Comments on: What is journalism?

By: Reframing the Conversation - Daniel Bachhuber

Reframing the Conversation - Daniel Bachhuber — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:47:50 +0000

[...] same thing applies to journalism. News organizations need to start by asking ”what is journalism?” and then identify ways in which the technology can make their work relevant again. The [...]

By: Ashley Braun

Ashley Braun — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 07:53:15 +0000

Daniel, I’m intrigued by this concept of a “newsroom as a cafe” idea. Could you expand on this and how you see it as an efficient and practical model in professional newsrooms?

By: Steve Woodward

Steve Woodward — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:13:12 +0000

Interesting list, Rodney. Did the 300 journalists develop those principles or the 3,000 people who attended the forums? Or was it a joint statement?

By: Rodney Barnes

Rodney Barnes — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:57:57 +0000

I’m reading a book right now for class (Ryerson J-School) about this topic. “The Elements of Journalism,” by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel. They held 21 public forums attended by 3,000 people involving testimony from more than 300 journalists to come up with a list of 10 principles that most of those journalists agreed on, and what they think citizens have a right to expect from journalists.

They are:

1. Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth.
2. Its first loyalty is to its citizens.
3. Its essence is a discipline of verification.
4. Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover.
5. It must serve as an independent monitor of power.
6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise.
7. It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant.
8. It must keep the news comprehensive and in proportion.
9. Its practitioners have an obligation to exercise their personal conscience.
10. Citizens, too, have rights and responsibilities when it comes to the news.

I’ve only made it to the third one, so I can’t answer any questions about the content, but I thought it might be interesting for you to look into. I have been reading up on journalism’s struggle to remain relevant, and this book has so far been an insightful read.

By: Steve Woodward

Steve Woodward — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:41:41 +0000

That’s exactly right. A friend and I were just discussing a public-service model that would identify half a dozen key areas that the public considered essential for community health: education, crime, health care, social services, etc. Perhaps news organizations should be focal points for pinpointing these areas and spurring the public discourse. What would happen if a newspaper created an advisory board of cops, teachers, health execs, union leaders and others? Or what if you went even further and made them your editorial board? I suspect the kneejerk reaction of most journalists would be defensiveness and cries over the death of objectivity. But perhaps it’s time for the interests of news organizations and communities to be explicitly aligned.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:23:42 +0000

Good point. Another distinction: I still stand behind my definition, but the type of information needed by a community is still very open to debate (and input from the same community). Part of that can come from the "newsroom as a cafe" idea, and another part from smarter algorithms for presenting personalized news organization homepages. The conversation about the type of information, though, is definitely missing from this discussion about the industry in turmoil.

By: Steve Woodward

Steve Woodward — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:15:19 +0000

I think your instinct is the right one. But I wonder if journalists are actually the best people to decide the definition of journalism. I’m serious about this. Why not ask consumers of journalism how they define it? We journalists are blind to a large extent: We define journalism as the kind of information we want to provide, not necessarily the kind of information people need to make decisions. The problem for newspapers is not really the Internet; it’s that newspaper people and news consumers don’t agree on what relevant news is. The Internet then becomes a vehicle for those consumers to find the journalism that newspapers aren’t providing.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:01:20 +0000

The reason I'd like to re-center the conversation on "what is journalism" is really because of the second point of the paradigm change. In the conversation about newspapers dying, I feel we've drifted too far towards an argument about formats for journalism when we'd be better off figuring out what journalism is and how the increasing number of tools will allow one to enhance how they do it. The Seattle PI wiki has a list too, but I think I'd disagree with some of the tenets of "traditional" journalism.

By: Steve Woodward

Steve Woodward — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:51:56 +0000

I wonder about the value of trying to pin down a definition of journalism. I agree with you that it involves providing information that empowers a community to act and make decisions. But is impartiality necessary? Perhaps transparency is enough. Accuracy is important, but should we also throw in concepts such as fairness, completeness, timeliness and all the other tropes of traditional journalism? Perhaps we should simply leave the definition to those who consume “news”: Like pornography, consumers will recognize journalism when they see it.

By: Wikis to (Re)build the News - Daniel Bachhuber

Wikis to (Re)build the News - Daniel Bachhuber — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:23:54 +0000

[...] on Venture Beat, ReadWriteWeb, and TechCrunch, then I would visit it every day. Innovate with the formats of journalism too; start a topical wiki that aggregates and synthesizes information on any given subject. If [...]