Interesting article from the latest …

Interesting article from the latest issue of The Economist on British journalism:

British journalism Hacks at work Feb 21st 2008 From The Economist print edition

JOURNALISTS have a pleasantly heroic self-image of down-at-heel crusaders dedicated to exposing falsehood, promoting justice and speaking truth to power. But that image is shared by few others: hacks routinely come near the bottom of surveys of public trust, sharing that honour with other perpetual hate-figures such as politicians or estate agents.

Nick Davies's latest book will only stoke such contempt. A long-serving reporter on the Guardian, a British daily, Mr Davies turns his investigative skills on his own profession. The picture he paints of journalism (almost entirely British despite the “global” in his subtitle) is of a debased trade in which rumour and unchecked speculation often masquerade as fact, where staff cuts mean that vast swathes of national life simply go unreported and where overstressed and underfunded reporters are easy prey for influence-peddlers, liars and conmen. As a British poet called Humbert Wolfe once wrote,

You cannot hope to bribe or twist, Thank God, the British journalist. But seeing what the man will do Unbribed, there's no occasion to! Mr Davies has the advantage of being familiar with his subject. That helps him avoid traps that less informed critics sometimes stumble into. He dismisses the idea that journalists are simply malicious gossip-mongers (although some are) and rejects wilder theories that there is a sinister, organised conspiracy to mislead the public (although the chapters on media manipulation by politicians and intelligence agencies are fascinating). And he largely exonerates most proprietors of attempting ideologically to influence their newspapers. Instead, he argues, it is the discipline of the market that ruins reporting. Treating journalism as simply another business has led to disastrous cost-cutting and slipping standards.

Citing research done by Cardiff University, Mr Davies argues that the number of journalists in Britain is roughly the same today as it was 20 years ago. But the rise of supplements, websites and 24-hour services means that the same number of reporters must now fill three times as much space. The result he dubs “churnalism”: more demand for copy means more time spent in airless offices and less spent out and about gathering stories. That, he says, makes reporters vulnerable to the “hidden persuaders”—PR firms, press offices and advertisers—who now seem to have more power and influence than the journalists they ostensibly serve. The same research claims that 60% of stories in Britain's quality papers are either recycled press-agency copy or rehashes of PR releases.

Mr Davies's argument that ruthless cost-cutting has damaged reporting is a powerful one, but it addresses only half the question. Markets excel at supplying what their customers want, but the book contains no discussion of readers' tastes. Much modern journalism may be rubbish, but it continues to sell in large quantities. And there is an unmistakable whiff of a golden age that never truly existed.

It is customary, at the end of books as critical as this one, to offer one or two thoughts on how to improve things. But Mr Davies suggests that the problem is terminal and offers few ideas. He finishes with a quotation from Joseph Pulitzer that “a cynical, mercenary, demagogic, corrupt press will produce in time a people as base as itself.” But it is another, pithier quote from Matt Drudge, the American owner of a news-collection website, that sticks in the mind: “Screw journalism. The whole thing's a fraud, anyway.”