Panel Discussion
In the media we trust… or should we? 11 October 2007
Kind words are seldom reserved for the media, referred to with suspicion for over a century as “the Fourth Estate,” and recently by former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair as “feral beasts.” While nothing new, speakers agreed that mistrust in the media today is an increased risk for the profession. The primary reasons evoked were new technology, changing patterns of ownership, increased competition to be first with a story and the temptation of sensationalism. Often, these reasons overlap. The same new technology that has made every citizen a potential online journalist has also increased media’s speed of response and in turn the public’s demand for immediacy. “It used to be that between the wire story’s arrival and that of the film footage, we had time to think about how to present the information,” Christine Ockrent recalled. “Now the pictures arrive before the story, which is often reduced to little more than a headline,” she said. With its concomitant risk of oversimplification, she concluded, “speed has become quality journalism’s worst enemy.” CNN’s Rena Golden concurred, warning that “media today need to be careful that speed doesn’t become more important than the story.” But she tempered the pessimism, arguing that speed is just a fact of life now, and isn’t in itself a reason to distrust the media. “Incremental news reporting is what the consumer has come to expect,” at least from a 24-hour news provider, she said. With that expectation comes ever greater pressure on traditional providers to vet their sources and ensure accuracy. “News organizations that build trust do so one story at a time,” she cautioned. Indeed, new technology allows consumers to hold traditional media accountable by giving them the chance to respond publicly and immediately, John Thornhill pointed out. Between bloggers and Web-active readers, “If you make a mistake, you hear about it,” he said. Perhaps paradoxically for an editor of the Financial Times, Thornhill stated that while competition had positive aspects such as increasing consumer choice and giving a voice to the voiceless, it “is the greatest threat to quality journalism.” Competition has had a negative impact, Thornhill said, in pushing media to focus on what sells: entertainment over information. While CNN’s Golden disagreed, arguing that “competition makes us better, not worse,” she echoed Thornhill’s concerns over commercial pressure to favour popularity over other standards of newsworthiness. She expressed these concerns in response to moderator Liz Padmore’s criticism of CNN for once superimposing a banner announcing Paris Hilton’s release from jail over coverage of a serious international news story. Answering Padmore’s question “Who cares about Paris Hilton?” Golden replied, “I wish they didn’t care, but we can actually measure exactly how much they care. This is the conundrum of modern media.” In other words, trust in media and quality journalism also depend on the consumer - it’s a two-way street. If the public complains about the quality of its media, while consistently choosing sensationalism, who is ultimately responsible for the erosion of trust? “It’s no longer the pundits that rule the media, it’s the consumer,” Christine Ockrent stated, adding that “the question is, is the consumer right in wanting disposable news that is essentially trivia?” The responsibility of citizens for contributing to mistrust is quite evident in the new media sphere, speakers agreed. Ockrent said that while there are citizen journalists providing valuable accounts and information on the Web, “you also have people expressing their opinions to millions, telling you what they think you should think.” Such sources of information are dangerous because of the lack of control. “How do you know that the supposed auto mechanic blogging away isn’t an oil executive?” she asked, adding that the only rule online is that anything goes. “If you think traditional media are manipulative, look at the Internet,” she said. Dina Mehta, blogger and researcher from India, said it was time to shed either/or attitudes towards traditional media as compared to new citizen-generated media. “The debate should evolve to view these as complementary forms,” she said, drawing a parallel to medicine today. “I respect my doctor’s diagnosis but that doesn’t prevent me from going online to hear from people who have had the same disease." ________________________ |