It seems to me one of the most vital elements of journalism is editing. The knowledge that someone else has done some of the sorting and correcting inspires confidence and results in a broad audience. But today the old model of journalism is under threat.
Who will do the editing in the future?
Firstly, this Guardian story profiles the editor of the new (British) electronic Huffington Post. She's young, dynamic, enthusiastic and well paid.
The specific bit I'd point out from her interview is that she says there are more than 2000 contributors to the e-mag.
By way of contrast there are only 15 paid journalists on the Post. Who is doing the checking? Who is ensuring the 'truth' is told?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jul/29/carla-buzasi-huffington-post-uk
Secondly comes this story from a climate skeptic, Joanne 'Nova', who attacks the opinions expressed by Robert Manne. Now I'm certainly not defending him, but I'm absolutely not endorsing her personal attack. Both are, it seems to me, guilty of considerable rhetorical inexactitude. My point is different. In an exclusively online world how do we assess the relative merits of the two arguments?
Her blog:
http://joannenova.com.au/
Manne declares that the “Denialists are Victorious” (in The Monthly, August 2012) but his sole reasoning that the victorious are “deniers” is merely that some chosen experts tell us a disaster is coming and he feels they could not possibly be wrong. Argument from authority is a fallacy known for 2,000 years, and it is a key point, it is the disguise of the witchdoctor — “Trust me, I am the chosen one”. The one defining difference between science and religion is that the devout can argue from authority, but the scientific cannot. In science there are no Gods and there is no Bible — what matters is the evidence. The highest experts may declare the world is headed for catastrophe, but if 3,000 thermometers in ocean buoys disagree (and they do: see “Argo”), the scientist questions the opinions and goes with the observations.
Now the first couple of pars of the Oz story;
Argument from authority is a fallacy known for 2000 years, and it is a key point; it is the disguise of the witchdoctor - "Trust me, I am the chosen one". The one defining difference between science and religion is that the devout can argue from authority but the scientific cannot. In science there are no gods and there is no Bible - what matters is the evidence. The highest experts may declare the world is headed for catastrophe, but if 3000 thermometers in ocean buoys disagree (and they do: see the Argo program), the scientist questions the opinions and goes with the observations.
Personally, I feel it could have been edited far more ruthlessly.
Who will do the editing ? In the publishing world, sub editors have all but disappeared and authors mostly have to self-edit (which explains some of the poor writing and mistakes which come to light in current literature). So will it be in journalism where the editing phase will be less prominent and online crap will continue to gain traction. Look at the origins of most of the allegations against Julia Gillard over the past month. Only a fraction was well researched material by a journalist at The Australian - the rest were from Blogs being recycled.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I think you've brought up two particular issues. The first is the editing of an individual story for both accuracy and readability - making sure we can 'trust' what we're reading. The second is sorting through the plethora of information out there on the web to make sure we're getting what we need to see and read. There's often no guarantee of either occurring on-line.
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