It'll Be a Blend of Old and New

Craig Newmark: Newsrooms are important. With all the excitement about citizens' media, it's easy to forget how important current news operations are. We have a lot of journalists there, but also, fact checkers, editors, and so on, and they perform an indispensable function.

Comments

[jerry]

Pithy comment, 101 degree fever. inchorentness. deletion.

But check out rogerlsimon comparing google's trust rank with the soviet secret police. Rog would like us to think his bloggers are as trustworthy as CBS, than immediate compares Google to the Soviet Secret Police. Hee Hee.

I would like to think that good editors and fact checkers will be the end result of all of this, but we've been saying that for years, and I haven't seen it occur yet.

[Jack Krupansky]

I'll believe it when I see it. To date, the detriment of so-called "newsrooms" has far exceeded their benefit. How many examples can be listed of newsrooms benefiting society compared to the endless streams of mindless blather if not harmful jumping to conclusions and manipulative presentations? Yes, there are a lot of people who are addicted to real-time news, but the existence of an addiction does not argue that there is a compelling business and social need to cater to and aid and abet such addictions.

I'm certainly not opposed to open-access news "wires" (AP, Reuters, etc.) that provide ready access to "facts", but I am an opponent to the graphic and novelized "stories" that are pumped out by so-called newsrooms, primarily for the purpose or raising reader and viewer interest to boost advertising revenues.

How about a renewed focus on grassroots journalism? If you insist on having newsrooms, how about making them "open newsrooms" so that public participation can be encouraged. What social value comes from closed newsrooms?

There are really two classes of "newsworthy events": 1) general events where any number of "real people" are present and can offer first-hand "grassroots" accounts and even pictures and video, 2) scripted, orchestrated limited-access events where the traditional media are fed carefully contrived statements as well as scripted photo opportunities. Many of the latter are not accessible to the general populace (although some are), but I would argue that media coverage of such events is *not* in the best interests of "the people".

-- Jack Krupansky