FullMetalPhotographer

Bad News for the News Industry

The need for speed, lack of personal, and lack of journalism skills has damaged the credibility of news organizations.

(1) The need for speed, has down a lot of damage not because how fast the info goes up but how little it is checked. We are now talking information going up in a constant flow information with poor follow through and fact checking. There used to be a technological barriers but those barriers have collapsed. So information is not edited as throughly as it should be and is not fact check. There is also poor follow through on developing stories. Instead we the next hot piece of information is thrown up. Also news organizations do not like to admit to mistakes. So if they make a mistake on the news cycle they are slow to correct it.

(2) Lack of personal, TV and printed Newsrooms have shrunk. Most newsrooms have 1/3 the size of personal that they did in the 80's. You have less editors, and less reporters in the field. Reporters are spread thin on beats so they have a harder time developing reliable sources. There are less editors to look over copy to check facts and even grammar.
I recently saw a Lee Paper in Hanford, CA fire their only Hispanic reporter, who good speak, read and write spanish in community with a 53% hispanic population.

(3) Lack of journalism skills, This goes back a lot to lack of personal. When you cut staff with early retirement, fire experienced reporters in order to have cheaper less experienced reporters, the quality of coverage will go down. If you look at the amount of years of experience it has decline drastically. This isn't rocket science.

To any corporation that owns media they do not understand journalism. They view journalists as nothing but a cost. A corporation views journalism only as a advertising delivery system. So the quality of the journalism is not an economic concern.