News

I know, creative title, right? I have trouble finding an article to blog about, and I have probably read nearly 35 articles in the past hour and a half trying to find something that I feel I can write about, and one topic that has come up repeatedly is the state of journalism and what the future holds for it. Well, as my eyes have gotten incredibly heavy and I feel I no longer possess the energy required to read a new article, I have settled (yes, just settled, so don’t expect much) on an article addressing the question that so many others have pondered.

Alexandra Fenwick’s article about Alex Jones’ new book, “Losing the News; The Future of the News that Feeds Democracy” puts journalism and the turmoil surrounding it in terms that pretty much anyone can understand, probably because Jones’ book is aimed not at journalists, but at people concerned about journalism but uninformed about what has happened to it and why it’s so important. Nevertheless, it was interesting.

First off, I found Jones’ explanation of what he means by the ‘news’ quite insightful:

“Imagine a sphere of pitted iron, grey and imperfect like a large cannonball. Think of this dense, heavy ball as the total mass of each day’s serious reported news, the iron core of information that is at the center of a functioning democracy. This iron core is big and unwieldy, reflecting each day’s combined output of all the professional journalism done by news organizations—newspapers, radio and television news, news services such as the Associated Press and Reuters, and a few magazines. Some of its contents is now created by new media, nonprofits and even, occasionally, the supermarket tabloids, but the overwhelming majority still comes from the traditional news media.”

I think we are not supposed to include long quotes in our blogs, but I found this the most suitable way of sharing with you Jones’ metaphor. Jones used this visualization because it was representative of the news in that, it’s not always pretty, but it’s got weight, it’s important. He also used the erosion, the loss of weight, and rusting on the outside of the cannonball to represent everything that is happening to the news.

Jones also spoke about his belief that newspapers are worth fighting for, saying that they provide the bulk of the weight in the cannonballs (or the bulk of the news), and so they must survive. But, he believes, they also must survive because many of the non-profit journalism and small news start-ups that we have seen sprout more recently, won’t survive.

The article ended with a quote from Jones saying that he wants NEWS, “I. Want. News. I don’t want T-ball coverage, I want news. I don’t want Britney Spears, I want news. I don’t want just wire copy, I want news.”

I agree with him about the importance of news and papers and that we must sustain the condition of news and journalism and not let it slip into an oblivion of BLOGS (as I blog).


*Please know that I have absolutely no qualms with blogs and people that blog, I was simply trying to make this somewhat interesting to read!