Web Journalist Says Web is Destroying Journalism

The Internet is destroying journalism, according to Internet journalist Joshua Micah Marshall, the award-winning founder of TalkingPointsMemo (TPM). In a Friday speech at a Harvard conference on the future of the web, Marshall said traditional reporters are "terrorized" by economic and competitive challenges, living with a mix of "denial and fatalism" about the future of their craft -- and their livelihoods. When openings for entry-level jobs are posted at Marshall's site, for example, he said applications come in from senior investigate journalists struggling to find a job. The industry changes are bad for journalists, Marshall argued, but good for journalism.

As traditional journalism breaks apart, a new form of open, interactive, networked and, most importantly, iterative reporting is thriving online.
TPM is powered by an energetic band of readers and activists who participate in gathering news. Marshall calls it "intimacy" -- a collaboration between writers and readers -- and it clearly drives research, traffic and stickiness. In complex, long-term stories like the U.S. attorney scandal and the fight over privatizing social security, TPM tapped readers to gather information, interview congressional staff and upload evolving political intelligence. While readers may be motivated by policy or political goals, their work product can still be objective information. For social security, Marshall said readers built a better virtual list of politicians' stances than anything tabulated by the traditional media or the White House.

Open reporting can also diversify and democratize the sources that reporters use. Journalists come to rely on "professional sources," Marshall explained, both for expertise (they know something) and convenience (they know how to deal with the press and speak in quotes). Interactive media websites can draw on more sources with more niche expertise, even if they don't speak in quotes. So why should non-media people care?

I think this is good for public discourse because it can (slowly) shift authority from a small clique of connected experts to a larger universe of niche experts and informed participants. The modern spin industry embeds itself in all kinds of media via these "professional sources," along with think tanks, shadow groups and online astroturf. Open reporting can organically route around that spin. (Or at least make it more transparent and expensive, if people try to game comment sections.)

Finally, when asked by a conference attendee to define the new role he built, Marshall stressed that he is still a traditional "journalist." He just operates in a different landscape.

Ari Melber is the Net movement correspondent for The Nation, where this post first appeared. Check out the Net Movement Politics Facebook Group.

Comments

[MinerSam]

I don't quite agree...so far.

WhiLe the Mob of the Internet has the potential to fight the march towards totalitarianism under the Republicans and their appeasers in the Main Street Media beholden to them for Media Consolidation.

What this hit and miss process can easily loses are the CONTEXT, PROPORTION AND FACTS that help people form "HONEST" opionions and make constuctive political choices that benefit their interests. And has the power to amplify the Brainawashing.

The result of this is already evident as Conventional Wisdom more and more becomes a clump of calcified disinformation.

Regarding governance it mean that the PHONY* PR** GAME OF POLITICS, SLOGANS AND FREE ASSOCIATION, and the blind leading the blind Trump POLICY AND THE **Underlying** SUBSTANCE
that can impact our lives for ever.

The campaign to destroy Hillary Clinton, here AND through the MSM is a perfect example. Yet she is a better person and would make a much better President, based on the INCONVENIENT FACTS
that have been drowned out by the mob and her Opoenent's PR savy campaign with limtted substance behind it.

I worked on the first generations of products that connect computers to each other, have had EMAIL, Instant messaging and interest groups for 27 years. Just because guests of Bill Moyers are right some of the times doesn't mean they are always right. The increase in volume means it takes much more effort to come to ones own conclusions.

[wayoutleft]

i am very pessimistic that blogging can destroy journalism fast enough to prevent journalism from instituting perpetual war and an accompanying "soft dictatorship" of the military.

[OtayPanky]

Marshall said traditional reporters are "terrorized" by economic and competitive challenges, living with a mix of "denial and fatalism" about the future of their craft -- and their livelihoods.

===

I empathize.

My buggy whip business went to hell in a handbasket when that damn Henry Ford started running that assembly line.

[TruthAndConsequences]

Haw haw. Buggy whips are not critical to a healthy democracy, but decent reporting is. And because newspapers -- still the backbone of all reporting in any medium -- are struggling to survive, so is the future of democracy. So sit back and enjoy the cleverness of your snarky remark, but in the end it's just snarkiness that disguises being ill-informed.

Online reporting ain't gonna cut it if we hope to have un-sexy nuts-and-bolts stories covering what's going on at the local level, the kind you get in a local newspaper, but noone will want to do online. It doesn't pay enough -- it actually pays worse than pathetic average newspaper salaries. So what we will have is a lot of coverage of big stories but zero coverage of what's going on a layer or two beneath that, where a lot of corruption lies.

[dadw5boys]

The Internet is doing nothing to Journalism but forcing REAL JOURNALIST to do their work better than they have in the past. Loose stories without truth or substance is tossed quickly and the people move on looking for that truth and hard work to find the facts.

[SamEllison]

When I think of Josh, I think of Larry Johnson's censored blog, sorry.

[bentenrai]

Remember that democracy is initially chaotic, but eventually you get some form of order out of it.

[GinnyinCO]

I think this is a good overview of what is happening. I've been utterly disgusted with some posts, underwhelmed with even 'professional' bloggers, and blown away by some in depth efforts by specialists, experts and just plain determined individuals (who bring to mind the parents in "Lorenzo's Oil").

Meanwhile, Taylor Marsh has actually realized that too many of her bloggers have gone overboard.

http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=27700

Apparently she has some wonderful post coming. Could be something like Johnson has up for speculation;

http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?entry=8533

Doubt it is the latest reality check.

http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=97073

[lisakaz2]

Seems to me the corporate MSM has been detroying journalism for the past few decades (before the internet really took off).

[burnt]

"I think this is good for public discourse because it can (slowly) shift authority from a small clique of connected experts to a larger universe of niche experts and informed participants."

Good analysis Ari. I don't know how "slowly" is being defined... my guess is that the definition is relative to any of the different types of players in the equation. Perhaps "slowly" is being applied as a relaxant for those most affected. In any case... I see nothing slow about the change at all.

From one election cycle to the next, we have experienced the blogosphere's "coming of age". I'm certain that the full consequences won't become crystal to most until some degree of hindsight is achieved after November, but from my viewpoint, the change has been impressive and all-encompassing... and the force behind Obama's message of change.

For those old guard journalists who consistently refuse to accept those changes and point to those pushing the new paradigm as "dangerous" at best, I would suggest that your doors of opportunity might be closing... and if you were to become just a bit more aware, you might find that it is YOU, who are most responsible.

It's true, you might have to become part of a pool of contributors where you once garnered top billing... but perhaps you might fit well in United Bloggers International or Associated Bloggers... you won't know until you try.

[Ari Melber - Huffpost Blogger]

See Ari Melber's Profile

Thanks. By "slowly" I was basically thinking several years, not months...