Quote:
Originally Posted by Hack&Lube
I read more compelling investigative journalism, introspectives, and human interest stories from people who post daily on Reddit.
I feel like the future of journalism is collaborative communities like that and here to an extent, where people collaborate to investigate interest stories or people in positions of knowledge and access leak information out to the web.
|
You're right that the old model was bound for extinction. But let's not kid ourselves that what replaces it will be better. Cheaper? Certainly. Can't get much cheaper than free. But I'm enough of a dinosaur to believe that you get what you pay for.
So how will we get information about how our governments and businesses are behaving? Opinion columns spit out by independent bloggers while they sit at home in their bathrobe are no substitute for hard news. You need to know actual stuff. Talk to actual people. Do research that is not fun. And be held accountable professionally and legally for what you write. These 'people in positions of knowledge and access' will be insiders motivated by vendettas and private agendas. Of course, those sorts of people often acted as sources under the traditional news model. But professional journalists exercised scepticism and care dealing with them, and had enough expertise on their beat to know when they were being played.
Essentially, I think hard news will die along with the newspaper industry. What we'll be left with is partisan opinion-pieces spackled with a veneer of cherry-picked data. Our public policy and civic engagement will be based on sources of information with as much legitimacy and credibility as internet forum flame-wars.