Context Matters: The Dangers of Sound-Bite Journalism

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2010/08/13/Jay_Rosen_The_Future_of_Context

Modern media allow for the dissemination of virtually limitless amounts of information, but are news outlets taking full advantage of this capability? In an appeal to media professionals, NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen argues that thorough context is vital to discourse.

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As audiences and consumers of the news become increasingly wary of the journalists and media outlets that produce it, academic and blogger Jay Rosen calls for a rethink of the underlying methods of news production.

He claims news has become so incremental and fluid that audiences lack the necessary background knowledge to make sense of the information they are receiving. Rosen also notes that journalists have become captives of deadlines and are forgoing context for timeliness.

But as production and distribution become cheaper, easier and more flexible, Rosen argues there is a need for journalists and reporters to reclaim their role as "explainers," taking a Socratic position on behalf of their audiences.

Jay Rosen was speaking at the ABC's Ultimo Centre in Sydney, with ABC Radio's "PM" presenter Mark Colvin. - Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Jay Rosen is the author of PressThink, a weblog about journalism and its ordeals (www.pressthink.org), which he introduced in September 2003. In June 2005, PressThink won the Reporters Without Borders 2005 Freedom Blog award for outstanding defense of free expression. In April 2007 PressThink recorded its two millionth visit.

He also blogs at the Huffington Post. In July 2006 he announced the debut NewAssignment.Net, his experimental site for pro-am, open source reporting projects. The first one was called Assignment Zero, a collaboration with Wired.com. A second project is OfftheBus.Net with the Huffington Post.

Rosen is also a member of the Wikipedia Advisory Board.

In 1999, Yale University Press published his book, What Are Journalists For?, which is about the rise of the civic journalism movement. Rosen wrote and spoke frequently about civic journalism (also called public journalism) over a ten-year period, 1989-99. From 1993 to 1997 he was the director of the Project on Public Life and the Press, funded by the Knight Foundation.

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[ForaTv]

For commenters suggesting this video is ironic: Prof. Rosen's complete hour-long presentation is available for free on the FORA website (as are most of our programs). Link is in the video description. :)

Thanks for watching, FORAtv

[Mineretta2012]

That would be great if journalists would do that. It would save me some time. I have been doing my own research to fill in the blanks and it is exhausting. I have become so informed though at this point that people can no longer give me the little head line talk and get a way with it anymore because I know too much. I also know enough to know what I don't know and what they don't know. I also think there is much laziness in journalism these days. Television news is especially lazy (ugh).

[MarmaladeINFP]

@doctender77 I think mainstream television/cable news merely exists to comfort old people as they retire and as their influence lessens. I think this is why news is becoming increasingly infotainment. Old people are out of touch and the mainstream media doesn't even pretend to inform their older audience to any great degree. People who watch shows like O'Reilly are those who made up their minds about politics decades ago and aren't looking for new info for the most part.

[MarmaladeINFP]

@doctender77 The mainstream news is made for old people. The average age of viewers of tv & cable news (& listeners of radio talk shows) is around retirement age. Younger people get their news from the New Media on the internet. I'm sure older people are more well informed about mainstream topics just because they've been alive longer, but my sense is that younger people have broader knowledge about the world. More importantly, younger people know how to seek out multiple sources & vet them.

[doctender77]

@MarmaladeINFP Is it ironic or scary that in this so called information age mainstream television news gives us so little actual information and what we do get is so often misleading?

[SmokeRingsPipeDreams]

There is a view by college educated people (like this speaker) that they should run the world because they have a degree and therefore know better than the "great unwashed". This is elitism at it's worst. And it is creating a great devide between the common man, and those who are in power. But as I said in my previous posts, I believe the elite don't have a clue about that issues really mean because there are unaffected by them because of their status. Therefore they are the ignorant ones.

[SmokeRingsPipeDreams]

Continued from my first comment: But the truth is, it is the media elite who don't understand the real impact of issues because they live in a world that most people do not live. And so they are not affected in the same way the common man is. The common man can barely afford many important things in life, so taxes are a major issue. But dan rather is so rich that taxes do not change his lifestyle in the least. Where taxes do have a great impact on the common man. The media elite do not get it.

[SmokeRingsPipeDreams]

I understand what this fellow is saying, but his ussumption that the comman man lacks the "nessesary background" to "understand" who do understand the issues is wrong headed. I think the common man does have the skills to understand issues which concern him/her. The new should inform us of the facts, but so often the news people consider themselves an elite who instead of informing, see their job as propagandists to change the minds of the dumb public who they see as the great unwashed. cont.:

[GOPsithlord]

It's vital to remember that of all media's biases, the absolute worst is the one that goes to the lowest common denominator. Media has become canibalized in many ways by technology that promises to bring information to us faster. All of this while a wonder is nothing when compared to the sheer amount of time it takes to research sources that give information context and depth, adding value to what the consumer already knows. This type of reporting is long gone.

[MarmaladeINFP]

@Mineretta2012 I think the first reality tv show on US television was COPS. Unlike later reality tv shows, COPS was actually based on reality rather than scripted reality. I think shows like COPS would today be considered a mainstream news show. :)

Being a GenXer, I learned young to mistrust any given source even if seemingly respectable. I didn't grow up with any news reporters that everyone trusted. I actually remember as a student in 7th grade being taught to look for bias.

[MarmaladeINFP]

@Mineretta2012 Did you see the interview Soledad O'Brien did with Imam Rauf? Soledad was completely antagonistic and she didn't even pretend to be professionally objective. It was like watching an audition tape for Fox News. I don't watch CNN that much and so I was surprised to discover how extremely biased they can be.

[Mineretta2012]

@MarmaladeINFP Don't even get me started on the Reality TV (ugh) Not that it is all bad there is some that is worth watching. I have watched the wife swap and found that not only enjoyable but also enlightening. You must also be warned that even encyclopaedias are not reporting well. I was helping my niece write a paper on a subject I know alot about and we opened an encyclopaedia and I was astonished at what was written.I told her that the information was incorrect. I mean flagrantly incorrect.