The journalism of the future will likely feature more participation by readers, new technologies, coverage of broader global issues and more points of view, according to the panelists who spoke at the 10th World Media Luncheon Forum on May 25.
“The most successful journalism initiatives in the future will have to provide value-added news,” said Jan Schaffer, executive director of the Institute for Interactive Journalism at the University of Maryland. “Those that offer just duplicative, me-too news will not survive. It’s more noise in an already very noisy media environment.”
Schaffer, who is former executive director of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, asked, “What is [journalists’] mission in life? Are we simply serving passive spectators of a daily civic freak show, or are we inspiring people to be active participants in a self-governing society?”
People want to be “involved,” she noted, and to meet that need the journalism of the future will not just be “story telling” but “allowing other people to make stories.” A number of online news outlets are already doing that, with the result that you “involve people in the solution,” for example by donating funds online to help beautify a bridge that connects Ohio and Kentucky—such as for a bench, a flower planter, or paint—a project of WCPO-TV in Cincinnati.
Journalism schools should equip their students with a wider perspective of knowledge and experience to prepare them for their role in society, said Dr. Jannette Dates, dean of the John H. Johnson School of Communications at Howard University.
“Journalism is not just a craft or a profession,” she said. “It’s the linchpin of the foundation of democracy. ... Since our country’s beginnings, journalists have been entrusted by the public to enlighten them with the information they need to have quality debates for making wise decisions.
“Even with the new technologies,” she added, “journalists are going to have to be helping to lead the way for people to sort through all the information that is coming at them and try to figure out where they stand.”
Unfortunately, she noted, whereas American society is quite diverse and there is a need for “all perspectives to be understood in our news reports,” that diversity is lacking in newsrooms. Year after year, the number of minorities in newsrooms, and enrolled in journalism and mass communications studies, shows little change. Even as new non-white recruits come into newsrooms, others leave because of frustration at how they are received.
“If we are to have responsible journalism in the future,” Dr. Dates said, “we need to have diverse groups of journalists shaping the stories we hear. The single voice of just one group (white males) through whose eyes all messages are shaped is not a balanced representation of the day’s events in a context that gives them meaning.”
Also on the panel was Michael Marshall, editor in chief of United Press International, which is owned by News World Communications Inc, also parent company of The Washington Times. NWC and the Times were founded by Rev. Sun Myung Moon, he explained, as well as other media entities. His purpose as a religious leader in founding or purchasing media organizations is so that they “undertake a public responsibility in helping to bring about conflict resolution, not through mediating but through simply offering as full information as possible about the different sides and people involved in disputes.”
Behind that, he added, is the “underlying idea that news organizations have to be responsible for the impact of what they print or put out on the air.”
In saying that media has a responsibility to address important issues in a constructive way, “we’re not saying that you’ve got to preach a certain set of moral tenets,” Marshall continued. “Only that you look at the reality and say that choices have consequences. These are the consequences.”