As a “digital native” I actually welcome an abundance of information. At a computer the world is my oyster. More information means that with the right tools, I’ll be able to find exactly what I want. If I have a problem, I go online and I’m fairly confident I’ll be able to find the answer. If I have an itch, it’s not hard to scratch.
Standing in the cereal aisle at Safeway I had a very different feeling. While searching for my two favorite cereals (Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Oats & More), I became overwhelmed. Have you ever taken a moment to search for a specific cereal in this aisle? It looks something like this x 25.
AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Man I wish I could just “command-F” for C.T.C (Cinnamon Toast Crunch).
I was almost at a standstill. As if the overabundance of information caused my brain to shut down. Later I laughed at myself and wondered if this is how my mother feels when she is online, bombarded with colors, slogans and icons when really all she wanted was a specific piece of information, “what happened in West L.A. yesterday.”
Traditionally news organizations (newspapers) were how people would find the information they wanted. If you wanted to know what happened in the world you either turned on the TV or checked the headlines in your morning newspaper. Google has them beat. It’s too late to try and become the aisle sign (the first thing people go to). But there is still room to become the helpful employee roaming the aisle. That’s where news organizations can still make their mark.
It’s hard to extend the analogy. I’m not sure if this is an argument for so-called “hyper-local” or what. It does mean that there is still room to provide a service. That service could be newsroom as library (a civic space to find out specific information), “hyper-local,” newsroom as aggregator, etc.
What I do know: people will always want specific information. If you are able to help enough people get that information then you have a valuable service($). Part of the Safeway experience has become automated (even the check-out can be done self-service now) just as part of the information seeking experience has been automated (Google).
But information is infinite and try as it might, I’m skeptical Google will ever organize ALL the world’s information. Even if they do, it will be with the help of reporters roaming the aisle’ and helping customers find their cereal. Google might not call them “reporters” – but that’s what they are and that’s why I’m confident journalism isn’t going to die.
As someone who worked in a grocery store during high school, I think the trustworthy stock clerk is a good model for the editorial news role still needed, Dave–
Dave: Good analogy. You inspired me to think up my own grocery store analogy for the future of news(papers) @ http://tinyurl.com/5sra3h
Good post. It’s one of the reasons why Gannett’s big newsroom “reimagining” included a data desk. Reporters write, editors edit, and the data people sift through data and tell people where to go on that Excel spreadsheet to find the information they want.
All of journalism is in reality data-sifting and sorting and telling the readers what to read first.