Anyone can be a journalist. Citizen based journalism has become increasingly more popular as smart phones can take high quality videos of a crime and they are put up online. Reporters use Twitter to gauge hot trending topics, but as print journalism suffers, journalists are still less aware of how to hook their readers in. Contributing citizen journalists who may not have a journalism degree or an affiliated news source have a better handle on what the public wants to hear than professional reporters, and in order for reporters to take the power back, they must listen to their audience.
Thomas Patterson, author of “Informing The News: The need for knowledge-based journalism,” would rather revamp journalism education than see uneducated citizen journalism replace the professional field all together. He cites six problems with journalism education and supports his arguments with studies and expert sources: The Information Problem, The Source Problem, The Knowledge Problem, The Education Problem, The Audience Problem, and The Democracy Problem. He criticizes the field fairly and provides solutions to support his claims with the help of veteran journalists, professors, authors, and research studies.
Journalists self identify as “the [bearers] of bad news” assuming that readers will gravitate toward negative stories because of shock value. Often, journalists’ urgency to be the first to report a devastating, controversial event will result in clumsy misinformation that taints their credibility. Patterson cites the misidentification of Aurora movie theater shooter James Holmes in 2012 and the not-so-serious mad cow disease scare of 2003-2006 as examples of reporters’ preference of sensationalism over accuracy. In the case of the mad cow disease, the excessive and over exaggerated death toll lost beef and crop producers “between 3.2 billion and 4.7 billion”. Patterson does not cite specific solutions, mostly because he recognizes that journalism is a business, but in acknowledging this problem he recognizes that obsession with controversy leads to unacceptable sloppiness and misinformation.
A reporter’s sources are essential to any article, and a story is nothing without their voices. Having said that, they should not be the heroes of the story. Reporters are writers; they have knowledge and curiosity, and yet they let their sources dominate the story. Patterson sees a flaw in this practice, a sort of self-consciousness in journalists. If journalists supplemented their interviews with research of their own, they would be confident enough to add their own commentary, showcasing their voice and their personality.
Unlike professions in science, health, law, etc., journalism does not necessarily require a grasp on a substantial amount of knowledge, but perhaps it should. Patterson says that “knowledge journalists” are increasing recently, and this is good news; however, journalism students in America are not taught how to apply their outside knowledge to their stories. Educators teach students how to construct a story and how to conduct an interview, but do not teach them how to “gain command of” their knowledge and apply it. “Unless knowledge is a guide, the chances of miscalculation are high,” Patterson says. The vast amount of useful Web content and a balanced use of “content knowledge and process knowledge” will lead to proficiency.
Readers are interested in learning about what directly affects their lives. In “The Audience Problem” chapter of Patterson’s “Informing the News”, he lists Pew Research Center’s ongoing survey of over two hundred thousand Americans about their preference of news consumption. War and terrorism and bad weather take the two top percentages, policy issues take up the middle percentages, and celebrity/political scandals come in last. With popular short-snippet sites such as BuzzFeed, Elite Daily, and Thought Catalog, it is curious that lengthier, in-depth investigative pieces gain more Web traction. If this is truly the case, then educated journalists should steer away from this type of journalism into more investigative Web content. Patterson argues that this reader “need to know” mentality outweighs this need for sensational, “marginally satisfying content”. In order to build and maintain readership, editors must urge their reporters to use this knowledge based approach to delve into long-form investigative reporting that may save valuable journalistic content.
Shorter attention spans threaten the journalism world, but should not hinder its success. Educators must move with the times with less emphasis on print and broadcast journalism and more on Web content. Media multitasking, scrolling and flipping through channels, is affecting citizens’ concentration and memory. Journalistic laziness, the obsession with celebrity gossip, crime, and disasters distract from the motive of an age-old profession. Patterson’s “Informing the News” is an enlightening, honest wake-up call to educators, reporters and student journalists. Accessible, well researched, and convincing, he gives educators a lesson plan and prepares aspiring journalists for a more knowledge-based curriculum.
Ethics & Issues Summer 2015 