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The Net's Effect on Journalism

Posted by Zonk on Mon Mar 17, 2008 07:13 AM
from the no-not-that-way-the-other-way dept.
The Media The Internet
An Associated Press article about the impact of the internet on journalism has a few interesting findings. A few years ago, it was expected that the internet would democratize news coverage. While print media is being rapidly reborn online, web-based news appears to be constraining the number of conversations instead of expanding them. "The news agenda actually seems to be narrowing, with many Web sites primarily packaging news that is produced elsewhere, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism's annual State of the News Media report. Two stories - the war in Iraq and the 2008 presidential election campaign - represented more than a quarter of the stories in newspapers, on television and online last year, the project found. Take away Iraq, Iran and Pakistan, and news from all of the other countries in the world combined filled up less than 6 percent of the American news hole, the project said."
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  • Not the Net's fault... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TripMaster Monkey (862126) on Monday March 17 2008, @07:17AM (#22772026)
    Two stories - the war in Iraq and the 2008 presidential election campaign - represented more than a quarter of the stories in newspapers, on television and online last year, the project found.

    You know, it might be possible that these topics dominate the news so because they are the most important issues we currently face. Making the claim that the Net is "narrowing" the news agenda based upon this is disingenuous.

    • Re:Not the Net's fault... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zelos (1050172) on Monday March 17 2008, @07:28AM (#22772102)
      I spent a couple of weeks on a business trip in the US in January - the saturation coverage of the presidential primaries was over the top IMHO. It's not like it's even an election, it's a pre-election. I noticed that there was virtually no mention of (for example) the massive violence going on in Kenya at the time over their elections.
      • You havn't seen anything yet. Just wait until we get the general election. You might as well just turn off the radio and TV and go read a good book.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by sjs132 (631745)
        "YOU only see what THEY want you to see..." "Consume"

        Hasn't everyone figured this out yet? Not being funny. Quite serious. If you want the "NEWS" don't rely on just one source, and usually look for various "opinions" to get the full story.

        The reference is from some hokey alien movie with an ex-wrestler... the truth is more scary because the aliens are not real, they are the elitest ruling class on both sides of the political spectrum and they will use each other and media outlets to keep you keeping you
      • At least with all this attention on politics we don't know what Britney and Paris are up too hey?

    • Re:Not the Net's fault... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Project2501a (801271) on Monday March 17 2008, @07:34AM (#22772140) Homepage Journal
      > You know, it might be possible that these topics dominate
      > the news so because they are the most important issues we
      > currently face.

      It might also be that there's a huge propaganda effort going on. Remember what Noam Chomksy said about the Propaganda model [wikipedia.org] in his 1998 "Manufacturing Concent":

      Presenting an analysis its authors call the "propaganda model", the book argues that since mass media news outlets are now run by large corporations, they are under the same competitive pressures as other corporations. According to the book, the pressure to create a stable, profitable business invariably distorts the kinds of news items reported, as well as the manner and emphasis in which they are reported. This occurs not as a result of conscious design but simply as a consequence of market selection: those businesses who happen to favor profits over news quality survive, while those that present a more accurate picture of the world tend to become marginalized.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Hatta (162192)
          It's an obvious false dilemma that quality news and profits cannot coexist.

          Why is that obvious? Isn't the state of the media today proof enough? If market pressures aren't the driving force behind this vapid propagandistic state of the media, what is?

        • Re:Not the Net's fault... (Score:4, Informative)

          by Bent Mind (853241) on Monday March 17 2008, @12:20PM (#22774852)

          Before someone comes in and talks about the 'stupid consumer',...
          I can think of a few reasons why the readership wouldn't care about the news quality, without calling anyone stupid. The first one off the top of my head is that they don't recognize it as low quality. Without a direct effect, the reader only knows what they are told.

          People who want to destroy private industry always make the claim that profit undermines quality, as if consumers don't want quality.
          Who is the customer? Who paid for the publication? Most news services use an advertising-based model. The customer is the business paying for the advertising. Now, you can argue that ad-space is worthless without readership. However, from the reader's point of view, the publication is free. Therefore, reduced quality is acceptable. It only becomes unacceptable when news that directly impacts a large portion of the readership isn't reported.

    • In fact (Score:5, Interesting)

      by WindBourne (631190) on Monday March 17 2008, @07:56AM (#22772262) Journal
      I see more about off beat information from the net than I do from the main stream media. Shoots, Sibel Edmunds has offered to spill all that she knows about corruption in the gov. IFF they will do a live show. Upon doing that show, she will be arrested. In fact, probably during the show. The main stream news media will not touch it. The net is begging for it. In fact, some of the best stuff coming up is from the net and being picked up by the british press.

      All in all, I believe that the net is doing the work that mainstream is no longer doing. Of course, the vast majority of Americans are sick of worthless news.

    • Re:Not the Net's fault... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mike2R (721965) on Monday March 17 2008, @08:14AM (#22772384)
      Right, and it's not like the load of special interest web sites have shut up shop or anything, they're still there writing about their niche.

      There isn't any secret that the web has lead to a deluge of crap sites, or thousands of sites all writing about the same topics. But to say that because of this there is no alternative news is misinterpreting the numbers - an extra ten thousand cookie cutter sites doesn't mean there are any less unique ones, it just means that the signal to noise ratio has got worse.

      • There isn't any secret that the web has lead to a deluge of crap sites, or thousands of sites all writing about the same topics.

        Does anyone else see the irony of reading an article written by an AP Television Writer, rehosted on Wired, about this topic?

        If you want to cut away the repetitive news, just ignore all the Reuters, AP, and UPI news articles or articles derived from them. Go through your biggest 'local' newspaper and X out all the articles which those agencies wrote or "contributed to"... Or just pick up a national paper and do it. Either way, it'll be informative.

    • The only thing that makes any sense is that world news gets low ratings, and therefore gets shoved aside or canceled. News is all about ratings now, since ratings mean more money for the commercials. The real question is why do bullshit stories like cats stuck in trees, Paris Hilton, etc matter more to Americans than world news? The other thing to keep in mind is that if there is no video of something, it doesn't exist as far as the 24/7 news networks are concerned.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by cayenne8 (626475)
        "The only thing that makes any sense is that world news gets low ratings, and therefore gets shoved aside or canceled. News is all about ratings now, since ratings mean more money for the commercials. The real question is why do bullshit stories like cats stuck in trees, Paris Hilton, etc matter more to Americans than world news? The other thing to keep in mind is that if there is no video of something, it doesn't exist as far as the 24/7 news networks are concerned."

        Well, this is nothing new really. The

    • Let me forecast the news for the coming week: Bin Laden parties in West Pakistan. The U.S.Economy Craters, again, and deeper. Globalization: Warren Buffet buys cloned T-Rex instead of a lap-dog. More lead found on Chinese products than Jacque Cousteau's weight belt. Senators McCain, Obamma, and Clinton; Who enjoys being on top?

      If newspapers do not change their business model that draws readers, they are going to go the way of the Town Crier, and Cave Paintings.

    • You know, it might be possible that these topics dominate the news so because they are the most important issues we currently face.

      Kindly explain how Eliot Spitzer hiring a pricey escort is among "the most important issues we currently face."

      That's just a recent example. "News" today is not about highlighting what's "important" in the sense we'd all like to think, but about ratings and mindshare. It's about making money. Modern journalism is about milking sensationalist topics for all they're worth. The only place you'll find an unpopular story is in an unpopular news source - exactly because they run unpopular stories.

      If the war got

  • Why Democratize? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by abscissa (136568) on Monday March 17 2008, @07:19AM (#22772040)
    Why should we "democratize" news coverage? If you had a health problem, would you want even the most uninformed voting on your diagnosis, or would you rather see a top specialist working with advanced knowledge and experience?

    I am so fucking sick of this belief on digg etc. that "the people" are finally taking back the web.

    • Re:Why Democratize? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mikelu (120879) on Monday March 17 2008, @08:06AM (#22772324)
      Democratize is the wrong word - what they mean is news coverage akin to the Greek jury model: the number of news sources becomes so large that bribing or intimidating enough of them to have an effect becomes staggeringly difficult.

      • Re:Why Democratize? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by jbn-o (555068) <mail@digitalcitizen.info> on Monday March 17 2008, @01:02PM (#22775354) Homepage

        Then how do you explain the huge failure (failure from the public's perspective not the business perspective) of the mainstream media coverage on the invasion and occupation of Iraq (failures which persist to this day) and the continued narrowing of debate on health care, both of which are incredibly important issues of the day? The failure to adequately report on the war is all too evident (particularly today as the mainstream media ignores an important weekend war panel where soldiers were speaking out); Jeff Greenfield's "analysis" is an example of the failure to convey what Americans want in health care [counterpunch.org]. The McNeil-Lehrer News Hour tried a similar scam [fair.org] years ago with Dr. Steffi Woolhandler when she spoke about single-payer universal health care (if you have access to Lexis-Nexis you can probably get a complete transcript of the charade). There aren't that many news sources, the media ownership is shrinking and they're all multinational corporations with largely compatible ends. Not that you accused anyone of saying so, but one apparently doesn't need any smoke-filled room conspiracy to get them to behave in such a way that they all profoundly misreport. Chomsky's analysis of this (quoted elsewhere in this /. discussion) seems far more accurate to me.

    • In a way we are "democratizing the news." But it's mostly in a very limited way. The net and its denizens are MUCH better at following and disseminating tech-related stories for example (like right here on /.). You'll find coverage of stuff like net neutrality, domestic spying tech, etc. that's much better than any conventional news source. Unfortunately, the net is not nearly as good at following more conventional news stories (standard political fare, sports, local news, etc.). Those areas are still best

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by rtb61 (674572)
        The real reason for the same stories in the main stream news web sites, is simply greed, news as a cost being used to sell adds. You don't really have all that many journalists, let alone reporters, all you have are copy and pasters taking in news from several main sources and cut and pasting it together in the cheapest way possible in order to be able to sell a range of adds.

        It helps if the news is kept mild, and safe so as not to offend readers or advertisers.

        The news is not being democratised, public

    • Re:Why Democratize? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by 404 Clue Not Found (763556) * on Monday March 17 2008, @08:31AM (#22772540) Homepage
      Because an informed populace is a necessary part of a working democracy. News is part of that information process. Unfortunately, we've seen a failure of the mainstream press in recent years to maintain their duties as the "Fourth Estate" in events like the leadup to war. When people don't bother to look past the shallow information force-fed to them, they become susceptible to the failings of modern corporate journalism, e.g. sensationalism, biases, unequal reporting, etc. A select few get to tell the rest of us what to think or even just what to think about, which would be fine in a perfect world with perfect journalists, but obviously that doesn't always work out so well in real life.

      This may be especially important in the US, where so many media outlets are owned by just a few giant conglomerates; opposing or unpopular viewpoints may not be readily available and "citizen on the street" reporting/grassroots awareness raising may be the only shot at fame that marginalized people/events/stories receive.

      Democratized news can co-exist with the mainstream press. Professional journalists, by virtue of training, experience, access, organizational protections (e.g. expensive lawyers) and other non-readily-available resources, will likely still outreport the average Joe Digger or Wikinews editor -- the same way your average politician is better prepared to participate in the political process. Joe Digger, however, still serves important roles: At minimum, he can present a popularist perspective unbiased by corporate policies/advertiser pressure/censorship/the need for viewership; and on the (hopefully) rare occasion when the mainstream press just completely fucks up on an issue, Joe Digger can call them out on it.

      It's just a way of putting power back in the hands of the people, and that's exactly where it belongs because the people are supposed the ultimate check and balance for any civil institution (which is something the media has become).

      <rant>
      Now, even if that all sounds good in theory, whether the people can be actually be trusted to do this kind of reporting responsibly and usefully is an entirely different question. If our political process is any indication, the majority won't even participate. And among those who do participate... well, let's just say that the information we want often seems to be somewhat different from the information we need. "Entertainment as news" is already an issue, and it will only worsen once we give the reporting duties to your average apathetic American with a 30-second attention span and a preference for pop over politics. Without a drastic lifestyle and thinking style change of some sort, more fluff is all we're gonna get. Maybe democracy, as a whole, really is the belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance/intellectual laziness.

      But that's another rant. I've pontificated enough for one post.
      </rant>

  • What I see... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Notquitecajun (1073646) on Monday March 17 2008, @07:33AM (#22772130)
    I'm seeing a gravitation of most news efforts towards what everyone cares about (we're seeing more economic news, btw) from news organizations on the extremes (pick your favorite kook and conspiracy website) and mainstream media. It's a bit of a stating the obvious, but everyone wants to break news - no matter what the source, report on something, and state an opinion.

    What we are ALSO seeing - which TFA doesn't comment much on - is the watchdog nature of the internet and how EVERYTHING gets fact-checked, particularly major news items. It led to the downfall of Dan Rather, who assumed everyone would believe him (and may actually have had a credible story) and had such a hot line that he forgot he was a journalist. John Kerry's "swiftboating" was the opposite - he has never been able to effectively disprove claims, despite everything at his disposal.

    BTW, as an aside, I'm a history guy, and never liked journalism's tendencies to ignore history and leave conflicting facts out of stories.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by blahplusplus (757119)
      "BTW, as an aside, I'm a history guy, and never liked journalism's tendencies to ignore history and leave conflicting facts out of stories."

      As a history guy you probably know that status and class bias is rampant and that censorship happens in academia and especially in "prestige" jobs or unsavor histories of countries that want to promote certain economic idealogies. In canada you won't see stuff like the bolshevik revolution taught in history courses in public or highschools for instance. Nor about em

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        i.e. people with PHD's believing they could 'shock' their mentally ill patients and "cure" them

        I was under the impression that electroshock therapy actually does work in certain cases where all else fails. This pubmed abstract [nih.gov] seems to support that case.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by amplt1337 (707922)
      See, the problem here is that the press is increasingly talking only to itself. That's why each of the cable news channels is running the same filler over and over -- "Quick, CNN's covering that story, get me video of that now!" etc.

      And politicans have figured out how to play this echo chamber to turn the media into a propaganda tool. Dan Rather is an excellent point -- he went forward with a story that was actually true, and the spin folks at Fox managed to get him fired over the fact that they used the
  • I'm an American and I also go to BBC (Firefox so nicely puts the feed in the default installation), The Economist, Al Jazeera (English version), and some others. The AP, Wall Street Journal and CNN have become too provincial for me...or I'm becoming more worldly (Yeah, right).

  • I'd like to see the study (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Infonaut (96956) <infonaut@gmail.com> on Monday March 17 2008, @07:40AM (#22772184) Homepage Journal

    That's the problem with mainstream media. They are so used to summarizing stories for us little people that they seldom give links to the material they use in their stories. It would be nice to be able to independently corroborate Wired's assessment of the paper, wouldn't it? A paper written by industry people is summarized for us by industry people. Forgive me for being a bit skeptical.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by cat_jesus (525334)
      That's not the only problem with mainstream media. They're lazy and they have an addiction to live video feeds. About a week ago I was watching CNN and President Clinton was on, explaining in layman's terms how Bush's economic policies have hurt America. In the middle of his explanation CNN cuts away to show a live feed of some ridiculous BS. I couldn't believe it. Here was a former president providing some valuable information in a form that was easier to understand and they just blew him off for crap that
  • I am probably one of the few slashdot readers who has worked as a foreign correspondent for a newspaper. I worked for Nevski Novosti in St. Petersburg Russia for a year. Doing good journalism takes time to develop sources and money to support said process. In the quarterly-profit world of corporate media, there is no time for delayed gratification. Therefore, we get endless stories about Britney and other celeb trash news.

  • Well DUH (Score:3, Informative)

    by sm62704 (957197) on Monday March 17 2008, @07:59AM (#22772278) Journal
    An Associated Press article

    The AP reporting on journalism, and we're supposed to believe they're unbiased and objective?

    "The news agenda actually seems to be narrowing, with many Web sites primarily packaging news that is produced elsewhere"

    1997 called and it wants its blogs back. Where has AP been for the last fifteen years? Uning their trusty old Underwoods?

    Two stories - the war in Iraq and the 2008 presidential election campaign - represented more than a quarter of the stories in newspapers, on television and online last year, the project found. Take away Iraq, Iran and Pakistan, and news from all of the other countries in the world combined filled up less than 6 percent of the American news hole, the project said."

    What planet are these people from, anyway? If it doesn't affect me, it's gossip rather than news (and that includes Britney Spears). Were Friday's Tornados in the UK's Guardian? Of course not (and of course I probably picked a bad example and someone will link a Guardian story about it). Local news is the most important, followed by regional news, followed by your country's news, THEN world news - if there's room.

    • What planet are these people from, anyway? If it doesn't affect me, it's gossip rather than news (and that includes Britney Spears). Were Friday's Tornados in the UK's Guardian? Of course not (and of course I probably picked a bad example and someone will link a Guardian story about it). Local news is the most important, followed by regional news, followed by your country's news, THEN world news - if there's room.

      I may as well get there first: Atlanta Examines Tornado Damage [guardian.co.uk].

      I'm not sure if that's in the printed paper, if I remember I'll have a look later today. It won't be in the front though, at most I'd expect a small column somewhere in the World section.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by PineGreen (446635)
      Local news is the most important, followed by regional news, followed by your country's news, THEN world news - if there's room.

      With all due respect: maybe that explains why America is so recklessly fucking up all the wars they try to wage. A little bit of wider perspective is useful every now and then.
      • Well, you're right. What the biggest problem is, is that the media talk of singers and sports stars and actors when they should be reporting on politicians and what those asshats are doing. I couldn't possibly care less whether or not some baseball player is on crack or steroids.

        But why should I worry about some British politician's sex scandals? It's not like I can much affect anything that happens in British politics. If one of their politicians rattles sabers at the US then it would be newsworthy. If one

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by fremsley471 (792813)
      Were Friday's Tornados in the UK's Guardian? Of course not (and of course I probably picked a bad example and someone will link a Guardian story about it).

      What's more pertinent, that you expected the Guardian not to have the story, or the fact that it did?

  • Most news Web sites are no longer final destinations. The report found that many users insist that the sites, and even individual pages, offer plenty of options to navigate elsewhere for more information, the project found. Rosenstiel said he's even able to reach Washington Post stories through the New York Times' Web site.

    What I can say... WOW! These people discovered how "teh internets" works. Makes me wonder what they will say once they find out about "web 2.0".

    Although at these rates, it will not probably happen before 2020 or so.

  • It's what's being read.

    If only one online web site carried a story about starving children in XYZland, but 10 million pairs of eyeballs saw it and paid attention to it, that's a lot more significant than a story about a battle in Iraq that hit every news aggregator on the planet but got universally ignored by readers.
  • The only American *NEWS* outlets they mention are the same old same old sources. I don't even read those sources anymore cause they don't have any news I'm interested in. I check my Google News home page once in the morning each day to see if anything interesting pops out but other than that I go straight to New Scientist, Science Daily, /., Macrumors, TreeHugger, and a few blogs that have topics I care about.

    There's very little that happens day to day in the world that I consider a new event. The protests
  • I'm glad to see that amateur journalism is still going strong, check out this report about someone who was recently in the news for finding a 3+ carat diamond in Arkansas.

    http://fakeminerals.com/ [fakeminerals.com]

    None of the major news stories would have thought about digging into this story, but an amaetur sleuth did.

    Jolyon

  • What about journalism before the net? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LS (57954) on Monday March 17 2008, @09:43AM (#22773166) Homepage
    Let's not forget how most people got their news before the popularization of the internet. The average person had read a newspaper or two, had a subscription to a magazine or two, and watched mainstream news on a few television channels. The average person had little access to foreign media unless they put effort to find it. These mediums were all broadcast style, with virtually no feedback to the source. They were virtually all controlled by large corporations.

    I submit that the condition of dialog in US and maybe the world would be MUCH worse than it is now if the internet didn't exist, and the advent of its popularization is grossly underrated in the effect it has had on society. We have a population that regularly and instantly interacts with foreign nationals, hears and expresses opinions opposing the standard line fed by mainstream media outlets, accesses articles and information in quantities and variation vastly beyond the past, and has the capability to organize efforts around issues that would have never been exposed by the powers that be. We might cowering under a state of martial law at this point if the critical mass of voices weren't heard opposing the current administration's policies.

    While there is still a place for journalistic principles and rigorous training in the discipline, the majority of "journalism" that people were exposed to before the internet hardly made an attempt to meet that standard. Anyone can and should be a journalist, even if it simply means having a cell-phone camera at the right place and right time.

    LS

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by PotatoHead (12771)
      Sure, there is a ton of meta-garbage out there, but there is also a lot of really great commentary and fact checking.

      I think you are spot on, in that your statements match my experience.

      This current administration has tested my political awareness to an extent I didn't think was possible. It took going to the net and reading, and more importantly, HAVING CONVERSATIONS, to ferret out the reality of things.

      The net, being a two way medium really changes the game. It's pretty easy to just consume the traditio
  • ... film at 11.

    I'd like to point out that it is the American News Media that has focused to an absurd extent on these two topics. This in turn is driven by what the News Media Corporations believe will be watched or read by Americans. As much as people bitch about MSM and right-wing bias and left-wing bias, face it folks - the News Conglomerates are feeding the public what the public wants. This is the beauty of the capitalist system. Yes, there is some blatant editorializing going on, but I can guarantee y

  • Absolute Crap (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DesScorp (410532) <DesScorp AT Gmail DOT com> on Monday March 17 2008, @10:45AM (#22773750) Homepage Journal
    The whole "the Internet has degraded the quality of news" meme makes me want to axe-murder someone. I'm truly sick of hearing it. Its not true, and it mostly comes from people having a vested interest in the old media. This worst part if it is this silly fantasy that the news was of better quality and unbiased when it was 3 networks and newspapers in every city. Limited choice does not equal better quality. Having all news in the grip of the newsmedia priesthood does not ensure fair reporting. Self-contained guilds aren't always the best way to ensure quality and openness, and that's what we had with the old system. These old media types never seem to realize that the reasons independent Internet press took off... both right and left... is because it had gotten to the point where no one really trusted the old news cartels. They're mad because giants like Dan Rather can be brought down by common people with keyboards when he pushes faked documents. NBC is mad because they can't get away with putting rockets on fuel tanks to make vehicles explode for their stories.

    • Re:Exactly (Score:5, Informative)

      by IBBoard (1128019) on Monday March 17 2008, @07:27AM (#22772090) Homepage
      No, it's right, the American 'news' is a big hole that anything from outside disappears in to without a trace!

      I was actually surprised at how little external news the US seems to get. I stayed in Colorado a couple of Christmases ago and the only way to get any form of news about the outside world was the BBC World Service. Yes, it's a big nation with a lot of its own news, but here in the UK we get news about the Middle East, Europe, politics, America, the Tsunami, Australia becoming America's lap dog (although nothing about us doing the same first), etc, so we know there's an outside world and that stuff happens in it.

        • Here's the sum total of everything Americans want to hear from the news: #1 Is it going to rain today? #2 Will my credit card still buy crap at the mall? #3 What's the score from all of our fine, patriotic sporting events this week?

          About the same as what most Tabloid readers in the UK want as well then, but at least our news seems to cover other things. I guess they might be more interested in war (the sensationalised version) and which celebrity has done what to end up exposed/naked/caught with drugs as we

    • Our media is dying because people don't trust it.

      Care to back that up?

      I don't trust mainstream media. You obviously don't either. My 60-year-old father, though, certainly does. And, as a 23-year-old college student in the honors program (i.e. I'm surrounded by the supposed cream of the crop of my peers), the vast majority of them don't seem to have any real issues with the mainstream media. At best, some of them prefer CNN and dislike Faux News.

      What's that mean? Nothing, really, it's totally anecdotal. But so is your argument.

      Newspapers are failing becau

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