Practice Post

Not unlike other fields intertwined with technology, the field of journalism hurtles from one phase to the next so recklessly fast that predicting its future seems madness. For example, online journalism remains so fresh that it couldn’t possibly be harnessed by accurate predictions at this point. Consequently, I cannot purport to envisage the evolution of journalism. Instead, I can only recommend we equip ourselves with the proper tools to master it when the time arrives -- the old time-tested principles of journalism paired with the skills necessary to maneuver the present’s embryonic technology. After all, we should not assume the Internet will be the last frontier of journalism. Reporters from all fields of journalism are familiar with the underlying apprehension the future holds for their careers because the present already looks so bleak. After all, the journalist bewailing the steady dwindling of newspaper circulation has become a familiar cliché, while more recently the decline of television news has gained equal notoriety thanks to the publishing of every news station’s increasing median age.

Meanwhile, CNN invoked the name of A.N.S. 522 percent more times than it did the word “Iraq.” MSNBC made 708 percent more references. And let’s not even touch Fox News. It should therefore come as no surprise that, in light of all this fluff, viewers resoundingly prefer local TV to national TV for their news content. Yet, even local television falls prey to the “gore” factor, despite repeated polls that insist screaming sirens and bloody bodies actually repel the audience rather than attract them. Furthermore, polls show television mainstream media knows no shame when, like a beached fish flailing in the last throes of its demise, it frantically appeals to its audience’s lowliest primitive instincts. On NBC Nightly News, coverage of Anna Nicole Smith’s trials totaled 3 minutes and 13 seconds compared to only 14 seconds to the Iraq war. So, how do the mainstream media recapture their restless audience?

A 2006 study by the Radio and Television News Directors tells us TV viewers want more weather, education, international news, health care, and the environment -- the kinds of topics that normally line the bottom of a TV station’s trash bin. Meanwhile, surveys of print media show a similar pattern of opinion, but with an emphasis on local rather than international news. Yet, one has to level with the likelihood that these responses are inevitably tainted by survey bias, as ratings show something very different: viewers and readers both flock to that which they claim they abhor. Call it informational rubber-necking, if you like, but it is an inevitable truth. Media analyst Ellen Hume would say even our “best” journalism “consistently misses the mark because it is hobbled by strategy and score-keeping formulas that shut out the audience,” but let’s cast aside the blame game between audience and the reporter, shall we? Far better be it to maintain journalistic integrity than to chase after shallow ratings that will only vanish the next day when another source of news sells out to sensationalism. Instead, rather than abandoning one’s self respect to do damage control on an already sinking ship, what can both television news and print media do to better navigate the largely uncharted waters using a fresher vessel -- that of online journalism?