Has the internet killed any resemblance of good journalism?

I was sitting last night during the rain delay at the NASCAR race watching the media do their thing. From my vantage point I can see a lot of the pit road. While there I was taking notice where the different reporters were from so I could check out their work because I have found some interesting points of view by doing that.

So I got back home today and was reading most it and it was mostly just pure garbage. Either it's just TMZ journalism or they trying to make a story about nothing at with no depth at all.

GRM does an awesome job and has set my bar high so maybe it's just an expectation thing.

Is there something here I'm missing?

Are you talking about motorsport journalism, or journalism in general?

Good journalism still exists but is is tremendously outweighed by bombastic garbage because bombastic garbage generates clicks.

He was watching a race on TV--you won't believe what happened next!

I think traditional Journalism as a whole, has gotten very lazy. I used to work for a television station, watching it today is heart wrenching compared to the stuff we used to cover "live".

For real journalism, you need to look overseas.. BBC, Der Spiegel, and Al Jazeera come to mind

Don't blame the internet for faults that belong to writers, editors and bean counters EVERYWHERE.

Personally, I'd like to go back in time and deliver nad kicks to Roone Arledge and all the purveyors of advocacy journalism.

Long live the 5 W's....

They haven't found this one weird trick to writing good stories yet.

The biggest thing that's happened is the need to report instant news 24x7, even if there isn't any actual news to report.

The blending of news with opinion is the downfall. Remember when CNN Headline News was "around the world in 30 minutes"? Now it is HLN and full of E36 M3.

I'd like to see a rule where "news" outlets are required to produce at least 80% news. Opinion doesn't count.

One of our lesser-known real-life supervillains is actively killing it off:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/05/virologist

stuart in mn wrote: The biggest thing that's happened is the need to report instant news 24x7, even if there isn't any actual news to report.

Exactly this.

The need to be on the air all the time created a "what's-next, what's-next, what's-next" mentality and created a short attention span society. In depth is dead, long live the headline click bait!

KyAllroad wrote:

stuart in mn wrote: The biggest thing that's happened is the need to report instant news 24x7, even if there isn't any actual news to report.

Exactly this. The need to be on the air all the time created a "what's-next, what's-next, what's-next" mentality and created a short attention span society. In depth is dead, long live the headline click bait!

Agreed. It appears the only thing worse than saying something idiotic is saying nothing.

It all started with the great Walter Kronkite in 1968. And I love the man.

All of this is why I use you guys as my news filter.

If it makes it on here, it's probably worth a read.

Thanks for the kind words. Whether it's journalism or anything, really: Doing it right is hard. Go read something by Steven Cole Smith. There's a lot research and institutional knowledge in there.

(By the way, I'm super-exhausted, so this post may or may not make sense; don't worry, I'm not journalisming right now.)

In reply to mad_machine:

It's not a matter of laziness as much as it's having the ever-loving E36 M3 kicked out of the industry. Healthy newsrooms once teeming with people and resources have been gutted. Often there's just a handful of people putting out an entire paper with no technical help whatsoever. I started at a busy local newspaper in 1988. This was an award-winning publication once owned by Robertson Davies, and one of the most quoted papers in the country. After Conrad Black was done scavenging it, and the rest of the chain, we no longer even had a pressroom. And it got worse. Most papers now have editors assembling editions for several regions, and it's all printed at one site.

Online pubs are under ever more pressure for clicks, to maintain their advertising. That's why there's such a gross proliferation of the silly clickbait headlines. Of course those views don't necessarily stem from people who are in a position to actually buy the products, but hey, it's the bottom line that counts. One of the sites I write for is owned by Auto Trader. Great site, and we're actually given some freedom to turn in creative feature stories. But those features just don't get the views that "Russian Dash Cam –You Won't Believe What He Does Next".

You want to see good quality, long-form journalism continue to exist? You've got to support it. That's the bottom line. There have been a lot of publications folding recently, and what I have noticed is that the remaining ones aren't hiring the kids who'll work cheap anymore. That's great news for those of us with actual writing chops, and it's good news for readers as well.

I was working the Nascar race last night at TMS. I hear you about the super exhausted David. We didn't get done till almost 2 AM by the time we got the trucks broke down and put up.

The overall comment was driven by Motorsports but I've just seen it in general. I love hearing and reading good commentary but for example, I was reading one online article that managed to have 2 facts incorrect in a 3 paragraph article.

Finding good thought provoking reading is getting harder and harder.

Ditto on the exhaustion. Also ditto on the unquenchable appetite for instant gratification in sound bites, 24/7. I frequently travel to new car launches. Woo hoo, right? Well yeah... except that traveling all the time is exhausting. We often jump straight into the car right off the plane (the cars are sometimes at the airport), Drive all day in a strange country, unfamiliar car, sometimes a little track, then two or three hours of manufacturer koolaid and technical data. THEN, I hit my room and write – sometimes having been up close to 24 hours. The poor bastard in editorial who's been tasked with getting my story up immediately can't go home (or go to bed, depending on the time zone) until it's been processed and posted. But my paper's always got to be first.

yes

I was a journalist and then editor at a newspaper for 5 years. Not worth doing it. I paid more in taxes this year, 5 years after starting a new career, than I made as a reporter.

No, the internet hasn't. People/readers have.

There are still good sources out there, choose them wisely. There is a lot of crap, but there is plenty of appetite for that crap apparently.

DaveEstey wrote: I was a journalist and then editor at a newspaper for 5 years. Not worth doing it. I paid more in taxes this year, 5 years after starting a new career, than I made as a reporter.

This. I have a Journalism degree, when I graduated college at the end of 2005, had I taken a job with the Tulsa World, I think the starting pay was $24k per year.

Nope, sorry. Didn't go to college to make less than an Assistant manager at QT.

I do miss quality investigative journalism. Although there still is some out there.

It is interesting listening to radio news people though, they (at least the one I listen to) always qualify what they say and seem to have done reasonable work finding facts (no opinion etc). Refreshing actually and I do appreciate the effort.

The internet makes it a bit too easy to "steal" news.

After the collapse of print magazines it was tough for writers to have a staff job that paid well. Most good ones are freelancers now.

stuart in mn wrote: The biggest thing that's happened is the need to report instant news 24x7, even if there isn't any actual news to report.

That was also the death of due diligence and humility for when they get it wrong. Seriously, try to find any mention of a retraction of a story anymore.