The boxes are blurring and the silos are stirring. Welcome to a Brave New World of journalism.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
I’ve maintained that while newspapers are in trouble, journalism isn’t going anywhere. (No, it’s not going to TV, which is floundering through its own business model issues.) There will always be a place for the activity of sharing information and analysis in a timely manner. However, because the price of delivering that information has so radically upended the business model, it may take a while to figure out exactly who gets paid, by whom, and how.
One thing we haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about it what Future-J will look like.
Inverted Pyramids
The question “What is Journalism?” is often answered in the same way people answer “What is Pornography?” (A naked exploration of truth that the exposed wishes hadn’t happened, or at least was more profitable at the time?) The typical answer is “I’ll know it when I see it.”
We recognize Journalism today not because it’s been defined for us, but through our experience. We each have grown up with certain outlets that set the tone for us. It’s a style of writing, a cadence, a meter. People who’ve never heard of an Inverted Pyramid will recognize one anyway. Some things are written in a tone we recognize as Journalistic. There are times when Journalism is written in a way we don’t expect, and we dismiss it. (Think John Edwards and The National Enquirer.)
We’ve spent so many generations within the same models and modes that we haven’t had the discussion. It’s not even a generational thing. We all have sort of tacitly agreed on what “journalism” is and isn’t, and we’ve been close enough to each other that we never had to draw stricter lines of demarcation.
So what happens for the next generation, for whom the Inverted Pyramid has been Re-Inverted and Disintegrated?
Will It Blend?
At some point, we’ll come to a new agreement about what “news” is, and what sets “Journalism” apart from things that look like it but aren’t. And it likely won’t fit along the traditional questions we’ve asked about audience, circulation, purpose, funding, or agenda. It may be something completely different that performs a similar function. Like Hamlet in Hexadecimal.
Take your raw information, your analysis, your visuals, your pop-culture references, and an attitude that borders on the irreverent — and throw in more than a dash of opinion (or advocacy journalism.)
And you might end up with something like this.
| Christie Science Theater 2012 on Ledger Live |
It’s a couple of editorial employees at NJ.com commenting on how the national GOP is characterizing the record of Governor Chris Christie, in the style of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
But is it journalism?
I’m not even going to attempt to answer, because my generation isn’t the one who will have to grapple with it.
I will, however, warn my kids about putting stock in the words of faceless silhouettes.
Ike,
Why not give us a call or an email to ask us what the heck we’re up to? I would have loved to talk about all the questions you ask. I ask them myself every day as we forge ahead with this experiment of ours. And it would have been so nice to chat…But I digress.
As one of the faceless silhouettes in this video (actually, you do see my face on this video and it’s seen in just about every episode of the Ledger Live webcast; the other is Drew Sheneman, our political cartoonist) I can answer your question as to whether this is journalism. No – not in the way journalism is normally construed to mean reporting or straight news, etc.
That’s not what we’re trying to do in this particular piece. This clearly falls in the category of commentary Just because it’s produced by a newspaper doesn’t mean a particular piece of work has to be journalism. Newspapers have comics, humor, editorial cartoons, commentary, recipes, crossword puzzles, sports reporting, etc. What our webcast/vlog has always strived to do is to use video to find new ways to present EVERYTHING The Star-Ledger does. Sometimes, yes, we do straight journalism. Other times, analysis. Sometimes, features. Sports? Weather? We’ve done all that. We’ve used animation, straight live newscasts, man on the street, you name it. In this case, using the Mystery Science Theater spoof seemed to be the best way to make the point I was hoping to make – that the way the national media and national GOP are presenting our governor as having turned the state around is absurd. The guy has barely cracked the hood on what’s wrong with this state.
I could have made that point by just talking into the camera and showing clips. I could have written a column in the newspaper. Or I could have busted out the green screen – like we did. It’s great that journalists – or commentators – have so many options these days. What we’re trying to do is use them all and see what happens.
Brian, I applaud what you’re doing, because there’s more to fulfilling the necessary role of Journalism than simply rendering in pixels what one rendered in ink.
Look at the Hamlet/Hex picture again. Some people actually read it without translation, and others figured out the “to be or not to be” from the context, and fitting it to a known pattern of letters. It’s still the same story of jealousy, inadequacy and betrayal, whether it’s in print, in person, or on YouTube. (Or even turned inside out, like Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.”)
I’m merely making a commentary about the shift, and the fact that it’s really not up to me to define for my kids what they will consider “news” to be.
Carry on… and nice work. If only my former TV colleagues would be as bold. Tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows, after all…