The article "The Quality-Control Quandry" by Carl Sessions Stepp made me think more about the future of journalism. It is interesting to know all the goes into putting out a newspaper. In times like these where the economy keeps worsening, we need our news to keep us in the know. But with a limited number of editors, are we getting all the of the news?
With the number of editors decreasing, there are less people to check the work of journalists before it goes to print. This means less source checking and fact checking also. This could lead to fabricated stories by lazy journalists who think that they won't get caught, because after all like the article writes, essentially all editors have time for is to check spelling and write headlines.
Are these budget cuts in the journalism world going to lead to more concise journalism? Well as the article said the future of journalism may be that journalists will be better trained to edit their own stories. But with less time going into what goes into print, major mistakes can be made.
The thinning of newspapers (literally) means that stories need to be as newsworthy and concise as possible in order to fit as many news stories as the newspaper can hold. But with less people working in departments to improve stories, does this make the production quality less or greater?
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Liz, I think the lack of copy editors is going to be a bigger problem than some may believe. The more cuts made in the actual newsroom, the more errors that will seep into the paper. And that only can mean one thing: The quality of the content is going down. In these changing times, writers are going to have to become more refined so as to not make careless mistakes.
ReplyDeleteSometime in the next year, I really expect to hear how a news organization is being sued for libel because two editors quickly read through the story, as opposed to four or so carefully reading through it as in years past.
You raise some very good questions... there seems to be two sides to every issue presented regarding the thinning of newspapers.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it seems like everything is going to hell in a handbag, perhaps journalism will get more concise. I never thought about it that way... But I think that if that does happen, the standards at which reporters will have to work will be too high and they'll only get higher. Pretty soon everything will EXPLODE. Well, maybe not... but the pressures will get too huge too handle, which will make quality decrease.