Read a blog on the future of journalism, among other things, by Stijn Debrouwere entitled "Fungible." An enjoyable read, and I recommend it, but I felt the need to respond and did so. Below is that response.
An interesting and thought-provoking start to the evolution of journalism, but one that in the end leaves the reader as much in the fog as a ship approaching San Francisco Bay on a cool spring night. You know the bay is out there, but you cannot see it and you are left fearing more for the rocks than for the final destination.
The issue is not where journalism is going. The issue is what will the new information dissemination practice be? That may be an obtuse recognition of a serious problem, but until we stop trying to solve the problem, we are destined to continue repeating the problem.
The problem is in the asking whether journalism will survive in the future? It will not. That
is not to say that the dissemination of information will cease, only that the methodology of capture and regurgitation will change.
It is the form of that capture and regurgitation that make up the question. It helps to realize that journalism (from the French “jour” and Greeks, “ism,” or daily doctrine, has to cease before the new process of dissemination can begin to be seen through the fog.
About twenty years ago I left the confines of the print newsroom to become an “online journalist.” It was I believed the future of journalism and the place to be if you wanted to reach people. I stayed there for many years before leaving to go back to print journalism. I didn’t do it because print journalism was the future, I did it because I realized that neither were the future, but at least in print everyone knew they were on a sinking ship. Journalists, after all, have always been a fatalistic group.
Journalism, as practiced today both traditionally and online is the anchor for those with a desire to tell the story of the world. As things change, we remain anchored even as we continue trying to see new ways to tell the story. Therein lays the problem. While the future may be foggy, remaining anchored while searching for an answer is counterintuitive. Yes, you will find new ways to do journalism while you swing in the ever-moving current, but your area of search is limited by the scope of the anchor line. The safety net is understandable because of the dangers of drifting freely on an unknown current, but it is limiting. The answer is to accept that journalism, as we know it, is
dead. The only rational way to proceed is to cut the line and allow the industry to drift into uncharted areas.
We have spent twenty years trying to find what the new journalism is, instead of looking for the replacement of journalism. And that is exactly what we are looking for – journalism’s replacement. It will not be print or storify or Everyblock or Patch or Facebook or anything that we can see
today. I would go as far as to say it will not be anything that we can even imagine today. It will not be journalism.
It will remain hidden until we finally cast off from the traditional anchor of journalism and allow ourselves to drift past (and some will not) the impediments blocking our way. Eventually, if we stop trying so hard to see it, what was once known as journalism will evolve and morph into a
information system on its own.
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