NOW MORE THAN EVER, WE NEED LEGACY JOURNALISM
Real reporting, not social media, is the path to understanding the world, says Shelley Fralic.
As hurricanes and tornadoes and earthquakes and flash floods and forest fires unleashed their fiery force across North America and the Caribbean these past weeks, leaving death and devastation in their unforgiving wake, those of us in safe zones were transfixed by our television screens, our laptops and smartphones, unable to turn away from every last surge warning, every crumpled structure, every breathtaking rescue.
Because this is what we do when the news is so big and disastrous.
We seek detail. We want to know everything there is to know, because sharing information and empathy is what binds us together as humans.
And being human, we also seek the familiar in times of crisis, and so millions of us turned to triedand-true news sources: CNN, the venerable daily newspaper, CBC, CTV, the trusted radio station, Global TV.
You know. Traditional purveyors of old-school journalism who have been gathering and delivering news long before Twitter flew out of the media nest. We turn to the stalwarts in times of crisis because it’s in that history of trust and integrity where we know we’ll find the real goods, the explanations and background, the people stories, the arresting images, the look forward.
And yet the newspaper you are reading, and others like it, along with their veteran media brothers and sisters throughout the publishing and broadcasting worlds, are today trapped in their own quieter storm.
This, of course, is not news. The downfall of traditional news organizations has been gleefully documented, a victim of busy modern life coupled with an industry slow to adapt and multiplied by a game-changing information highway. Suddenly, the wind shifted and the new kid on the block — social media — had flattened the veteran. No one needs newspapers anymore, right? Legacy journalism is just biased right-wing folderol, right? Why trust The National or the Globe and Mail when we have Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, populated by “citizen journalism” devotees long on personal passion but short on global perspective.
Yes, the video on social media can show the flood on my Miami street, but it won’t tell my neighbours where the storm is heading, or what my community can learn for next time.
So, when the world is turned upside like it has been of late, we still flock en masse to traditional sources to make sense of it all. And how.
Donald Trump declares the New York Times (along with other traditional media outlets that dare report without sycophancy) as both fake and failing. And yet the Times packed on historic subscriber increases in the weeks following the 2016 election. CNN’s viewership rocketed, and it’s holding. The Vancouver Sun circulation gets a big election bump. Why this flight to quality? It could well be a reaction to the shrieking nature of social media that is tailored for those who question nothing and accept everything that fits within their self-imposed info bubbles. It could be that we have come to understand that Facebook’s News Feed — the planet’s most ubiquitous “news” purveyor — isn’t really news by definition, but a series of posts designed to flatter consumer profiles, less about free thought and open debate and much more about bias validation. Trapped as we are in the current media maelstrom, we need more than ever the reliable source, whether it’s delivered electronically or via the doorstep.
What matters more and more is the trained reporter, the thoughtful and thoroughly researched analysis, the arguable editorial, the copy editor who fills the holes and knows the language, the photograph that speaks a thousand words, the two-sides-to-everystory story.
Because, in the end, the scariest thing about believing that social media is a replacement for traditional media is how it obstructs the ability of citizens to understand what is going on in the world.
If some notion of equivalence between social and traditional media continues to take root, we are left to wonder how we’ll maintain democracy when no one is left to do the dirty work: covering the legislature, following the money, dissecting the annual report.
What happens when those who purport to serve and govern and protect us answer to no one but themselves?
What the dark side of Mother Nature may have also unearthed in her heartless fury this month is a telling reminder that when it comes to news, what matters isn’t the medium; it’s the messenger.
Now, more than ever. Shelley Fralic is a former Vancouver Sun editor and columnist. She is a trustee of the Jack Webster Foundation, and will be among those discussing the theme, Now More Than Ever, at the Oct. 12 Jack Webster Awards dinner in Vancouver. Check out jackwebster.com for tickets and information.