Blog: Journalism Is Broken?
The blog .:c-lo.net:. is running an interesting story on why journalism is broken.
The story makes three main claims:
1) Objectivity is a load of bull. Transparency and honesty are not.
2) Don’t act like opinions don’t exist. People need opinions.
3) Redefine the concept of authority.
I take issue with one of his claims:
“Here’s where blogs, the Internet and user-created content scare the journalism world: people can access authoritative content without them.”
Fact: important people don’t want to waste their time talking to bloggers and hacks who write when the mood hits them. Public figures want their thoughts in the public. Important people want their thoughts to percolate rapidly through society. They’re not going to waste their time giving indepth interviews to blogs that get less than 1,000 daily readers.
His basic premise is by “sticking to the facts,” journalists bore audiences. I’m not sure what the converse of this would be. He talks about the need for “context” and “what it means.” That’s what good writers should be doing now.
The piece was written in reference to a Mark Cuban post.
