The Dilemma of Journalism

Many people argue that the art of print or ‘traditional’ journalism is dying and apparently the New York Times agrees. Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times premiered at Sundance this year, a documentary that explores the inner workings of the New York Times as it must adapt to the emerging challenges of competing with technology in reporting the news. Interestingly enough, one of the writer’s, David Carr (in parallel with our guest lecturer, David Johnson) publishes material from WikiLeaks and encourages writers to connect more directly with their audience, all while his own paper is struggling and thousands of writers are being laid off. Thus the question arises, how do journalist (a definition that has become blurred with the new technologies) do their jobs now? We see more and more established newspapers going paperless, featuring their archives and current articles online, to merely stay relevant in today’s world. Furthermore, how do we, as an audience, receive reliable news? It is true, with easy access to the Internet we are exposed to more ‘news’ than ever before. However, does this necessarily mean we are more educated? Or do the news we read lack substance, and are we just being bombarded with useless information leaving us less informed than ever before?

With new technologies such as Facebook and Twitter many Americans and individuals around the world get the ‘big news’ via status updates, groups and shared links. From recent memory, I remember that I first learned of Osama bin Laden’s death through the constant stream of Facebook statuses relating to the topic. Only after seeing this did I Google the news article, and then proceeded to briefly skim the first couple of paragraphs reporting the details; I knew the most important part of the story, the fact that Bin Laden was dead. Now it was my turn to make a witty America pun and, like my friends, update my Facebook status. We live in a fast world, and technology has only allowed it to become faster. At first, it began with the television; CNN revolutionized the world of news. CNN habituated us to getting news the second we want it; the American people no longer had to wait for the 6 o’clock news or for the newspaper the following day to get the news. We simply have to turn on the television and CNN is giving us live visuals from the ‘breaking story’. However, with the luxury of immediacy we have sacrificed analysis. With daily news there is focus on the immediacy and the bigger picture and in-depth analysis of world events are lost. Similarly, online newspapers appear to be writing shorter and shorter articles, simply providing the facts, rather than providing reflection on what this event means with respect ‘big picture'. 
Facebook, Twitter and blogging take immediacy to a whole new level. And since each of these mediums is more personalized, we also get thousands of different people’s analysis and opinions on everything from current events to those silly Asians in the library (shout out to http://asianssleepinginthelibrary.tumblr.com/). David Johnson, in his lecture encouraged that each of us take the challenge of reporting the news into our own hands; each of us are technically journalist as we write our blogs and analyze how technology is affecting and changing our world. However, the fear of the Founding Fathers, is once again echoed; should we give such power to the (potentially) uneducated masses? Should there exist a criterion that is used to deem ‘news’ found on the Internet reliable? The Internet provides great opportunity to learn and has made finding information literally as easy as a click away. With this power however comes great responsibility (shout out #2 to Spiderman) to the individual. I believe the current state of journalism leads to two potential routes; the individual is able to provide his or her OWN analysis to news events, leading to more innovative thinking and reflection on the events of today’s world. However, at the same time, the lack of newspaper analysis (in attempt to keep up with the immediacy of today’s world) could hurt a large portion of the population who now have very shallow understandings of today’s events.