Whither Journalism?
That's “whither” as “to what place, where, to what end, point, action?” and not “wither” as “become dry and shriveled, shrunken, or wrinkled from age or disease.” Although perhaps this distinction should be posited (“put forward as a basis of argument; to assume or affirm the existence of”) as a heterograph for later discussion.
Today it's hard not to hear the sounds of a death knoll for newspapers and printed magazines, as social media and connected discourse rush to replace print prominence in the Fourth Estate.
But lost in this buzz is the difference between journalism and it's naughty second cousin, broadcast news. Journalism still stands as a profession. Newspapers were only the distribution medium. Journalism created newspaper content, but the paper itself was just the carrier, the medium, for that content. Broadcasting is a different distribution medium, but over the years it's become confused with the very content it carries. "Broadcasting” remains one of several point-to-many instant distribution platforms by which stories may travel, with cable television -- “wired” rather than “over the airwaves" -- being another, but regardless, these two media convey mostly the same content.
What journalism actually created isn't dead in itself, only the distribution paradigm of massive rolls of hot-pressed trees and ink, trucked from point-to point in heavily manpower-driven fossil fuel fed internal combustion behemoths. The output of that profession, the actual content, now struggles to define a new path for spreading new forms of news instantly and electronically. Just what another discipline -- broadcasting – has been doing for decades.
This point is illustrated in microcosm with a recent move by the journalism professors at Metropolitan State College of Denver to split away from their present home within the School of Communication Arts and Sciences, and relocate to the School of Professional Studies -- also home to the Technical Communications department.
The dissatisfied journalism professors state without all the software and electronic skills found within Technical Communications, journalism at MSCD won't be able to prepare current and future students for the brave, real world. Additionally, they declare journalism a “true profession” and out of place in Communication Arts and Sciences -- apparently walking away from any possibilities of Art or Science existing within their profession -- a point I might argue, but that battle is not mine.
And their argument does bear some weight. It seems right and proper when you hear “I'm a doctor” or “I'm an engineer” or “oh, I'm a journalist.” But I've never heard the phrase “I'm a broadcaster.” Even as I write the words, they read strange and vaguely unacceptable, as with “Abraham Lincoln's pink leotard” if you get my point.
News content distributed by radio, later television, and now Internet is inherently electronic, and more recently all-digital. Broadcasters were able to adapt and repurpose their programming web and mobile quickly because -- already electronic data -- it was halfway there. Repackaging for additional platforms could be a chore, but it wasn't any dark and deadly "terra incognito".
But this same struggle created a vast uncharted sea change for journalism, a profound disturbance in the force that's brought a whole print-based discipline almost to its knees. With broadcasters “doing” their version of multi-platform news for some time now, it's looking remarkably similar to what journalism now aspires, although without envious levels of depth and breadth to which their paper-and-ink competitors so long excelled.
The vast audience for multi-platform news doesn't need technical specialists or software engineers to read an RSS feed or get a tweet. Even preschoolers do it. Tools to make and use these platforms are available to the masses. Former consumers are now the creators, using apps and widgets to build and push out their own content. Look at YouTube. Anyone taking notes here? These very same, simple, everyman tools are available to journalists, too. Perhaps looking toward "technical communication specialists" as the 21st century saviors of journalism is more hindsight than visionary – actually gazing backward to the 20th century?
Instead of collectively running away from what radio and TV are doing -- what if journalism stayed home and toiled deep in the technology trenches along side their great unwashed cousins from broadcasting, since all sides seem to be digging toward the same goal?
As someone long ago once wrote, "Stick around kid, 'ya might learn something."
I think it might have been a newspaper reporter.
Today it's hard not to hear the sounds of a death knoll for newspapers and printed magazines, as social media and connected discourse rush to replace print prominence in the Fourth Estate.
But lost in this buzz is the difference between journalism and it's naughty second cousin, broadcast news. Journalism still stands as a profession. Newspapers were only the distribution medium. Journalism created newspaper content, but the paper itself was just the carrier, the medium, for that content. Broadcasting is a different distribution medium, but over the years it's become confused with the very content it carries. "Broadcasting” remains one of several point-to-many instant distribution platforms by which stories may travel, with cable television -- “wired” rather than “over the airwaves" -- being another, but regardless, these two media convey mostly the same content.
What journalism actually created isn't dead in itself, only the distribution paradigm of massive rolls of hot-pressed trees and ink, trucked from point-to point in heavily manpower-driven fossil fuel fed internal combustion behemoths. The output of that profession, the actual content, now struggles to define a new path for spreading new forms of news instantly and electronically. Just what another discipline -- broadcasting – has been doing for decades.
This point is illustrated in microcosm with a recent move by the journalism professors at Metropolitan State College of Denver to split away from their present home within the School of Communication Arts and Sciences, and relocate to the School of Professional Studies -- also home to the Technical Communications department.
The dissatisfied journalism professors state without all the software and electronic skills found within Technical Communications, journalism at MSCD won't be able to prepare current and future students for the brave, real world. Additionally, they declare journalism a “true profession” and out of place in Communication Arts and Sciences -- apparently walking away from any possibilities of Art or Science existing within their profession -- a point I might argue, but that battle is not mine.
And their argument does bear some weight. It seems right and proper when you hear “I'm a doctor” or “I'm an engineer” or “oh, I'm a journalist.” But I've never heard the phrase “I'm a broadcaster.” Even as I write the words, they read strange and vaguely unacceptable, as with “Abraham Lincoln's pink leotard” if you get my point.
News content distributed by radio, later television, and now Internet is inherently electronic, and more recently all-digital. Broadcasters were able to adapt and repurpose their programming web and mobile quickly because -- already electronic data -- it was halfway there. Repackaging for additional platforms could be a chore, but it wasn't any dark and deadly "terra incognito".
But this same struggle created a vast uncharted sea change for journalism, a profound disturbance in the force that's brought a whole print-based discipline almost to its knees. With broadcasters “doing” their version of multi-platform news for some time now, it's looking remarkably similar to what journalism now aspires, although without envious levels of depth and breadth to which their paper-and-ink competitors so long excelled.
The vast audience for multi-platform news doesn't need technical specialists or software engineers to read an RSS feed or get a tweet. Even preschoolers do it. Tools to make and use these platforms are available to the masses. Former consumers are now the creators, using apps and widgets to build and push out their own content. Look at YouTube. Anyone taking notes here? These very same, simple, everyman tools are available to journalists, too. Perhaps looking toward "technical communication specialists" as the 21st century saviors of journalism is more hindsight than visionary – actually gazing backward to the 20th century?
Instead of collectively running away from what radio and TV are doing -- what if journalism stayed home and toiled deep in the technology trenches along side their great unwashed cousins from broadcasting, since all sides seem to be digging toward the same goal?
As someone long ago once wrote, "Stick around kid, 'ya might learn something."
I think it might have been a newspaper reporter.
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