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LAT goal: "A 24/7 operation that breaks news all the time online"

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Idaho, Jan 24, 2007.

  1. Piotr Rasputin

    Piotr Rasputin New Member

    This is why I chuckle when people (mostly young students at the college level) still cling to two things: 1. "Journalists are the WATCHDOGS of SOCIETY!!!!!!!!!" and 2. "Journalism is a PUBLIC TRUST!!!!!"

    No. We're storytellers, we're observers. And we're no better than Joe Schmoe on the street, especially since he now has quick access to too many news sources to count. Which can all tell him the things newspapers used to.
     
  2. shotglass

    shotglass Guest

    Jumping to the other side of the fence quickly, Piotr, the day we succeed in beating the idealism out of the young journalist is the day we don't have any idealism in the business at all. And that will not be a good thing.
     
  3. Piotr Rasputin

    Piotr Rasputin New Member

    I think passion for the business, wanting to commit plenty of elbow grease to their job and a constant willingness to learn new things are all more important than idealism.

    If idealism is one's main reason for getting in, disillusionment quickly follows. But I find that for the average young news reporter, that's the main thing they bring.
     
  4. Frank_Ridgeway

    Frank_Ridgeway Well-Known Member

    Opinion is all over the place for free, on radio, on the Internet. While it appeals to our vanity to believe that consumers will value our opinion over all others' to the point that they'll pay for it, this is increasingly unlikely. We newspaper people are generalists, for the most part. There are people out there -- academics, practitioners, advocates, hobbyists -- who have made study of a very narrow and specific thing the focal point of their lives. And now, via the Internet, readers have easy access to them, people who have a lot more expertise than we do. Whose opinion will you value more -- your local metro's food editor or the Web site of a celebrity chef, a newspaper's one arts critic or the collective intelligence of a local arts community communicating online in a message board? We have lost the advantage of expertise in most areas, and in truth we had it in the first place only by default because a lot of newspaper experts had little or no formal education in the field they wrote about. In sports journalism, we in traditional media still have advantages of access and professionalism over an upstart practitioner, but this is precarious because leagues can decide either to grant access to more people or restrict access in order to give league-controlled Web sites a competitive advantage over us.

    You could point to the NY Times' TimesSelect and say people are willing to buy opinion. But the Times' columnists on international, national and cultural affairs do not work in a vacuum. The quality of their understanding of the news and their access to information is enhanced immeasurably by being parts of the largest, most stable and farthest-reaching newspaper staff in U.S. history. They riff off the exclusive newsgathering efforts of hundreds of reporters, they are guided by the deepest editing staff in the world, and their opinions gain credence simply by their being part of the most widely respected brand in journalism. Most pundits elsewhere lack these advantages.
     
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