A Cracking Foundation

Nicole Schneider
ns019313@ohio.edu

The old world of journalism is often depicted as gritty, aggressive, and methodical. Reporters work meticulously on one investigative story, that may take weeks, just to find the truth for their audience and own curiosity. We’ve built up journalism substantially since those times, creating a skyscraper of stories, platforms, and techniques. But, in creating this world of modern journalism, our foundation is beginning to crack and sink at an alarming rate. Like a skyscraper has many floors, modern journalism has many levels weighing heavily on our core.

 

Journalists have to perform multiple jobs due
 to these new levels. Source-medium.com

Speed

Fast food, fast cars, fast internet; this is the world we live in. It’s a society that revolves around speed and being the first to everything. Journalism is no exception to this trend as reporters have always raced to the scene. But modern journalism has taken the ideal of speed and put it on steroids as reporters are now live tweeting every event. They are also posting video snippets on the scene through apps like snapchat and vine, rather than producing a package story.

Bias

Journalism can be dramatic. As a reporter, you have to share different sides of the same story and hold people accountable, which includes sometimes picking them apart. It is easy to get wrapped up in this drama, and thence establish some sort of bias. In such a speedy environment, bias is bound to happen because you sometimes don’t have time to settle your emotions or passion toward a subject. In order to get more ‘clicks, hits, and likes’, media outlets will push their editorial pieces because these opinionated works get them more traffic.  

Hyper aggression

Journalists have always needed a bite to them- a type of aggression. Without pushing sources and pulling some teeth, it is nearly impossible to get a real story published. Although, in the modern world of journalism, this aggression has become extreme to the point where some reporters are disregarding the subjects of their stories as they race to have the first word.

Accuracy

With aggressive and speedy reporting, it is hard to determine which things we see are truly accurate. This has lead media corporations to employ companies that research whether a viral video is authentic or not. Unfortunately, audience members have already been subject to false stories on the internet and therefore, sometimes prefer those because they help push their individual views. The Washington Post canceled their “What Was Fake on the Internet This Week” column because of this very issue so the researchers simply weren’t needed anymore.

Media correspondents describe the new newsroom in the digital age. Source- Journify Mapper

While some of these new levels may seem better for the journalism world, they are tearing reporters apart. Journalists are now trapped sprinting on this hamster wheel of media, facts, and stories, just trying to reach the audience before the reporter in the cage next to them, but the end of the race never comes. Paul Ingrassia, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Reuters News says, “It’s a 24-hour cycle, it doesn’t quit,” describing the modern newsroom. This is not what journalists signed up for. The cracks in the foundation of journalism are forcing reporters to do the work of five and progressively destroying the profession.