Journalism - what's the story, Mother?

Andy @ Allerton · December 8, 2008

It would be interesting to get a perspective from Journalists/Trainees/Ex-Journalists on this subject - but what is the current social status of journalism at present?

Although there have always been gutter press and those dishonest in the profession - there has never been more pressure on newspapers than today. So many forms of live news/stories - either from TV, Cable, Satellite, News Channels, PC-based software, iPLayers and the like - that it may excuse why the perception is that newspaper standards have dropped sharply - which is really kind of strange.

You'd think in a saturated market - quality, not quantity would be the watchword - but that doesn't really seem to be the case.

Where I've always come from on this is things I know about - I know a fair bit about football (Nowhere near as much as some - but I'm hardly ignorant) - but my main area of knowledge is IT (Of which I've been in professionally for around 25 years, and casually for around 33 years)

Are there papers there that can offer an unbiased, non-dumbed down and factual account of the world today and all its aspects - some papers (That I've deliberately not named) were some I would go to for an interesting, informative read - but sadly recently - although they are just as verbose as ever - the actual content doesn't seem as professional somehow - there is far more opinion and 'angle' presented each time I delve. In the past a lot of what was reported was news - fair enough - there has always been an 'angle' but only to facilitate the presentation of the work in hand - this ratio seems to be increasing whereas the factual newsworthiness of the articles seems to be decreasing. It's actually become noticeable that some papers have some staff who actively seem to want to argue with their counterparts on other papers about certain topics - you may disagree - but I'm not convinced it's professional to do this at the top end of the newspaper market. Surely the best aim would be to factually present the article and facts, with perhaps a summary - and then let the reader draw their own comparisons and conclusions against other stories?

There seems to have been an increasing trend (Which may have been around for decades if not longer) where those that go and buy a paper 'agree in principle' with most of the angles, stories and 'facts' portrayed before they've even read a word - there is an acknowledgement that the paper will 'fight the corner' of the readers regardless of the source or indeed story. But doesn't this just lead to stagnant 'yes-sirring' of the facts being produced?

And are the papers right anyway? Is it outmoded of myself to seem to want factual, unbiased journalism? Is it dead? And if so - is it dead for a reason? Does it just not fit into the modern world and the 5 second attention span of the average reader?

Or am I being unfair? Does this still go on? Is it still accessible and is it still current? Do journalists offer truth and facts as a matter of course - untainted by 'angles' and opinions at each turn? Where is the place papers need to get to? How do they best compete and what should they be doing to provide the best product?

Kvarme Ate My Food · December 8, 2008

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