Op-Ed: Is Journalism a Gladiator Sport?

Citizen journalism is exploding. I-Report, Associated Content, Digital Journal, and other organizations promote citizen involvement in the news. It may, however, have become a gladiator sport

It turns out that good writing is the agenda for many, but not for everyone. The game is to get the most votes not to do the best and most thorough job with news. Everyone is guilty, including mainstream media. But in the war over scraps, where writing jobs are few from the United Kingdom and the United States to places in Asia, and journalists the first to go in a recession, competition is keen and increasing. Years ago a guy got a story, ran with it, and got his colleagues’ input. These days with competing sources, and competing journalists within those sources, the question becomes how can I top that other guy, even if he is on the same team. Who flourishes in this kind of competitive climate? Is news getting better these days or does the public question it more now than they did many years ago? Furthermore, added to the issue, is the fact the journalist with a share of income sees it grow smaller and smaller as numbers grow. But companies with gladiator mentality, intentional or not, thrive the more contributors enroll. That is good business. Yet it also creates a climate where writing has become less of an art than a sport where the number of keywords, friends made, and relationships reinforced become more important than quality writing. The problem is not confined to citizen journalism, but standards for the industry should be applied as it grows. As the industry grows, the public will become more and more apathetic and suspicious as quality diminishes, good writers will shrug and leave and wait tables, (or open their own shops that may add to the problem) while what is news and what isn’t becomes more difficult to sort out. Put a search term in Google, and you are apt to get the first 10 entries blogger entries whose ability to use key words and Face Book can surpass a well-known writer of competency and acumen, like John Kunstler, who may not be as tech savvy as someone who works mostly with that. Recently I saw a YouTube video listing more than one million of viewers of a teenager looking into a mirror and talking about who does and doesn’t visit her videos. There were throat clearings, hems and haws, little content, and no Barbara Walters at all. But I’ll bet the young woman has thousands of friends on Face Book. Any changes anticipated? Likely not as mainstream and citizen journalism continue to blur lines. Recently someone told me because he had a letter to the editor praised that made him a journalist just like anyone else. Some places like Digital Journal try to improve skills by offering articles on the law and mechanics of journalism, but that’s a limited enterprise and just the beginning. It also isn’t required. Still it is a light in the wilderness of citizen journalism that some are using to become quality writers and hopefully a clarion call to others to do the same thing. Yet limited financial resources to share and more writers mean the rewards at the top becoming decidedly smaller as company profits may rise as it does with other citizen journalist contributive sites with the same business plan. Is everyone a journalist ready for the ring? Perhaps that is true in a world where anybody can do anything and be considered an expert just because he or she claims that’s so. Gladiator journalism may be the sport these days, just as in companies with high turnover and consideration of profit first. But is that really what is best for the craft of writing and journalism’s mottos to educate, inform and hold power to account? Gladiator journalism is likely to stay with us, including both mainstream and citizen journalism. The problem is that as quality fades so with it goes quality information, education and the ability to make good decisions in the face of mounting problems. If one has to cut through many thousands of material pieces about President Obama’s stimulus package, some of which are simply speculative blogs, how easy will it be to get to the truth of anything? Is there a solution? I am thinking about it, as I am certain many writers continue to do. Do we leave the news and write books that aren’t read? Or do we wander off, as many have done in the course of careers, to do that something else, leaving talent on the table and wanting in places where it is needed. I do think we can do better, embrace beginners and people who want to write, and still achieve excellence and reward it. That better mousetrap might be the one that gets the mice if folks notice the cheese is really better. In the meantime, many writers keep trying to stand up, as gladiators in the center of the ring wondering if they should just seek out lions or wait for their turns with their peers.