Transparency and noir journalism
David Eaves makes a crucial point in a post inspired by Clay Shirky‘s and Steven Johnson‘s recent brilliant postings about the future of journalism. Pardon me if I rephrase David’s point, and possibly shade it a little differently.
The mythic figure of the journalist is still that of the young Woodward and Bernstein. They are detectives in a noir world where everyone — and, most important, every institution — has a secret. The journalist is the lone truth teller, forcing the secrets out into the light. The institutions keep as much secret as they can because they have selfish interests to protect. The journalist, on the other hand, has no interests other than the truth. Thus he (and in the myth, the journalist is a man) is committed to and guided by objectivity: seeing things as they are, untainted by self-interest.
That’s a valuable myth so long as institutions are built on the assumption of secrecy. But imagine a world of perfect institutional transparency. If all is light, the noir journalist is a peeping tom at a nudist colony.
Now, we are not going to have a world of perfect transparency. But the defaults may be flipping from need-to-know to need-to-hide. Customers, clients and citizens already casually betray most of what institutions used to keep hidden, from the real-world mileage of cars to the spread of protests in totalitarian countries. Laws and norms are changing, bringing institutions to disclose more on their own.
Will this bring about a fundamental change in the practice of journalism? By itself, probably not. Much of traditional journalism already assumes transparency in business, government, and, yes, sports. Greater transparency will give current journalists more to report on. But there will always be people and institutions with dark secrets, so we will always need noir journalists.
But it’s certainly not yet settled what the new mythic journalist will be like or how we will support our old noir types.
Excellent analysis. Journalism is a reflective rather than a creative form of writing and so the revelation of truth is a response to the withholding of secrets. Journalism takes time to accomplish its revealing and may not be successful at all. The transparency, swiftness, and networking capabilities of the internet now allow truths to travel faster than rumors.
My father read only newspapers and received his news,values, and product recommendations through their articles, editorials, and advertisements. The internet allows us to rely on the actual consumers for product performance and reliability. (Although Consumers Union has been testing and evaluating products for years and publishing their findings in a journalistic manner in their publication – Consumer Reports)
Partially due to the transparencies provided by new technologies, the institutions of the modern world are changing. Since journalism is a reflective
art, journalism will change in response to the changes in corporations, government, and education.
As a democratic institution itself, journalism was created “for the people”. Lately it has been revealed that the structure of corporations is not for the worker, consumer, or even the investor, but rather for the executives. This is the big secret that journalism has been exposing. Once exposed, the corporation must change its structure so that it is more in line with democratic ideals. Workers, consumers, and investors did not create the current financial crisis.
Journalism and technology are creating a revealing transparency that is not only exposing corruption, but also changing the structure of the corporation itself. When the structure of the corporation truly becomes one designed for the advantage of all and not just some of the people, then journalism will change as well.
Of course to follow this argument you would have to see the corporation as an institution designed to create extreme wealth for a very few people by moderately overcharging “we the people” for goods and services. The mythic figure in this process is the corporate executive who functions almost like Robin Hood, yet in reverse(steal from the poor and give to the wealthy).
As citizens become ‘tellers of truth’ on internet sites, we become the companions of investigative journalists. There are now a lot of us Woodward and Bernstein’s out there.
Here is a link to an interview by David Korten on PBS concerning the current financial crisis and the need for changes in the structure of corporations.
http://www.pbs.org/search/redir/http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/505/new-economy.html
This little analysis is based on faulty assumptions.
While the noir aspects of journalism are certainly part of its mythology, your characterization of how they manifest is wrong. Experienced journalists certainly do not assume every institution keeps secrets or that everybody lies. What they do know is that everybody *will* lie, and that is the foundation of the “truth discipline” that has evolved in newspaper journalism over the decades. (See Jack Fuller, “News Values,” for amplification.)
In fact, failure to recognize this is perhaps the most fundamental mistake critics of mainstream journalism make. Many of the criticisms are fair and there is plenty to be improved, but the assumption that transparency, fairness and accuracy can be sorted algorithmically or engendered by crowd-sourcing simply runs counter to human experience. It takes disciplined, practiced work to sort truth from self-interest. Nothing now available or on any horizon I can see is remotely as good at that as a trained journalist.
Response to Howard:
The main assumption in the original post asserts that journalism will change. It wonders “what the new mythic journalist will be like.” I see absolutely no criticism of mainstream journalism there.
Investigative journalists are trained and experienced experts who use”disciplined, practiced work to sort truth from self-interest.” No one would criticize their value or level of expertise.
Yet citizens who have knowledge of the truth from direct personal experience, no longer need to wait for the journalist to knock on their door but can post their findings on websites, blogs, etc.
Recently David posted information concerning his phone contract. It was a great piece of investigative reporting from direct experience. The post received more replies from readers than any in recent memory.
An astute journalist who read the post might investigate and write an article that when published might reach a wider audience than this blog.
The goal is not just the revealing of truth but the communication of truth to the people. Journalism did not disappear with the advent of network news or twenty-four hour cable news.
Yet neither the newspaper nor the television allowed the reader or viewer to participate in the revelation or dissemination of truth.
The internet changes the manner in which truths are discovered, told, and distributed. How will journalism “evolve” to incorporate the changes brought about by the arrival of interactive internet communication?
Howard, I believe my penultimate paragraph responds to your criticism.
DW: agreed. I was more categorical than I intended. Wanted to make a more narrow point than I ended up hastily jotting down.
RH: I think we’re pretty much in the same camp, too. Forgive my overly touchy reaction.