‘Churnalism’: Not exclusive among British journalists?
Nick Davies’ controversial book entitled Flat Earth News resulted to the popularization of the occupational jargon called ‘churnalism’. ‘Churnalism’ is a bad journalism trend that is said to be occurring in the UK. It consists of two words – churn and journalism. In an article published in The Journalist (April 2008) (http://www.scribd.com/word/full/2422423?access_key=key-17p3aid8yrkmxqyfvyg2), Tim Gopsill conducted an interview with Davies and who described ‘churnalism’ as “the practice of continually regurgitating unchecked stories that may or may be true, which passes for journalism in the much of the British press” (Gopsill, 2008, p. 15). A journalist who practices ‘churnalism’ is called a ‘churnalist’. Davies asked a bugging question on whether or not the British journalists are becoming ‘churnalists’. The contents of Davies’ book ignited both positive and negative responses from journalists and the media.
It is argued that ‘churnalism’ is not only common among the British journalists. I believe that this is also a pervasive practice in all parts of the world. This is a bad trend in journalism because it challenges the importance of the credibility of sources and the accuracy or factualness of information. If many journalists are transforming themselves to become ‘churnalists’, what lies in the future of a truthful and responsible journalism?
‘Churnalism’ and the Role of Technology
Empirical and theoretical studies probed on the role of technology, particularly of the Internet, in the field of mass media. Journalism is based on the process of news gathering involving reporting, finding out, and recording main elements and information for a news story. Technology plays significant function in news gathering as it offers a journalist the opportunity to gather information through telephone, email, and other electronic means using the Internet.
In the process of ‘churnalism’, it is pointed out that the emergence of technology in mass media is contributory to this trend. The conveniences of technological mechanisms allow journalists to succumb into less journalism-based practices like relying to wire services or press releases instead of going out of the field to personally collect essential information and conduct interviews. In mass media, the Internet is used to distribute information to various locations using different ways like online publishing, posting of videos, and others. The Internet is fast and goes beyond the barrier of time and space. Time is an essential factor in coming up with a news article. With the aid of technology, time is reduced. Journalists are likely to work on certain projects in a limited time frame. For example, daily newspapers have shorter time allocation for journalists to come up with their stories while weekly newspapers have longer time to spend. In order to reconcile the pressure of the work and time resources, journalists tend to disobey conventions of journalism. Churning is an example.
It is always advocated that responsible journalism is the delivery of accurate and truthful news to the mass audiences. Technology is an added feature in today’s journalism practice. It is up to every journalist to use it on their own advantage. But, everyone must consider the ethical application of technology alongside with the professional codes of conduct – anytime and anywhere.
New Technologies: its benefits and drawbacks on journalism as profession
New technologies affect the journalism as profession by providing the gift of high-speed access, ease, and openness to the areas and locations of news or significant events. Through electronic means of transfer, relevant information are easily collected and distributed to the masses resulting to minimization or even elimination of communication barriers. Wide-ranging sources are also offered and will help journalists to write comprehensive manuscripts provided that these sources are credible and of interests. Similarly, the convergence of technology and journalism as profession leads to further developments of the process and art of journalizing, writing, and even analytical skills. New technologies extend social network and improve interpersonal associations in all areas of journalism. The point of interaction between journalists and the media increases as they work collaboratively to accomplish various working objectives. Internalization of information is highly possible through new technologies ensuing to open and uninterrupted flow of information not only to limited but extended places.
While new technologies will benefit the traditional processes of journalism by using innovative changes, there are also possible drawbacks to journalism as profession. The risks and issues on security and privacy are high. Ironically, the ease of access makes other people abusive resulting and not limited to various security and privacy issues. Furthermore, plagiarism, sensationalism, credibility, and accuracy are also drawbacks. Due to the enormous sources of information, journalists are prone to commit irregularities. The issues of Intellectual Property Right (IPR) and copyright infringement are at hand.
New Technologies and the Audience
The audience is also positively and negatively affected by the emergence of new media technologies. Like the benefits in the profession itself, convenience, user-friendliness, and effectiveness of new media are beneficial to the people. A wide assortment of information is served at any time by just clicking a button or pressing a key.
On the contrary, new technology leads to high tendency of abuse and dependency among users. People become slaves of technology. The issues of credibility, accuracy, and truth are at stake. Audiences may be exposed to misleading news and information that can risk security and order. Also, audiences are no longer interested with the traditional business of newspaper, journal, and magazine production as well as broadcast journalism. Thus, the small-scale businesses are potentially exposed to state of bankruptcy. The social barrier on whether or not a person can afford to buy a personal computer, pay internet access provider, and other forms of hi-tech apparatuses are also considerable.
The Promise of New Media in the Future
Development is always certain. The transformation of media into digital format has altered the entire landscape and continuously develops new trends and future developments that will potentially affect media practitioners and the people. This transformation and its following effects becomes a source of pioneering grounds for media stakeholders. New media is everywhere. It is not limited to a single location. For mass media consumption, the impact of new technology to people is significant especially on the ways on how information are transferred. The impact of new media is perceived to be positive. It creates big responsibilities and changes on the part of media and communication industry. However, it is also considered that there will be an increase in the capital funding and investment provided that technology infrastructures swiftly change over time.
The production and dissemination of media information involves selection and interpretation of news regardless of the medium. The power of the media comes from their ability to select what information is going to become news and what is not, the latter material falling well away from the public purview. How well the media perform their role of information transcribes is certainly open to question. Multimedia is developed to further improve the everyday living of the people. It designed to aid the needs of the person utilizing it. It is not created nor invented to harm anybody. Therefore, responsible use of media should be observed and laws on multimedia abuses should be developed in order to minimize if not to eliminate its negative effects.
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