The pressures on news rooms today however, provide much less opportunity for such journalism.
The current trend is for factual and descriptive reporting FAST.
Technology, particularly the internet, has meant that we expect reportage on an event as it is happening.
We can no longer wait until morning for the well-written, well-researched newspaper article, we log on and get any tid-bit of information available.
Dom explored the three stages of enquiry:
- Reactive: this is where facts are reported as they unfold. "An aeroplane has hit a building", for example. This is increasingly predominant due to the prevalance of online news.
- Analytical: this is the why and how reporting that occurs in the days/week after an incident. Involved institutions, authorities and individuals are examined. "The killer was a quiet neighbour that kept to himself" for example.
- Reflective: this is the more investigative reporting that occurs in the weeks/months/years after an incident. Societal trends and broad patterns that may have set the stage for a particular news event are explored. "Years of suppression of the issue in the mass-media contributed to his aggression" for example.
The 'full' story of a major event will only come from reflective reporting but this is just not feasible in the modern news room.
And I don't think it is what the public is interested in, regardless of how much it may be decided to be "in the public interest".
We have a culture of FAST and that's how we want our information.
I think producing more analytical reporting is important for newspapers: mid-length articles that go just enough behind the initial facts that the audience are more informed, but not putting unnecessary pressure on maxed-out journalists.
1 comment:
That's a great point you make about the public not being wanting to read too much reflective reporting pieces. I think it is for that reason it rarely exists in today's environment.
The heads of news organisations are not as stupid as we make it out to be. I think that if every paper commited themselves to in-depth reflective reporting - people would become less interested in news. As you say they want fast easy to read articles. It is about engaging with the reader, not just force feeding information we think that we should report in order to be 'proper' journalists.
It's just like the commonwealth games, the media was criticised for showing too much Aussie content. But seriously, if they gave even amount of coverage to all nations how many Australian people would be watching/reading? Newsrooms know what people are interested in by what sells, and as you say too much reflective reporting is not that feasible in the modern newsroom. Sad but true.
Good luck with it all, Liz.
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