Read through the coverage of any presidential campaign and you will invariably find instances in which the conventional wisdom was turned on its head. Yet there is a sense that the conventional wisdom about the current contest has been especially wrong. The New York Times, itself a chief purveyor of conventional wisdom, said as much in a March 9 analysis that claimed the “accuracy rate” has plummeted to “new lows.”
It’s difficult to say definitively that the press and pundits covering the 2008 campaign have missed the mark more often, and by a wider margin, than in elections past—though given everything from “McCain’s done” to “It’s all about Iowa,” it’s not hard to believe. What one can say definitively is that conventional wisdom is vulnerable in large part because it is often based on imperfect and incomplete information; and that the source of the vast majority of that information—reporting by mainstream news outlets—is under assault as never before.
The steady drip of buyouts and layoffs has consumed an estimated four thousand newsroom jobs in print alone since the turn of the century, according to the much-chewed-over annual State of the News Media report released in March by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. As to whether the Web is replenishing this reportorial firepower, the authors are blunt: “In print, broadcast and elsewhere, more effort is moving to packaging and repurposing material….But less is being devoted to original newsgathering, especially the bearing witness and monitoring of basic news.”
The current presidential election is arguably the most important in recent history, given the magnitude of the problems the winner will confront on day one—yet fewer seasoned reporters are questioning both candidates and voters; fewer journalists are out bearing witness. Meanwhile, the ever-growing armies of pundits deployed by cable outlets on Big Nights—the...
Complete access to this article will soon be available for purchase. Subscribers will be able to access this article, and the rest of CJR’s magazine archive, for free. Select articles from the last 6 months will remain free for all visitors to CJR.org.
What matters is that the DNA of the best journalism—investigative, public-service-oriented—be instilled in the news outlets of the twenty-first century. And that takes more than just talk."
you may be missing the big story
journalists are among a long series of "jobs" that have been radically altered by a changing economic infrastructure
there has bee a long cycle of restructuring in how business gets done and now people earn a living
i don't know where to mark the beginning of the cycle
the textile industry?
the steel industry?
the automotive industry?
the printing industy?
the banking industry?
when will the changes impact the healthcare industry?
we are living a big story in which the end of one era and the beginning of a new era is evidenced in changes in the ways in which people work and earn a living
Posted by jamzo
on Tue 13 May 2008 at 10:02 AM
After decades working in local markets in every medium I couldn't agree more with these findings.
But not only is the declining number of news jobs troubling, the quality of the surviving news jobs should also be a major worry.
Recently I talked to several former journalism students now working in senior positions in major markets across the country.
Most say quality local reporter jobs are increasingly rare. Not only that but the the types of stories reporters are now ordered to do are starting to have much more to do with profit motives than public service or increasing audience.
It's seems new media's style of journalism--shovelware, repackaging, and repurposing--is threatening original newsgathering in traditional media. This is a direct threat to the public's right to know what's going on.
I'm not a knee-jerk advocate of the good ol' days but wouldn't it be wonderful to see original newsgathering techniques revived as the foundation of this new multi-media universe.
Posted by edtrmc@sbcglobal.net
on Wed 14 May 2008 at 06:01 PM
The second comment hits home for me. I've been in the print business for nearly 20 years and over the past two I have shifted dramatically over to online work, balancing a workday between print and online deadlines. The pace is daunting for anyone and it is becomng increasingly difficult to cultivate and generate original material. Management from both the editorial and business side seem more interested in quantity over quality and therefore our quality is declining. We will be our own executioners in the end.
Posted by RKG
on Fri 16 May 2008 at 10:24 AM
Wow, I wonder if there are other witnesses?
Several news departments in my city cooperated in moving from reporting bona fide news stories to .... producing "deliverables".
For the public it meant ignoring a local case before the U-S Supreme Court that had a fundamental impact on policy for the entire nation.
Instead we focused staff time on a series of feel-good stories funded by deep-pocketed underwriters who sometimes provided the sources and the editorial guidance.
We shoveled the deliverables onto the websites of our media partners amid heavy cross-promotion.
Local coverage took an immediate hit and news department morale plummeted while the workload doubled. Staff cuts soon followed across the board.
Most damning was the lack of long-term impact on ratings and circulation.
Most telling was the short-term increase in revenue to the media partners and how quickly it evaporated. All are struggling financially.
We went from staffs based on news values to ones based on the needs of paying customers.
The sad thing is that it didn't have to be. The media partners could have achieved both their financial and news goals without trampling on community coverage...AND they could have sustained their basic operations.
Posted by edtrmc@sbcglobal.net
on Fri 16 May 2008 at 03:32 PM