Journalism is Dead

[Professor S]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11716.html

In the stories the new boss is encouraging, first-person writing and emotive language are okay.

So is scrapping the stonefaced approach to journalism that accepts politicians’ statements at face value and offers equal treatment to all sides of an argument. Instead, reporters are encouraged to throw away the weasel words and call it like they see it when they think public officials have revealed themselves as phonies or flip-floppers.

The new approach was on display in a Liz Sidoti news analysis written earlier this month with the lead, “John McCain calls himself an underdog. That may be an understatement.”

Last week Beth Fouhy’s dispatch on her feelings about the end of Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign began, “I miss Hillary.”

When I was in school taking my journalism classes, reporting like this was considered "Yellow Journalism" and was considered on the same level as tabloid sensationalism. Now the most important news organization in the world has become everything it used to stand against.

Yet another straw on the back of my "Moving to Austrlia" camel.

[manasecret]

I guess they have to catch up with their TV journalist counterparts. I can't remember the last time I turned to a news channel and heard a news story without the reporter's, or worse, the talking head's personal opinion of the story.

[Professor S]

To me it is the height of arrogance for a reporter to include their own opinion in a piece, assuming someone cares what their take is on it, or worse, assuming that they need to "explain" the news to people because they're too stupid to come to their own conclusions.

[manasecret]

I reckon it all comes down to ratings and the bottom line. Opinions are entertaining, especially loud opinions. Cold facts are not.

So where do we turn to when media is more concerned about money than their journalistic integrity? The internet perhaps? Anyone know of any good news sites that aren't affiliated with the major media arms?

[Typhoid]

I think the reason contemporary journalism is dead, is because it's a lot easier to sell papers or magazines when the writer of a specific article is making things personal for them, such as "And I think", or "I liked it when", because then it's a lot easier to grab the readers and hook them through the whole thing.

It's like everything has become one giant opinion-article.