Journalism Today is Too Fast to be Good
Journalism needs a change to go back to its true purpose: telling people what they should know and help them understand it.
As a newsreader with broad interests, I have observed that as everyone is easing into a culture of instantaneous everything: journalism is selling out to it. We have become lazy consumers. We want everything, right here, right now!
Journalism today is too fast to be good. All news outlets are competing on the same level: free, instant news. This works, but only for celebrity break ups or notifications. By rushing to conclusions and their keyboards the media is simply answering the ‘what’. Meanwhile, the more important questions: ‘how’ and ‘why’, which take time to research and grasp, are forgotten. As a result, readers make opinions on things they do not truly understand.
The news is distracted; what happened to Fukushima and Syria? These events are ongoing, but we barely hear about them anymore. The news moves on and ignores those events. People are suffering, but without public awareness little gets done about it.
This distraction is partly due to the media’s current business models, which depend heavily on advertisers. Since these pay on the basis of click-through rates and page views, the media become sensationalist and quickly move on to the next ‘big’ thing.
There is so much out there, too much to process. Sensationalism has taken over; it seems to be the only way to get the readers’ attention. Algorithms and, as a result, the media are giving people what they want to hear. This is against the very nature of journalism, which is to tell people what they should know.
Quality is lost, and so is respect for the reader and sometimes for the subject of the story. The media is just as guilty as we are. We want to know everything about everything, which only results in a superficial grasp of what is really happening in the world.
We live in extraordinary times: all is at our fingertips. This means we have little excuse to be ignorant but also a responsibility to filter this data and understand it.
There is a lot of quality content out there. Stories and reports that have been researched in depth and presented in an intelligent and open-minded manner. However, we have to look out for them, and we don’t always have time for that.
It is time to venture into slow news. It is important to be aware of what is happening when it happens, and that is easier than ever today. However, for bigger picture events that matter in the mid to long term, understanding is crucial. We need an alternative to the current media. We need to take step back and slow down.
The first step is to take the time to understand and investigate a news story in order to publish a truly interesting story that sheds light on the matter at hand. This cannot be done in an hour, it takes time and effort.
Secondly, we need to report on long-running events consistently so that we don’t forget about them. Incidentally, a constant outlook on such issues provides better knowledge and understanding, resulting in better reporting over time.
Thirdly, open-mindedness and independence are the key. We have to be aware that there is no such thing as unbiased reporting. Nevertheless, we can strive for accuracy and open-minded representation of the facts. This is a lot easier to do with time as well, which goes back to step one. Independence is hard to achieve, and requires a shift in the newsreader’s mindset that if the media separates from advertising it works in their benefit but is unlikely to be free.
The list goes on, but these are the main points.
With this in mind, a friend and I have started an ambitious project called The Charta, which aims to address these issues and provide slow news. We don’t want to replace the daily news, we want to complement it. We are the alternative: inform, not notify!
Check us out on Kickstarter: http://kck.st/1pvLDgG
