In his final chapter, Beckett talks about the future of journalism and how the public is becoming greatly apart of the news media and the media in general. The idea of a global community is becoming less of a myth and more of a reality with the birth of the Internet and new media. One example of this is Wikipedia. Instead of following the strict rules and guidelines of an encyclopedia, information is constantly being corrected and added by individuals free of charge. Beckett writes, “the wiki principle takes advantage of software to allow a collective version of reality to be produced.” He says that both the encyclopedia, and obviously Wikipedia both make mistakes, however Wikipedia entries are constantly being corrected. Wikipedia is also another example of what Beckett describes as a blurring of lines between the journalist and the amateur. He argues that anyone can seemingly be a network journalist, or an investigative journalist if he/she has the tools. With blogs, interactive videos on Youtube, and with Internet usage on most newer cell phones, it seems as if Beckett might be on to something. He also brings up the idea of editorial diversity. This term refers to how journalists today need to focus more on catering to the audience and what they want almost as much as reporting on a story itself. When Beckett says that we have a diverse audience, he is talking about how the public has many different interests, and with the Internet we can “have multiple identities facilitated by new media and technologies.” He also argues that typically journalists today are of one particular demographic, and this is a problem because it causes certain minority groups to feel left out, or not feel as if journalism and the mainstream media are for them. Beckett believes that media colleges need to focus on attracting more of a diverse student population because, “it is in the self-interest of the news media to employ a variety of people who will connect with the various audiences.” Beckett adds on to the idea of a changing educational background in journalism by conjoining it more with business schools. The media lines have blurred because all of these tools that help us connect cater to a more informed and connected audience. Because of this, journalism is slowly becoming not much different from PR and marketing. Porter Novelli is a good example of how businesses, in this case a PR firm, have based their company’s PR techniques all using new media. Being ‘business creative’ in the journalism field is becoming a reality because with more of a diverse audience, the editor of an online publication needs to focus not only what stories to report on but also how they are laid out on a computer screen.
Questions:
Should it matter that journalists are ethnically diverse if their ultimate job is to report on news stories in a fair and unbiased way?
Beckett and Shudson have different takes on what the news should be. Beckett believes that it should be treated as a social good, whereas Schudson compares media to a form of entertainment. Do you believe there is a right or wrong way to view the news?
Are there certain news events/stories that should be written more collectively by the voice of the public than the control of the journalist? What are some examples?
Beckett talks about how journalism and business schools should be tied together as the media is changing, however he believes that journalism in the future will become more closely related to businesses such as PR and marketing. Do you think this is a positive or negative change?
Do you think it is possible to ‘teach the citizen journalist’ about fairness, transparency, and skepticism? Why or why not?
Is the idea of an “e-democracy” feasible?
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