terça-feira, fevereiro 22, 2011
Self-reporting
I agree with you that nowadays people have the tools to (put their goodwill, personal interests and even tiny bit of vanity to very good use and) do the reporting themselves and make it available to the world; this can indeed enlarge the scope and in some cases the depth of coverage (though I also fear for the foreign bureaus, even if they have been in danger since long); but I would add that we may get to actually miss the institutional framework of the traditional newspapers and, in a way, of the money drive as well.
If someone has editing and journalism as his/her job, the motivations are (let's keep it simple) clear and straightforward: the piece gets researched, written, checked and printed because several persons' paychecks, a corporate image and the stockholders' revenue depend on it (and provided these interests are transparently disclosed to the readers, we should be able to live with it and to adequately protect ourselves while reading); when independent web posting comes to play, one looses that (protective, although imperfect) framework.
One could argue that Wikipedia proves that point wrong but I'd say that it is a matter of numbers, of critical mass: for a wiki entry to be(come) trustworthy, the quality of the initial text is just a start; it then needs to avoid capture by fringe groups and to be read and reviewed by many, many people; in a way, perhaps it is a question of somehow rebuilding an institutional framework on line: a url that many identify and go to (as a newspaper title), a structure that in some way provides quality control (as a newspaper editor) and transparency about its financing?
Then we'd still would have to sort out what to do with the printed newspapers :)
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If someone has editing and journalism as his/her job, the motivations are (let's keep it simple) clear and straightforward: the piece gets researched, written, checked and printed because several persons' paychecks, a corporate image and the stockholders' revenue depend on it (and provided these interests are transparently disclosed to the readers, we should be able to live with it and to adequately protect ourselves while reading); when independent web posting comes to play, one looses that (protective, although imperfect) framework.
One could argue that Wikipedia proves that point wrong but I'd say that it is a matter of numbers, of critical mass: for a wiki entry to be(come) trustworthy, the quality of the initial text is just a start; it then needs to avoid capture by fringe groups and to be read and reviewed by many, many people; in a way, perhaps it is a question of somehow rebuilding an institutional framework on line: a url that many identify and go to (as a newspaper title), a structure that in some way provides quality control (as a newspaper editor) and transparency about its financing?
Then we'd still would have to sort out what to do with the printed newspapers :)
