Jeff Jarvis says Journalism is a verb, not a noun: “no one owns journalism. It is not an official act, a certified act, an expert act, a proprietary act. Anyone can do journalism. Everyone does. Some do it better than others, of course. But everyone does it.
Realizing that — embracing that — will be the key to saving journalism: its quality and its business.”
There’s been some great debate on the future of journalism and a lot of very good opinions are being put up online. Not sure are print journalists debating it as much or at all. The state of journalism is this country varies wildly. There are some savagely brilliant journalists and columnists in this country but there are some godawful ones too and they can both be in the same organisation. Many slag off IT Journos but it’s not just them. It seems the most important thing for some journalists now is how to copy and paste news releases. I’ve even noticed some don’t even run a spell check on releases or a grammar check. Has journalism always been this lazy ?
The interactivity and user participation ideas that the BBC and Guardian are bringing about are steps to the new “Way of the Journalist”. It would be nice to see the likes of the Irish Times and the Examiner allowing people to comment on each story they print and if needs be re-editing the online versions of the story to make them more factual or at least provide additional links to other sources if people want to read more.
I had considered setting up my own online news site in August when my stint with IrelandOffline was over, but it looks like I have a lot more work to do with them before I retire. Maybe I’ll do it next January ? 🙂