Over the past week, the media's coverage of events has been absolutely deplorable. From CNN's imaginary suspects, the New York Post's false accusations and the onslaught of 24 hour speculation by both traditional and non-traditional media that that cycles through our brains at breakneck speeds, it's easy to see why the media is not held in high regard. As a journalism major at a well-known J-School, my peers and I have been absolutely disgusted by how the media has handled this event.
In one of my first journalism classes, I remember very distinctly a lecture on the subject of breaking news. The lecture was on covering disaster events both man-made and natural. The lecturer was a former CNN reporter who covered 9/11.
"The first rule of breaking news is that it's almost always wrong," he said. "It's better to be late and right than first and wrong."
It sounds like a cliche but we've seen the truth of this statement played out before our eyes this week. Except for significant details (like the fact that the marathon was bombed) reporters have recanted hundreds upon hundreds of false declarations.
This sentiment is pounded into our heads in our classes. If we make what is called an "error of fact," (misspelled/mispronounced name, place, title, incorrect age, location, time, etc.) we automatically fail the assignment. Even if we commit no style errors, one fact error results in a total loss of points. In my opinion, that's the way it should be.
But it isn't.
Out in the real media world, reporter's jobs are in the hands of corporations with the sole purpose of making as much money as possible. No matter which type of media, the formula is the same: eyeballs equal money. The more viewers you have the more you can charge for advertising. The best way to attract viewers in sensationalism. It hearkens back to the first days of the penny-press, when newspapers like the New York Sun would print stories of moon-people to attract readership.
The media has not stopped. We created a war with Spain in 1898 and we helped to create a war in 2003 in Iraq; all for the sake of additional viewers.
So why does it seem like the media just gets worse and worse at its job?
In truth, because they are. Once upon a time, news was like milk. It was delivered to your house at specific times and you consumed it at specific intervals. It went great with breakfast and coffee. You took your time consuming it and the media could count on your consumption of its news in the same manner every day. Even the advent of radio and broadcast television didn't alter this dynamic. News was still doled out to the masses in a controlled, orderly fashion.
Somewhere along the line, news transformed from milk to electricity. Beginning with the arrival of cable news and rising to a fortissimo with the internet and social media, control of news access shifted from the provider to the subscriber. Instead of being told when and how to consume your news, anyone could plug themselves in to the lightning-fast stream of events.
This presented a problem for media companies. If you could get your news from anyone, anywhere at any time, what incentive do you have to turn to traditional sources? The value of traditional media advertising plummeted and companies hemorrhaged advertisers.
To rectify this issue, two approaches were born. One path was long-form and niche reporting (more like magazines). Companies decided to focus on one segment of news and do it extremely well. Some of my favorite websites, The Verge and ArsTechnica are examples of this style.
However, most media sources took the second path: faster and faster news. They wanted to be first. They felt they needed to be first in order to regain the following they lost. In doing so, they became sloppier and sloppier. They forgot not only the first rule of breaking news, but the first rule of reporting in general: "If your mother says she loves you, check it out."
And that is where we are today, where the members of a relatively small online community can report on breaking news events both faster and more accurately than all the combined resources of a giant media conglomerate.