Making sense of media: It’s not time for death knells
As part of his Ender series, author Orson Scott Card titled one book Speaker for the Dead. Ender, a child who had vanquished an alien threat to humanity, left Earth and spent time speaking for the dead, talking of people’s lives, their hopes and fears, their successes and their failures.
Although some would currently argue otherwise, Ender could not yet speak about the death of journalism, especially as it concerns print media.
Journalism is not, and will not be, dead. Print is not, and will not be, dead.
Morphed, mutated and changed: maybe.
And, because of these potential changes, we need to speak about –and guide – students through its transformation by making sense of that process and keep the best standards of the fourth estate, or legacy journalism, alive.
One way to make sense of the changes media are undergoing would be to follow Poynter’s Making Sense Project. That’s easy enough to do by going to the Kent State Poynter Next Ethics site, clicking on Today’s Archives and then clicking on Kelly McBridge’s nearly hour-long session. Questions raised, ethical and political, are well worth your time.
Some points McBride made in her session:
• We are finding a lot of new players in media and they don’t always have the same sense of traditional values we do.
• The lines between journalism and the rest of media are very, very blurry. Jon Stewart is a classic example as a news source to a whole generation. The “rest of the media” includes infotainment and a growing “fifth estate” which encompasses new, social and citizen media.
• We are no longer able to trust that information itself will abide by any sense of standards.
• Citizens are going to need a new set of skills regarding information just to be participating members in a democracy, consuming as well as creating information.
For example, under the heading of “why are we so worried” about changes in the ways people access information, McBride cited Sarah Palin’s Facebook page as an example of fifth estate media that requires special skills people would need to understand.
She said the Palin site is “very well managed” so those who go there receive highly controlled and laundered information and views, nothing controversial or opposite of her views, according to information gathered by Slate. “People who get information from Sarah Palin’s Facebook site have a very distorted understanding of who they are as a group,” McBride said, “because the information is managed. It’s not the information Sarah puts out; it’s this community and how they understand themselves that’s been massaged to fit some of the political agenda Sarah Palin has. It’s distortion, if not outright deception.”
The Making Sense presentation raises important issues and questions worth our consideration, and classroom time for discussion.
While the existing business model of print journalism fades and changes, traditional journalistic principles need to live as the base for continued legacy media and new media for the future – not only as used by its practioners but for its consumers.
In that way we will not speak of the death of journalism. We will participate in its adaptation.
Read MorePaul Steiger of Pro Publica on emerging ethical issues
Paul Steiger of Pulitzer Prize winning Pro Publica raised ethical issues generated by the rise of journalists using social and new media today at the Poynter Kent State Media Ethics Workshop.
Among the issues Steiger raised (and can easily be discussed in terms of scholastic media):
• The blurring of the lines between fact and opinion
• The ability to gather facts is not as universal as the ability to share them
• Truth in labeling is not a best practice, it is an ethical imperative; it must be clear whether something is fact or opinion
• It is easier to get people to click on views they agree with than it is to get them to respond to facts
• Tension is growing between the responsibility toward civic engagement and public service and the quest for audience and branding
• The race to publish can and does lead to factual atrocities
• Mania for increasing pageviews brings us Hollywood trivia posing as news or crowding out news
Steiger said there is a big danger of going too far in masking entertainment as news or using satire, entertainment, etc., as news. One has to be sure “the narrative does not take over the journalism,” of forgetting the mission. The challenge is to not let one crowd out the other.
In short, he said, the values that guide us….public service, accuracy, commitment to fairness, use influence to help those who need it…..need to endure no matter the platform and no matter what business models we develop for the future.
Steiger’s complete comments will be available later today.
Read MorePoynter’s making sense of information
Poynter’s Kelly McBride talked about Poynter’s Making Sense study of media this morning at the Poynter-Kent State Media Ethics Workshop. You can find a lot of usable information from this session at the workshop’s website.
Some key points:
• 31 percent of people say they want news from outlets with which they share a point of view
• 49 percent say they prefer news from sites with no discernible point of view
• Checks and balances are being created for fifth estate media distortion and misinformation which has a growing potential to become the “Big Lie.”
Video of all sessions will be available as the day continues, and live streaming is available now.
Read MoreEthics workshop available Sept. 16 via streaming video
Kent State’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication will host the Poynter Kent State Media Ethics Workshop Thursday, Sept. 16, available as streaming video as well as live.
The event also will be available to viewers on mobile devices. All participants can contribute to the workshop discussions and ask questions of speakers via Twitter.
Workshop information is posted at the Next Ethics site now. Your and your students can access the streaming video at the same site Thursday.
Participants include Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post, Adrian Holovaty, developer of EveryBlock, Paul Steiger of Pro Publica and others.
Questions for discussion and lesson plans for scholastic journalism programs will be available starting Wednesday. There are also links to similar programs from the last two years. Additional lesson plans will be available next week and will be based on workshop sessions.
Event coordinator and assistant professor Jan Leach said scholastic journalists can benefit from participating no matter what media they use now, or might in the future.
Read MoreRTDNA posts online, social media guidelines
Building on its code of ethics, RTDNA released online and social media guidelines Feb. 3.
Those with online sites and who use social media might look at RTDNA’s for suggestions and comparison with their practices.
Read More