SOCIALIST UNITY

Very interesting talk by Paul Mason, FoC for journalists on BBC Newsnight, on how the recession is going to shake up the news media, and lead to fewer journalists. As Paul argues, recessions accelerate and reveal underlying structural changes, and the deskilling and new technology is reducing the number of journalists.

He makes intelligent comments about the distinction between professional journalism and blogging, and the importance of peer review, and the unique functions in terms of access, time and training of professional journalists in tracking down and reporting stories.

I think he over eggs his pudding here. For sure, Paul Mason has access to the Prime Minsiter, but the majority of working journalists don’t; and it seems that many of the better political bloggers also have their networks of contacts.

I also take with a pinch of salt the idea that peer review within a news room leads to greater accuracy. What peer review may do is lead to ideological consensus, but that is not the same as truth, Indeed, one of the drivers that created the space for alternative news media like Indymedia and blogging was the low public confidence in the reliability of what is reported in the press. Of course this is rarely the fault of the individual journalists, although it sometimes is.

Particularly those of us who have worked as press officers for campaigns know that we can expect our press releases to appear either not at all or unaltered as copy, and very rarely is there a check up call.

I was rather more impressed by the recent discussion on this issue from Dave Osler, whose blog I thought lost its way a bit last year, but is now back on track, and of late has been consistently excellent.

Both a journalist and a blogger, I am in no doubt as to which is the superior craft. For all that younger practitioners derided the ‘MSM’ [mainstream media] as the ‘dead tree press’, blogging is basically parasitic upon it. If nobody is out there at the coalface, standing controversial stories up, what is left for anybody else to argue the toss about?

The trouble is, hard news reporting as a craft is rapidly going the way of valve-based black and white television manufacture. Many newspapers have downgraded foreign and business desks, and happily rehash stories from news agencies - the likes of Reuters, Bloomberg, Agence France Press, Associated Press or Press Association - as a substitutes.

Now, no disrespect to people who work for these fine outfits Some of them number among my closest drinking buddies. So I am well aware of the pressure these guys are under to come up with the goods ahead of the competition. But as someone with the luxury of having a few extra hours to put in the check calls, I have to say that standards of accuracy for wire copy are not always what they should rightly be.

Old school reporting is everywhere unfashionable, because it takes time and money, and the target yoof demographic isn’t interested anyway. Not too many years ago, you could tell your editor you had the basis of a strong exclusive but needed, say, five days to nail it down. If the lead was promising enough, you would get the thumbs-up. These days, nobody would think it was worth bothering the boss.

Look across the UK newspaper spectrum. It is inconceivable that the Daily Mirror would today give somebody in the mantle of Paul Foot a page a week for the investigative journalism at which he so excelled. The Daily Express trundles on by recycling conspiracy theory and health material plundered off the internet, paying its hapless twentysomething employees accordingly. Hello, Mr Desmond; notice which direction the circulation is heading as a result?

The Independent prides itself on being a ‘viewspaper’ rather than a newspaper. Now, I do like sharp commentators, and the Indie has some of the sharpest. But I no longer shell out for the product, which has degenerated into a glorified blog on newsprint; even the best opinion pieces simply don’t give me the fix I crave as a hard news junkie.

The general decline of the left has taken away the space once enjoyed by such muckraking monthlies as The Leveller. Time Out - previously the natural home of the stuff the nationals dared not touch - now fills the space between the listings with glossy ads and wall-to-wall lifestyle pap.
It’s not that bloggers are incapable of coming home with the stories that would once have been the preserve of the likes Duncan Campbell. There must be plenty of good youngsters out there. But they do not have the time and they do not have the resources to do reporting like it properly should be done.