There are some people who believe the only truly pure news is the weather forecast.
How ironic it is that forecasting the weather used to be more about entertainment than news. Consider that Diane Sawyer was referred to as a “weather bunny” back in the days she worked as a forecaster at a TV station in Kentucky.
With the advent of Doppler radar, forecasting the weather went from iffy suggestion (“you might want to grab your umbrella on the way out the door today”) to life-saving directive (“a Category 5 hurricane will make landfall on the Outer Banks by midnight tonight”).
As media mogul Rupert Murdoch weathers his own storm today, appearing before the British Parliament to defend his tabloids’ alleged illegal tactics, I was again reminded of the current nature of the news, and how it has become more about titillation than information.
Some believe the News of the World scandal is a sad commentary on the failure of corporate leaders to keep a tighter rein on the actions of their employees. But as a PR person, I am prompted to consider just how low so-called journalists can go in pursuit of the next big headline.
For some, it’s all about the race to the bottom. When did bribing police and hacking personal phone lines become acceptable journalistic practices? In today’s tough economic times, perhaps these journalists thought their jobs depended on uncovering and reporting – by any means possible – the most salacious and shocking stories. Grieving families of terror victims and murdered children be damned.
Or maybe it’s just always been this way – the muckrakers (in the original sense of the term) vs. the scandal-mongers.
As media continues to morph on a daily basis, many are predicting the death of journalism. Yet there is still cause for optimism. Blogger Lauren Rae Orsini, an unabashedly dedicated young journalist, puts it this way: “I worry that a lot of young journalists have given up because they don’t see the opportunity that still exists, even as the state of the media changes. My story is the reminder that many of us need. Journalism jobs are dead. Journalism opportunities are everywhere.”
She continues, “In 2011, there are so many ways a young woman can use her journalism degree. She simply needs to look outside of the box of ‘traditional’ journalism jobs and not wait for The New York Times to hire her when she can become a fully realized journalist on her own.”
For Orsini, “the tenets of journalism that I learned in school have remained my life philosophy: Be curious. Be honest. Be bold.”
Perhaps she could teach Murdoch and his minions a thing or two.