exactly what the viewer wants, and it's interactive.

My aim as a writer is to simply write stories (both here and for mass media) that taste good and are good for you.

For further background read this excellent article:
Journalism without journalists

What's The Point Of A Blog?

A blog is a chance to get a detailed behind the scenes picture of your favorite writer, celebrity or normal person. It's more detailed orientated than Facebook, it's more personal than email. In my case, when I have stuff appearing in publications, it can be viewed first here, with bonus footage/content. Also, while we may be used to a one-way flow of data (from a page through our eyes into our brains), a blog allows the opportunity for the reader to respond. Increasingly, you might find a curious detail and want the writer to expand on it. Or, as is often the case, you want to show/tell the writer that you are more intelligent than he/she is.

I started to appreciate the power and usefulness and thrill of blogging while living in Broadband Heaven - South Korea. I had read what I thought was a rare and astutely insightful book (The Long Emergency - by Jim Kunstler)and then was referred in the epilogue to his blog (www.kunstler.com). It's not the best design, but he writes well, has in the millions of visitors and it was fascinating following his commentary on events (updated daily and a column weekly), and seeing how predictions and reality became increasingly congruent. I have also emailed the author a few times and received several interesting responses, which is something you could never do until modern times. The same thing occurred with Weston DeWalt, author of The Climb, who actually contacted me via reading my blog.

It is amazing that we have the capacity now to read one another's minds, and for one person to infiltrate millions of minds, and for those millions (I almost said 'minions') to respond en masse. Kunstler says he wades through masses of emails each day.

The point of a blog, for me, in the beginning, was to provide a place for those people who wanted to get in touch with me, to visit (instead of sending group mails and getting 5 irritated responses each time). I am still shocked, surprised, awed, weary of the fact that what is published on the web can be read by a little girl on a computer in Australia, or a hairy nosed scientist at the North Pole, and everywhere in between.

I only worry that few of us take this technology seriously. So much - the majority by far - of what enters the public consciousness is drivel. And drivel begets drivel. Drivel and our fascination with drivel (rather than what is necessary) is what has driven us to where we are as a civilisation, and we know it is not a safe, happy, sustainable or even sane place. Blogs - if enough people experience a koo koo moment - may be able to reverse this effect, this mental malaise. Change begins with a change in mindset, and blogs can do, I believe, plenty to shift the zeitgeist to a more meaningful level of functionality.

Top 10 Tips for New Bloggers From Original Blogger Jorn Barger (WIRED)

Jorn Barger of Robot Wisdom coined the term "weblog" Dec. 17, 1997 -- 10 years ago Monday -- to describe the daily list of links that "logged" his travels across the web.

In the decade hence, Barger feels that he's gained some wisdom of his own about blogging. Here's Barger's top 10 tips for novice bloggers:

My intent for weblogs in 1997 was to make the web as a whole more transparent, via a sort of "mesh network," where each weblog amplifies just those signals (or links) its author likes best. 1998-1999 was for me the Golden Age of Weblogs, when the following principles were widely understood:

1. A true weblog is a log of all the URLs you want to save or share. (So del.icio.us is actually better for blogging than blogger.com.) [Except it lacks personality: It's like ordering something from a menu into a drive-thru mike, rather than from a waitress or something else real.]

2. You can certainly include links to your original thoughts, posted elsewhere … but if you have more original posts than links, you probably need to learn some humility. [Interesting..seems I'm on the right track. Although this blog certainly started out - in terms of original content - on the wrong track. The first half is almost exclusively all about me and my thoughts...]

3. If you spend a little time searching before you post, you can probably find your idea well articulated elsewhere already. [True. Which starts to beg the question: why blog? The answer is, some people who know you want are interested in your thoughts, your ideas, and want to share in your conversation - not some stranger's. Right?]

4. Being truly yourself is always hipper than suppressing a link just because it's not trendy enough. Your readers need to get to know you. [Aha, see my above comment.]

5. You can always improve on the author's own page title, when describing a link. (At least make sure your description is full enough that readers will recognize any pages they've already visited, without having to visit them again.)

6. Always include some adjective describing your own reaction to the linked page (great, useful, imaginative, clever, etc.) [Makes sense.]

7. Credit the source that led you to it, so your readers have the option of "moving upstream."

8. Warn about "gotchas" -- weird formatting, multipage stories, extra-long files, etc. Don't camouflage the main link among unneeded (or poorly labeled) auxiliary links.

9. Pick some favorite authors or celebrities and create a Google News feed that tracks new mentions of them, so other fans can follow them via your weblog. [Awesome idea.]

10. Re-post your favorite links from time to time, for people who missed them the first time.

The 3 Laws of Blogging

1. Be Honest
Lori Drew, admitted to police that she created a fake MySpace profile used to torment 13-year old Megan Meier into commiting suicide.
2. Don't Be Too Honest
The ‘gross misconduct’ of blogging
3. Be Nice
No More Mr. Nice Blog.

NVDL: Did I leave anything else out? Possibly just that what counts in the real world also counts in the virtual (on the internet). Be congruent in both.