Looking out of the window

Posted for the TNTJ  March Debate on what traditional skills are we losing?

For some time now, new media has been heralded as the second coming of journalism worldwide. Everybody marvels at RSS news feeds and tweets and blogs, and celebrates the slow death of the newspaper. While this immense explosion of web journalism is something that is phenomenal for many reasons, it has its pitfalls.

One of the primary issues with new media journalism is credibility. Even as more and more people are turning to the web for independent news and commentary, the question of credibility does give them pause. Who is this random blogger who reports from his or her community and why should I take his/her word?

It’s a shortcoming that web journalists have been trying hard to overcome, and have succeeded partially. Perhaps the fact that bloggers are getting more recognition as good journalists will help the case.

In a way it’s related to the loss of a few traditional news gathering skills. The technology available to journalists have led them to circumvent any real field work, or face to face interaction. While this is completely justified given the short deadlines they work under, its given rise to a lot of surface scratching and incomplete research, where we’re only as knowledgeable on a subject as Google allows us to be.

The visible amount of carelessness that creeps into a lot of writing on the web in terms of typos, incorrect or lack of attribution, grammar and rudimentary editing is another reason why web journalism lacks the kind of credibility that print or television enjoy. Good and accurate writing is not as dismissible as many think just because it’s on the web. It’s a serious issue which bloggers should ideally take note of and pay attention to.