Changes and Challenges for Journalism in the Information Age

In modern America, journalism’s highest role has been to provide information that enables citizens to make intelligent decisions. Today, this guiding principle has been partially derailed. Why? First, the media may be producing too much information through too many communication channels, making it harder to confirm facts and engage in thoughtful discussion about them. Second, the information the media now provide has apparently not improved the quality of public and political life—a core mission of journalism. For example, many people feel disconnected from the stories about the major institutions and political processes that serve as the foundation of democratic society.

Earlier in this chapter (see pages 85–86), we discussed some of the ways in which the Internet has changed how professional journalists do their jobs—many of which are internal in nature. But there are also external changes, happening outside of professional newsrooms, affecting the ways in which audiences consume and understand news—and sometimes even the manner in which journalists are expected to report.

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Social Media

One of the fastest-growing areas of research among those who study journalism has been trying to determine what the rise of social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) means to journalism and journalists. Although it’s simply too soon to know what all of the changes will mean long term, it is possible to make a few observations.

First of all, the vast majority of news operations use social media to promote their work, hoping readers will share articles and stories. Often, journalists, reporters, anchors, and editors are required to have social media accounts for use as part of their reporting duties (some have separate accounts for just friends and family), from sharing work to finding sources for stories. Some media organizations have also created social media policies to act as ethical guidelines in the digital context.

Social media is also changing the way some people consume the news. For example, a person on Facebook might get a combination of news from dozens of sources based on what friends share or post as well as on what is posted by the news outlets they follow. And those sources aren’t limited to whatever lineup might appear on the local airwaves or cable.

Another way consuming news on social media is different is the immediacy and variety of sources in a breaking-news event. For example, a person on Twitter the night of the first demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014 might have been able to watch the events unfold in 140-character tweets, pictures, and video several hours before even the 24-hour cable news channels started covering the events. In addition, by tweeting and retweeting from their feeds, news consumers became conduits for—and often commentators on—information on those same events. At the same time, that immediacy also removes the chance for fact-checking and other benefits that come from thorough reporting.

Blogs

What began in the late 1990s and early 2000s as amateur, sideline journalism has become a major source of news—one that has begun calling papers’ authority into question. Widely read blogs like Daily Kos, the Huffington Post, Andrew Sullivan’s the Dish, the Drudge Report, Talking Points Memo, and Politico have moved this Internet feature into the realm of traditional journalism. In fact, many reporters now write a blog in addition to their regular newspaper, television, or radio work. And some big-name newspapers, such as the Washington Post and the New York Times, even hire journalists to blog exclusively for their Web sites.

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The Huffington Post, a news blog founded in 2005, offers original content as well as aggregated headlines.
Koni Takahashi/Bloomberg via Getty Images

As discussed earlier, getting the story first is an important news value that can pressure journalists to cut corners on their ethical judgment. But in many cases the race used to be only against other journalists who might be expected to adhere to similar standards of reporting. Now it’s also against bloggers who aren’t required to check their sources rigorously. A blogger merely has to post his or her opinion about an issue or an event, yet many readers swallow this content whether or not it has been backed by rigorous reporting practices. On the other hand, some blogs have won respect as viable information sources. In 2008, the Talking Points Memo blog, headed by Joshua Micah Marshall, won a George Polk Award for legal reporting. Today, some blog sites stand alongside printed papers as trusted, authoritative sources of news (see “Converging Media Case Study: News Aggregation”).

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Citizen Journalism

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One way technology has allowed citizens to become involved in the reporting of news is through cell phone photos and videos. Witnesses can now pass on what they have captured to mainstream news sources.
Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images

Another development influencing the field is citizen journalism, also known as public journalism or community journalism. Through citizen journalism, people who are not professional journalists—such as activists concerned about a specific issue—use the Internet and blog sites to disseminate information and opinions about their favorite issues. With steep declines in newsroom staffs, numerous news media organizations—like CNN (iReport) and many regional newspapers—are increasingly drawing on citizen journalists’ work to make up for the loss of professional journalists through newsroom downsizing. Some community journalism efforts also attempt to bring members of the public and journalists together in meetings and panel discussions.

But the citizen journalism efforts have generated criticism. Editors and reporters argue that public journalism was co-opted by the marketing department, blurring the lines between the editorial and business functions of a news organization. Some journalists fear this turns them from community watchdogs into community boosters. There is also a fear that over-utilization of members of the public who lack the education, training, and experience of professional journalists results in a news product that ultimately undermines the news organization’s credibility.

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The Echo Chamber

The “echo chamber” refers to the idea that as cable news channels, Web sites, and other media consciously cater to the ideological and political viewpoints of a portion of society, those people will seek out only those sources with which they agree and avoid any news that might challenge their worldview. For example, a very conservative person might only watch Fox News on TV, listen to Rush Limbaugh on the radio, and visit Breitbart.com and the Drudge Report online. A more left-leaning person might only watch MSNBC on TV and read online news from a source like Daily Kos.

One problem with this approach is that the information from these sources might not just be biased toward a particular worldview; in fact, researchers are increasingly discovering that information from these sources is inaccurate and wrong at a much higher rate than that from other sources, like CNN, National Public Radio, or the New York Times. Several attempts have been made to determine which of these networks are the most—and least—accurate. One such study in 2012 found that viewers of Fox News are the least informed (in some studies, even less informed than people who don’t watch any news).18 The same study found that listeners to NPR scored the best on questions of national and international news. A more recent effort by fact-checking site PolitiFact.com attempted to rate the truthfulness of fact claims made by pundits and on-air personalities for TV networks. On the scorecard released in 2014, only 18 percent of claims made on CNN got rated mostly false, false, or “pants on fire”; for Fox and FoxNews Channel, that number jumps to 60 percent.19

The full implications of these findings become clearer when one realizes that according to television ratings agency Nielsen, Fox News has been the most watched cable news network for over a decade. Not only does that call into question the core reason for journalism in a democracy—to inform the public, who will then make public policy decisions based on that information—but it also creates pressure on other networks eager to capture higher ratings (and more ad dollars) to copy the approach of the Rupert Murdoch–owned Fox News.20

“Fake” News and Satiric Journalism

It comes as little surprise to most long-term observers of American journalism that a source like National Public Radio would be at the top of a list of reliable news sources. But one of the more surprising results of the 2012 study—and a 2007 study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism—is that one of the other best-informed audiences was the group that got its news from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

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Satirical news has become something of a cottage industry in recent years, stemming from Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update segment and dominated by The Daily Show. Last Week Tonight—a fake-news program on HBO hosted by former Daily Show “correspondent” John Oliver—isn’t especially “fake”: It mixes satirical commentary with real reporting and advocacy.
Eric Liebowitz/© HBO/Everett Collection

Following in the tradition of Saturday Night Live, which began satirizing television news as a regular part of its program in 1975, shows like The Daily Show and spin-off The Colbert Report found success using humor to criticize news conventions and the political system.

The Daily Show uses a combination of monologue, reports from comedians acting as correspondents, and interviews (occasionally even with past and present U.S. presidents). As news court jester, Stewart displays more amazement, irony, outrage, laughter, and skepticism than would be acceptable for a real news anchor. Stewart has repeatedly rejected the label of journalist, often reminding people that he is a comedian. But he does often provide audiences with informative and insightful looks at current events, issues, and figures in the news. He regularly exposes hypocrisy by juxtaposing what a politician or pundit said recently in the news with the opposite position articulated by the same politician months or years earlier. In late 2014, Colbert ended his show after eleven seasons, and Comedy Central replaced The Colbert Report with The Nightly Show hosted by comedian Larry Wilmore. In early 2015, Stewart announced he would be stepping down after sixteen years at the anchor desk, and the network named South African comic Trevor Noah to take his place.

Another Daily Show alum, John Oliver, has also branched off and created a show on HBO called Last Week Tonight. Clearly related to the satirical and humorous take on the news that is the hallmark of The Daily Show, Oliver’s program changes the formula a bit to allow for longer, more detailed, and well-researched reports on institutions and issues, often relying on the inherent and unadorned ridiculousness of those involved to deliver the punch line. This approach is already making waves. For example, after one episode on which Oliver called for people to comment on the Federal Communications Commission’s Web site in favor of net neutrality, the response was so overwhelming it crashed the FCC Web site. If The Daily Show is the satirical version of the nightly news, then Oliver’s program might be thought of as the 60 Minutes of the genre.

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