The new media is coming to Romania, too
Tuesday, 15. January 2008, 09:54:30
First of all, sorry for not keeping my word and starting to blog again in the third week of January; I have a very good excuse: I was quite sick last week. I'm glad to come back and to continue writing. I wish all my readers a very fruitful 2008.
We have an on-going debate in Romania regarding media. The issue at hand is that the media is changing, and that the journalists don't like the change.
The most well known Romanian journalist, Cristian Tudor Popescu, is one of the most vivid critics of the change. His opinion, and some other's as well, is that the new media - meaning blogs, social networks and such - will make the quality of the news to go down the hill.
I believe that this is plain wrong and that he's simply reacting to a reality: the new media is coming, and there's nothing we can do about it.
The argument he makes is that profesional journalists are much better at what they do than the amateurish bloggers, and that they give no chance to the "real" journalists. I will try in the following to prove that he's mistaking, that the quality of the news will be much better and that the really good journalists will survive with no problems.
In my view, there are two types of journalists:
From the first category, the simple workers are not needed anymore in a world where any event is bound to be filmed or photographed by the people happening to be around it. And the technology will go much further; when videos and photos will be automatically tagged with the exact day, time and GPS coordinates of the place from where the recording took place, it will be very easy to automatically mix the photos and videos received in order to obtain the best possible view of the event.
We will however need journalists that are making great efforts to get the news: investigation journalists, people that gather materials from all possible sources, analyze them and go even further. In the end, the best of them will remain, whatever happens.
From the second category, the people that remain need to have something more than just analytical skills. We live in a world where all news go online while they are happening, and they reach instantly millions of people through RSS, email, SMS etc. If only a hundred people are interested, analyze and blog about the news, they will form a collective mind that is bound to give better results than the analytical skills of one man. It's a simple matter of evolution, where one analysis builds over another and where the most fit arguments survive.
However, from this category, the collective mind cannot equal with really good analysts that also have a lot of experience in specific issues and their own inside sources. The thing is that you have to be really good and really involved in what you're doing. This is not a job anymore, it's a lifestyle.
So what do we get? We get the best investigation journalists, the best analysts and the best results from the blogosphere. Can someone explain to me how this will make the quality of the media go down?
I think the issue is a completely different one. The last discussion I've seen on TV about the state of the media in Romania talked about the fact that people are now getting the news from the TV instead of newspapers. Well, I have news for you: I don't watch the news on TV; I get them from the internet. I also get the analysis from the internet. I also have the analytical skills necessary to make my own opinion about what's going on, so most of the times I only need facts, not opinions.
Nobody in that discussion mentioned the kind of people I'm talking about.
Therefore, I can only think of the following statements:
If you are a journalist, let me give you a free piece of advice: start a web site, maintain a blog, diversify your income sources; if you're really good and really serious, you will have no problems with the new media. Quite the contrary.
We have an on-going debate in Romania regarding media. The issue at hand is that the media is changing, and that the journalists don't like the change.
The most well known Romanian journalist, Cristian Tudor Popescu, is one of the most vivid critics of the change. His opinion, and some other's as well, is that the new media - meaning blogs, social networks and such - will make the quality of the news to go down the hill.
I believe that this is plain wrong and that he's simply reacting to a reality: the new media is coming, and there's nothing we can do about it.
The argument he makes is that profesional journalists are much better at what they do than the amateurish bloggers, and that they give no chance to the "real" journalists. I will try in the following to prove that he's mistaking, that the quality of the news will be much better and that the really good journalists will survive with no problems.
In my view, there are two types of journalists:
- the ones that gather news
- analysts that look at trends, give opinions and so on
From the first category, the simple workers are not needed anymore in a world where any event is bound to be filmed or photographed by the people happening to be around it. And the technology will go much further; when videos and photos will be automatically tagged with the exact day, time and GPS coordinates of the place from where the recording took place, it will be very easy to automatically mix the photos and videos received in order to obtain the best possible view of the event.
We will however need journalists that are making great efforts to get the news: investigation journalists, people that gather materials from all possible sources, analyze them and go even further. In the end, the best of them will remain, whatever happens.
From the second category, the people that remain need to have something more than just analytical skills. We live in a world where all news go online while they are happening, and they reach instantly millions of people through RSS, email, SMS etc. If only a hundred people are interested, analyze and blog about the news, they will form a collective mind that is bound to give better results than the analytical skills of one man. It's a simple matter of evolution, where one analysis builds over another and where the most fit arguments survive.
However, from this category, the collective mind cannot equal with really good analysts that also have a lot of experience in specific issues and their own inside sources. The thing is that you have to be really good and really involved in what you're doing. This is not a job anymore, it's a lifestyle.
So what do we get? We get the best investigation journalists, the best analysts and the best results from the blogosphere. Can someone explain to me how this will make the quality of the media go down?
I think the issue is a completely different one. The last discussion I've seen on TV about the state of the media in Romania talked about the fact that people are now getting the news from the TV instead of newspapers. Well, I have news for you: I don't watch the news on TV; I get them from the internet. I also get the analysis from the internet. I also have the analytical skills necessary to make my own opinion about what's going on, so most of the times I only need facts, not opinions.
Nobody in that discussion mentioned the kind of people I'm talking about.
Therefore, I can only think of the following statements:
- Romanian journalists don't understand the Web 2.0 phenomenon
- They are disturbed by the fact that only the best of them will survive
- They don't understand the evolutionary model
- They don't know how to compete with free
If you are a journalist, let me give you a free piece of advice: start a web site, maintain a blog, diversify your income sources; if you're really good and really serious, you will have no problems with the new media. Quite the contrary.
