The Lost Art of Journalism

It is The Lost Profession of Journalism, probably.

I took journalism in college. I was an avid learner. I did rather well as a student journalist -- I became editor, and in time we received a national award: top of our class in student newspapers.

What we excelled at was the very thing that seems to be lacking in even professional newspapers today: integrity and objectivity.

In journalism class we were taught the five W's: who, what, when, where, and why.

We were also taught that the most important paragraphs of a news story -- the ones that give the most important information -- were to come at the front of the news story, NOT near the end of it.

Part of this practice was due to the fact that many readers gloss through stories, just reading the top few paragraphs to get the jist of the story, and then move on to another one.

Today, you often see stories that are a jumble of facts in varying levels of importance, often written poorly, and often the most important part of the story is shoved somewhere near the end of the story. Even when I was going to school, it would be called sloppy writing and sloppy journalism. Today it's the new standard.

If I had a dollar for every news story in the local newspaper that had the most important information buried near the bottom of a news story, I'd at least be a couple hundred dollars richer.

WHO NEEDS TO KNOW WHERE IT HAPPENED, ANYWAY

A few years ago the local Seattle newspaper had a story about some left wing writer who had given a talk at a local hall.

Imagine my surprise when I read the story, and the neither the story, nor the caption under the photograph, told where the hall was, nor the date of the talk.

I emailed the writer of the story, and she told me (basically) "ooops!" When I politely asked her further why there was no information on the location of the speech, or the date, she said something to this effect: "the five W's are old school, they don't emphasise them any more."

No kidding. It seems they don't emphasise integrity anymore, either.

I've even seen top, front page news stories where the writer wrote something that was the exact opposite of statistics printed in the paper's business section the day before. And those statistics didn't change -- the reporter simply hadn't bothered to check the facts. It's pretty sad when a news writer doesn't even read their own newspaper.

OBJECTIVITY -- THE WAY OF THE DODO

We were taught objectivity in writing and reporting. Opinions were meant for the page marked "opinion". Editorialising was a no-no.  You were supposed to suppress your feelings about a subject and just present the news, and both sides, if possible.

Increasingly, that has gone the way of the Dodo as well.

You see this in stories that present an issue but don't present any response from the other side. I saw this in a top page news story (mentioned above), where the writer reported that all the economists were saying that 2014 was supposed to be a fantastic year in the U.S. economically. In fact, it was going to be just like the 1990's.  This was a top, front page story with contributions from a major West Coast newspaper (the L.A. Times) and additions by someone at the local paper.

There were no economists quoted saying that 2014 would be just another recession year (which is actually how 2014 turned out). The writers of the news article didn't bother to get the other side. Instead, they placed a story on the top of the front page, which would have been better placed on the opinions page or as a commentary in the business section.

And -- of course -- 2014 was nothing at all like the 1990's. In fact, we're still in a Recession, if you look at most economic indicators. Manufacturing is down, employment is nowhere near where it should be, housing is still struggling, retail is still struggling -- all the rosy views of that news article were wrong. Yet they never bothered to find an economist who perhaps had a different view from the rosy one emphasised in that front page article.

So much for integrity.

GOOD BYE NEW YORK TIMES, HELLO INFOTAINMENT

I read in a news story that 30% of Americans get their news from social media websites -- probably in the form of mostly partisan "news" links and 'memes', which often are exaggerations and sometimes are even outright lies and misconceptions.

Considering the amount of false crap that is placed on social media (which, of course, is in no way social media's fault -- it's the fault of many of its users), that is scary.

Over the past few years, newspapers have lost circulation -- both print and online -- and many have started to die, and news magazines are starting to die off along with them. Many have gone online only. One of our local newspapers quit printing issues and went online only.

When it was printed, it was a real newspaper. Now -- half of the stories are outsourced infotainment "news" stories, like you see on the sidebar of a lot of websites -- stories that are maybe two degrees above the fluff you see in the tabloids and infotainment magazines.

WHO NEEDS CREDENTIALS WHEN YOU HAVE A COMPUTER AND AN INTERNET CONNECTION?

Journalism -- even with all of its flaws, and looking over the long past of journalism, and there have been many of them -- used to be an actual profession.

Now, anyone with a computer and an internet connection can be a "journalist".

Think about this scenario: Would you go to a doctor who didn't really have credentials?

If you were sick, would you rather go to a doctor who actually went to medical school -- or one who just got out of high school and thought it would be cool to play doctor, and put a sign out front of his office?

Would you rather trust your teeth to a dentist who actually went to dental college, and got the credentials -- or go to a guy who just thought it would be cool to work on teeth, bought some tools and a dentist's chair, and hung out a cool looking sign, saying he was a dentist?

Most people probably would prefer the guys (or gals) with the actual credentials.

But we will trust "news" websites that pose as "newspapers", where the stories are often very poorly written, partisan opinions masquerading as objective news stories, and most people won't bat an eyelash.

To be fair, not all news blogs / partisan "news" sites are bad. Not all of them print half truths and lies. Not all of them are manned by untrained hacks. In fact, maybe most of them are manned by people who went through journalism schools and actually can write.

But I've seen enough hack writing and "news" on some of these sites -- many of them very popular and quoted and linked on social media daily -- that it baffles me when I read them and think that people are trusting in them. People even use the 'news' and information they read on such sites to help them decide issues, or even to vote.

A NEW PHASE -- THE ERA OF THE HACK

As a news junkie of sorts, I think it's sad to see the demise of journalism. And it's not just the idea of newspapers fading away -- obviously, just like buggy whips and typewriters, print is a thing of the past.

It's the integrity and objectivity -- to see that go away is the most sad thing of all.

We're entering a new phase in news media -- the era of the hack. I just hope that somehow, the situation can right itself and objectivity, integrity, and clear writing will eventually prevail.