Michael Jackson image from TMZ
This has been a long time coming. Although people have had in their pockets the means to transmit breaking news for at least a decade, increased social networking – particularly Twitter, Facebook and Youtube—has finally garnered enough traction to spread information to the masses.
Three events just this year have set the stage for this.
1. The crash landing of the plane into the Hudson River, which was first broken visually on Twitter
2. The death of Neda in Iran, which went viral globally after being posted on Youtube, and
3. Michael Jackson’s death just hours ago, which was first reported by TMZ and spread like wildfire within minutes on Twitter.
The traditional news media, although generally doing admirably in the social media arena, cannot be in all places at once, especially with shrinking newsroom personnel. Ordinary people on the ground, and non-traditional media–such as blogs, video sites and Twitter—are inherently in better positions to document events as they happen.
The role of journalism should focus now on sorting through rumor and innuendo in breaking stories, providing context and objectivity after the fact and it should emphasize feature and more lengthy exposes like the stunning series published this week by the St. Petersburg Times.
Journalists and newsrooms should no longer put resources in trying to break news especially when there is so much competition surrounding them. A part of me hopes I am wrong about this, but a significant era of journalism is over.
[EDIT 6/25/09: Mashable has a great comment on this subject:
"Social media’s role in rapidly distributing globally-significant news like this will likely be analysed in great depth over the coming weeks. It’s notable that despite early news reports of Michael’s passing on blogs, the timing of the tributes coincided with confirmation by the LA Times – for the most critical information, it seems, we continue to trust mainstream news the most."
In addition, I should amend my original statements. Contrary to my post title, it's not that jounalists will no longer break hard news, but that their role has been changing rapidly to the point where more of the hard news is being broken by less traditional media outlets--such as blogs--and ordinary citizens. Though journalism's role is shifting, it nevertheless remains critical to society.]
[Edit 6/26/09: Bad Pitch Blog posted this statement today : "...We’re doing a point counterpoint – 250 words each on why the Michael Jackson Internet frenzy spells the death of mainstream media and the rise of TMZ and other emerging news outlets." Thought it was relevant to what I posted above yesterday as well as all of the comments below. I'm looking forward to it.]
[Edit 6/26/09: Based on the comments below, I have changed the post's title and deleted a later reference to hard news. The previous title was: "It's official: Journalists no longer break hard news." The new title I think more accurately reflects what I was originally try to convey.]
Scott Schrantz
8 months ago
This article was right next to yours in my feed reader. He says it all comes down to credibility, which the “old media” still has a monopoly on.
http://eatsleeppublish.com/what-the-michael-jackson-tmz-news-timing-teaches-us-about-credibility/
It’s no good breaking a story if nobody believes you. That will probably change in time too, though.
Bob
8 months ago
I partially agree with the credibility angle. The mainstream media frequently get it wrong and/or resort to innuendo and selective reporting to create “stories.” It’s a major focus of this blog.
What the traditional news media have over social media and citizen-based ‘journalism’ is training, usually, and a more objective and more cautious process of checks and balances, laws, ethics and so on.
Ryan Jerz
8 months ago
Bob, I think you have a good point here, but my main argument would be that TMZ is a group of professional journalists. They broke it. So it’s really an issue of semantics that I have with you. It certainly spread like crazy because of the social networks and ordinary people, to the point that Twitter was really slowed down today. Ultimately, though, journalists were the ones who got it.
Scott, I’m curious, because I have no idea, what TMZ has ever gotten wrong, if you know. Or if anyone can tell me. I have a feeling that it’s not about them being wrong, but more about them being kinda sleazy. People don’t want to think that an outlet like TMZ can do something like break this story, mainly because a lot of people are hard pressed to admit they would even watch TMZ. I’m not trying to be argumentative, and I apologize if I seem like I am, but I happen to think that TMZ is very, very vested financially in getting a story like this right.
I also think about this story when I think about “credibility” of the celebrity gossip sites: remember when Perez Hilton said Castro was dead? That was a big mark against that guy, and might be unfairly soiling TMZ here. When I heard that they reported it, I believed it right away. I happen to think that a lot of what I read from people saying that they didn’t trust TMZ today was driven by something other than TMX’s ability to get it right.
Bob
8 months ago
Frankly this is probably more your territory more than mine. I don’t read TMZ (haven’t really even heard of it much until today) and I don’t even know who Perez Hilton is other than hearing his name before. TMZ certainly appears bloggish and not much what I consider to be traditional journalism (e.g., The N.Y. Times, L.A. Times or NPR, etc.).
On the other hand, I caught CNN (I don’t watch television news) for the first time in a long time the other day and was amazed by how much it was trying to be in touch with social media and vaguely sensational (weird camera angles, panning, etc.) and yet still trying to retain some journalism ethos. It was obnoxious. But at least they credited their sources and cautioned when information couldn’t be confirmed and that it was coming from citizens in Iran.
Ryan Jerz
8 months ago
Well, honestly I don’t read that stuff, but I read enough to know what they talk about on occasion. TMZ has a TV show, though. I only know of Perez Hilton because people talk about it, I’ve checked it out, and I read his reporting when Castro supposedly died. I was real curious, as it would have been a huge scoop. It wasn’t.
I can’t say for sure, but I don’t know of any blogs that will make claims that are unsubstantiated without saying so or calling it a rumor. That makes them roughly the same as CNN, right? Am I kidding myself?
Andrew Heilman
8 months ago
Bob, I had originally said (via twitter) that I agreed with you except that I didn’t consider the MJ story today hard news. After thinking a little more about it I may have to disagree with your premise, but more so on your argument’s semantics. I’m going to focus on what you appear to have defined “hard news” as (so this is, admittedly, somewhat subjective).
To me hard news is the scandals, the affairs, the back-room deals and sunday night power grabs. It’s the type of stuff guys who want their name in the journalism hall of fame next to woodward and bernstein spend hundreds and thousands of hours researching, identifying the trail of people and money, getting inside sources (real anonymous sources, not the ones who are leaking leads on a daily basis because their boss told them to) and piece together scraps of information that cause them to leap to conclusions that are a stretch but appear the only thing to make sense among the countless notebooks of information. To me, hard news is the stuff that you can’t glean from a simple conversation or by reporting one fact. It’s investigative journalism at its best.
I believe that what you’re referring to is spot news coverage and I completely agree that more and more than type of journalism will come from everyday people.
I think professional journalists will be the ONLY ones to break hard news as I’ve defined it. What’s worse is, slowly, journalism programs and students are graduating without those skills. Instead, a majority of our journalism students are studying how to report, shoot video, grab audio, take photos and get it all out as quick as possible. Yes, they’re still great information gatherers and impartial observers but they increasingly lack the skills to grind out a story that takes weeks, months or even years to track, glean and eventually piece together.
So are professional journalists losing their ability to break news first, absolutely. However, I don’t believe hard news is something that will ever be left to citizen journalists. More than ever we need journalism programs that give us true, investigative journalists. Beyond that journalists will slowly become nothing more than information pushers. Get it from someone and repurpose, repackage and release it in the thousands of ways we now all consume information.
Bob
8 months ago
Well, Andrew, I confess that it has been many years since I attended a journalism class and my use of the term is perhaps based on faulty memory. I did a quick search for the definition of hard news and it appears there is not a super precise, universal agreement on the point. You are correct to point out that my point is more about breaking news — or spot news coverage. Some refer to this as hard news, but it appears to be more broad than you define it, as in describing the difference between hard and soft news.
Ryan Jerz
8 months ago
I have to disagree with Andrew on hard news, even as he defines it. Check this out:
http://texex-xpress.blogspot.com/2009/05/is-cindy-trigg-defrauding-us-government.html
I don’t think the guy doing that would describe himself as a journalist, but he’s doing some really interesting stuff.
My disagreement with the idea in this post wasn’t to say that journalists are still the only ones breaking news, but that this example wasn’t the right one. Simply put, it depends. Sometimes it’ll be journalists, who have a little better access at this point, and sometimes it’ll be hard-working bloggers and people on Twitter who care enough to check into stuff. The hard statement Bob made is an easy one to target because it’s forceful.
Andrew Heilman
8 months ago
Bob, thanks for attempting to clarify hard and soft (or spot) news a little better. I admit my argument was subjective and based on my interpretation of hard news and spot news. I will say that my perspective comes from my work as a photojournalist. Spot news, breaking news, soft news, whatever term you used for it, was assignments you could get and shoot in one day. Hard news oriented pieces took some time to develop. They may have been shot in one day, but it took some planning and coordination to get that shoot.
Ryan’s example is a good one of what I described more as hard news and, as he says, the author would probably not describe himself as a journalist. So, clearly, even citizen journalists are breaking hard news as I’ve defined it. I do agree with him that it depends who breaks news (citizens or professionals) based on who has access to the information but the premise for your argument was a great way to start the conversation.
Steve Parker
8 months ago
Bob,
I think the type of news you’re actually referring to would be more accurately called “spot news” than hard news. Spot news is distinguished mostly by being something that just happened VERY recently and often, though not always, is unexpected. All manner of accidents fall under this, like car accidents, fires, cars going through plate glass windows and yes, planes landing in the Hudson. A sudden death, especially an unexpected one, of *anyone* is usually spot news, however how *big* the story is generally is determined by their status/position in society of celebrity. Hence Michael Jackson’s death was a world dominating spot news story due to his global popularity as an artist. The shift toward amateurs and semi-amateurs breaking this kind of news is a simple math calculation. It is inevitable if only because of a what, 200-to-1 advantage in feet on the street coverage? Unfortunately I think some will misunderstand your headline to mean that citizen journalists now break all “significant” or meaningful news (because some equate that with “hard”), but on that question in my view the math is the opposite. To break a significant story, unlike spot news, takes many many hours working on one story, and in that domain, the pros will clean the clocks of all but the most obsessed amateurs every time. Then the math is on the pro’s side.
Bob
8 months ago
Thanks Steve. Based on your comments and those of others, I have changed the post’s title.
One point I think needs is expanding in your calculation is the medium of social media. It is the consumption and participation of such highly networked interaction that has made anyone a potential news breaker, more than ever before.