The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Another spoke of the tensions between media investors who want commercial success, and journalistic ethics: The level of under investment, resultant juniorisation and low quality outputs do a disservice not just to investors and those who practice (journalism), but to democracy at large. Juniorisation refers to the practice of newsrooms hiring inexperienced journalists who have not, usually, gone through traditional training in a cadet school.
I was very struck by this response. Democracy demands that we have access to information, freedom of information, freedom of expression, factual and reliable information. Instead, the current transition to digital media is throwing up a lot of unreliable information that must be waded through before we get to the facts; misinformation and propaganda; hate speech, and bigotry. It’s a messy, sometimes bloody transition – and beat journalism is among the victims.
What does this all mean for audiences?
There’s been a decline in in-depth news coverage of any particular field and a corresponding rise in superficial array of news on a variety of topics. Infotainment gets passed off as “news”. Celeb gossip and sexy pictures sometimes fill pages. Media companies hire young generalists or all-rounders who can do 24/7 reporting, uploading of video, blogging, tweeting and brand or celebrity journalism – where the reporter is part of the story. It appears that journalism is chasing technology and social media appears to lead journalism. That’s especially dangerous in this era where “fake news” –which includes misinformation and disinformation – has become a common complaint – and, as research shows, travels fast. Readers are often left asking whether they can trust what they’ve read, or if they’ve been fed misinformation or propaganda.
So what’s the solution?
The best case scenario or ideal situation for journalism to serve democracy is to restore journalist beats. It’s crucial for newsrooms to start going back to basics. For instance, training programmes need to be re-instituted; most newsrooms have scrapped these, as my colleagues and I have outlined in several “State of the Newsroom” reports conducted in South Africa in recent years.
Another approach is to cut executives’ and managers’ salaries, and to pay senior journalists to mentor younger reporters on specialised beats. In this way, good journalism can be saved.
The full results of the international New Beats survey, including those from South Africa, are due out in 2019.
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Glenda Daniels: Associate Professor in Media Studies, University of the Witwatersrand
Source: The Conversation
