After more than a week of receiving numerous e-mail reminders and nudges by their professors, students didn't disappoint in showing up to Convocation Hall on Thursday for the much anticipated "Losing the News" lecture given by Alex Jones, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of a book by the same name, Losing the News (Oxford 2009). Numerous locals, professors, and even out-of-towners, filled seats to the point where plastic folding chairs were being set up just moments before Jones walked up to the podium. With a silk tie, glasses, and a fountain pen in his front pocket, Alex Jones doesn't fit the radical stereotype that his baby-boomer generation status would suggest. However, he is radical in another way. Alex Jones wants us to change the way we get our news.
It has been no secret that newspapers have been declining in sales, experiencing a 10% drop in circulation. Online news sources have provided the exact same content for free and with much more convenience for a while now. The premise of the lecture, that there is a "decline [in] the responsible journalism that has given the public a reference for making informed decisions," lies in this phenomenon. To put it simply, hard-nosed, fact-based journalism costs a lot of money that newspapers with lower sales, can no longer afford. For that reason, many newspapers resort to a "financial play." They generate their revenue from sections on sports, comics, puzzle pages, celebrity scandals, and social events rather than what Jones calls the "iron core" of journalism. This "iron core" consists of serious, life-effecting, national, and international issues like politics, policy, and government. Yet, when this type of news is reported it lacks two main components of journalism, what Jones calls the "standard of objectivity" and the "ethical standard."
The "standard of objectivity," says Jones, "is born from the idea that there is a practical truth not an abstract one." Meaning that reporters don't blindly give equal weight to all sources. They dig into their story, and find the actual truth without regard to their personal belief system, or political leanings. If a reporter is a pro-choice activist, he still reports the truth about partial-birth abortions. Another component, the ethical standard, is based on the idea that "you don't publish all you know just because you know it," says Jones. "There are other considerations," he added. For example, an ethical journalist or newspaper company in general should not publish national secrets.
Unfortunately, meeting these standards and providing hard-nosed investigative journalism becomes more difficult when the cost is high and the revenue is low. Faulty, sensationalist headlines designed to catch the attention of reader, but not necessarily provide sturdy information is more likely without a "strong, economically viable press," says Jones.
With all this questionable news coverage, it is hard to discern what is true from what is purely entertaining. The public should not have to be confused about whether climate change is happening or what the health care bill really says. The truth simply is not being reported, or it is not reported clearly.
When asked about how to remedy the situation, Jones offers an activist solution, "If you don't subscribe to a newspaper, do, and then use that to write the editor." However, many students don't see this as a viable option in a world that runs online. "It had a sense of urgency that I didn't really empathize with," said Emma Kingsley, C'13, during the discussion panel the following day. She wonders whether we should be focusing on saving newspapers when we could be shifting that focus towards higher quality of all news sources and adapting to the new mindset of readers-readers that are going online for news.
Online subscriptions to news sites seem to be the last hope for the written news, but some gasp at having to pay for what they get for free right now. At the lecture, and the discussion panel, questions were asked about whether this new way of business could save the newspaper industry. Steven Alvarez, a Sewanee local and National Geographic photographer, suggests that "maybe [these] concerns aren't as huge as they might seem at the offset." Meaning that micro-payments have potential since they're so small. The key is whether consumers can trust the content.
Claire Debow, C'10, expressed a similar sentiment. "I can't see myself, as a college student, subscribing to a newspaper." Students read online news because it's convenient and, well, most college students like anything that's free since just attending school can be so expensive.
In the end, no one offered a real solution to the decline in the news industry because no one knows how it can be helped, they just know that the quality must improve. Obviously, the nostalgia that surrounds the newspaper industry is not enough to keep it around. So, like the rest of us, news will just have to adapt to a world where the internet reigns supreme.
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