The Marlowsphere Blog (#82)
The Center for Communication recently presented a panel at the School of Media Studies at the New School for Public Engagement (New York City) on the subject of “Media Disruption: The New Normal.”
The raison d’etre of the panel discussion was the inexorable demise of print forms of news and information and the rise of electronic news and information—primarily via the Internet. The panel was also organized partly in response to the recent sale of The Washington Post for “a fraction of its value just a few years ago” to Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. Interestingly, Bezos bought the venerable newspaper out of his own personal funds, not as another asset under the Amazon umbrella.
The Bezos purchase, the Center commented, “is emblematic of the changing landscape of journalism. The rise of Twitter as the go-to news source, and the proliferation of other innovative news delivery systems, has changed the game forever.” The panel included Martin Nisenholtz, Senior Advisor, The New York Times Company; Elizabeth piers, acting Edicatorial Director, Flavorpill Production; Ben Smith, Editor-in-Chief, Buzzfeed; Shafqat Islam, Co-Founder and CEO, NewsCred; and J. Max Robins, Contributor, Technomy Media. Mr. Robins also served as panel moderator.
The panel discussion almost immediately fell into the usual pattern of one-by-one comments on the “changing landscape of journalism.” And while there was certainly cross conversations about the subject, the panelists implicitly came to the conclusion that nobody yet knows what the long-term impact of such electronic news venues, such as Twitter, Facebook, and the Internet generally are going to be. One wonders if Jeff Bezos yet knows what he’s going to do with the journalistic assets of the venerable Washington Post. My guess is he will diminish the print medium expression of the newspaper, break up the reporting assets into various categories, and re-purpose the reporting assets into electronic form. We’ll see.
This issue aside, it was interesting to note that only one speaker—Elizabeth Spiers—addressed the issue of journalistic writing on the part of reporters in the inexorable emerging electronic era. At one 
point she remarked that young reporters needed to deal with the reality that they might be writing for an audience twice their age and that these same reporters need to take this audience into account.
Upon hearing this, I wondered if the game had also changed with respect to good reporting now that electronic news and information venues are slowly but surely becoming dominant in the media landscape.
For me the answer is no. Just as the famous jazz musician and composer Duke Ellington once said “There are only two kinds of music: good music and bad music,” it is similarly true that there are only two kinds of reporting: good reporting and bad reporting.
So, what does it take to be a good reporter? Below are a few characteristics that for me are paramount:
1. Good writing skills: this is a given. This is the ability to say what has to be said in as concise a manner as possible. It also means good spelling, good grammar, good punctuation, good paragraphing, and good overall structure; A story with a beginning, middle, and end. An ever-expanding vocabulary; The ability to tell a story, to draw a reader, listener, or viewer in to the narration. First drafts don’t usually make it.
2. Good researching skills: knowing where to go for information. If you rely on one source for information, you probably don’t have enough sources. There are always at least two sources for the same information. Wikipedia ,notwithstanding, is a beginning, not an end-source.
There are at least six general sources of information:
1. Subject-Experts: Subject- experts are highly useful as research sources because they can provide both a professional perspective based on their level of experience and an in-the-trenches description of what is really going on in a particular profession and/or industry.
2. Trade Publications: Trade publications are published for either professionals in a particular field or for executives of companies and/or institutions in a particular field. There are usually at least two leading trade publications in every endeavor. Trade publications can provide intermediate-term perspectives on activities in a particular profession and/or industry particularly from an economic perspective.
Further, often these trade publications publish so-called “annuals” that describe and analyze the state of a particular profession over the course of the year and make comparisons to previous years. These same “annuals” also look forward to the next year and even several years into the future with projections as to what might occur given current trends and influences.
3. Books: The advantage of using a book as a research source is it takes time to write a book, and, therefore, a book can provide long-term perspectives with some history that has been corroborated. Further, the author’s perspective and/or conclusions might underscore your own conclusions and/or give you food for thought for developing your own conclusions.
4. Professional Associations and Trade Associations: Trade associations represent the interests of the businesses or institutions in a particular industry to local, state, or Federal government bodies. In some cases the trade association interacts with international governing bodies. No matter how large or small the business segment, there is always at least one professional association and usually one trade association.
5. Government Agencies: Increasingly, government agencies at the local, state, Federal, and even international level, interact with professionals and companies. Often, these same agencies collect data on the state of a particular industry. One example, in the United States, is the Library of Congress. This agency produces volumes of information that are there for the asking.
6. The Internet: The Internet has become an encyclopedic source of information on a global scale. However, it is not an end-point for research. It is a beginning point. You can use the Internet as a way of identifying and locating all the other research sources mentioned above. You can also use the Internet’s e-mail capability to make contact with individuals at the research sources named above. But it is dangerous to rely on the information the Internet gives you access to as a sole source. Of course, it depends what web site you access. In this kind of research, it is best to check out several web sites with the aim of corroborating information. You might find differences in information that purports to be “the facts” among different web sites. In other words, check it out! On the other hand, you might find information on the Internet that is not published elsewhere and is useful to your research. You don’t have to quote from it, but it might be useful as background in developing your own research conclusions.
3. Good listening skills: do you know when to shut-up and just listen to what is being said? Very often in the silences between questions, an interviewee will make a statement that can become a factual lynchpin to a story.
4. Good interviewing skills: knowing how to prepare for the interview; asking questions that move the interview forward; hearing the good quote while continuing to hear what the interviewee is saying.
5. Good abstracting and analysis skills: The journalist’s job is to provide a reader, listener, or viewer with stories that have been boiled down to their essence. Not everything you find out is pertinent to a story. IOW, what does the reader, listener, viewer need to know?
6. A background in some subject other than journalism: Journalism study provides certain skills. A background in some subject other than journalism provides you with some content depth and, perhaps, even insight.
7. A willingness to go the extra yard to find or corroborate a piece of information: How far are you willing to go to get the information you need to tell the story?
8. Contacts: an extensive Rolodex, whether electronic or in hardcopy: There is a book with the title Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty written by a corporate executive. This book is full of advice, but at its core it implores people to make contacts with other people before you need them. It also greatly encourages people to keep a list of contacts and to expand this list whenever possible. You never know when you’ll need to call someone for a piece of information crucial to your story. And it always helps to have at least two sources for information. There are always alternatives. Developing contacts is an on-going task.
9. Integrity: A journalist needs to possess the ability to report the facts and not hype up the story for the sake of attracting “eyeballs.” A truly newsworthy story told with honest reporting and good research will automatically attract “eyeballs.” With the plethora of news outlets already in existence and the potential for many more to arise viewers/readers will become more selective of which sources they will go to and those decisions will most likely be made on the contingency of reliability and truth.
10. To this list we must add: a modicum skillset in print and electronic media—radio, television, web sites, podcasts, blogs, and social media. Even 10 years ago this list would have been limited to newspapers, magazines, radio and television. The Internet has obviously changed all that. This is the major shift.
What is challenging to more experienced journalists is making the transition to so-called new media with an understanding that contemporary journalism is not about mass media, it is now about highly segmented audience journalism. Twitter, of course, has pushed the envelope with its 140 character requirement. This is a journalistic world in which Charles Dickens would have a hard time adjusting to.
On the other side of the generational divide, the challenge for younger, less experienced journalists is to learn how to write for a variety of audiences with a range of backgrounds and educational levels. The major challenge for young, emerging journalists is to understand the difference between knowing what software buttons to push and why one pushes those buttons. In video, for example, there are ample opportunities for whiz-bang special effects. But knowing when to use those special effects is quite another matter. Only experience teaches when to make those choices.
Please write to me at meiienterprises@aol.com if you have any comments on this or any other of my blogs.
Eugene Marlow, Ph.D.
October 21, 2013
© Eugene Marlow 2013