So I was having a conversation with Brett Roegiers the other day, and he mentioned a blog post by Derek Willis on what he calls “Bomb Throwing” in the newsroom. In a general way, he talks about the new wave of online journalists dropping bombs on their colleagues in the form of Nelson from the Simpsons: “Haw haw, you’re medium is dying!” So long and good luck. Don’t worry, you can always read about what’s going on in our newsroom blog. Willis’ blog post is more specifically targeted, but I’m not going to get into that.
He has a point, though — you can’t just tell everyone that their model is wrong and flawed, and your way trumps all they know. Not only that, but a lot of the proposed ways to “fix journalism” I’ve heard don’t seem like they will stand the test of time. Live-twittering events is all well and good, but only a certain subset of the population will understand or even seek such a thing out. Pretty flash graphics, maps, videos and slideshows are great, but they’re only things that aid in reporting and understanding. They’re not enough by themselves. They’re like the toppings on your sundae.
I’ve seen a lot of preaching to the choir about online journalism, but much less real-world action in trying to get the people most involved with news organizations to understand the core issues. If nothing else, we need to remember that even though we’re nerds, the people who will most likely use the site probably aren’t.
And it really does start with re-working a news website from the bottom up. If you build with the idea of relational information at your core, you’ve transformed yourself from a daily story factory to an information powerhouse. This should include, but certainly not be limited to, tagging names and places inside of stories so that they can be tied together.
That’s what people really go to the paper for: information. Yes, the features and profiles are interesting too, but at its heart a newspaper is an information organization. There’s no need to define it by its medium, and there’s no reason to stifle ourselves as journalists — purveyors and gatekeepers of information — to the limitations of print.
People have the idea of news ingrained in their skulls as text blob stories with the occasional graphic to spruce the place up. When really, the same parts that went into that story could be re-synthesized for the Web to become a much more in-depth breakdown. What’s more, people are so fed up with “media bias” — well why don’t we remove a layer of translation and post our primary sources, interviews, etc. online? I’m all for transparency.
What I’m saying is, we have to do more than add cool APIs and tools to our journalism repertoire. We have to fundamentally re-think the news website and how we use the mountains of information we collect. Right now, a lot of good information is rotting on hard drives. Even at the Alligator, where I work as the managing online editor, we’re as much to blame as our CMS in how we use our resources. I’m trying, but as I’m sure anyone in my position knows, it’s not an easy fight.
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