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[News] Journalism Today



T

TheJasperCo

Well-known member
Jan 20, 2012
4,595
Exeter
Is it just me or is the standard of journalism today not quite what it once was?

Take this story from the website of my local rag: https://www.devonlive.com/news/local-news/rnli-launch-major-operation-save-3205305

Read it carefully from start to finish, and read the comments. And then tell me how, in a world with infinitely greater access to instant news and gossip, this is a great (!) example of the way news today shapes our opinions and the opinions of society as a whole. When trusting what we're fed by the media leads to polarised debate and untruths painted as fact.

I don't normally partake in hashtags, but... #fakenews.
 








Albion Dan

Albion Dan

Banned
Jul 8, 2003
11,125
Peckham
Journalists have zero integrity now and basically wrote whatever their paymaster tells them to. The reason I believe almost nothing the mainstream media punts out as news.
 






G

Greg Bobkin

Silver Seagull
May 22, 2012
14,849
TheJasperCo said:
Is it just me or is the standard of journalism today not quite what it once was?

Take this story from the website of my local rag: https://www.devonlive.com/news/local-news/rnli-launch-major-operation-save-3205305

Read it carefully from start to finish, and read the comments. And then tell me how, in a world with infinitely greater access to instant news and gossip, this is a great (!) example of the way news today shapes our opinions and the opinions of society as a whole. When trusting what we're fed by the media leads to polarised debate and untruths painted as fact.

I don't normally partake in hashtags, but... #fakenews.
Click to expand...

I think it's best to take everything you read with a pinch of salt – in any media form. That story reads a bit like an RNLI press release warning people about the dangers of inflatables at sea and somehow the historical angle of the anecdote got missed. You're right – the standard of journalism for this kind of story is nowhere near what it was. However, where things have improved is the ability to go indepth into a story or subject and have access to all sorts of resources that might not have been available before...

On a slightly related matter, the media – social and traditional – seem to be doing a fine job in stirring up hatred and anger between different 'sides' of an argument. Even more so than before. In a political argument, people aren't content with going after the actual politicians, they are now spewing their hate at presenters covering the story, people commenting about it online or in newspapers and the various media outlets that are covering it!

It's quite an eye-opener and really quite sad. It's a clear indication of how divided the country is as well as how people have so much anger and strong opinions about things that don't really matter. It's rare that I'll read a thread on Twitter, Facebook or even NSC, where there isn't some kind of sniping going on or personal insults flying around! When you take a step back and think about it, it's actually bonkers!
 


Lower West Stander

Lower West Stander

Well-known member
Mar 25, 2012
4,753
Back in Sussex
I think mass produced modern day journalism is dreadful.

I work in the financial markets and the business news stories in the so called quality broadsheets are sloppy clickbait which completely ignore the real issues which people should know about.

I'd be lucky to read a paragraph on the US/China trade situation or the poll results in Argentina which have moved all markets. But Marks and Spencers release 3 month sales figures and we'll get 5 pages on it.

It also would appear the press have decided that strength of sterling is the main thing to look at on the event of a no deal Brexit. This conveniently ignores a huge number of other asset classes which are just as important and may be moving contra to the £.

I could go on - but rant over.
 


Hamilton

Hamilton

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 7, 2003
12,461
Brighton
TheJasperCo said:
Is it just me or is the standard of journalism today not quite what it once was?

Take this story from the website of my local rag: https://www.devonlive.com/news/local-news/rnli-launch-major-operation-save-3205305

Read it carefully from start to finish, and read the comments. And then tell me how, in a world with infinitely greater access to instant news and gossip, this is a great (!) example of the way news today shapes our opinions and the opinions of society as a whole. When trusting what we're fed by the media leads to polarised debate and untruths painted as fact.

I don't normally partake in hashtags, but... #fakenews.
Click to expand...

Pay peanuts, you get... Boris Johnson and Michael Gove.

I agree. It does feel shockingly poor at the moment - in the mainstream.
 




beorhthelm

beorhthelm

A. Virgo, Football Genius
Jul 21, 2003
35,310
they post an update, when really they should pull the story, or preface the story with the update. advantage you have with virtual media, to change or remove at will.
 


G

Gwylan

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
31,339
Uffern
There are many factors at play here. I've been a journalist for, gulp, 34 years and have seen many changes and not many have been good for the industry.

The most important of all is the shedding of staff; many newspapers and magazines are operating on about half the staff that they used to have (maybe even more). There's also less time to gather news - an impact from the demands of rolling news, a journalist could have spent half the day in the pub talking to sources, there's far less of that these days. This means that more copy is produced from press releases - there's been a massive growth in the number of PR employees. And, as subs have been sacked, there are more mistakes in copy.

On top of that, there's the demands of clickbait headlines; when I last worked in publishing our company had a social media specialists and journalists produced copy to match search terms: the social media tail was wagging the journalism dog. Again, that meant decent stories fell by the wayside.

Finally, there's the aggregation of news rooms and growth of agencies. Papers and magazines still have pages (or websites) to fill and they increasingly get them from agencies - which is why you see so many identical stories appearing in different publications.

I work as a freelancer now but I hardly do any 'journalism'. I write for PR companies and big corporates tidying up their words. It's not so much fun, but it's more lucrative and, sadly, that's the way the world is going.
 


Trufflehound

Trufflehound

Re-enfranchised
Aug 5, 2003
14,105
The democratic and free EU
There were two stories that caught my eye over the weekend that were either on the BBC site and/or the Grauniad.

One was the 'earthquake' in Cornwall, the story for which was basically: One man hears a loud noise and goes "What the f__ was that?"

The other was the Indian parliament getting cleared bacause someone farted...

And this is now nationally important news...?
 




Bakero

Bakero

Languidly clinical
Oct 9, 2010
13,791
Almería
Have a look at this from Sky News. Seems like an 11-year-old's homework.

IMG-20190814-WA0001.jpg
 


DJ NOBO

DJ NOBO

Well-known member
Jul 18, 2004
6,338
Wiltshire
Strong words from Ernest in the comment section.

312D7F36-40E0-468F-8B04-15653B2F6BF5.jpeg
 


G

Gwylan

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
31,339
Uffern
Bakero said:
Have a look at this from Sky News. Seems like an 11-year-old's homework.

View attachment 114299
Click to expand...

Ah yes, that's another factor. Many of the experienced journalists have been laid off and replaced by graduates or even people on work experience. When you've also got rid of the subs desk, it's little wonder that you get nonsense like this
 




Mr Banana

Mr Banana

Tedious chump
Aug 8, 2005
5,482
Standing in the way of control
Trufflehound said:
There were two stories that caught my eye over the weekend that were either on the BBC site and/or the Grauniad.

One was the 'earthquake' in Cornwall, the story for which was basically: One man hears a loud noise and goes "What the f__ was that?"

The other was the Indian parliament getting cleared bacause someone farted...

And this is now nationally important news...?
Click to expand...

The first one will have been fomo. Others would have been on it, and it would have been silly not to cover just in case it turned into something bigger.

Anything about India tends to be worth targeting as the potential audience is huge. Bear in mind all teams are predominantly under pressure to meet targets, which ultimately meets advertising requirements. If they don't meet those, they might not have a job next month from which to write more worthwhile stories
 




BBassic

BBassic

I changed this.
Jul 28, 2011
12,318
There's a lot of shit out there but equally there's a lot of excellent journalism still to be read. Longform and / or investigative journalism is where the quality lies for me.

It's got to be a difficult profession to work in during this 'fake news' era where 'the mainstream media' (whatever that encompasses) are seen as enemies or fear mongers or just duplicitous snakes.
 


Chicken Run

Chicken Run

Member Since Jul 2003
NSC Patron
Jul 17, 2003
18,450
Valley of Hangleton
TheJasperCo said:
Is it just me or is the standard of journalism today not quite what it once was?

Take this story from the website of my local rag: https://www.devonlive.com/news/local-news/rnli-launch-major-operation-save-3205305

Read it carefully from start to finish, and read the comments. And then tell me how, in a world with infinitely greater access to instant news and gossip, this is a great (!) example of the way news today shapes our opinions and the opinions of society as a whole. When trusting what we're fed by the media leads to polarised debate and untruths painted as fact.

I don't normally partake in hashtags, but... #fakenews.
Click to expand...

Surely there’s more to fill the worry tank with than the current state of journalism , I actually don’t think the majority of people give a shit! Yes I know, that says more about them etc etc etc.
 






R

rippleman

Well-known member
Oct 18, 2011
4,567
Being a journalist these days seems like a terrific job. Not only can you make stuff up you can get it printed and out there complete with typos, grammatical errors et al. In fact, you can get royally rewarded for producing shit that you wouldn't have got away with at junior school.

The world's a wonderful place.
 


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