If news happens, and there is no one there to report it, is it still news?
Sadly, this isn’t just some variation on the old metaphysical riddle about a tree and an empty forest. It’s becoming an increasingly real — maybe even troubling — question.
On Tuesday, the Associated Press, the 163 year-old granddaddy of independent news organizations, started letting people go. How many have been laid off is a bit unclear, and even their own account does not go beyond saying “an undisclosed number.”
Here in my part of the world, those layoffs mean that the AP’s Roanoke bureau — one reporter really — is no longer staffed, and may well be on the way to closing its doors. This comes on the heels of similar layoffs and cuts throughout our region, cuts replicated in communities across the country. Some of our media outlets now require reporters to take regular furlough days, as if news just doesn’t happen on those days.
In some ways, of course, this shift is almost invisible, since most solid local reporting has long gone the way of the dodo bird. In its place, we get slick “Seven On Your Side” and “Health Team Twelve” features, complete with dramatic theme music and not a whole lot of news value. Or worse, the “man on the street” stories, where solid and aggressive reporting is replaced by lurking in public thoroughfares and asking passersby what they think about a current hot topic. On the print side, we’re sure to see more and more wire service stories, though perhaps not from the AP.
I can’t blame media outlets for taking this route. With profits — particularly in the newspaper business — in a freefall, how could you not gravitate toward this kind of coverage, coverage that is easily produced and packaged as time and budgets dictate?
But who’s going to be doing the reporting? Brace yourself, because it may be you.
Okay, maybe not you, but someone like you … or me for that matter.
To my mind, one of the incredible things about the evolution of the web has been how it has transformed from a relatively static place where we went to seek information to a place where we increasingly seek and provide information. We build web sites, we blog, we tweet. We make our voices heard. And sometimes — the Hudson River plane crash being the prime example — we report the news, long before traditional media are anywhere near the story.
Of course this model isn’t necessarily very reliable … yet. It leaves way too much room for error, for bias, even for malice, I suppose. But surely the demand for solid credible real-time reporting will, at some point, give birth to a new model of journalism, one that is both profitable and built around current events, contemporary technologies, and communal interests.
Hope so anyway. I’d like a chance to blow the dust off my press pass from days gone by.
What a sad and too-true piece, Lucky Man. The Fourth Estate may well be in the hands of individuals, but it’s difficult for individuals to do it alone, without the backing of a newspaper or institution. In a newsroom, you knew (or hoped) your editor had your back, the ME had your back, hopefully the owner and the paper’s lawyers had your back.
Can individuals go out on a limb for the story? I hope we will, but I see myself as someone who needs her job and feels she can’t afford to ruffle feathers.
Just before I read your blog, I read of the passing of James Armstrong, a barber who carried the flag in the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery. It prompted me to ask myself just how much courage I have. Your piece on the heels of that news makes me think a Monty Python-esqueGOD is poking me with a finger through the clouds and asking that question!
I hope I can rise to the challenge — or that someone can.
BTW, just read this morning that the next gen flip cameras (coming in 2010) will have wifi (http://mashable.com/2009/11/18/flip-wifi/). Maybe such tools will make us all better journalists. I’m off to look for an app for courage and wisdom.
Thanks for thought provocation!
Well-said, Neva, and frankly, it’s only because my livelihood doesn’t depend (much) on the Fourth Estate that I can even begin to look at the whole situation with such a detached point of view. It’s horrifying to think of what the environment must be like in newsrooms everywhere, particularly with ad revenues dropping like a stone.
Let me know how the search for that app goes. I could use a little of both courage and wisdom.
True, true.
We had an event at work we wanted covered by the local press. One agency asked us to take pictures for them since the reporter does not get into work until 9 and our event was at 8:30. The stations cannot afford the overtime.
It saddens me to have news reporters rely on the general public for content. How many times can we have someone say “It was pandalerium!” every time a bad event happens?
Thanks, Lisa. Pandalerium made me laugh out loud. Seriously. Not just the LOL kind. It’s pretty bad when even local news is too much for them to cover, but as I mentioned, I understand it. Any thoughts on what the new model might look like?