At present, the rate of destruction of professional journalism — and its output of independent reporting on American public institutions and on international affairs — is far outpacing the ability of new institutions to reproduce what is being lost, particularly in its civic functions. Secular and cyclical economic forces have suddenly combined to dismantle the business models that have for decades supported independent, public-minded reporting for large general audiences about local and state government, Congress, the executive branch, and international affairs.
Steve Coll,
New America Foundation
Why the future of news is not digital
Judging by the Queensland-sized flood of articles, editorials, blog, tweet and Facebook posts, the future of journalism is assured – just as long as we forget all that crisis stuff.
“Let’s shut up about the death of newspapers and start innovating,” shouts Digital Journalism Portland.
Curious notion.
Journalists taking their eye off an evolving crisis and swallowing the hype about “innovation” AKA endless online screeds on the “future of news”, “future of journalism” and “future of media.”
For a start, a lot of sites cut off URL addresses short of the full headline. This explains why there are six times as many headlines about the future of journalism as there are actual URLs – journalism is too long a word to start with, and adding “the future of …” pushes the phrase right off the end of the html link.
As outlined above, “media” is too much of a catch-all phrase, including information outside journalism’s immediate concern. Which still leaves us with the original supposition from our “lazy” Google search – that a lot more is being written about journalism inputs than outputs.
Thin slice another way – thin slice being the new lazy – and the headlines appear to show twice as much jabber about jargon than results.
Quantity, not quality, possibly.
Kind of fits in with journalists being told to innovate, discover entrepreneurial skills, and, above all, learn the ins and outs of such exciting tech-wizz stuff like data journalism. There’s still only about 3,000 headlines out there extolling this new virtue, gaining fast on an old favourite, the death of journalism.
Meantime, the real, live journalism crisis, in its various guises, attracts about 6,000 headline hits, all up. A crisis that has very little to do with the ability of journalists to Tweet their way into the 21st century, and a lot to do with billions of dollars cut from newsrooms, starting in the 20th century.
Compare the 6,000 “crisis” headlines with the roughly 60,000 “futures” headlines and it becomes clear that the profession has its head in the clouds, digital and otherwise.
But here’s two more reasons why the future of journalism is not digital. For this we must turn to another invaluable item from the thin-slice / lazy journalism toolbox: Wikipedia.
Over half a century ago, smaller, innovative, entrepreneurial newsrooms were all agog at the endless possibilities presented by an exciting new technology, called Telex. Similar excitement followed a few decades later in the 1980s, with fax. Shortening it from “facsimile” sounded so deliciously naughty, almost cyberpunk.
No doubt, back in the 1840s, morse-code made a few journalistic pioneers wet themselves.
And the telephone – oh la la !
Sensing a pattern, here? For the over-20s, perhaps even a certain digital déjà vu.
Journalists have been going ga-ga over gizmos for 160 years and equally doubtless will still be hyperventilating in another 160 or so years. But questions are these: has such an approach served us well in the past and is digital really the future of journalism, news, media or anything else?
No, and no.
What leaves the current emphasis on digital innovation out of step with history is that, for the first time, journalists are not only expected to use the technology, but programme it as well. Morse code operators, for example, would have beaten the hacks off with a large stick if they tried to get anywhere near their dot dash keypad. Likewise, telex, phone, fax and even today’s IT systems guys and gals.
Journalism in the digital age faces one overwhelming fact – a shortage of human digits to input all those ones and zeros, a crisis that threatens global discourse over every other crisis a headline writer might care to sub. All around the world, new fangled data journalists are number crunching furiously, except in their own backyard.
There is good reason for this, of course.
Globally, census officials collect stats on legislators, bureaucrats, and judges. Counted head by head, as part of the First, Second and Third Estates. Comparisons are readily made between the first three estates, and across different countries, helping assess such essentials as the independence of the judiciary.
Of course there is a space for digital to play a role in information. That role is typically in providing useful information via a well-designed website. The subject matter at hand can be diverse. For instance, through digital means, now even professional escorts have a voice in promoting themselves. Cuties Tools is the easiest to use escort design website manager for independent escorts, adult entertainers and agencies. Cuties Tools is the best way to set up an escort website design in just minutes.
The Fourth Estate? Independence of journalism? Not so much. No amount of data journalism will amount to any meaningful future of news. Because?
Like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, journalists nearly always forget to count themselves.
Media situation in north Afghanistan – getting better or worse?
Fortunately, we remain sometimes optimistic about the media and journalists, and it is good news that day by day, situations are getting better for media outlets and journalists writing reports.
Although many tragic accidents have happened in the north, and we still remember and cannot ever forget those tragedies but we are pleased that now the atmosphere and situations are at least getting better.
In this report we are going to evaluate the situation of northern media in the special Balkh province, from interviews with many journalists and reporters. We also have viewpoints and analysis from the AJC , Afghanistan Journalism Center.
To look over and compare the situations of media and journalists over the last eight years, after the Taliban collapse, gives us a clearer idea there have been big changes in both quantity and quality of media all over Afghanistan, especially in the north.
Today we have lots of radio and TV stations and journalists. In the north, if we name those only from Mazar-e Sharif, we can list about 12 to 15 radio stations. There are lots of TV station delegations and representatives , a 50 percent increase happening during the three or two last years.
Unfortunately the atmosphere for print media is going down day by day. In Mazar-e-Sharif, capital of the province, second after Kabul for media growth, you can’t find any daily newspaper. There are weekly and monthly newspapers in some dissaray in that their contents are either not relevant to the journalism field or explain viewpoints of political parties not people.
Most success and achievement we can name in the north is an increase in the number of radio stations.
Internews and other organizations have made many radio stations in different provinces of the north and this helps the people to be interested, find encouragement and set up their own private stations.
Today in Mazar-e-Sharif, we can name many radio stations that prepare and produce social and community awareness programs, a big achievement for the entire international and internal media support organizations. Mohammad Jawed a journalist and reporter in the north says that today we have lots of TV stations and many of them are linked to satellite.
Jawad says the main problem with the TV stations are their budgets, and how they would get projects from donors and sponsorship for their programs. Still, these TV stations are steady, and are getting a bit more self-sufficient. Many of the TV stations have been made by merchants and are private with merchants looking for money and fame. There should be strategic plan and more awareness from government medias to make clear that media are not a machine to make money.
Or we should have other alternatives; otherwise journalists need to leave the TV stations or make programs far from the journalism field. Only TV series and movies from Indian companies or women dancing to songs and concerts are running on broadcasts. Jawad added that if we really want to face the problems of the journalists in the north we have to recognise it is quite different with each province.
“Many are facing security threats, governmental censorship, self censorship, warlord threats, scared of family kidnapping and also many other issues that I can’t name them at all.”
“The main problem in the north is self-censorship. If a journalist wants to make an investigative report; I should say why can’t he? They are scared of warlords and the government; an investigative report by a journalist can end the whole life of a family”
Warlord and government have made many examples, and it has been proven, if you want to make investigative or similar reports you should expect a group of men coming to end your life. We asked him, how do you define how the government is making problems for journalists, as they are known sources, they are not warlords or Taliban attacking from back?
“If I have been taken to court for any cause, they would demand a bribe from me that I can’t pay and they would tell me , do you know which bribes give us the most joy, taking a bribe from journalists”, says Jawed.
At the same time, Jan Mohammad Habiby, another journalist in the north, says the situation for journalists are relevant to security, as day by day security situations are not so good, the same way situations are getting worse for journalists.
Worse of all are far provinces.
From another angle, Habiby added that most threats are from Government authorities and Talibans. Journalists can’t go into the suburbs to make reports.
“I am a journalist and I can tell you the situations by my experiences, I can’t go to Mazar sharif from Jawzjan or Faryab as a journalist, I have to hide my identity, because if along the way the Taliban or any other group know that I am a journalist then it would be very difficult for me to find a way to run from them.”
He says along the way there are Taliban check points.
“If in any of these check points we get caught, then you know catching a journalist by Taliban is a positive achievement for them and they will celebrate as they did with torture or beheading.”
Answering to the Danishnama reporter’s question, naming the latest threats in the north , he added, “as I am in contact with the journalists in Faryab, Jawzjan and Sari Pul and so many other provinces in the neighborhood, there have been lots of threats in different ways , many of them were indirect threats by phone call, authorities put pressure on journalists through their organizations, and also government authorities have let them know, indirectly, that one day they may be caught up by police in a case of national security.”
In another contact, Noor Agha Noori, the Radio Kishm Director in Badakhshan provinces, we got the same background as explained by Jan Mohammad Habiby, but with a small difference.
In Badakhshan, all threats are from the government authorities , Noori says , “we have never faced any threats from Taliban side , they are not so bad with the media in Badakhshan”
“The only issue is that the Taliban here interfere with balance , they call us many times and tell us to have the balance in your reports and programs , they never told us to say good things about the Taliban or bad things about the government , they always asked us to be real journalists and explain the truth and reality.”