The Erosion of Journalism

I learned about journalism from my father, an old-school reporter who wrote with two fingers at lightning speed on an old, manual Royal typewriter, all while loudly proclaiming that he had newsprint in his veins.  

Along with these eccentricities he offered some sage advice: “As journalists, we need to report the facts, not our feelings.  Find good sources.  Interview them. Cultivate them. Speak with people on the streets, subways, buses, and – like Jimmy Breslin – in bars.  Take good, solid notes -- but in handwriting that only you can understand.”

Today it seems that sources, notes, and facts have gone the way of the dinosaur, because reporting is too often replaced by opining.  There are numerous reasons for this, one being the demise of print journalism (especially weekly publications) and the budgets supplied by its once substantial advertising revenues.  

In my days as a print journalist at Time Inc. (all weekly magazines), every story – no matter how small – had two fact checkers plus multiple editors who were all very demanding.  Staff writers made a good living plus an expense account while freelance writers were well paid by the word or a flat rate.  

Journalism – like everything else -- has changed and evolved, but low pay and the demand for speed have had a particularly negative influence on quality and depth of writing.  Although we have an enormous number of facts at our fingertips, the immediacy of the Internet has erased deadlines and created an urgency to continually post new stories that have a tabloid sensibility focused on sensationalism.  

Along with the public’s demand for this constant news is its limited attention span, so many stories give us a word count along with an approximate reading time -- less than two minutes – so an in-depth story is about as easy to find as the Loch Ness monster.  

This, coupled with the one-sided opinions of television news pundits, leaves the public with a lack of real information, which I believe is ultimately a positive for young journalists.  Rather than bombarding the public with opinions, now is an opportune time to deliver some fact-based writing.  (Healthcare and government spending are both ripe for real reportage.) 

The Internet has helped replace much of the labor-intensive, old-world shoe-leather journalism, as sources are more easily reached via email and facts and figures are available on multiple devices, so trips to a newspaper’s morgue or a library are unnecessary.

I still interview people in any and every possible location (travel restrictions now apply because of budgets) and that material will always be journalistic gold.  

If you’re a young journalist and want to be noticed, try an old-school approach.  It could be groundbreaking.