"Citizen volunteers have to understand that the heart of journalism is accuracy. You can't take shortcuts," Says Skip Hidlay, executive editor of Gannett Company's Asbury Park Press in New Jersey (http://www.kcnn.org/tools/crowdsourcing).
(Yes, I shot that!)The statement that "the heart of journalism is accuracy," may have been true once upon a time, but is it still true? Or was it ever true?
In a time where sensationalism grabs the masses, where loud partisan commentary is confused for news, and where everywhere we turn stories are being distorted or straight out invented, accuracy does not seem to be a vital organ for the body of journalism. Is that okay?
And if accuracy isn't the heart of journalism, what is? Is it the people? The citizens? I think it would have to be.
It is citizens who drive what stories they want to hear. As we've discussed all semester, how do we tell people the stuff they don't want to hear, but we think they should? It is citizens who buy the papers, watch the news, read the blogs, peruse the websites. And at an increasing rate it is citizens who break and report the news.
Does the public not want accuracy anymore? What is it that they want? And what do you think is the heart of journalism? Was accuracy indeed the heart of journalism, and because accuracy is failing, is that why it is argued that the journalism industry is also failing?
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2 comments:
I think people will accept now more things that might have a sliver of truth even if it is not 100% accurate. At the end of the day people will probably just hear what they want to and tone out the rest regardless of whether it was fact checked or not. With so many news sources reporting both sides which are usually contradictory accuracy just might lie in the eye of the beholder.
These days we have news stations that prefer one side or the other. Even though Fox News claims to fair to both right and left, it's still conservative friendly news and the bias there feels right to conservatives. This probably isn't such a bad thing because everyone has a different opinion about what's accurate. As long as we have journalists devoted to sharing the truth as they see it, even if it's not how many others see it, I think we'll be okay.
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