Journalism’s woes don’t resonate

A few days ago, Columbia Journalism School released the 96-page “Reconstruction of American Journalism” report, which I’m about halfway done reading. Journalism veteran-turned-consultant Steve Outing noted on his blog that the report doesn’t offer a lot of new information for the people who are already well-versed in the media “crisis.”

Instead, Outing says the report is aimed at nonprofits and foundations, which the report says will play an important role in rebuilding American journalism.

The most interesting part of his post comes from Outing’s response to a reader in the comments section, though. The crisis facing the news industry isn’t getting much sympathy from the public, he writes, because journalists are held in such low esteem.

Media is held in low esteem currently (thanks, especially, cable TV news!), so investigative reporting units being scrapped and reporters losing jobs isn’t exactly resonating. It’s mostly the media geeks, journalism academics, and a few informed media outsiders who care about the issue.

Hear that? Journalists can cry all we want about the fact that our business models are crumbling beneath the weight of the Internet, but the people don’t care. They think we’re liars, cheats, sensationalists, biased and — in most cases — hopelessly liberal.

Outing suggests that more public outreach is needed, rather than reports that will be read mainly by “media geeks” and insiders. (Read his comment for his specific ideas.) I agree, and I think a good way to reach the public is through transparency.

What I mean by that is publishing our budgets and agendas so that the readers can have an idea what we’re working on. I mean addressing charges of bias and prejudice directly, explaining the journalistic situations that led to the stories as they appeared in print or online. I mean showing people how we work and letting them make suggestions and contributions to that process, while learning from what we provide.

When people understand more about how we produce the news, they will appreciate it more. Hell, maybe they’ll even see that something about that process produces a product that’s worth paying for.

Related posts:

1. Richard Sambrook: Transparency is the new objectivity, and the Internet is not your enemy
2. Fact-checking culture
3. Dabblers go home; journalists need to be social media leaders
4. NYT publishes news of its own economic woes
5. Building a Twitter strategy