Rosenberg: Problems w/ Journalism & Journalism Errors
JSL sent me this link to Scott Rosenberg’s piece No reader is an island. Near the middle of the piece reviewing some problems with the media, Rosenberg discusses errors–a subject Newslib has been buzzing about lately–and how easy it is to make errors and what journalists and news organizations can do to correct them. He credits Internet technology like weblogs for holding news organizations more accountable for errors.
"Until recently, each reader who saw the holes in the occasional story he knew well was, in essence, an island; and most of those readers rested in some confidence that, even though that occasional story was problematic, the rest of the paper was, really, pretty good. Only now, the Net — and in particular the explosion of blogs, with their outpouring of expertise in so many fields — has connected those islands, bringing into view entire continents of inadequate, hole-ridden coverage."
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"Blogging potentially allows CEOs and politicians, companies and institutions to tell their own stories in their own words, and that’s dandy, but I’d never trust it as the only record. Coverage of important news by smart generalists — disinterested generalists — remains of great public value. But too many practitioners of this venerable art have grown (figuratively) fat and lazy from their monopoly position. They’re not used to being challenged, they don’t like being challenged, and too often their first reflex when challenged is to question the motive of the challenger.
Now the monopoly is fraying, the challenges are coming on in a wave, and the entire field is at a crossroads. As a profession, journalism has a choice: It can persist in a defensive, circle-the-wagons stance, pretending that nothing has changed. … Or it can accept the presence of millions of teeming critical voices as a challenge to shape up and do a better job."
