Journalism is in trouble. To be sure, it's been in trouble for quite some time. It's getting worse though, and we all are suffering for it.
There are many problems I have concerning journalism. For this piece though, I'll be focusing on one problem in particular: profit. Technology has been the best (and worst) thing to happen to journalism. On one hand, it's wonderful to have the access we do to quality news. The age of information has given journalists amazing tools. Snapchat, Twitter, and YouTube have all made news great again (Yeah, I know.) Paradoxically, They've also helped make it worse.
Increasingly, newspapers and media outlets have had to focus on getting "clicks" and viral content, to the detriment of all else. Journalists are having to participate in social media, edit and produce content for videos, and more, leaving less time to dig into a story. Often times, this results in factual errors or a critical oversight, each a problem that would likely have been avoided if only a reporter was given time to focus. Even my employer, Odyssey, is a victim of this. It's the big guys though, where the worst problems are found.
Perhaps the sleaziest product of profit-motive journalism is what's known as "clickbait." Readers are over-promised or misled by a headline, all for the sake of getting "clicks" and therefore ad revenue. You can see it everywhere, from local news, all the way to network news. As bad as clickbait is, cable news.
CNN, MSNBC, and of course Fox News, as different as they are content-wise, are all guilty of one thing. Their stories are guided by profit motive over use-value. "But Matthew, you just finished saying that everybody's guilty of this problem." Sure, but where a local newspaper or a 160 year old magazine (hello Atlantic) can at least be given some slack and understanding, cable news egregiously disrespects and misinforms their viewers, all for ratings.
CNN overusing the "breaking news" chyron is a great metaphor for everything wrong with cable news. When profit is all that matters, quality goes out the window. Al Jazeera America was lauded by many as an exceptional news network. Why did they fail? In large part because they weren't playing the games that the "other guys" we're. No flashy headlines, no clickbait, just solid journalism.
People rely on journalism for the truth. When writers are forced to produce "viral content" over quality story-telling, all of us suffer. Until the paradigm changes, we'll continue too. I'll finish with a quote from Les Moonves, head of CBS. Asked his thoughts on his network's excessive Trump coverage, he said "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS,"
That's not the journalism we need. Really it's not journalism at all.
