It should come as no surprise that a journalist’s favorite topic of late is the future of journalism. Bleak matters for certain. What is surprising though is how few are speaking, or writing, on the future of journalists. Assuming blind optimism for a moment, that journalists will be necessary in the new world order, what is the paradigm that they will inhabit? How will the new journalist best communicate information? Thankfully there is a pretty good model to look at here for the future journalist, New York Times columnist Nick Kristof.
I think that there will be two important aspects to the future journalist. Whether we like it or not, Web 2.0 has firmly established itself as the internet strategy of the modern web user. No longer will people sit on the sidelines having entertainment delivered to them without their input. Passive media ingestion is now fodder for the Natural History Museum, much like Laser Discs and personal privacy. From here on out the comments section is definitely on, so wookie1138 can tell you exactly how much he hates everything you do, say, or feel. While much of the established print press has resisted this, it is a mistake. The world wants interaction, and if it isn’t offered, then people will move on.
Nick Kristof presents an interesting picture of interactive journalist. Not only does he welcome comments on his column, blog, twitter, etc., he welcomes advice. One of his recent blog entries was titled “New Topics for the New Year?”. Yes he is looking for responses to his reporting, but he’s also asking his readers to plug him in to any untouched stories out there. A lot of establishment journos pucker at this idea, the great and mighty reporter slumming it with the plebes for a tip. It’s a reporter’s job to find the story, not the reader’s, right? Well, why not cast a wider net? Why not include the reader as a source? Isn’t the best story telling just part of a larger conversation? I really think that Kristof is on to something here.
The second piece of the new journalist puzzle is presentation. How does the journalist tell the story? The old model involved reporting for a paper or a magazine and then every few years or so maybe latching onto the detail of a topic for a book. This worked well when there were plenty of newspapers and magazines to employ journalists, but the times, they are a changin’. This may not be a bad thing for journalists though, at least not the good ones. I equate the current climate for journalists to the end of the studio system in Hollywood, where hundreds of low rent actors lost their steady paychecks, but the cream rose to the top to collect a much bigger payday. When the studio system ended, actors essentially became freelance contractors, guns for hire if you will. Journalists look to be going this way as well, especially while the media world looks to find a new and successful business model. This may not be all bad though. Just as the studio breakdown put the industry power in the hands of the actor, so the media breakdown might do the same for the journalist.
What journalists will need though is to market themselves rather than the entities they work for. Journalists will need to become the main attraction. Again, Nick Kristof seems to have the model for this in the form of a sort of reverse media pyramid, or more accurately, a reverse word count pyramid. The reverse pyramid is, in its simplest sense, a break down of the different forms. First there is the most pedantic avenue of information, the place where the journalist really establishes his raison d’etre, which is a book. Kristof right now has the best seller Half The Sky. Next is something long form, or if not long form, longish by today’s attention span standards. This is where the journalist maybe has a primary beat on a magazine or a newspaper. Kristof of course has his NYT column. Then there is the blog, smaller then the long form stuff, but still long enough to parse a reasonable amount of info. More importantly though is pace. With the blog there can be a couple of updates a week. This is where the journalist really starts to get into a conversation with her reader. Next comes the social media, Facebook say and then finally Twitter. Twitter provides the avenue for intra-day updates and real interaction with the reader albeit in very brief doses. Kristof has really done well to master all of these and his reward is a large group of loyal readers.
With media evolving so quickly, I think the particulars of such a pyramid should stay fluid, but to my mind the bigger to smaller idea is really the future. Journalists need to get off of the pedestal and realize that reporting is no longer about telling people what they should be interested in, it is about a conversation. The conversation may not always be good but fighting against the tide at this point is pretty futile. There is, however, endless potential in the conversation paradigm of reporting, and while journalists may be evolving, I think it is important to realize that evolving doesn’t mean going away.
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Comments
We need to worry about who will do the less-than-glamorous, but vitally important work of watching our tax dollars close to home. Without this, the future of journalism could easily devolve to the same big story told a dozen different ways by a handful of huge media outlets that keep themselves removed from the hoi polloi, which in turn won't know what's happening in their own backyards but will know everything about Tiger Woods.
I had trouble concentrating on the rest of your argument. I don't know what kind of journalists you know, but any journalist I know worth their salt has always gotten most of their best stories/ideas/tips from the "plebes" as you call them. Anyone who's ever worked a beat of any kind knows that their contacts on the ground need to be wide ranging and cultivated if they want to break stories. A comment like that makes me think that perhaps you and your friends don't have a clue how real journalism works. I am sure that some journos have that attitude, but I've been in the business a long, long time and I've encountered it mostly at the top from publishers etc who've never worked a day as a reporter.
I had trouble concentrating on the rest of your argument. I don't know what kind of journalists you know, but any journalist I know worth their salt has always gotten most of their best stories/ideas/tips from the "plebes" as you call them. Anyone who's ever worked a beat of any kind knows that their contacts on the ground need to be wide ranging and cultivated if they want to break stories. A comment like that makes me think that perhaps you and your friends don't have a clue how real journalism works. I am sure that some journos have that attitude, but I've been in the business a long, long time and I've encountered it mostly at the top from publishers etc who've never worked a day as a reporter.
Emmapeel, the plebes I mentioned isn't a class thing, of course journalists don't discriminate on using a range of people for sources. I'm speaking of comments sections and interactive readers such as, say, yourself. It's not that the establishment doesn't read them, it's that the establishment doesn't often look at the potential for give and take with them, readers and writers.
BOKO. Seriously, I'm terrified. I just changed all of my passwords.
I credit you with a thoughtful, well structured piece.
What I would pose to you (perhaps a suggestion for further meditations on the subject is this: How, in this new culture you suggest, do you contend with the remants of the old structure? Do all reporters simply become bloggers and leave behind the entrenched editors and publishers? How do you address editing, copy-editing and even basic protection issues is we're all hired guns? Is there a way to integrate the better parts of the old system into a new journalism?
I have worked as a hired gun and as a reporter at traditional papers. Both had drawbacks.
But when I was a freelancer for a fledgling online publication, I was disrespected, kept at arms length and ultimately financially screwed over by the editors. I had no recourse. I was just, as you put it, a hired gun, surviving on crumbs thrown to me by the older media-personalities that were dominating the new media as they had my city's dying daily paper decades before.
I was better off-professionally-working in the traditional papers with 12 hour work days and dwindling ad revenues because I could connect with my editors, toss ideas around and generally was afforded the respect due a "real" reporter by sources and my co-workers.
I am not one of those journalists who "knows what's best" for readers. Any decent reporter isn't a sacro-sanct, pedestal "journalist." Most of us are trench-warriors who do good work for local communities in the middle of nowhere that will lose out if all old media fades away.
What do you propose would replace the Waterloo Republicans and Galesburg Register-Mail's in this market-driven journalism world you argue for?
Because, as far as market driven models work, nobody may cover the things that impact most people outside of New York, LA and Washington.
What passes for straight journalism these days is more accurately described as editorialism. That's a shame. There may be nothing more noble than being an outstanding, virtually anonymous reporter. But it's not sexy or profitable - so it's uncool and nobody wants to do it any more.
Of course, it can be hard to respond to all commenters or all threads. But any participation in the discussion changes the dynamic of writer expert-passive reader. (In fact, Kristof has written about the problem with "experts.)
It can't just be about building journo brand, though, at least for anyone who cares about the future of journalism. We don't all have perches at print publications, for one. But beyond that, there's the humble, shoe-leather aspects of local reporting. Sure, there are some city-hall community sites popping up around the country, but until these become fixtures everywhere, the Powers That Be will be able to do way too much wiggling into the shadows. Rated.
And now bendan bendan has changed his name to bendab bendan - sly guy!
Rated. Thanks.
Also like Jamie Beckett said, "There may be nothing more noble than being an outstanding, virtually anonymous reporter. But it's not sexy or profitable - so it's uncool and nobody wants to do it any more." And it is ashame that today journalists don't want to write something unless it gives them a good name. They should be writing to benefit society because that is their job.