The journalist John Lloyd has written extensively about the relationship between journalism and power. It’s at the heart of a book I am writing, so I asked John to send me a summary of his views that I had heard him express at a conference a couple of years ago. The idea that interested me sounds obvious, but is not often set out. Journalism is powerful mainly because it organises itself into professional institutions. This gives the individual journalist, or act of journalism, support and resource. If you lose those institutions (for example if we all turned into bloggers!) do you lose the journalism? Here’s John’s view in full that he was kind enough to send me and that I will quote in part in the book.
“Newspapers and broadcast news divisions have power. All journalism is a matter of power, for only by exercising power of various sorts can journalism have any effect. That power includes the major one – to stimulate and organise public opinion in one direction or another, and in so doing put pressure on the political level – being part of the political process, which journalism has always in some measure been. Even broadcast news in the UK, where the rules on neutrality remain strict, is part of the political process – in the sense that it sets a standard of truth telling which the rest of the political process feels bound, or should feel bound, to emulate. It also includes the ability to inspire fear in (especially) public figures – the fear ranging from being reported as acting in an unethical fashion through to being caught having an affair. .
To have that power news organisations need to be organisations – which have a collective memory, a clear goal, ideals, a commercial department which preserves or enhances their power by increasing their reach and influence, a legal department which will protect them from legal challenge, a training and mentoring facility which brings their staff up to the required levels of competence and increasingly retrains them in the use of changing technology, a reputation in the world which will assist reporters to gain entrance and have calls taken, a career structure and a pension plan, so it can attract people who see it as something worth doing for at least part of their life. That is, such organisations professionalise the collection of news, and thus give it a structure.
Without that, it’s hard to see how it could keep going: or at least, the nature of news collection and news dissemination would have to be rethought – and (in my view) another organisational structure or structures would have to be invented which reproduced at least some of the elements above.”
Charlie,
this is very interesting.
It looks like John Lloyd’s thoughts point to the impossibility for “true”, “real” journalism (however you want to call it) outside an “organization” — and a big organization, at that. If that were the case, the future of journalism would look bleak indeed, since I hardly se a big future for big for profit news organizations, in terms of mere economics. But if one gets beyhond this, John’s remarks may have a more positive development.
In the last few weeks I have been thinking about “organizing the unorganized”. Since a lot of journalists are working and producing solo, and more and more “acts of journalism” are committed every day by non professional, I wonder wether we could plan for professional organizations that could provide services, training and the possibility of person-to-person discussions that usually happen in traditional newsroom. It could be associations, it could be non profit corporations, or (why not) low profit making companies. Maybe something like the old “Foreign press clubs” one met almost everywhere in the world, but with a more deliberate intent.
As an Italian I am of course deeply worried that any such idea should translate in public or semi-public institutions like our state controlled “Ordine dei giornalisti”, but I suppose ways can be found (and funded) to help journalism – and journalist – survive the era of the declining news organization.
Hi Mario,
I think that is an interesting idea. As you know I welcome the growth of ‘non-official’ journalism. In the end it all gets networked. I can imagine that clubs and centres will grow up in the same way as support services have evolved for technology enterprises. But I think John’s key point is about power. Will those networks and clubs have the collective strength to maintain a sustained function in holding power to account?
regards
Charlie
A couple of thoughts and the first one may be just a wee bit cheeky or impertinent but here goes.
Firstly, I do wonder if ‘conventional’ or ‘traditional’ journalists are still lacking a necessary degree of objectivity, even humility, about their role and impact. Over the past few years I have had cause to look over the Times newspaper at the weekend – and especially the Sunday Times. I found that almost every feature had a particular right-wing take. Now you may not find that a surprising observation – but I found it was true to the extent of an impression at times of a quite crude and specious ‘line’ imbuing most articles on most things. I’m sure I’m not the only reader who quickly learned to discount, and devalue, whatever one read in that newspaper and that was purported to be ‘news’ or ‘report’.
In such print media organisations, I wonder to what extent the journalist is being supported, even protected, by the organisation; rather than it being the case that the journalist is retained, constrained and instructed to process a generic editorial/proprietorial line no matter what the subject matter.
As for the BBC… well I will pass over whilst trying not to nauseate, over the unbowed appearance of Andrew Marr on ‘his’ Sunday morning programme on BBC television at the very end of the week in which his super-injunction activities against fellow-journalists had been exposed. The slow process of debasement of news values in the BBC means that ‘the frontman’ is so often ‘the news’ (it’s Andrew Marr’s Sunday programme, just as it’s Andrew Marr’s cities series). But when ‘the frontman’ seeks to secretely despoil the news reporting field for colleagues, he continues unabashed… what price journalism… when does a lack of objectivity or humility become hubris?
Related to that last question, I think that many ‘traditional’ journalists are way under-appreciating the power and influence of the ‘wisdom of crowds’ aspect of the internet; blogs et al. My recent initial forays into the networking citizen reporter domain convinces me that this is the way forward.
I well know a high profile politician in the West of Scotland with a bit of the ‘colourful’ lifestyle around him. He, frankly, holds little fear of much of the regional printed media – cronyism amongst the media-celeb world, and institutional place-people, embolden him. I, however, have heard him recently enquiring anxiously of a mutual acquaintance, “you’re not going to put anything about that in your blog are you?”
That, for me, is an example of where the individual, but networked, citizen journalist could be working in collaboration with the mainstream ‘traditional’ journalist.
I appreciate that what I related above is just one little anecdote, and a highly subjective one at that. It, nevertheless, may still be indicative of a wider realpolitic that UK politicians adhere to.
I know Charlie, that you are much interested in this networked citizen journalist theme and I look forward to what you say on it in your book.