The Evolution of Journalism

Some days I really wonder if my industry has a future.  Some radio newscasters are taking ownership of stories they haven’t checked out for themselves.  Rampant laziness (apathy?) is running through journalism today and it’s almost acceptable in some circles.  A couple of media scenery-chewers whose purpose in life appears to be attracting as much attention as possible to themselves are pitting themselves against most of the rest of the journalistic masses by claiming they and they alone know how to define the trade.   I refuse to name them but one used to appear on the other one’s TV show and he would say absolutely anything if he thought it would raise an eyebrow.  They’re cut from the same cloth that way. I know this first hand because I used to appear on the same show.

So guy #1 dressed a teenage boy in a burka and sent him into a store to buy booze.  The clerk didn’t question the kid and successfully made a purchase.  Most people saw this for what it was.  It means nothing except that one store clerk didn’t do his or her job.  Guy #2 went on a rant snobbishly calling the rest of us snobs for ignoring the story which he declared journalism at its best. These are not bad guys.  In fact, I sort of know one of them and quite like him as a person. It’s his views that are difficult to accept.

Journalism is defined as the investigation and reporting of events and issues, not creating them.  Becoming part of the story negates objectivity about it.  So I fundamentally disagree with defining this behavior as journalism: new, old, reinvented or anything else.

In New York, another writer at The Times came forward to admit that he made up quotes he attributed to Bob Dylan.  It would be understandable if he said he got the quotes wrong because Bobby mumbles. But no, he injected into his article fake quotes from an interview that never happened. What concerns me is, how many times does this happen and it slips through the cracks? There’s a certain integrity and accountability that’s assumed in this line of work. Gone are the days when newspaper fact-checkers existed for the sheer luxury of phoning sources to confirm quotes.

Just yesterday with the discovery of human body parts in Mississauga nearly every media outlet in the GTA parroted the police-speak line, “foul play has not been ruled out.”  Surely we can come up with another way to say that police are investigating the incident as a crime but they don’t know the circumstances yet.  How could it NOT be foul play?! We need to use our heads.

Lines defining journalism have certainly blurred in recent years.  For example, I write and anchor newscasts but I also write editorials.  It’s up to us to make sure the differences in approach are clearly defined and to readers to understand the variations.  But creating a story by setting up a candid-camera moment?  That’s tomfoolery, it might be attention-grabbing but it’s not journalism. Falsifying quotes from a non-existent source?  That’s just incredibly stupid, especially when the words ostensibly came from someone famous. Saying whatever police tell us, from “young offenders” whose act no longer even exists, to the suspicion of foul play when it can be nothing but?  Lazy. But these kinds of things are happening more often these days. It makes me wonder if the whole of media will just morph into tabloid journalism where the untrue is passed off as true and the starlet/politician/athlete/CEO of the day is pregnant/engaged/gay/contemplating suicide, every day.