Loss of professional journalists something to be feared
Changes rippling through the newspaper world are indicative of the rapidly evolving way we exchange information. But are we in danger of losing accuracy and reliability in the pursuit of near instantaneous communication?
Along with the breathtaking speed of modern electronic communication has come the ability for writers to be anonymous. That has given rise to the predictable misuse of communication systems by all manner of cheats and thieves under the broad heading of scam messages. There are also a growing number of writers posing as legitimate news sources, but most fall far short of the standards we expect from the professional news journalists.
In addition to newspapers, we now have social media and blog sites which can be declared news organisation and its operator a journalist without any professional training and no understanding of objectivity.
Most such blogs are heavily opinionated and therefore unreliable as a news source. Other forms of social media can spread misinformation anonymously and readers have no way of knowing the truth or otherwise of what they read.
Two recent events demonstrate the folly of relying on social media for information or news.
The most dramatic was a series of rumours about the Prime Minister’s partner, Clarke Gayford. Most people still don’t what those rumours were and most people would not have even been aware of them until the police issued a formal notice to say that Gayford was not under any investigation for anything.
The second event was one I had to deal with personally when I recently stood down from the presidency of the Grey Power Federation.
One of the candidates in the subsequent election came under negative and inaccurate criticism in a widely circulated email by a group of people using a false name and email address.
Most of these people were not intelligent enough to succeed in their dishonesty and it was not difficult to find out who some of them were.
While I did not name them in public, they are, to their well-deserved embarrassment, now known to many within the organisation.
The news media quite rightly published what was known about both events and in doing so, revealed the sinister role anonymous writers can assume.
These days it only takes a year of training for someone with an average ability in written English to qualify as a reporter, but it can take several years, ideally under the tutelage of editors, chief reporters and experienced senior professionals, to develop the skills of a true journalist and to know what genuine news is.
There is as much difference between the two as there is between a newly qualified solicitor and a High Court judge.
A blogger with obvious political leanings is no more a journalist in the professional sense than colour therapy and tarot card readings are part of modern medicine. People are free to use them if they wish, but they should be under no illusion about what they are dealing with.
Journalists who fail to maintain proper standards, and like all professions there have been a few, are judged harshly by their peers.
One of the most important cornerstones of modern journalism was, until recently, unbiased objectivity.
That all changed with the development of celebrity frontmen and -women on television ‘‘news commentary’’ shows.
They have a powerful position in that they not only take on the role of combatants but they also set the rules for engagement. These media-contrived gladiatorial contests serve no useful purpose in informing viewers and have become instead second-rate presidential style contests in bad manners and talking over each other.
Elections should not be won or lost on the looks and grooming of party leaders.
All information provided in newspapers, television and radio is not necessarily genuine ‘‘hard news’’, but we have a right to expect that even gossip columnists and advertising writers will adhere to the basics of accuracy, if not objectivity and balance.
The distinction is as important as it is difficult to define.
Accuracy, objectivity and balance are relatively easy to define, but other standards are a little more difficult to understand and include empathy and ethics.
While we may like to berate editors and their newspapers for what they publish and where they publish it, theirs can often be a thankless task.
But can we really imagine what our world would be like without them? Blog sites and other forms of anonymous social media would be a very poor substitute for newspapers written by professional journalists.