Although my last post was a confession of having no time, I did want to chime in on the discussion started by Neil Henry’s essay “Google Owes Big Journalism Big Time.” Henry postulates that Google and other Internet power-houses should subsidize journalism during its darkest hour.
Just like my fellow grad student on the left coast, Ryan Sholan, I say — get over it.
Ryan wrote an excellent post: 10 obvious things about the future of newspapers you need to get through your head. I don’t want to write any prescriptions (although I have my own ideas), nor do I want to look into the financial reason journalism is suffering (Scott Karp does a good job here: “…..But that’s not Google’s fault. That’s the free market.)
I want to take a moment to, once again, re-think the goal or purpose of journalism. What is its arete? (If I want to fall back on my philosophy degree (and sound like a pompous a-hole at the same time).
Sure it would be great if Google subsidized journalism — who doesn’t like free money? It would be awesome if the next winning lottery ticket went to the SF Chronicle too. But is Google morally obligated, as Henry seems to think?
I would argue that Google and company have already paid journalism back. Not in terms of money, as Scott Karp points out, but by providing a means to do what it is that journalism aims to do.
What is a journalist? They are traffickers of information.
Three steps to journalism: Go out and get information, filter information and present information.
Now what part of this hasn’t become faster, easier, cheaper and all around more efficient as a result of Web 2.0?
The exchange of information has evolved and so should journalists. I believe many already have — but we don’t necessarily call the people who take advantage of this evolution “journalists.”
We call them “bloggers” — or if the pros are feeling gracious, they call them “citizen journalists.”
But what are they really? Anyone on the Web is a trafficker of information. Most of that information is either opinion, personal, or of little consequence to anyone outside of the immediate friends and family, but it is an exchange of information, non-the-less.
Maybe it’s bad for the traditional newspaper — but for the general exchange of information, Blogger, Google Maps, searches, Yahoo, et al, have been nothing but a boon to the exchange of information.
We are witnessing an evolution.
The car was an evolution in the exchange of physical information. And from what I can tell — we are only just leaving the era of Ford’s Model T on the Internet. The tools we have now are cheap, reliable and easy to operate, just like the Model T. But hindsight is 20-20 — and since the Model T, we’ve broken the sound barrier with automobiles — the evolution in the exchange of information is always moving forward, expanding what is possible — and new opportunities always arise.
Ever watch an old motion picture clip of roads in the 1930’s (before highways). Stop signs were random, cars were driving on every side of the road, weaving in between pedestrians and…. yes… horses.
The goal was always to exchange information (physical information), and to achieve that goal, order was created — advances were made — and today, I can get in a car and drive across the country on safe roads in roughly four days time.
So how does that translate to the non-physical information exchange and the evolution we are witnessing today?
That’s where my curiosity lay. Journalists are just information traders (buying low and selling high) — But scoops don’t exist like they used to — at least not on a national level. There is a new richness in hyperlocal content and on a national level, there is raw potential to create highways — that connect ideas and people in an organized fashion.
That’s what I want to see. But right now, it’s late. I’m fried. The end of Assignment Zero is in site — and I’m still absorbing all that I’ve learned, what I believe is possible with a similar project and how I might try to actually pull it off one day. My mind is abuzz — so this should be taken for what it is: The rant of an eager geek journalist.
For more of an overview: Check out Boss Rosen’s post on the subject.