Newsless.org

Earlier this year, I posted that I wanted to see more focused discussions about journalism’s future:

If what we want to ask is “How can we save serious, detailed, local investigative journalism?” then I suspect we can have a more focused and productive conversation if we actually asked that question. Ditto if the question is “How can we make sure the local school board meeting is covered?” When folks rightly say that there’s not going to be a one-size-fits-all answer to the problems plaguing journalism, it’s because we lack even a one-size-fits-all question. “How do we save The Newspaper?” certainly isn’t it.

I’ve been hearing fewer how-do-we-save-the-newspaper-ish questions recently, but I’m still picking up conversations like, “What’s the business model for journalism?” So I figure that instead of railing against the questions I’m not impressed by, I’ll volunteer some questions that do nag at me.

I’m interested in being somewhat methodical about this. Again, journalism isn’t science. But an effort to quantify what we might be missing (or in danger of missing) could help us focus our efforts to provide it.

What are the most valuable functions currently performed by news organizations that are imperiled by the transition to digital?

We shall bicker about the “most valuable” component of this question, but I think a little bickering now-and-then is good. More on that in a second. Meanwhile, I’m especially keen on a focus on functions, rather than institutions or processes.

How might we measure the value of these functions?

I’m very curious about this. It seems distastefully clinical, but nonetheless really intriguing. Have there been efforts to measure the value of different journalistic functions? We know a free press correlates strongly with lower corruption. Do we know whether more journalists equals less corruption? If so, is there a sort of margin of diminishing results beyond which the number of journalists per capita doesn’t matter? Does journalism training affect the equation? Is publicly-funded journalism as effective at suppressing corruption as privately-funded journalism?

Outside of corruption, are there other measurable advantages of journalism? What effect do crime reporters have on crime? Does art criticism beget better art? Without the business press, would the meltdown have been worse?

If we could begin to quantify the value journalism provides, I think we could more effectively support it. The current prevailing argument — “Without news organization X, you wouldn’t have had investigation Y” — is acquiring the flavor of Senator McCain’s POW story circa September. If we could make the case that crime coverage tends to suppress crime, we’ve got a great marketing pitch for a community to come together and find some way to support a crime reporter.

What functions have been neglected by news organizations that we should account for in this transition?

I think we digital triumphalists have done a pretty good job of pointing out many of these. Someone should start cataloguing the sorts of brand-new functions tomorrow’s journalism is already starting to perform: like creating a place for communities to coalesce around the news and helping communities organize in the midst of a crisis.

What models of support might map well to each of these functions?

If we’re serious about building a sustainable journalistic infrastructure, I think this question will get us further than almost any other. We have plenty of evidence that different journalistic functions will map better to particular support models. Investigative journalism is already beginning to incline towards a non-profit, philanthropic model. Education reporting might be given to an advertising model of some kind. If we can begin to catalogue different models functioning effectively in different situations, we might be able to answer questions like, “What options should a health industry reporter in Minneapolis pursue to acquire support?”

How should these functions evolve to meet the opportunities afforded by digital media?

Plenty of experimentation on this front is already occurring, of course. As more beats start moving online in force, I cannot wait to see what results. Crime journalism saw the beginnings of a revolution with the dawn of ChicagoCrime.org. Talking Points Memo broke new ground in investigative journalism. Which niches remain untransformed? How do we transform them?

Update: Will tweets along a couple of questions: “Is what journalists value the same thing as what ‘readers’ value?” “How can we monetize it online without it sucking, or whats the next Craigslist?”

I got a good question last week from a grad student here at Mizzou. I thought the question and my response were worth sharing. First, the question:

I had an interesting interview with a Chemistry professor this morning.  … He thinks the Missourian, and media in general, don’t write enough stories about science.  As a Chemistry professor, he thinks the general public should hear more about the work that he does and the importance of it.  On the other hand, you can’t write a headline that says “Chemistry professor will cure cancer” since it’s not necessarily true.  He’s certainly not a fan of media “hype.”  Would producing a context-rich website include writing stories about topics we don’t usually cover, like the confusing world of chemistry, or would it simply be aimed at giving more context to the subjects we often cover?  Is “context” topic-specific, or are you looking to broaden the wide world of information that readers have access to?

My reply:

I think journalists’ inability and unwillingness to cover science properly is a huge blind spot to the profession, caused by a couple of systemic incompatibilities between the science world and journalism as it’s practiced.

I would also say that not enough science coverage is a big problem, but woefully inaccurate science coverage might be an even bigger problem. Many journalists covering science aren’t thoroughly steeped in the sciences. Even at papers like the NY Times, which might do more science coverage than any other general-interest periodical in the country, the science reporters are usually dilettantes, not specialists. I don’t think my research would do much to help that problem, except to the extent that I’m advocating for the greater involvement of non-journalists (including scientists) in journalism.

And yes, I think focusing journalism more squarely on context would help overcome the problems, although the lack of context is only part of the issue. Journalism today is built around news events – that is, discrete, high-profile occurrences. Science is essentially built around the opposite of news events – the slow, steady, procedural accumulation and refinement of knowledge.

Even still, we miss opportunities to tie science information in when news events warrant it. For example, until recently, Sarah Palin’s stump speech contained a dig about how the government wastes money on such nonsense as researching the DNA of fruit flies. Scientists howled in fury – fruit flies are considered excellent research subjects because they reproduce so much and share a good proportion of their DNA with humans. It was a teachable moment that most reporters didn’t touch.

More salient to my research, I think, is the notion that focusing on the context behind the news enables journalism to tell larger, more complex stories. I think that will inevitably mean connecting those stories to science, in many cases. So much of science relates to the stuff of daily life – language, money, nutrition, health, technology, relationships, transportation, you-name-it. Cover crime deeply enough, and you’ll end up studying sociology, psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, and probably epidemiology. And my research is all about the continual deepening and expansion of the product of journalism.

Your thoughts?