The art of journalism is dying- How cookie-cutter reporting is killing the field
by Eva Hannan
Modern capitalism and the online reading environment have brought into focus the worst aspects of journalism. The trend towards sensationalism, the shortened news cycle and the tendency to create feedback loops of trivial information at the expense of relevant information is rampant in our current news environment.
To solve this problem, we must ask how these trends have become more acute. Local newsrooms are being bought out and their staffs cut. No one is keeping an eye on public officials and corruption, so the market continues to deregulate.
Meanwhile, the corporate-run media are interested in profits, which equal clicks, which equal Trumpian feedback loops on par with dead mothers and lion maulings, while the tragic story of 14 million starving Yemenis is barely present in the news feed.
Although detrimental in the short run, the clarity presented by the new realities of the newsfeed can help journalistic enterprises identify and self-correct for these tendencies.
Here are some of the issues with online content and the “new” news: Clickbaiting; misleading headlines; portrayals (often of victims of crime) that feed into stereotype and stories that focus on a particular aspect of the story without addressing its core.
The expectation for those “living in the now,” and the rushed journalism that results, gives those in power more compelling reasons to dismiss actual investigative findings when they do come out.
In addressing the problem, journalism will have to reinvent its business model and avoid being consumed and made irrelevant. We can assume that the internet is not going to away, and the pace of life is not slowing, so a return to bygone forms is unrealistic.
What is happening “now” is still very fractured, ongoing and murky. We need to talk of the present and the recent past in different ways.
Additionally, using the same platform for vastly different kinds of information, such as the current Venezuelan coup (aka “political crisis”) next to the fashion choices of Meghan Markle, is just wrong.
This problem can best be addressed by changing the structure of news to be more community-based and community-run. A good way to go about doing this may be to help more citizens report, or strengthen the emphasis and work put into the publication arm of a community organization.
