After a long run with E-Media Tidbits, including several years as editor and wrangler for our great team of contributors, this is my final regular post on Tidbits. I’m moving on. I may contribute occasional Tidbits posts in the future, but for now I need to put this considerable chunk of my time and energy toward other efforts.
I was planning to say something practical for journalists, news organizations and others involved in providing news and information. I wanted to highlight just one last great service, or tool, or trend, or skill or strategy that Tidbits readers could put to good use.
But on final consideration, I realized that I owe my journalism colleagues an apology. And Tidbits is probably the most visible and effective venue to deliver that apology.
In the last few years I’ve developed rather a bad attitude about traditional journalism and news organizations. I’ve felt considerable frustration over what’s seemed to me to be a dangerously slow, insular and elitist approach to adaptation in the news business. I’ve been outraged by what have seemed to me to be foolish, backwards-looking, negligent moves by news management. I’ve ridiculed bureaucratic inertia in news organizations and j-schools. I’ve been pretty blunt about these perspectives and opinions, sometimes in Tidbits and more often elsewhere.
That’s not what I’m apologizing for.
Instead, I’m apologizing for things I failed to say here often enough. Specifically, I didn’t adequately convey the profound compassion and respect I feel for people in the news business, journalism education and journalism organizations — and even some folks in news management, too.
Despite the crusty cynicism of journalism culture, in my experience most journalists demonstrate considerable commitment and passion for their work and the communities they serve. This is especially true when it comes to covering difficult stories, for communities that dearly need the information, and while working in an industry that’s suddenly turned precarious.
In my experience, the vast majority of journalists and editors work very hard and very well, usually without the compensation or recognition they deserve. I am deeply grateful for the efforts of my colleagues in the journalistic trenches. I’m especially awed by journalists who keep doing their work independently, after their job or news org disappears.
My Tidbits posts have mainly focused on new techniques, tools and roles for journalism — probably at the expense of dismissing traditional practice. Well, Poynter did pay me to cover the new stuff. But still, I do recognize the value of traditional journalism practice: fact-checking, corroboration, timeliness, primary sourcing, info evaluation and analysis, story definition, balance, interview skills and just plain persistence. I also recognize that in many situations, the traditional roles, formats and processes developed in newsrooms can help improve the overall quality of news and information that gets published.
I’ve criticized J-schools for missing opportunities to prepare new journalists with skills and mindsets that suit a fast-changing media and career environment, and sometimes for continuing to teach lessons that have lost relevance. I’m not apologizing for that.
However, I know that many journalism educators do excellent, challenging work that grounds students with ethics, skills and insight that will help them in any context. Much of what gets taught in j-school really does need to get taught — and I’ve long thought that all students from high school onward would benefit from basic training and experience in journalism.
I probably haven’t highlighted J-school educational efforts and achievements often enough in my Tidbits posts, and I apologize for that lapse. I’m grateful that we have some of the best journalism educators in the business on the Tidbits team to compensate for my oversight.
Journalism and the news business is facing a difficult, scary, confusing transition. Media just doesn’t work the way it used to, and we’re all trying to do the best we can while we get our feet under us. Many of my colleagues in journalism — who are also my friends — have lost their jobs and, in some cases, their passion and hope for this field. That really hurts.
In that context, my typical enthusiasm for newer or nontraditional approaches to media and journalism has at times lacked compassion or seemed callous. On several occasions Tidbits readers have criticized me for this, both online and to my face. Yes, I can be pretty cocky and flippant, and sometimes I’ve been oblivious to the current pain and struggles of journalists and news orgs. I apologize for that.
I’m grateful to Poynter for giving me such an extended opportunity to have this conversation with my journalism colleagues here on Tidbits. I’m grateful to the community of Tidbits readers who have added so much to this conversation. I’m grateful to Steve Outing for starting Tidbits in the first place. I look forward to continuing this conversation in additional venues, online and elsewhere.
Eventually my attitude toward journalism will improve, I’m certain. I think both journalism and I just need to change more for that to happen. Fortunately, change is the one certainty in life.
If you want to follow what I’m up to, the best places to check are my personal blog Contentious and on Twitter. And please feel free to e-mail me at amy@gahran.com.
Thanks again.
