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We are increasingly responsible for reporting the news. Not just to each other but to the world.
It’s refreshing and terrifying.
Refreshing that, Generation Y is the first generation since our great grandparents to rely on each other for news.
Our grandparents had the radio and newspaper.
Our parents had television.
Our older siblings had the Internet.
And then a funny thing happened.
The Internet became a standard utility and it became easier to form communities. Communities and publishing outlets that allows us to talk back to each other without the newspaper, radio, or television.
It’s nice to have news from the people that you trust, we are more likely to accept it and act on it then we are from strangers.
But here’s where it is terrifying:
I give Mashable.com a lot of crap, more than I should, about their news reporting. But it’s not neccesarily their fault as it is the fault of the current journalism establishment for not preparing us for this day.
The bottom line is: We allowed corporate consolidation and the large profits of the 90′s to blind us from preparing for the day when the world didn’t need us anymore.
We should have been arming them with the tools to report years ago and teaching our readers to report back to us. Not in half hearted ways or by giving them dumb labels like “citizen journalist”, but by treating them like part of the media.
So when the world stood up and started to report the news to each other, without the intervention of an editor, a new form of journalism evolved, and it’s so deeply flawed that it could prove to be dangerous. Not just to the subject being covered, but to the reporter, the advertisers associating themselves with this style of reporting, and more importantly, the readers.
I hear time and time again, what is the point of getting a degree in journalism? Or if you’re like me, considering teaching journalism to students today?
Here’s the point:
We owe it to humanity. Now, right now, we owe it to do a better job in reporting the news to each other.
Because the day is coming soon where the old media as we know it won’t exist. It’ll be smaller, faster, and rely on you to point it in the right direction. There will always be editors to steer the ship, there should be, but they’re counting on you.
So the point in getting a journalism degree today, and in general for all of us, is to get the truth and share it. But not just the truth we know at the moment, but the whole truth.
Because it won’t matter who publishes first, it matters who tells the whole story in the best possible manner.
